Bat dug around in one of the bags he'd brought and pulled out a box of galvanized screws. The weathervane he'd made was ridiculously large. It was cast iron with arrows radiating in the four directions, and the figure at the top was a thin copper scarab beetle, much like the gold one Edward had seen in Isabella's window seat.

"Watch out for the hole in the roof when you jump up, or you'll fall into her room," Edward said. "I don't know why she doesn't fix that."

"Stubborn woman put it there herself. I'd always find her on the porch, so I told her I built a solid house, and she could damn well go inside. The hole was our compromise. She can work at her desk and read in her room without feeling like she's all boxed up." Bat laughed. "She's just used to the outdoors. Grew up that way. Always out in the trees or picking feverfew, mint, spiderwort for her mother."

Edward was holding Bat's iron sculpture in place on the top beam on the cabin. "She never told me that," he said. "Of course, she doesn't tell me much of anything."

"Does that whine get you far with her?" Bat asked. "If she doesn't talk to you, she's probably just trying to stay out of your way. Make it easier on you."

"I'd rather she talk to me."

Bat slapped him on the back and said, "You're either brave or stupid or head over heels."

"I'm not any of those things."

Bat shook his head and pulled a screw out of his pocket and lined it up with the hole in the base of the weathervane. Then he pressed it into the wood and used his thumb and finger to twist it quickly down until it was flush with the beam.

"Did you know her when she was human?" Edward asked.

"Hell no." He pulled another screw out of his shirt pocket. "She's got about 3000 years on me. I just know her mother was some kind of healer and that she was killed when Isabella was fifteen. Isabella was bitten about a year later, and–"

"Wait," Edward said. "Are you telling me that she's sixteen?"

"4316, or somewhere thereabouts."

"But she was sixteen when she was turned? So she's sixteen?" He jumped up and started pacing up and down the roof. "Sixteen," he repeated to himself. He almost fell into the hole.

Bat leaned back against the roof and laughed. "You worried she's too young for you?" he asked, but this made him laugh even harder.

"It would be illegal in some states," Edward grumbled.

"I can see you already have your eyes on the prize, but let me tell you something, lover boy, that woman comes from a time when you were either very savvy or very lucky to live to thirty, and most her age would have had a man and a couple of kids."

"Did she?" Edward asked. "Have a man, I mean?"

"I don't know." He cocked his head to the side. "Are you jealous of someone who may or may not have existed thousands of years ago?"

"No."

"Damn, I wish Ginnie was here. She'd have you sorted in a minute. She knows a lie when she hears it." Bat pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up. "I expect that's why she hasn't found a mate."

"Do you have one?" Edward asked.

"They say there's a mate for all of us sometime, but thankfully I haven't met mine. My only hope is that she doesn't go anywhere near Boston while I'm living there."

Edward thought of Carlisle and the way Esme had quickly become the center of his world. "It seems like a sickness to me," he said. "One minute you're fine, and the next all you can think about is one person."

Bat nodded. "I have no desire to be besotted. I did that more than enough times in my human life, and though thankfully the sordid details have faded to nothing, I remember that it was no picnic."

Edward spun the beetle around. It made a high-pitched squeak as it swung north and then south with the breeze when he let it go.

"I'll need to fix that," Bat said. "You got anything in the shed?"

There was oil out back, but Edward had a better idea. He ran upstairs and rummaged through Isabella's desk until he found WD-40. After a quick spray, the top of the weathervane turned silently, and they sat for a moment without speaking while Edward tried to think of what to find out next.

"She told me you don't know her talent," he said.

"Haven't a clue. That's probably a good thing. From what I heard, she used it once as a newborn and wiped out a village. But a Volturi guard told me that, so take it with a bucket full of salt. I've known her about a thousand years, and she's been gentle as a lamb. Still, she gives you that feeling like something bad is going to happen."

"I don't know why Carlisle sent me here, knowing what she can be like."

Bat looked unconvinced.

"Ok," Edward said. "I sent his mate through a window, and it didn't turn out well."

"You're lucky all he did was send you away." He let out a low whistle. "Besides, Isabella's probably the best one keep you in line. A newborn like you needs someone putting the fear into him."

Edward wanted to take a swing, but the older vampire was expecting it, so instead he fought hard to keep his fists at his side.

"She must be teaching you some restraint," Bat said.

There was only so much time left to learn what he wanted to know, so Edward let the remark slide. "How did you meet her?" he asked.

"Dumb luck. For a long time after the change I stayed in Norway. I came across her one night, running in the snow, hunting reindeer. I'd never seen a vampire hunt animals before. I wasn't even sure what she was doing, and when I walked up I scared off the herd. She said it had taken her an hour to get close to them."

"That doesn't make sense," Edward said.

Bat nodded. "I thought she was crazy. Out there chasing animals around, and not doing a very good job of it. I gave her directions to a village where she could have her choice of humans, hoping that she'd leave. Instead, she asked me about Enkidu."

"Who?"

"Keep quiet, and I'll tell you. She asked me about the vampire who had been the one to turn her. She hadn't seen him for several hundred years. I'd never heard of him, but I was a nomad, and I only knew a half dozen others back then, so that was no surprise. I thought she was going to kill me, so I lied and said I knew the guy. I told her he'd gone across to Iceland. When she left, I figured I'd seen the last of her. She didn't find him, of course, and she ended up back on my shores, hoping to question me again."

Edward wanted to hear it all, but he couldn't stop the urge to interrupt. "Was he her mate?" he asked.

Bat opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. "Aw hell," he said. "I was going to mess with you, but I don't think you could take it." He dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out on the roof. "I don't think she loved him. They had a rocky relationship, but not the kind you're worried about."

Edward let his attention wander farther out, and he caught the crunch underfoot of pine needles in Isabella's mind. "She's on her way," he said.

She was taking her time coming back, but she had to be within ten miles or so for him to read her. He had been dreading this moment, hoping to get more time alone with Bat and his stories, but now he found he didn't mind having her near. Bat, on the other hand, had jumped down and stepped inside to collect the few things he wasn't leaving here: a second pack of cigarettes and his phone.

"You should get her a BlackBerry or an iPhone," Edward said when Bat reappeared on the porch. "That thing she's using barely works."

Bat shook his head. "She won't want it. Too many features."

"I thought you said she could use some shaking up."

"I said it was good that you were doing it. I didn't say I wanted to."

Edward sensed the recognition in Isabella's mind when she caught Bat's scent – smoke and something like cloves. She quickened her pace. When she finally appeared from between the trees, he felt himself relax a little. She might not be the most soothing person in the world, but to be honest, everything seemed to unsettle him, so it might as well be her.

"Bat," she said. She gave him a hug, and to most it would have looked like any greeting between friends, but Edward watched the slow motion train wreck of thoughts as Bat fought to hide how much having her close made him edgy. He wasn't great at pretending, but Edward was sure she was used to that, having known him for so long. She pulled back just as Bat reached up to give a weak pat to her shoulder. Edward tried to remember if Carlisle had been like this, but the moment they'd made it into the house Edward had fled, so he had no idea. He did remember how Carlisle almost bowed when she first stepped onto the porch. Of course, Edward had bowed too, but that was just because the first time she looked at him had been intense, and anyway he'd been upset as hell about being dropped off.

Her thoughts turned to the now familiar chant of calm, be sweet, and he realized that she was trying not to upset Bat, just as she had tried not to startle the coyotes. Whatever she was doing was helping Bat's smile reach his eyes again, but after a little more small talk he was quick to make an exit.

"Ginnie's driving up to see me tomorrow. I should get everything ready."

It wasn't a lie, but Edward knew Bat was grateful to have the excuse.

"Please say hello from me," Isabella said.

"Of course." Bat's thoughts made it clear that Isabella's name was about the last thing his granddaughter wanted to hear, but it served as another reminder that the woman in front of him was the reason he still had any kin to speak of. "If you need anything else," he said, "anything at all, you let me know, and I'll be back." Bat turned to Edward. "Don't burn the place down, kid."

"She keeps a child lock on the drawer with the matches," Edward said, and both Bat and Isabella looked at him. "What? I can have a sense of humor."

"He's a keeper," Bat said.

It wasn't until Bat was gone that Edward remembered that she hadn't seen the weathervane. When he pointed it out she jumped up and spun it around once. She smiled a little and looked out across the trees to where Bat had disappeared. Her expression was almost wistful, and he tried to reconcile the woman he was watching with the sixteen year old girl she had once been.

She took a step and bumped the can of WD-40 which bounced off the porch railing and fell at his feet.

"I'm sorry," Edward said. "I had to go into your room to get that."

"That's alright," she said.

She jumped down, but she was still preoccupied. He wanted to be able to read her emotions instead of just the words and images in her head, but even he could tell that she looked sad about something. It made him want to maybe tell her the truth, though when he opened his mouth he found he couldn't quite bring himself to come clean and say that he'd violated her privacy yet again.

"I glanced around your room a little, while I was in there," he said. It was akin to the truth, maybe a distant cousin to the truth.

"It's fine," she said.

Isabella looked him over, and he knew she realized that he wasn't breathing. He tried to act casual and take in a slow breath. He was such an idiot; it should have occurred to him that he might be bad enough at half truths to make her suspicious. He saw himself in her mind, a scruffy newborn, hair disheveled, doing a bad impression of someone much more collected. Without a word, she turned and went into the house.

How many times had she tested his control by just looking at him and then leaving a room? She'd sweep the damned porch or go out to her garden, focusing only on the task before her, and he always felt dismissed, but now that Bat had offered some insights, he realized that usually when she'd left him on his own he'd been angry or frightened.

"Isabella," he called.

She was inside pulling a folder of sheet music out of one of the bags.

"Here," she said, as she handed it to him.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" she asked.

"Leave a room or send me away whenever I'm uncomfortable. Is that for your sake or mine?"

"What is this about, Edward?"

"Like earlier, when I called you Bella and you took off."

She sighed and surprised him by sitting down on the floor. "I don't hunt with anyone. It takes a lot of concentration, and it's… private. I was upset that you followed me when I asked you not to, and when I get upset, it tends to make others upset. So I don't know. Does that make it for you or for me?" She shrugged. "I know I'm not easy to live with, but it's just while you're waiting out the bloodlust."

He wondered if that was all he was doing. It felt like more. "I haven't smashed anything up in a week. That's a personal best." He let out a small laugh. "But it's not because you leave me alone or send me…" He was going to say send me to my room, but it sounded juvenile, and he didn't want her to see him that way. "The thing is, I don't really like it when you give me space. It kind of drives me crazy."

She thought he was being polite, and she couldn't figure out why. Newborns weren't well known for their social skills.

"It's true," he said. He sank down onto his knees so that he was across from her on the floor.

She wouldn't meet his eyes. Edward. His name was like a breathy sigh, and he only heard it in her mind. Her thoughts were less clear, darting back and forth. She was looking for a reason to not believe him, and she was almost afraid she would find it. "You don't mean that."

He felt a quirk of irritation and fought hard to keep it from ruining this moment. Her thoughts were all over the place, but he could see in her mind that no one had ever asked her for more of her time.

"I mean it. I may be a wreck all the time, but it gets worse when you close yourself off."

He doesn't like it when I give him space. She turned the thought over in her head like a rock in a tumbler, smoothing out the edges. It made no sense to her, and there was nothing to compare it to, but she met his eyes, and this time he saw himself looking back at her with something like confidence. He means it, she thought, and he nodded.

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.