Chapter summary: Sheriff Swan and Bella stop by the Hale residence on their tour of Carter county and ... wait ... what? Oh, God, please! Please just let the morning come! I don't want to die again; not for the third time today!
Pa and I were riding back from the courthouse, but we decided to stop by the Hale residence to see how the newcomers were coming along.
They were coming along very well. Of course the horses became more skittish the closer we got the their property line, but we had learned to expect that reaction by now. They were good horses for us, so there was no sense getting into a fight with them every single time we passed by the Hales. Pa volunteered to watch the horses at the property line this time so I could say our hellos. Besides, he wasn't comfortable much in social settings, and even though we knew the Hales well enough for the short time they've been here — which basically meant not at all except for some superficialities — even just a hello was a stretch for Pa. Me, I could say hello to anybody, as long as it was just hello and not the excruciatingly boring do-si-do of the exchange of town gossip and what-have-you.
Besides, the Hales weren't much ones to be gossipy. Now, as to being the subject of gossip; that was another matter entirely ... word even reached me. That, in itself, was something to headline in the newspaper here. If we had one.
Myself, I thought it was rather mean-spirited of the folk around here. But what could you expect from Country, anyway? People weren't hostile, but most were of the mind that if you weren't born here, or weren't one of the original settlers, you didn't belong here. How would folk expect the town to grow if newcomers weren't welcomed, I wondered. But what did I know? I was just the sheriff's daughter, so the only reason my jaw should move was to say how good Mrs. Swanson's fish tasted at the Friday fish fries. And for some folk, that was too much talk from me already. I should just provide the corn bread and sit and eat my food in silence.
Such views were never brought up in front of Pa, of course. He tended to be just a mite protective and possessive when it came to his daughter.
When it came to the Hales, folk couldn't really speak out against the them, either, but for entirely different reasons: Dr. Hale elevated his family status to near that of the first family, his rôle being as, if not more, important that Pa's. And Mrs. Hale's industry with the needle had doubled the aid to families in need of cloth and clothes both near and far. She donated the clothes anonymously at the rectory, but there are really no secrets in Ekalaka. I felt she should monogram each of her donations, so people would see what an asset to the community the Hales were. But this was not something I could even hint at; it wasn't my place to put anyone forward ... I certainly wouldn't want any attention for myself, and for me to suggest something like that to the Hales, a very private family, would probably put them on the spot. I always found it best to avoid embarrassing situations: calling things out always made the situation worse in my experience, and besides, the Hales weren't maltreated here, to be sure.
I dismounted and handed Pa the reins, but turned back for one second to pat Dolly on the neck ... somehow this seemed important for me to do. Dolly paid me no mind, however, bending instantly to chew at the grass around her bit.
She was a good, steady horse. I gave her one more pat, and when I did, I wanted to cry — an inexplicable and impossibly strong feeling of affection for her washed over me in a wave — but I just squared my shoulders instead and turned to the Hale residence.
They had done some seriously major improvements to their house and to the surrounding property, it looked like a residence now, and not an abandoned building falling into disrepair. They had done so much to the house, under Mrs. Hale's vigorous direction, that it now looked like house befitting a doctor and his family from Town Back East.
In short, ostentatious for Ekalaka, to be sure, but the Hales seemed not to have problem with money, even during these hard times, and the house fit them.
I walked up on to their porch and raised my hand to knock on their door when the most wonderful smell of flowers nearly knocked me over. If my jaw wasn't attached to my skull, it might've fallen off with the surprise the scent hit me with.
Had they planted a flower garden?
Instead of knocking at the door, I figured I'd take a look around back first. It'd be something to talk about other than the usual how you getting along? and if there's anything you need. I hopped off the porch and walked around back. I really didn't know if I should saunter nonchalantly or walk quietly. I wasn't really spying on them, I just wanted to see what their latest improvements were, but I also didn't really have their permission to the breath of their property either. I sneaked a peek at Pa. He was watching me from the edge of their property. I gave him a guilty wave that I hoped look off-hand. He waved back easily.
Well, I was helping the sheriff maintain Carter County peace, after all ...
I turned the corner wondering if they really had a flower garden around back or if it was something else.
It was a flower garden. I knew Mrs. Hale didn't like to keep idle, but this?
At least an acre and a half of fully mature, in bloom, trumpet-like flowers of every color greeted my eyes. They sure like this species! The garden was planted in a wild, natural style as opposed to a traditional English garden. That surprised me. Dr. Hale had a trace of a British accent; I figured he would have wanted something more four-square. But when it came to how things were arranged, Mrs. Hale had very decided views, and Dr. Hale seemed more than happy to give her free reign over those matters. I didn't see Mrs. Hale as all that free-form, either, but maybe she was trying something different? A very light breeze wafted the scent toward me: honeysuckle. I stumbled forward a step into the garden, pulled by the scent, before I even realized what I was doing. There was also a very faint sweet-sour smell that was pleasant. I looked around toward the center of the garden and saw two lemon trees, very pretty, in full bloom.
That was a nice contrasting touch. I headed in that direction, curious, being careful about the honeysuckle plants. I didn't wish to break a branch, but it was simply impossible not to brush against them, they were so closely arranged, there must have been hundreds of the plants, easily. The scent from the plants as I passed them was heavenly, and, on several occasions, I was sorely tempted to pick a bunch or two of the trumpet flowers and to taste the nectar, but I didn't. I didn't wish to disturb the beauty of the Hale garden even one little bit, and I also felt, somehow, that it would be almost ... sacrilegious? And the curiosity about what lemon trees were doing in the center of the garden kept me going, even if the wondrous scent just made me want to lie down in the garden, close my eyes and drink it in along with the delicious Sun. The weather couldn't be more perfect for a late Spring day like this.
I wonder if they had picnic tables there ... it would be a perfect place to host a fish-fry, and silence some of the neighbors' grumblings. I smirked at the image of the awed looks coming from the less welcoming residents.
An almost angry buzzing passed by my ear, and I reflexively ducked my head out of the way of a very large honey bee passing by, and then another one followed, close on the first one's, well, not heels, but you know what I mean. They paused to draw the nectar of a shrub a few feet away from me, and I saw they weren't bees; they were hummingbirds. I watched fascinated for a moment — it was simply amazing watching them hover, flit, move in and back out of the trumpet flowers of the honeysuckles. I really wished to sample the nectar again, but then the pull of the mystery at the center of the garden kept me going. The hummingbirds buzzed near me going from shrub to shrub, but then they flew further afield and out of sight.
As I got closer to the lemon trees, I saw there was some kind of white pavilion between them. Now this I really had to see. I picked up my pace and broke through — carefully — the last obstructing shrub to see that the pavilion was made of some kind of canvas and was large: it looked like about ten people could use it as a bivouac for an overnighter.
But then they all wouldn't be able to fit under the pavilion, ... unless they moved that marble temple first.
Or that's what the structure in the middle of the pavilion looked like to me, anyway.
The pavilion wasn't really a pavilion, it was more like a canopy or skirt, encircling the temple, and the temple wasn't all that large; it measured something like ten feet in diameter and looked something like a cupola. Hanging down from the skirt right in front of the temple was a cloth obscuring what I assumed to be a door that let up the the open air dome.
I approached the cloth and touched it ... cotton? How would that last in the elements? And made to push it aside. It turned out hard to move, and I had to hook both hands on one side of the cloth and heave, holding the cloth aside as I look past it to, not a door, as I thought, but an opening cut into the side of the temple that created a very narrow ramp up. I would actually have to turn to one side to ascend.
So I did. Curiosity was burning me up: I felt almost a need to see what was up there. My cheek skimmed against the smooth and cool marble, and I realized that I was rather warm from the exertion getting here. The coolness felt very nice against my cheek. It seemed, oddly enough, that the scent of the honeysuckle had embedded itself into the marble. I didn't feel pollen on my cheek, but the scent of it here was very strong, even stronger than in the garden. Strong, sweet, but not at all cloying. Just the opposite in fact. Intermingled with the honeysuckle smell was another very subtle scent that I couldn't identify at first, but as I continued my ascent, the taste of it became stronger.
Rose. It was a rose scent.
I reached the top of the curving ramp. Marble columns supported a gold-leaf dome, and the whole garden of honeysuckle shrubs circled it round. The two lemon trees wafted in a light breeze, and I could see the Hale's house in the distance.
None of this beauty laid before my had my attention, however, because in the very center of the temple grew a rose bush with one single pink rose surrounded by three buds. It was in full bloom and was the largest rose I had ever seen; it was almost as big as my head! One would think a rose so large would appear excessive or obscene. If anyone used those words to describe this flower, they would get more than a few words from me, maybe even excessive words. I had never seen a more beautiful flower than this one: a full flower head with layers upon layers of perfect soft pink petals curving away in waves from the cluster surrounding the central ovary. One would think that it would fall under its own weight, but it stood tall and straight, nearly eye level ... one could almost say that it had a proud posture.
Between me and the rose bush, attached somehow to the dome above, was a gossamer scrim waving very gently in the breeze. I approached it as quietly as I could, walking almost reverently. The rose bush seemed to be sacred: placed in this byzantine-like temple for a reason, and I felt the need to give it reverence. I was right in front of the scrim, which was right in front of the bush, the rose and the buds facing me not even one foot away. The scent: I wanted to stay here forever, inhaling this intoxicating rose scent admixed with the wafting lemon and honeysuckle breeze. Could I have somehow been transported from the Hales' straight to Heaven?
If this wasn't Heaven, and I didn't much care what it was, then I'd have to ask the Hale family if I could be installed here as a caretaker or gardener or rose-watcher or anything at all, just so long as I could stay. But if I were to talk with the Hales, that would mean I would have to leave here, now or sometime, and I didn't want to do that.
What I wanted to do was to touch that rose.
I looked around me, but noone was here, but somehow I felt I had to ask first. Actually, I felt I wasn't supposed to touch the rose, that it would be doing something wrong, somehow, but I really wanted to do just that.
I whispered: "May I touch it?" and waited. Nothing happened, of course, but I felt somehow watched or somehow criminal. But I wasn't going to leave without giving up this opportunity ... maybe the Hales wouldn't let me back here? Maybe this place was for their family only?
Quick as lightning my hand snuck around the scrim, and my fingertips very gently stroked against the outer petals. I felt a couple of drops of dew, and the rose seemed to quiver, either at my touch or from the light breeze. When I reached the base of the flower, I reversed the stroke, and my knuckles brushed against the petals.
"So soft!" I uttered in awe. Soft as a rose petal? I don't know if the words meant this feeling — this feeling that was originating in my fingers and spreading from there through my hand, up my arms and from there diffusing throughout my body — I don't know if any words could be used to describe this feeling. My knuckles reached the top of the rose. I rested my hand very gently on top of it, and let my fingertips sink just ever-so-slightly between the folds of the inner petals. Then I let my fingers gently follow the tips further between the folds of the petals.
"Ah!" I sighed in pure contentment. I have never felt anything like this before.
The rose quivered a bit more in the breeze that had now picked up, and then, suddenly, nectar flowed out of the base of the flower through the petals in a continuously flowing stream. I jerked my hand back. Had I damaged the flower? But as the worry formed in my head, the scent of the nectar hit me, and I had to have it. I lost all ability to reason as I launched myself at it to drink that nectar. Drink it and never stop!
But as I leapt, the scrim that I intended to shove aside fell from the dome above, and I was caught up in it, and then I felt myself being dragged away from the rose bush. What? I looked around me to see who was pulling me back, but nobody was, the scrim was now attached to two columns, and I was the pebble in this giant slingshot being relentlessly pulled away from that life-giving nectar.
"Please..." I begged and struggled against the scrim, trying to claw my way around or through it, trying with all my might to return to the rose.
That's when I felt myself flying and falling. I was launched from the scrim between the marble columns — thank God I didn't hit one of them at the speed I was going! — and watched the temple fly away from me as the honeysuckle garden raced toward me at an alarming rate. This was going to hurt, I could tell. I would certainly be scratched by the branches waving in the now strong breeze and then either impaled at the base of one of the shrubs or crushed against the ground. I shut my eyes and rolled myself up into a ball, awaiting the pain.
... that never came. I felt as if I had only jumped onto a feather bed. When I looked I saw the bushes waving beneath me in the wind, and I was carried along, away from the lemon trees. Away from the temple. Away from the rose, and its irresistible nectar.
In a few seconds, I found myself at the edge of the flower garden where I had started my adventure, and the last three bushes bent under my weight and deposited on my feet outside the garden. That is, on my feet until I lost my balance and sat down hard. Thankfully, not on my tail bone, but I would still be feeling this tomorrow. Helping Pa around the county left me less padding back there than some of the girls from Ekalaka had.
This wasn't my concern right now. I leapt up to forge my way right back to that temple, but somehow the breeze had interlocked the branches of the honeysuckle, and I couldn't push through. I raced alongside the perimeter, looking for another avenue, but as I ran, the honeysuckle bushes bent together. I stopped, confounded, then watched in amazement as, right in front of my eyes, more and more branches wove together, fencing me out.
Then the realization hit me with a force that stunned me, and the breath I sucked in swam with honeysuckle, a whiff of lemon and the slightest hint of rose. The garden, the temple, the rose. It was all my Rose. My Rosalie. My Rose.
"Rose," I cried, hollering into the honeysuckle, aiming my voice toward the lemon trees that I could barely see, and to the temple and Rose that I could not, "I'm sorry! I sorry! I want to be with you!" I pushed against the honeysuckle to no avail, no matter how hard I pushed.
"Rose, please, please let me in!" I pushed as hard as I could, with my hands, my arms, and face. I couldn't get in. I pushed. I couldn't get in. I felt tears mingling with the honeysuckle as its comforting scent reminded me of what I could not have, of where I could not be.
"Rose," I shouted, "I... I..." and then I broke and started crying as I finished with a whisper: "I love you."
I leaned against the impenetrable honeysuckle: the honeysuckle that smelled so sweet and that did not scratch my face and arms but instead held my in an embrace that still kept me away. "Rose," I whispered into the honeysuckle, "I love you."
The first drops of rain fell big and fat on my back. I looked up into the sky now swirling with cumulus clouds. I looked back at the inaccessible flower garden, my unassailable Rose, and then dropped my eyes.
"Yeah. Well ..." I turned around, dejected. No, not dejected: rejected. An arrow pierced my heart, and it was hard to compose myself as I walked back to Pa. It was hard to want to try. I wondered why I bothered taking the next breath.
"Hey, kiddo, see the Hales 'round back?" Pa asked as I took Dolly's reins.
"Nah," was about all I could manage.
"Guess they're out, seeing that their car's gone," he pointed toward their driveway.
When I looked up to see where he was pointing, Pa looked into my eyes. It wasn't hard for me to guess what he could see.
"Bella, are you okay?" Concern filled his voice, and that concern killed any remaining hope of damming the flood that crashed over me.
"No, Pa, I'm not okay! Okay? I'M NOT OKAY!" I dropped Dolly's reins and wrapped my arms around Pa, crying into his shoulder. He stood stiffly as I cried and tried to explain. "I..." love her, I thought as I sobbed, "but ..." she doesn't l... I couldn't say the words to Pa. I couldn't even say the words to myself.
She doesn't love me.
Pa raised then dropped his arm a couple of times. I guess he couldn't decide whether to hug me or give me a pat on the back. I was the one who had to pull myself together, and I did it as fast as I could for Pa's sake. I sobbed in one more breath, hard, unwrapped myself from him, and wiped my eyes with my shirt sleeve.
Pa looked at me, shifting from foot to foot. Poor Pa!
"Come on, Pa," I said, taking pity on him, "let's ride." I picked up Dolly's reins and mounted the saddle.
Pa looked at me for a second. "All right," he said as he mounted Patches, and we headed off. I kept my head down, just letting Dolly follow Patches at an easy walk.
That's the thing about Pa. He doesn't push it, he doesn't hover, he doesn't worry over you. He tells you a thing once. If you do it his way, fine. If you don't, fine. But he's there when you come to him. He's there one-hundred percent. He'll listen, but he'll let it go. And if you don't want to talk, he won't even think about it. You'll come to him, or not. Either way is fine with Pa.
I wished I was one of the boys in the Great War in the trenches beside Pa. I bet there was nobody better to watch your back. I'd bet you anything on that.
The rain continued to fall, eventually misting. We were thoroughly soaked. I looked up, "Pa, why are we heading out of Ekalaka?"
"We're doing the tour of the county today, remember, Bells?" Pa answered from ahead of me, not turning back to tell me.
All I had wanted to do was to go home and crawl into bed. I did not want to spend the rest of the day in the saddle passing by homesteads that were going to be just fine without our checking in on them anyway ... just like the Hale's.
That stung. "Pa, I'm going to head on home. You'll be okay without me?"
Pa did look back at that. "Well, we can do the tour tomorrow. Hows about I ride home with you now."
Tomorrow was Saturday. This was so Pa. He was off shift that day; Deputy Kimmich on duty then. Pa was going to work an extra day because of me, and it didn't trouble him one bit. I felt bad, looking at him, knowing that I was the cause of his extra day of work, but I didn't have it in me to go on with the tour today, and I didn't have it in me to send him off. "'Kay; thanks Pa." I murmured.
"Sure, no problem." He answered. But it was a problem, but Pa did it anyway. For me. We turned the horses back toward home, but then I had a problem of my own.
"Um, Pa, how far away from home are we?" I asked, keeping the urgency out of my voice.
"Not far; not far. About seven or so miles, I'd say."
Seven miles? I had really been out of it for a long time. Well, I couldn't last seven miles. I couldn't even last seven minutes.
"Pa, take Dolly's reins for me, will you?" I asked him as I dismounted, offering the reins. "And keep an eye out, I'm just going to go over to that thicket for minute."
He looked surprised. "You can't hold it until we get home?"
I love Pa. I really do. But he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. If you wanted to break one of those foundation support 4-by-4's in half? Just drop it on Pa's head.
"No, Pa, it can't wait," I answered simply, as I pressed Dolly's reins into his hand resting on his saddle horn.
He grunted as he took the reins, and I scurried into the thicket about twenty feet away, calling over my shoulder, "Pa! Look the other way!" His head whipped away. Yup: love him, but thick.
I dropped trou and squatted. Ah! I closed my eyes in relief!
But then something really weird happened. I was suddenly cold, except for my very full and warm pad — pad? — and very warm and wet panties. I felt the panties overflow and warm wetness trickled down my leg. I was wrapped in a blanket, a now wet blanket, and felt myself being carried rapidly somewhere. I had been dreaming. I had woken up in the midst of one of those dreams. I bore down hard, blocking the release of my full bladder. I opened my eyes peering into the darkness to see a full moon, a forest, and my Rose. No, not my Rose. That was a dream: Rosalie was carrying me, not my Rose.
It doesn't matter, anyway. I reflected bitterly. The Rose in my dream didn't love me, and this Rosalie didn't even know of my dream to know to love me ... to know that I ...
No. It was just a dream.
We made it to the outhouse in record time. All in one motion, Rosalie slammed open the door, unwrapped me from my blanket, set me down and stripped off my pad and panties.
The problem here was that I was beyond desperation, and the cold shock on my feet combined with the cold shock of the air hitting me as the blanket disappeared caused me to lose control down there. I squeezed hard, fighting to keep it in, but this was a battle I was losing in the forest, and I totally lost it here.
Pee sprayed out as I was standing, and the moonlight illuminated the most horrifying sight: Rosalie's hand. Rosalie's perfect hand. Rosalie's perfect right hand was in the act of removing my panties as my pee came out.
It splattered against her hand, deflecting onto my leg and then dribbled onto the floor of the outhouse.
Quick as lightning, Rosalie had the seat cover up and me completely supported with her left arm and sitting on the seat.
The shock hit and then rocked me. I opened my mouth to say ... what? What could I say for what just happened, for what I had just done?
"Rose," No, not Rose, "...alie, oh, my God, I really, really ... God, Rosalie, I'm really sorry!"
She was holding her right hand away from ... well, everything and was careful to keep my feet and hers away from the little puddle on the floor.
"I am so, so sorry, Rosalie. I'm really sorry."
When would I ever finish peeing? It seemed to go on forever, and my shame did not go away. I shivered in the cold, and tears sprang out of my eyes. I was just leaking out of everywhere.
Stupid tears. Stupid pee. Stupid me.
I finished, but then realized we couldn't do our routine. No coals; no water bucket. And this was the one time I really, really needed to wash off the dirty areas. I burned with shame.
"Rosalie, I..." I heard a tearing noise and felt myself being wiped as I sat: my nethers and my legs. Then she bent over, and I heard cleaning sounds and felt her wipe the floor.
Of my pee.
My teeth were chattering, but I managed to get out: "No, Rosalie, please let me clean that; it's my fault."
She ignored me. She was already done. What was I going to do anyway? Clean the floor of the outhouse, freezing, nearly buck naked? I still hadn't recovered from my last resurrection. She'd probably have to save my life again as I succumbed to the cold.
I burned with shame and impotency.
She shifted her left arm down my back and under my bottom, hoisting me up from the seat. I understood: I wrapped my legs around her stomach.
The cotton of her PJs felt nice against the inside of my thighs. Then I remembered that I was rubbing her shirt with a part of my body that had just finished its job inside and outside the outhouse.
Will this shame have no end? I didn't think I could sink any lower than bottom!
I just put my head on her shoulder as more tears leaked out. Just like I had put my head on Pa's shoulder. Because she didn't love me.
Rosalie wrapped a much smaller blanket around me. Oh! I noted dully, she had shredded that, just like she had shredded the strangling sheet. Just like she had shredded my sweaty tee.
And her eyes, when she shredded the tee, never once looked away from mine, because there was nothing of interest for her to see.
By the time we got back to the cabin, my quiet sighs had turned into sobs. I tried to hold them in as best I could, but some still managed to rip their way out of my chest.
The bed was stripped, of course, thanks entirely to me. Rosalie scrounged a couple of towels and laid them on the bed, all the while not letting me go, and then she laid me on those towels.
She looked at the nearly exhausted supply of clothes — thanks to me! — and somehow fashioned a blanket out of them. She got a pad, and it appeared to be my last pair of panties, and pulled them up over my legs, covering my shame before she covered me with the "blanket".
I hope that, since we were out of underwear, she would just kill me tonight or in the morning, instead of wasting more time on me.
Yeah, um, Rosalie, sorry about pissing all over you, but I think I love you; what do you say?
Yeah. I hoped she would kill me now or in the morning.
I watched as she stoked the fire. Why did she bother? She wasn't affected by the cold! As she tended the fire, she put both hands into the flames for a long time, and then picked up an ember and crushed it against her hands, rubbing them together. I remembered that soap was made from ash. She went outside and came back in, rubbing her hands, placing them back in the fire. I heard the hissing of steam. She must have rubbed her hands in the snow.
As I watched her, I continued to cry, sobbing as quietly as I could. She came over to me, a cup in her left hand and gave it to me to hold. She propped me up, and I drank it down. It was water ... not arsenic. Bummer. Then she put me down and turned me away from her. Because she couldn't stand the sight of me, obviously. A fresh wave of tears fell from my eyes onto the pillow. She'd have to burn that, too.
Maybe she'd burn the house down. That way she could take care of everything at once. Nice and neat. Let a few embers from the fire fall onto the floor ... problem solved.
As I swam in the pool of these black thoughts I couldn't help but notice that Rosalie lay down next to me. Why? Then I felt her warm hands rubbing up and down, up and down, up and down my back. I was too tired to be confused, to hope, to keep crying, even, to do anything at all other than let her warm, powerful hands ease me into a dreamless sleep.
A/N: I have a picture of "my Rose" on my blog at twilight-dad-dot-blogspot-dot-com. Look up the keyword "Rose" or search the topics "Rosalie" and "fan fiction".