Train. Suffer. Strive. Breaks for meals, breaks to be with Laelia, then back out into the clearing to train some more. The wolves trained with us now. In order to prepare them to fight while enduring the pain Jane caused, Jasper hit the wolves with every negative emotion he could conjure, especially those that were normally related to pain and sensory deprivation. Lethargy and sadness and anxiety and blinding, heedless rage he gave them, but most of all he gave them fear.
They fought through it. Unwillingly, stiffly, not particularly well. But under Tadi's command, they fought through it.
Once Jae sought me out. Since meeting him in the woods behind my house months ago, I'd never exchanged a word with him. Now he came strutting over while the wolves were on a dinner break. He was tall and broad-shouldered and his face was nearly as beautiful as a woman's. Jake was a good-looking kid but he didn't favor Jae in the least. Except for one thing: they had exactly the same perfectly jet-black eyes, low-lidded and uncreased and highly expressive. But whereas Jake's were usually narrowed with mirth or sympathy, Jae's were appraising.
"So you're on Wayth Kwaiya's trail," he said.
I stared at him blankly. "I'm on whose what?"
Jae smirked. Already I could see what Jake found so irritating about him; his arrogance and self-assurance were borderline insulting. But I could also see something Jake couldn't: he was just devastatingly sexy. I could kind of understand how Grandma Black strayed. Only his attitude and the overpowering reek of wolfiness got in the way of his appeal, and to a human that might actually be an attraction.
"Wayth Kwaiya," he said again. Then he sighed, like he was disappointed in me. "I believe she also went by Miriam Swan."
Of course. Nona Swan's mother. My great-grandmother. Oh, no…
"What about it?" I said sharply.
"She was good friends with Kwoh-hwuh Pititchu."
"And this Kwoh-hwuh fellow would be…"
"Young Jacob's great-grandmother, of course. She and Wayth Kwaiya were very close, like sisters. They shared everything."
Ah. "If the end of this sentence ends where I think it ends, please don't finish. Please. I'm begging you."
Jae looked at me steadily. Then he smiled. "All right," he said easily. "We were never very sure, anyway. I just thought you might like to know."
As soon as Jae ambled away, I sought out Jake.
"Say, Jake," I said evenly, "what would you say if it turned out we were, just maybe, cousins?"
He didn't say anything for a moment. Then he burst out laughing. "Well, Bella," he said, "I would say that at this point I'll take all the family I can get. I don't know if you noticed but I'm running a little low at the moment."
"I don't know if we are or not…" I hedged. He looked thoughtful.
"Can we just...choose to be?" he said earnestly.
I smiled. "I'd like that," I said. "Cousins. For as long as..." I trailed off. Who knew how long we'd be able to enjoy it?
"Yep," he said, breaking into my moroseness with his usual ease. "Stuck with each other. So don't think you can run off and leave me, okay? I have a family claim now." His tone was joking, but his eyes weren't.
"I won't if you won't," I promised.
When not working with the wolves, a few of Edward's family members accompanied me to a wide empty space on the mainland. Here we ran through drills of various scenarios, ranging from all-out melee to simple escape tactics. If I'd thought keeping a grip on Victoria's ankle was hard, this was a nightmare. Everyone involved had a better understanding of fighting than I did. Only by my newborn strength and speed did I ever pass these "tests". And Bree had those qualities as well. In fact Bree was both stronger and quicker than me. She'd been turned after months of Victoria's pre-transformation fitness routine, while I'd been off my feet for weeks, laid up with Laelia. So I tried to imagine Bree as Chelsea, tried to subdue her in a storm of sparring that tore up the turf for miles. I couldn't accomplish even this.
The problem was, though sometimes I felt focused and determined, I could be easily reduced to a whimpering newborn, more helpless than Laelia. I'd thought I was making such strides over the last few months, but the stress and terror of these days took a toll on my self-control. I could never be sure what would set me off.
"Newborn thirst ain't like it'll be in another year for you," explained Jasper during one of my more egregious breakdowns. "Just like with humans, it's an emotional thing as much as physical. We notice our thirst more when we're sad or lonely or bored. That's why it's so damn hard for me, 'cause I kin feel everyone else gettin' sad and lonely and bored, and I got my own bad feelings, and it all just about makes me crazy enough to run screamin' into the night."
Distracted—was that his purpose all along?—I touched his arm sympathetically. "Jasper, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that was why you…"
"Why I'm the one everyone has to watch like a hawk?" he said, laughing ruefully. "Well, Bella, what I wouldn't give for one hour under that shield of yours. I gotta choose between people and easy livin'."
"And you choose people," I concluded.
"'Course I do," he said. "People need people. An' if I can manage to get by, even feeling everything my whole family feels, an' now the Denalis an' all, you can too."
Jasper's encouragement notwithstanding, it was always a relief to return to the house, to breathe in Laelia's scent and feel the agony of thirst retreat to a place where it could more readily be ignored. But Laelia wouldn't be there when the chips were down. And I couldn't ignore how terrible I was at hand-to-hand combat. Finally I had to go to Esme.
"This isn't working," I said when we were out of earshot of the others. "I'm the worst fighter we have. I don't think I can get a grip on Chelsea when the time comes." I kicked morosely at a clump of grass.
"You're inexperienced," she said kindly.
"I've been thinking about what happened with Victoria," I said. "The only reason I was able to do anything to her is that I tricked her into coming close."
"Yes," said Esme. "What you did with Victoria was probably the only tactic that had a chance of succeeding. You didn't try to overpower her, though I'm sure she was expecting you to. Brute force is the only game most newborns know; we only learn the finer points of fighting as we develop self-control. Victoria didn't expect you to be able to resist scenting the blood she'd brought. She certainly didn't expect you to be either bright enough or disciplined enough to pull off an act such as you did. I must agree with you: your only chance to disable Chelsea will have to result from some means other than force."
I thought about a prior conversation between us. "Esme," I said, "what was it you said before, that if Aro read your mind we would be like sacrificial lambs? What did you mean by that?"
Esme sighed. "I have a very intimate understanding of my family's weaknesses. Their hopes. Their fears. The chinks in their armor. And the Denalis, and the Aonair family by now. That's sort of my gift, just as a mental shield is your gift. I understand people, sometimes better than they understand themselves. Of course, I would never betray any of our friends to Aro. He likes sacrificial lambs a little too much."
"So why don't we give him one?" I said thoughtfully. "What if I offered myself up? As like, a trade? It would get me close. Then maybe I could disable Chelsea. If they didn't have Chelsea, their whole plan would fall apart."
"Oh, Bella," sighed Esme, shaking her head. "What a thing to say."
"If Aro wants a sacrificial lamb—"
"Oh, I know," she said. "Didn't I just tell you I know all my family's weaknesses? That includes yours, dear. And Edward's."
"You mean you've already thought of this?" I exclaimed. "Then why didn't you—"
"It would destroy Edward," she said. "Utterly destroy him. It would blind us, weaken us, hamstring us. The furor that would arise if you were killed in our stead… We would be doomed. It would be one thing if you died in battle. We would all grieve, but we would survive that grief. But I assure you, not one of us could look ourselves in the eye ever again if we bought our lives with yours. Our happiness, our peace as a family, would be irretrievably lost. The guilt of it would utterly break us. It is not merely my judgment which tells me this. Alice has seen fragments of visions of a similar plan. Of course I've considered it. Not in a million years would I have suggested such a thing."
"But you didn't suggest it," I said. "I did."
Esme's eyes slid closed and she rubbed her forehead aimlessly with one hand.
"Listen," I urged. "Don't tell the others, okay? I'm not giving myself up to Aro. I'm not crazy. But if it got me close… Why don't you just tell Carlisle all the stuff you were just saying to me, about how bad it would be for us? Let Aro overhear it when he takes Carlisle's hand. If he's as much of a douchebag as you say he is, just knowing how much it would hurt the family might make him let me get close. Then I can work on getting to Chelsea and no one has to feel guilty about suggesting it."
Esme was silent for a very long time. "I can't agree to this," she said at last. I stared at her, amazed that there was actually a thing the inimitable Esme Cullen wouldn't do to protect the ones she loved.
"But—to save your family," I pleaded. "It would just be an act. And I would take out Chelsea, just like we said, and that way maybe we can actually have a fair fight. It would be to save the family. You have to see that!"
"And do you not see that this family now includes you?" she countered. "It may be an act, but I guarantee you Aro will not take it so. He will kill you."
"That's a risk," I allowed.
"Oh, Bella," said Esme mournfully. "This should never have happened to you. I should never have placed this on you. Chelsea is not your responsibility. It would be best if you stay on the sidelines, dear. I rescind my request. You won't fight."
"No," I said. "I don't accept that. You don't have to jump on it right now. But will you at least consider it?"
Esme's eyes fluttered open. A spark of something flared out in them as she looked at me.
"Of course I'll consider it," she said, steadying her voice. "At any rate, I...there's something I've been meaning to give you." She fished around in her pocket and then dropped something into my palm. I looked down at a pretty little butane lighter made of colorless polished metal which didn't bend when I squeezed it gently. There was a tiny swan engraved on its surface
"You know," said Esme when she saw me checking out the tiny image, "most people think of swans as being mere pretty, decorative birds. They are certainly beautiful. What most people don't know is that swans are desperately dangerous creatures. A swan will not hesitate to attack a human who gets too close to her nest. People have died that way. More than you'd think."
"Well," I said, tracing the tiny image with my thumb, "I guess that makes it kind of perfect for me, huh?"
"Yes," said Esme, her face inscrutable. "I suppose you're right. Anyway, I thought you should have one. The Volturi all carry them." She left me then, without another word.
Later, I sought out Alice and begged her to recount the visions that Esme had been alluding to.
"I know the wolves will be there," said Alice, "because the vision came to me in pieces, like...like it was shattered and some of the shards got through but most of them didn't. That always happens when they get in the way. So I don't really know what I saw, but it looked like maybe...someone is sacrificed. Someone important."
"And who might that someone be?" I asked nervously.
But Alice only shrugged. "Everyone here is important," she said. "What I saw—it wasn't a fight, or a brawl, but an execution."
"Tell me everything you saw," I said.
"It was just sort of a couple flashes," she explained. "A pyre in the middle of a field. The kind of fire that only happens when you put flame to venom. The Volturi were there, lots of them. They were leaving."
"That's all?"
"That's the strongest vision that's come through, and like I said it was really upside-down and confused," she said. "This is far from certain. It's open to interpretation. I was talking to Eleazar about it, and he thinks Aro might decide against an outright fight. He actually doesn't just come blazing out of nowhere to start a fight, most of the time. That would be bad for his image. Aro's more about massaging the odds, manipulating appearances, so that when he walks away from a totally devastated coven with maybe one survivor—newly signed to the Volturi Guard, of course—there's no kind of public outcry or anything. That's his pattern, but I can't be sure how it overlaps my vision. All I've got is guesswork."
"Can you tell me any of Eleazar's guesses? Or yours?"
Alice idly twisted a strand of silky black hair around her finger. "Well, he thinks that if Aro does do this, it will be with the goal of provoking us to attack them, so that they have an excuse to...do with us what they will. It's a somewhat standard protocol for him, and it always works. He offers forgiveness on certain conditions which are nearly impossible to fulfill, and then, when the coven he's circling doesn't fulfill those conditions, he's justified in destroying them. It's an important part of his image as a peacekeeper of our kind. So in the past, one of those conditions would be that the coven he's targeting has to render up a tithe."
"A tithe?"
"More of a tribute, perhaps. A member of the coven, a sacrifice, whom Aro chooses based on what Marcus observes about the relationships inside the coven. Like, in Hilda's coven, he offered them all clemency in exchange for Noelle, the youngest sister. They all felt really protective of her and they had really started to bond closely with her. They obviously didn't agree to those terms, so it turned into a fight, which the Volturi won. He's done this other times, too. He did it in Egypt, in Romania. And if you don't go along with it, he just outright kills everyone, and afterward he can just kinda throw his hands up and say, 'Well, I offered them a deal and they didn't take it, fair's fair!' So yeah, in one of my visions I did see this as a possibility, and I even see it working. They do leave, in that future, which is way better than what happened to Hilda and all the other ones. Because if we ever agreed to those terms, we'd keep our word. We wouldn't give them the excuse they need to kill us all. Then they'd have to go back to Italy and try to find another way of poaching me and Jas. If Aro offered us a deal, and we took it and honored the conditions, it would actually be really bad for him because he would have painted himself into a corner. He's never had to make good on a deal before, but he would with us."
"So why would he even offer?"
"Because vampires have notoriously terrible self-control, especially in emotionally-charged disputes like this. He would expect us to do what every other coven has always done, and break our side of the deal."
"Are you sure we wouldn't just do that? It sounds like a pretty foregone conclusion."
Alice looked pained. "If we agreed to render up a tithe," she said, "then yes, we would stand by our word and not attack them. The three families involved have a lot more self-control than your average vampire coven, just by nature of the way we live. But that's not the point. We would never agree to those terms."
"You saw it as a possibility," I pointed out.
"Bell, lots of things are possibilities. I don't really understand what I saw. It fits in with what Eleazar told us might happen based on what Aro's always done in the past, but I can't be sure until it actually takes place. Yes, it looked like we might buy our freedom with one of our own. But there's no guarantee that that will happen. It's just one future."
I wrote a long letter to each of my parents and tucked them carefully into Pride and Prejudice, which Carlisle arranged to have delivered to my father along with my other effects and a watertight alibi for my death, in the event that I didn't survive this. The letters mentioned none of the reality of what had become of me; but I told them I missed them, I loved them, I would always love them. Putting pen to paper without breaking both took me over a dozen tries, and when I finally got it, the paper was still riddled with stab-holes and ink blobs, and the writing looked shaky. Would I ever have a chance to improve it? Would I even live that long?
The whole time we prepared for the Volturi's mysterious arrival, I tried to understand my shield. Eleazar told me of all the ways he'd seen one developed. When an attacker got too close, Aro's bodyguard Renata made you forget what you were doing and where you were going. Chelsea's mate, Afton, became invisible to attackers, and anyone who was standing behind him also became invisible. Anyone who managed to stay on the late great Victoria's tail could theoretically be led out of danger as well. But I had no idea what this meant for me. My shield didn't feel like an external power I could control. It didn't feel like anything at all. It was just the way I was made.
I began to spend my nights alone on the smallest island, really just a rock sitting in the sea. I reached around in my mind, searching for anything that felt like a shield, searching for the edges of that instinct to protect myself. But I never found it, any more than you can find the edges of your skin.
A good reference for Quileute culture and language can be found at quileutenation dot org/culture/language.
There will be no electrocution of babies in this story, not because I think it is empirically an unacceptable idea (I can see such drastic measures being necessary under the right circumstances) but because my Kate's power is not an illusion of electric shock but an actual electric current, which could cause permanent internal damage to Laelia. Furthermore, in her development of Renesmee's character Meyer establishes that the baby is intellectually and emotionally mature far beyond her years. This at least sets up a possibility that Renesmee's consent to the plan is informed and valid, thus mitigating the gut-wrenching awfulness of infant-torture. Don't get me wrong, it's still very questionable consent, because mature or not Renesmee is still inexperienced. But Renesmee's consent certainly means more than Laelia's would under the same circumstances, because Laelia has the mind of a baby.
So there's that. But what really bothers me about this part of the book is Bella's prissy conviction that Kate must not mind shocking a baby because she's not a mother. Does Bella think people go around gleefully making children cry right up until they become pregnant and suddenly have the realization that hurting defenseless tiny people is wrong? It's a...weird thought to have. Once again, I'm concerned about Bella's assumption that it is normal for other people to lack basic empathy. She and Edward both do that; in Midnight Sun, the author does it, too. This assumption makes it seem like empathy is so alien to both Edward and Bella that they are frequently unwilling or unable to recognize it in other people. Their mutually-abusive behavior throughout the series does not lessen this impression.
Besides which, how the hell would Bella know how Kate feels about it? Kate is a thousand years old. Bella is a tiny little embryo compared to her. For Bella to assume anything at all about Kate's state of mind is presumptuous as fuck, but particularly so considering Bella's the mother who approved the plan to torture her baby. Shaky ground there, Bells.