16 - The test
Carlisle
I followed the horses through the woods not really looking at where I was going. Instead I was worrying about my family, I was hoping they would not do anything foolish like trying to rescue me. Berenike had told them I would not be killed.
The young girl seemed to have trouble staying in the saddle and nearly fell off several times. Other than her curses nothing broke the erie silence of the woods, it was like the animals knew what was moving around in the woods today and had decided that it would be safer to go into hiding. We had gone in a different direction of the Volturi, the guardians appeared to be avoiding the paths the other vampires would take to leave.
I had not looked back at my family as I left, it would have been too hard. Despite the reassurances that this would not mean my death I was of course very afraid. What would Esme do, but surely she understood why I had offered my life for Irina's.
I watched as Melissa tottered and fell off the horse landing in a big heap of skirts. I swiftly walked over to her and offered my arm to help her up.
She wrapped her hand around my forearm, and looked up at me. "Some conversations are meant to be private Edward." Her hand seemed to get warmer for a moment.
"We are alone now." She said quietly to the people around is.
That is when I looked around me, the old women on the horses were gone replaced by young women that looked to be at their peaks of health. The grey cloaked ones had removed the bandages from around their faces revealing somewhat sweaty looking faces. But they were very much alive, I could see the blood flowing underneath their flushed cheeks.
"I do not understand." I was unable to process anymore.
"Congratulations Carlisle, you passed the test." Melissa told me with a friendly smile.
"So this was a test to prove myself to you?" I was getting upset. I hurt my family to play their little game.
"Not at all, we already knew what you are capable of." Berenike said in a much stronger voice than she had used before, she too was smiling at me. Her brown eyes were shinning in her slightly tanned face, her hair now looked thick and brown as it flowed down her back.
"This was done so that you would understand the lengths you would go to in order to take care of your family." A new voice gave this explanation, one that was familiar to me. A tall man stepped out from behind the trees, it took me a moment to recognize who he was. The eyes were the wrong color, instead of the plain brown eyes that I expected they were a pale green.
"We should have pursued our investigation of you a little further," I told him.
"You would not have found anything," Leah's Phil told me in a cool voice. "I have been pretending to be human for far longer than you."
A/N: All right that was short. Now I am off to tackle the explanation of all this. Though that might have to wait for another day, ten hours of writing has kind of drained my brain - plus the caffeine has worn off.