Isabella pulled on stonewashed jeans and a blue, button up man's shirt, and Edward could imagine her walking around in just the shirt, with her long legs... No, that wasn't right; he kept thinking of her as taller than she actually was. Still, the image of her bare legs beneath a shirt that could have been his was worth envisioning. She rolled the long sleeves up to her forearms; then she was a flash of blue passing outside the door of his empty room and heading down the stairs.
He had been in the same position since she'd warned him never to touch her. Although she hadn't hurt him, there'd been a thick tension in the air, like the atoms between them were accelerating, starting a process from which her violence threatened to ignite. But the moment she'd turned and left, the feeling had evaporated. He wasn't sure why he was still huddled on the floor. Maybe because he didn't know what to do if he went downstairs, or maybe because he did know what she would do; either Isabella would glare and ignore him or she would sit him down to discuss all the ways he had already embarrassed himself.
Although he could stay up here listening to the rain indefinitely, he didn't want to. The sooner he put up with her disapproval, the sooner he could forget it. He walked downstairs and felt the taut pull of apprehension in his shoulders that was almost like paralysis. The house was empty; he'd lost track of her while he was caught up in his own mind. Before he could reach out to find her thoughts, she opened the door. Her bare feet were muddy, and he bit the inside of his lip. Certain destruction or not, he didn't think he could be responsible for himself if she took a third damn shower today.
"Could you hand me a rag?" she asked. "I keep them under the sink."
She gestured to the far corner of the room where there was a counter, a few cabinets, and the empty spaces where a refrigerator and dish washer might have gone. The cabinet beneath the sink was full of cleaning products and a stack of work rags – just recycled shirts and oil stained muslin. He grabbed a flannel scrap off the top of the pile and brought it to her.
"Thanks, I would have tracked up the floor again."
He nodded. Her mind was filled with nothing more than getting mud out from between her toes, so he waited for her to finish.
"Excuse me." She touched his arm as she moved past him into the house, and he stayed still, convincing himself that she wouldn't punish him for contact she initiated.
Mud was silky between her fingers before thinning under water into nothing as she rinsed the rag and laid it across the tap. She dried her hands on her jeans and turned to face him. She knew he was frustrated with the bare cottage, but she imagined he'd feel the same even with a city full of distractions. Still, she thought some activity would be a relief. Edward barely had time to register the novelty of her articulated thoughts before she disappeared up the stairs. He watched through her eyes as she opened a drawer in her pine desk and rummaged past an adze and some chisels that were bound together by string.
When she returned, she went into the empty space where she'd sat earlier, and she dumped the contents of a cloth bag onto the floor. He'd expected something interesting, but all she had was a piece of chalk and a pile of rocks.
"Carlisle said you like to play chess."
"I do."
"Would you like to play now?" she asked.
He glanced at the pile on the floor and back to her.
"Sure."
Sitting down across from her, he watched as she sketched a straight grid of 64 squares, pausing to color in every other one so that it stood out lighter against the dark floorboards. Then she sorted the stones into two piles.
"Light or dark?" she asked.
He kept his fingers curled into his palm, careful to keep from brushing her hand, and pulled the pile of dark stones toward himself. He'd let her have the first move. It wouldn't do her much good.
She leaned over, pointing to each stone in turn to explain that the flat ones were rooks, the pointed were bishops, the chunk of mica was the queen... He set his pieces up and realized he was missing one.
"Sorry." She pulled a red rubber band from her hair, and it fell around her shoulders. "Here's your king."
This had to be the strangest game of chess he'd ever played, and they had yet to start. She moved her pieces into place, laying her last white pebble of a pawn at king 4. He brought his own pawn forward to meet it, and she countered with knight to king's bishop 3. He held in a laugh. She was using the Scotch Game, one of the oldest chess openings. How long has it been since you played, Grandma? After about eight moves, he would have her scrambling to defend herself.
"Do you miss Forks?" she asked.
He let her believe he was giving his answer some thought, but his mind was running through all the permutations of his next move and her possible responses. He slid his knight to king's bishop 3.
"I miss my cd collection," he said. Her face was a blank, and he suspected she had no idea what a cd was. "And I miss my room."
An image of the largest room above them, the one with the oak desk, entered her mind, and she wondered why he hadn't chosen to use it.
"I didn't know it was for me," he said.
Isabella looked up from the board and caught his eye. Carlisle told me, but it's still interesting to experience your gift first hand.
Despite the fact that there was no one around to hear them, there was something intimate about her speaking to him directly from her mind. He waited, expecting her to feel exposed, even looking forward to her realization that there was no way to hide from him, but she had turned her attention back to the board.
"What's your talent?" He doubted she'd tell him willingly. His hope was that she'd think of it before she could censor herself, but all he got was the image of cinders lighting up the night, flying off a camp fire in the middle of a clutch of thatched huts. "What's with the shacks?" he asked.
"It's your turn."
Instead of her knight, she'd gone off the Scotch Game script and advanced her bishop. He'd been distracted, so he took the opportunity to study her mind, expecting her to focus on something tactile like the feel of her knees on the floorboards, but she was following each series of moves that he could reasonably make to its logical conclusion. He could go with the Two Knights Defense, accept her Scotch Gambit, or transpose into the Giuoco Piano opening. She spent an inordinate amount of time exploring that last option, probably because it was the oldest.
He moved his bishop into position.
"When's the last time you played?" he asked.
She looked up and smiled.
"Not long ago, so don't look smug."
Pawn to queen's bishop 6.
He castled.
"And by not long, you mean…"
"Are you trying to distract me?" She nudged his knee with her hand.
As if he would need to. He already knew what her next move was going to be. She just hadn't picked up the stone that was her bishop yet.
"Only curious."
She thought over her answer, and he got an image of a city street. Black carriages, men in long black coats with a double row of brass buttons, women in bright hourglass dresses with bows and ruffles at their hips so that they looked like walking perfume bottles.
"1885," she said.
"Was that Paris?"
"Prague."
"And you think 1885 is recent?"
"Very." She tried to turn her attention back to the board, but he didn't let up.
"Carlisle said you're older than the Volturi."
"Are you asking a lady her age, Edward?"
"It's not as though you have wrinkles and a walker." He cocked his head to the side. "How old were you when you were turned anyway?"
"Let's stick to one question at a time."
There was something underneath her most obvious thoughts, some buried chant that said, no, no, no. She didn't like to be reminded of her human life or the change. That knowledge might come in handy later if he wanted to turn her mind from something else.
"Then what's the answer to my one question."
She moved her bishop.
"Yes."
"Yes, you're older than the Volturi?"
"By about a thousand years."
Given the ages of the vampires who'd become the ruling Volturi, that placed Isabella at somewhere around 2300 BC. He tried to remember his high school history, but the human memories were hazy, and anyway, there were differences in development depending on where exactly she'd lived. The Middle Kingdom in Egypt was quite advanced during the Bronze Age, but Isabella looked European. He couldn't imagine England or Scotland four thousand years ago without his mind going blank.
He moved his pawn.
"So you're like an old cave woman. With furs and a club."
"I said a thousand, not ten thousand." She laughed and slapped her knight down to take his pawn.
"Can I call you Grandma?" His rook slid forward up the board.
"Do it and die."
He knew she was joking. There was no tension in the air at all, and he realized that this was the first time he hadn't been physically uncomfortable in her presence.
"Check," she said.
The board seemed to jump up at him. How had she managed to maneuver her queen into position? There was a weak spot in the line of defense that led to his king. She'd cornered him with her laugh and distractions, and it was all to beat him at the game he never lost. To show him up. His hand flicked forward, and he barely got control of it as he was about to backhand the stones across the room.
Isabella was watching him, but her thoughts were only on the sensation of her breath passing in and out as she waited to see what he would do.
His hand still hung in the air just above the board. It started to shake. He pressed it into a fist and pushed it against his thigh until the need to shove at something started to pass. He closed his eyes and took a few breaths. Nothing he'd done had actually been wrong yet, and the air between them wasn't charged, but he wondered what she would do if she was angry.
"It happens so fast that it feels like my body goes ahead without me," he said.
"They're just rocks, Edward. I wouldn't have been upset."
He opened his eyes and she shrugged.
"Would you like to finish the game?" she asked.
They both looked down at the board, but the back of his neck prickled, and he found it hard to focus. He was going to lose. Tuning in to her thoughts, he watched her visualize his every defense. He would move his pawn to shield his pathetic rubber band of a king. She'd move either her knight or her pawn; that much was obvious. He might counter with his own knight or his rook, but it wouldn't work. And then she saw it. Everything on the board grew dark except for his bishop, sliding back to pin her queen. From there, a clear path led to the loss of her queen and the match, and each move she could see herself making only delayed the inevitable conclusion. She'd shown him how to win.
Isabella looked up at him and smiled.
"We can do the dance," she said, "or I can just resign."
Her smile appeared at the strangest times, but he liked the surprise of it. He felt his fist unclench on his lap, and he flexed his fingers. Yellowed morning light was starting to flood the room, and he began to move her pieces back into their original positions, hoping that she would be willing to take him on again.
Thanks for reading.
All the usual characters, settings, etc. are the property of S. Meyer. Original characters and plot are mine. No copyright infringement is intended. May not be reprinted without express written permission.