chapter summary: She said she didn't drink human blood, but she didn't say anything about my soul. I didn't know I had one, until she started consuming it. I guess my shouting at her counted as "our conversation." I wonder if my body would keep breathing after she ate my soul?
I tried! I really tried!
I worked, or, as Rosalie — God damn her superior stares! — said "wherked", for two straight hours. She gave me the questions to answer: who am I, what am I, why am I.
Why am I what? Jeez!
Essay questions. I really hated essay questions on tests when I was in school. All I could do was look at that question on top of the blank paper, and my mind would go right there: blank. I would write a sentence. Two sentences if I were lucky, and that would be all I could muster for the test answer.
"What, in your own words, were the motivations and aims of the participants in the Great War? Use specific dates, places and events to support your answer."
My answer: "They wanted to fight because they were stupid." Well, they were! They did say 'in your own words'. Notice how my answer was shorter than the question?
Stupid essay questions. Of course, like the chicken I am, I erased my perfectly correct answer and spent way too much time looking at the blank page wondering what I was supposed to write. I wrote something down.
The grade I got on that test? B-
Stupid essay questions. Now my worst nightmare, well, besides talking malevolent forests, has come to pass: a one-on-one essay test with Rosalie and no time limits. I didn't even have a blank piece of paper to stare at, I just had the most beautiful face in the world staring at me, reminding me of everything I wasn't.
I don't think I lasted even ten minutes before I started whining.
"Jeez, Rosalie! Who am I? I'm Bella Swan; that's my name, even if you say it isn't! What am I? I'm the Sheriff's daughter. Why am I? Why am I what? Why am I here? I'm here because you brought me here, that's why!"
"Quit hiding." She growled in response.
"I'm not hiding!" I growled right back.
"Izzat yurh besss-t?" she demanded.
I crossed my arms at that and glared at her petulantly, sinking down in my chair a little bit more.
"No." I admitted, pouting, turning my mind back to the questions, hating them.
Who am I, what am I, why am I.
Why am I doing this! That's the real question. Why do I have to do this stupid self-examination in this stupid cabin in the stupid woods with this stupid vamp...
Well, she's not stupid. I glared at her again. Meanie!
She got up and started pulling things from the box and filled one of the cups with hot water from the stove. She put something in the cup of hot water and brought it over to me, then brought a can of milk and a jar of honey.
I sniffed at the water. It was herbal tea. Maybe the Earl Grey from the box. I spent my sweet time adding the milk and honey and then taking the first sip.
It was okay. I mean, I never really drank tea. Coffee, now. Mmmmm. Coffee. It's been like — what? — three billion years since I've had my last cup of coffee. I took another sip of tea.
Who am I, what am I, why am I.
Grrrr!
But then I wasn't thinking about those questions. I was thinking about what Rosalie asked me: is that my best. That question kicked me right in the gut. I always did my best; it was just plain insulting to ask. Why couldn't she have given me a true/false or a multiple choice quiz? I could have aced those. But, no!
Besides, how could anyone ever say: yeah, I did my best! What's best, anyway? If I said it long, it would be better short. If I said it short, it should be longer. If I wrote it down, it should have been written in calligraphy. If I used calligraphy — which I couldn't, by the way, unless 'calligraphy' meant 'chicken scratch' — then I should have had it engraved. If I had my answers engraved, then I should have Mount Rushmored them. If I did that, then I should have rearranged the constellations, or something.
Did I do my best!
Are we finished with this exercise yet? I looked at Rosalie; Rosalie looked at me.
Nope. I guess not.
It was really, really hard!
I would have guessed that those nuns and monks that spent all day every day just thinking had an easy time of it. Some person: Oh, yeah, what's your job? Monk: Me? I think, I fast, and I pray. Some person: Good work, if you can get it; heh, heh!
I wanted to strangle that 'Some person': good work? Why couldn't Rosalie have me do something easier to do, like chop down a tree for firewood ... with this spoon!
I started to get that headache back. You know the one, right? The one last night that almost killed me? I took another sip of tea, and tried to think of what to say. Did she want me say what she wanted to hear? I looked at her again, then looked right back at my tea. No, she had that mean look like she could tell if I were cheating.
Who am I, what am I, why am I.
God!
"Could we please just do something else?" I begged.
Rosalie crossed her arms.
...
The window showed that the sky was darkening into twilight. A bathroom break and another cup of tea later, and I had had enough.
"Look, Rosalie, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but I've already figured everything out about me, okay?"
She didn't looked pleased at my announcement.
"No, listen to me! I already spent all morning thinking about me ..." and about you ... "and I'm just not that interesting. Really."
Rosalie frowned at me, then pointed at me and pointed at her temple.
"No, there's nothing more to figure out, don't you get it? I'm not the interesting one here; you are."
She shook her head, looking cross.
"Oh, please! You are, and you know you are! I mean, look at yourself, will you?" and I waved in her direction for emphasis. "Newsflash: you're a vampire! Isn't that interesting? I know you get all mad whenever I say the 'V' word, but let's just think about that for a second. Even for a vampire you're interesting! How many vampires are in the world that you know of? Hundreds?"
She shrugged.
"Thousands?" At this she shook her head in a no.
"Okay, maybe hundreds, then. And how many refuse to drink human blood? Besides you and the Hales?"
"Cuhllenz," she corrected me.
"Oh, right, the Cullens. How many?" She shrugged again. "Any at all, that you know of?" She shook her head slowly at that.
"See? That's my point! You are interesting! You don't drink human blood and drink stuff that tastes terrible because why? Because of some principle? Because of some ethics? A principled vampire, out of the hundreds that are out there in the world? That's interesting, Rosalie! But I am not!"
She looked really angry and started to get out of her chair.
"No, Rosalie, you just sit down, shut up and listen to me!" Well, she wasn't doing much talking, but she got my point. She hovered half-rising out of her chair before she sat back down again. She waved at me to continue, but the look on her face said I'd be hearing from her later about this.
I heaved a heavy sigh, buried my face in my hands for a second, and then started over.
"Look," I said quietly, looking down at the table, and not at her beautiful, perfect and angry face, "it's nice that you think so highly of me, but you're just wrong. That's all. You just made a mistake. Just admit it and move on. If you were looking for somebody interesting in Ekalaka, you must have meant to pick up Kristen Kuntz. She's pretty. Well, I mean not like ..." I waved toward the other end of the table where Rosalie sat, "... but not plain like ..." and my hand fell to my side. "She has beaux, she has friends, she's smart, AND her family is getting one of those new fangled motorcars. But me? I'm just ..." nothing. I shook my head. "I'm just a small town girl, the daughter of a small town sheriff. I'm just ..." I shook my head again.
I didn't know how to continue.
I cleared my throat and wiped my wet eyes. "You made a mistake, Rosalie. It's okay, everybody makes mistakes, even ..." I waved to the perfect creature at the other end of the table who I couldn't look at. "That's all. Don't waste your time any more ... " on me. "Just move on. I promise ..." and here I did raise my eyes to her impassive face that held those intense golden orbs scrutinizing me. "I promise," I said, "that noone will know; I'll take your secret to the grave." I gave her a weak smile.
I dropped my eyes back to the table. I wondered if I would have a fiery grave, a watery grave, or if she would bury me after she killed me ... or bury me to kill me.
... or, worst of all, she would just leave me out in the middle of the forest, so I would have a snowy grave.
Whichever kind of grave I'd be getting, I figured I'd be meeting it in a minute or two. I wondered if she would honor one last request: I wanted to tell her just one thing before I said goodbye to life.
I heard a smacking sound and the whole table shook, rattling the spoon in my cup of tea. I looked up to see Rosalie rising from her chair, glaring at me.
"Fihne!" She looked absolutely furious, and I should have been terrified, but I was about to die, anyway, so what more was there to be scared of?
She patted her hip and pointed toward me with her chin.
Huh?
"Um, yeah, I guess I need to go ..." Is it like some courtesy? Let the victim use the potty before offing them?
She disappeared out the door and then reappeared a minute later with the pail. She filled it and then left again, then came back and scooped me out of my chair.
We did the usual routine in the outhouse. There were only a few spots on the pad.
Perfect, isn't it? I finish my period just in time to say goodbye to life.
But it all just didn't make sense. The routine was exactly the same. I mean, wouldn't things be different just before the execution?
"Um, what are we doing?" I asked her as she spread the lime.
"Nawt wii. Ayh am getting yurh book," and she picked me up.
I reeled. "You can't be serious! A book? For me? Really? Are you joking?"
She shook her head. She didn't look amused; she looked serious.
"Oh, my God! Really? A book! Can be like ... " which book? which book? which book? Silas Marner? I was going to read that next, but no: too serious. I needed some lighter, happier reading. One of the Jane Austen ones. "... Sense and Sensibility?" Hm. Maybe that one? It had such a happy ending ...
But no, it was just too serious with the displaced family and the mean conniving of the sister-in-law: Fanny. I wonder if she had a big "fanny" ... I giggled euphorically.
So, not that one. "No, not that one! Um, what I meant was Pride and Prejudice ..." Yeah! That one! "... because the main character, Lizzy, she's like really smart and funny, but she's carried on by events, but she's really feisty, too, right? But she's beautiful, right? I kind of picture her with long brown hair and a little bit sassy. But she always thinks the wrong thing about everybody. And Mr. Darcy. Wow! He's like really, really smart, but he, like, totally misses the boat on Lizzy, see? He says she's plain, right in front of her, right? But then, as soon as says that, he's like looking at her all the time to try to find fault, but he keeps seeing how beautiful she is. Especially since they're kind of like forced together out in the country. And he's really, really proud, right? But everybody is in awe of him, like he's supernatural, or something, right?"
Why was it taking so long to get back to the cabin? I looked around to see that we had slowed to a crawl, and I looked up to Rosalie in askance.
She was staring at me.
But why? What did I say? I was just describing Pride and ...
I gasped. I was just describing the current situation.
I grasped for differences to rescue me from my blunder. "But see, it's different than thi ..." Shut the Hell up, Bella! a voice screamed helpfully in my head. "I mean, Lizzy's beautiful, see?" Not like me. What else was different? Oh, Jane! "And she has this older sister, right?" Now we were back on safe ground, but, looking at Rosalie's intense stare, I didn't feel any safer, so I talked faster.
"Jane's the beautiful one, with pale white skin and long golden hai ... long golden hai ... " Oh, oh, oh ... oh, shit! "But she's her sister, see? So it's different, see?"
Rosalie's eyes seemed to pick up a faint glow in the dark, to grow more intense, and then they seemed to grow bigger. I felt funny. I felt the feeling leave my hands and my feet. And I couldn't stop digging my own grave with my big, fat mouth.
And I had never said 'oh, shit!' before, not out loud; not even to myself.
"But see, she tolerates Lizzy's pronouncements, because she loves Lizzy ..." not like you: you don't love me ... "and she's always looking for the good in Lizzy, even though Lizzy doesn't see it in herself, and Jane is kind and good and beautiful, but it take Lizzy to ... it take Lizzy ... to point ... to point it ..."
Rosalie's eyes kept getting bigger and bigger, I could only see her eyes now, and I felt myself being sucked into her intense stare. My arms and legs went away, and I could only feel my cheeks and my heart beating in my chest. My breath came in labored, short puffs.
There just had to be a difference with that story and this, the real world. This wasn't a story. This was real. This was happening. We weren't in a story. I had to convey that to Rosalie. It seemed like everything depended on this.
"... but ... but ... but there's Char..." I was going to point out the absolute difference. Pride and Prejudice had Charlotte Lucas. Here it was Rosalie — who was not, I say, WHO WAS NOT! the personification of Mr. Darcy and Jane Bennet — and plain old me, the not-smart, not-beautiful and definitely not Elizabeth Bennet character. See, Pride and Prejudice had Charlotte Lucas. It was different.
But, that didn't matter now. I had figured out, too late, why we had stopped oh-so-conveniently between the outhouse and the cabin. Meaning, why we had stopped oh-so-far-for-me from the outhouse and the cabin, because now I could only feel my eyes looking into her eyes. Her eyes that filled the whole sky. Her eyes that filled the whole world.
She was sucking my soul out of my body.
I couldn't feel anything anymore. I didn't even know I had a soul. That is, I didn't know I really had a soul, until I felt it diminish in me ... until I felt it being consumed by her.
"Oh, God," I could only just whisper, and I wondered if I could even do that, because I didn't hear my voice anymore. I didn't feel my ears: they had gone far away, too ... "hel... help m..."
But I knew I was asking the wrong person for help. God judges your soul when you die, right? I just barely had one little drop of it left hanging on with all its might on the edge of my eyes as it was being pulled into Rosalie. God would have nothing of me to judge in a second or two. God would have nothing to help, just an empty shell that used to be my body.
The scariest thing in the world? The scariest thing about me dying? Or me going away? Wasn't it supposed to hurt? It didn't. It didn't feel like anything. It felt like nothing.
It felt like nothing.
I tried to close my eyes to save that one last little piece of my being. But I couldn't. I just couldn't, for Rosalie had that much power over me now.
Only one being could save me now. The one who had just consumed most of my soul. I had asked God for help, but I needed to ask ...
"Ro..."
The very last little piece of my soul ripped itself from my eyes and floated into oblivion: that eternal blackness of her pupils.