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Chapter 41
Returning
They lived at the mansion for six weeks, and in that time Alice began to show definite signs of returning to humanity.
Christmas came and went, the New Year began. Bella and Alice healed. As her mind changed, Alice began to behave in new ways. She mimicked sounds, and was beginning to understand simple questions that Bella asked. She was still strong. Still fast.
Bella wondered if the changes that vampirism had made to the girl's physiology would every truly leave.
She wondered if Alice would ever fully regain her mind. She didn't know. There were only two moments of unpleasantness left for Bella during her stay at the mansion.
The first occurred early: the burning of Carlisle's remains. Bella had taken care of the head first, out in the yard, dousing it with gasoline and covering it with kindling.
She'd taken the machete to the skull, blackened and cracked by the flames, and scattered the pieces around the grounds. She'd repeated the process with the body.
If Carlisle could somehow heal himself, it was beyond her power to do anything more to stop it.
The second occurrence came a week later. Exploring the mansion, she had come upon a staircase, behind a set of iron doors at the back of Carlisle's study.
The stairs led to depths deeper even than the basement in which she had found herself, that first night after meeting Edward.
Bella had ventured down into the dark and foreboding space with trepidation, holding nothing more than a single flashlight.
The sight upon reaching the bottom had forced a cry of despair from her lips.
There, on a stone bier, lay her lover. Edward, pale and broken, was spread out on the slab. His body had been cleaned and dressed in a dark suit.
It appeared as if Carlisle had been preparing to perform some sort of ceremony.
Bella had run across the room, bit into her left wrist hard enough to bring blood, barely aware of the pain, and held it above Edward's open .
Crying, begging, Bella held her neck against his lips. They were cold and dead. Edward did not move, did not change, and Bella wrapped her arms about the corpse and wept.
She knew that she could not bring herself to burn Edward, and so left him there, climbing the stairs and closing the doors, piling objects in front of them.
Stone statues, marble tables, anything heavy. Alice helped her move them.
Bella hoped Edward had found peace. She hoped he was somewhere with Kate, loving her, telling her stories of Bella and what fun they would have whenever Bella finally joined them.
She wondered if she had the strength to go on without him, and could not find an answer.
She wondered if some night she might awaken to find a vampire hovering above her, eyes like fire, bringing retribution for Carlisle's death.
She wondered if any of it even mattered.