Chapter Summary: She remembers last night. All of it. And, with what happened this morning ... couldn't I have stopped myself? I don't know anymore. This is not going according to plan. Not at all.

I got my notebook and a new ticonderoga from the book bag and sat down across the table from Rosalie.

"What are you doing?" Rosalie asked curiously.

"Well," I said, "school is in session — right? — so I'm going to take notes," I replied. I mean ... wasn't it obvious?

"You don't need to take notes for sign ..." Rosalie paused when she saw my expectant face, then she sighed. "Never mind," she said. See, I knew she'd see it my way.

I opened my notebook and turned to the most recent entry. It was my list of victories that I had written down from Rosalie's dictation. I reread them, savoring them.

Oh, that's right, I was supposed to add a new one! I wrote, 'Victory #3:' ...

... but then I paused. Writing 'Making Rosalie say um' was pretty mean. Especially after that 'um' she held me in her arms through the night.

... Especially after the hug this morning.

I mean, so what! I made her say 'um.' But me reveling in that now? After her being so ...

"What was your third victory?" a musical voice asked over my shoulder.

"Gah!" I cried out. I was lost in my thoughts, and Rosalie had used her magic vampire powers to sneak up behind me unnoticed. I hate that when she does that.

"Uh," I said, sheepishly, "it's not a victory anymore."

I made to erase it, but Rosalie stopped me with her voice: "Well, what was it?"

I shook my head. "It was mean, Rosalie; I don't want to think about it anymore."

"Was it mean, or was it accurate?" She wasn't letting it go.

After a moment of my silence, she asked quietly: "What were you going to write?"

I looked up at her: "I was going to write that I made you say 'um' last night. And worse, Rosalie ... and worse, I was going to enjoy watching you read that every time you looked at my journal, okay? Are you happy now?"

She looked at me in silence.

"See," I said, "I told you I was mean. And after you've been so kind to me then ... and now ... and all I wanted to do was to rub your face in one little slip."

I closed my book. My victories didn't taste so sweet anymore.

Rosalie seemed to be thinking of something else entirely. "You remember that from last night?"

I looked up at her quizzically. Did she think I would forget something right away? Did she think human memory worked that way?

"Yes," I answered simply.

Rosalie's face became thoughtful. "What else do you remember from last night?"

"Well," I said, "everything."

But then I explained, because it looked like she didn't believe me. "I remember you tickled me, and then you wanted to run away, but then you told me I was running away when I stopped you. And we talked about our mothers, and then you told me that terribly sad fairy tale, which was no fair because I thought you were going to talk about God some more, which would have put me right to sleep, but you told me we were each other, and then I had my dream, but you didn't bring me to the outhouse in time because you said you were distracted again, and you told me you wouldn't kill me, even though you told me you would show me how you would, and then you said we weren't each other so my name wasn't Lillian and you laughed at me for that, but then you held me ... right?"

Rosalie's face became more and more grave during my retelling of last night's events. When I finished, she rocked back on her heels, and then walked back to her chair and sat back down.

"Yes," she said with regret, "you remember everything."

"Well," I demanded, "why wouldn't I?"

Rosalie frowned and looked away.

After a moment I asked, "So, are you going to show me how you're going to kill me?"

Rosalie looked back at me and shook her head.

"You are so calm discussing your own death; it's almost as if you're welcoming it," she looked unhappy with me.

"Well," I said, "would you prefer I jump up and down in a panic? I don't think that would help the conversation any."

"Yet you cry at what others may find inconsequential matters," Rosalie countered.

I looked at Rosalie. "Are they inconsequential?" I asked her.

Rosalie looked away. "No," she said quietly.

"Then why did you just say that? You said I shouldn't apologize for crying, but now you're scolding me for it. I don't get that, Rosalie."

"I'm not scolding you for that," Rosalie said quietly. "What I'm trying to do is to understand why you are so cavalier about your own existence. Your life, your self, is the only thing you have, yet you accept your end so easily. It's mystifying, like many things about you are mystifying to me."

"Well, it's not like I can do anything about it," I began. "You're so ..."

Rosalie stood quickly from her chair and shouted her words angrily at me: "Yes, you can!"

"Like what?" I demanded, rising myself.

"Exactly!" Rosalie said.

I closed my eyes for a second. "This is going to be another one of those conversations, isn't it?"

Rosalie let go of her anger and smiled faintly. "When isn't it?" she asked.

I answered right back: "Exactly."

I'm sure her question was rhetorical, but that didn't stop me from parroting her confusing words back at her.

Her smile didn't leave her face. In fact, her face brightened a bit more. It was if she enjoyed this verbal fencing.

But I sure didn't. I frowned at her.

She said: "You won't be able to do anything if you're fatalistic about it, but when you ask 'how' by the mirror you were able to look a bit longer; when you ask 'like what' here, maybe you will find the 'what.'"

"Rosalie," I said, crossing my arms, "you take the cake on being the weirdest kidnapper in the world: you want me to get away?"

Rosalie looked me up and down with a superior look on her face. "I want many things. One of those things is for you to be the best you can be, so that when you stand in judgment you can honestly say you did your best."

She concluded quietly: "You won't be able to do that if you give up on anything."

I looked at Rosalie, looking at me so sincerely.

"What if you're wrong, Rosalie?" I asked her.

"Wrong about what?" she asked back, looking puzzled.

"You've been talking about God and Heaven and Hell and everything as if they're real," I looked at that beautiful, angelic face, and pressed forward. "What if they're not? What if, as you've said, now is all we have, and that's it?"

Rosalie crossed her own arms now, and a smile touched her lips, but it looked ... bitter.

"The Augustine wager," she said.

"Rosalie," I said, patiently as I could, "you have to answer the question in a way that I can understand."

"Hm," Rosalie said. "I'll put it another way. You're not the first or only person to ask that question, and it's a similar question I ask myself quite often, what if it's all for naught?"

"No, Rosalie," I said, becoming angry, "you're supposed to be sure about everything, you know? You're supposed to whip out the Bible or something." ... and make me look like an idiot, but still show me that you know what you're doing, and give me that certainty, at least. I glared at her as I thought this.

"That's what Faith is for," Rosalie answered my spoken words and my angry thoughts.

"Believing just because somebody says so?" I asked disbelievingly. Rosalie didn't look like the kind of person who would take what anybody told her without tearing it apart. Perfect example: me, and whatever I said.

"No!" she exclaimed angrily. See? Case in point. "Faith is believing what you believe, believing after it's been proved to you or what you've proved to yourself, but then continuing to believe that irrefutation through thick and thin. Doubt attacks faith, not through reasoned arguments but through unreasonable fear."

"So," I said slowly. "So, you believe in Heaven?"

"That's not the question," Rosalie answered. "The question is do you believe in Heaven?"

I shrugged angrily. I wondered what all this had to do with sign language.

Rosalie went to the book bag and pulled out the Bible.

I sighed.

"You wanted me to quote the Bible, I'll quote the Bible to you," she said angrily. She flipped to the back of the Book and read out a passage, spitting out the words to me. It was something about people in white robes being washed in the blood of a lamb.

She snapped the Book closed. "What does that mean to you?" she demanded.

Oh, brother! Another essay question.

I gritted my teeth. "Rosalie, I don't know, okay? I'm not some Bible scholar like you are."

"I'm not asking for your in-depth Biblical analysis," Rosalie responded, "I'm asking what that passage means to you."

I tried. I thought about it for a second. "I guess ... those are people in Heaven ... or something?"

"Yes," Rosalie said, "the 'new Heaven and the new Earth' mentioned later, but what if there is, as you argue, no Heaven ... what does this passage mean?"

I looked at her, now totally confused.

"Is it okay if I say I have no idea what you're talking about, Rosalie?" I mean, like always, but I had to check so I could maybe head off her anger and shouting.

Rosalie looked at me for a second. "Come with me," she commanded, and walked to the door.

I hesitated. "Uhm, do I need to put on boots?"

"Just stand here by the door," she said curtly.

I went over to her. She handed me the Book, swung open the door, and stepped outside.

The sun was shining: it was a bright, cold morning. The light struck her head, and she became the Angel again, haloed in light.

She looked at me, her eyes burning with a black, coal-like fire, and she said: "Look at me, and listen to the words again as I speak them."

She unbuttoned her shirt. She wasn't wearing a brassiere. The light struck her shoulders and the light reflected from her became almost blinding in its brilliance.

She took off her pants, kicking them off. I was right: she wasn't wearing panties. She was now a column of light. She was a lightning bolt, captured in time, electricity frozen into one place in her utter stillness.

Then she stared at me, a bolt of lightning, a column of white flame, and recited:

"'Who are these wearing white robes, and from whence did they come?' and I said to him, 'My lord, you are the one who knows.' He sayeth unto me, 'These are the ones who have survived the time of tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'"

She stood there, glowing, aflame, for a moment, then with one swoop collected her clothes and came back inside, no longer glowing, but still an angelic goddess, so mind-numbingly beautiful.

She looked at me contemptuously: "I'll spare you the demonstration of being washed in blood."

I watched her silently as she put on her pants. She looked down at her shirt, but instead of putting it on, threw it into my pile of clothes by the basin. She retrieved a new shirt from the neatly folded fresh clothes and put it on.

"'White robes'?" I asked finally. It didn't look like she was wearing a robe. My eyes verified that with no small amount of certainty.

"Put yourself into the sandals of somebody two thousand years ago. 'White robe' could very well have been an euphemism for someone," here she pointed at herself, "clothed in light."

"So ..." Now I was more confused! "You're saying Heaven doesn't exist and those people in the Bible are vamp-..." I was shy to say the word around her, but I guess I had to say it. "Vampires?"

"No," she answered, helping me less and less. "I'm not saying that, but let us say you don't believe in Heaven, and you've read that passage. What does it suggest to you? Where 'every tear is wiped away'? Vampire don't cry. Where everyone 'lives' forever? Vampires are immortal. 'Clothed in white robes'? You've just seen that. And how many were numbered in that passage?"

"Um," I kind of lost track of the number. "A lot?"

"Yes," she answered, straight-faced: "a lot: one hundred forty-four thousand. And Carlisle has read that passage, and his coven has grown from himself to Edward to Esmé to myself. And I'm sure the Volturi has read that, and their numbers have gone from the three to I don't know how many. What if they've read that, and have decided to make the 'new Earth' starting today ... with vampires? What if they are helping the 'old Earth' to pass away ... by replacing humanity with the 'new humanity' and relegating the supplanted race to the status of 'lambs' that will feed them?"

I shook my head, totally lost. "Okay, Rosalie, I'll bite. What if they are doing this?"

"If they are doing this," Rosalie said ominously, "then I will stop them. If I see Carlisle again and he's added more to his numbers, I will find a way to stop him. If the Volturi are enacting this plan ... I will stop them."

"Rosalie," I said, now fearful for her because of the absolute tone I heard in her voice. "You can't. You can't stop them."

"You are not the one to tell me what I can or cannot do," she said intensely. "This is genocide; this is subjugation. This is a wrong, and I will not stand by. I will not allow it to persist."

"They'll destroy you, Rosalie," I said pleadingly.

"They can't," Rosalie said resolutely. "I am immortal; I cannot be destroyed."

"Rosalie, they did: I saw it," I shuddered at the memory from my dream. "In my dream, I saw the Volturi destroy you."

Rosalie narrowed her eyes at me.

"How?" she demanded.

I should have listened to that dangerous edge to her voice when she asked that question. I really should have. But I didn't.

"They burned you to the ground, Rosalie," I said quietly, swallowing past the lump in my throat as I recalled the horror of seeing her reduced to ash.

Rosalie looked disappointed.

"Fire doesn't touch me," she said in a lecturing tone. "Haven't you seen me tend the fire and heat the outhouse with embers I collected from the stove?"

"Yes, Rosalie," I answered, "fire doesn't affect your outside."

"What do you mean by that?" she asked impatiently.

"Well, you restarted the fire with your spit, right?" I said.

"Yes, the venom is an accelerant," and her raised eyebrow added an imperious 'obviously' to her statement.

And I thought an aside to myself: so she does have venom!

"So, if you were torn up into pieces, and fire was ... put on your insides ... well, you'd burn up pretty quickly, wouldn't you?" I challenged.

Rosalie became thoughtful.

I did not like the look that crossed her face as she thought whatever it was she was thinking.

After a considered pause, she said to herself: "One way to find out."

She walked toward the stove.

"Rosalie," I said, alarmed, "what are you doing?"

Rosalie turned her head back to me: "Don't look," she commanded. "Turn away."

"No, Rosalie, I won't let you ..." I began.

"Suit yourself and your nightmares, then; I warned you." Rosalie said carelessly.

Before I could stop her, she unbuttoned the top half of her shirt and eased it off her right shoulder. Her head whipped to her exposed shoulder, and I heard the the shattered sound of two rocks smashing into each other. Her head lifted from her shoulder ...

... it looked off.

She spat a smooth white stone into her hand and put her hand to the damper on the chimney.

"NO!" I screamed, and I dived toward her to knock her away from the stove.

I tripped, and my face was flying right at the stove. Oh, boy! I thought to myself ruefully: not again!

Rosalie snatched me out of the air with one arm and placed me, standing, by the mirrors.

"What is it with you and your recurrent desire to become intimately acquainted with the stove?" Rosalie asked angrily.

I wouldn't be distracted: "Rosalie, don't do that!"

But my eyes couldn't help but be drawn to her shoulder. It looked sunken; it was smaller ... by one bite.

"Scientific method," Rosalie said tersely. "How else are we going to test your hypothesis? Besides," she said reasonably, "it's just a small piece of me." She showed me the white stone in her hand. "I'll trade that for the veracity of how to destroy a vampire."

"It's not a small piece of you, Rosalie!" I countered hotly. "Didn't you say you were all one thing, or something? What if you burn that, and it's, like, attached to you and the rest of you burns up? Didn't you even think about that!"

That gave Rosalie pause. She looked at me for a second, then said.

"Well, then, in that case, the nearest town is Belle Fourche. If you go five miles in ..."

"Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!" I screamed. "When you burned up in my dream, the flames touched the sky! You'd take the whole cabin with you, and if I survived — IF I SURVIVED! — I'd have third degree burns all over me and probably be blind, to boot! Will you just stop for one God-damned second and ..."

"Okay, then," Rosalie interrupted, "I'll put you outside so that if ..."

"SO I CAN FIND SOMETHING FIVE MILES AWAY WHEN I CAN'T EVEN FIND THE OUTHOUSE?" My screams were becoming more and more desperate, matching Rosalie's determination to destroy herself.

Rosalie regarded me a second, measuring me. Concern entered her eyes.

She held up her right hand, palm out toward me. Her arm looked funny being attached to her crooked shoulder like that.

"Okay, calm down, okay? I won't do this now, all right?" she said placatingly.

"No, Rosalie, you won't do it ever!" I said fiercely, refusing to be calmed by her conditionally-offered olive branch.

Rosalie took back her hand, crossing her arms, and looking at me crossly.

"You know, for a captive, you surely take the cake on weirdness: so concerned for her captor's welfare." She said this with annoyance in her voice, but I saw just a hint of her fighting her lips from turning upward.

She placed the smooth stone back into the indentation in her shoulder, and I saw it work itself back into place, and as Rosalie buttoned her shirt, I saw it knit itself back into the rest of her body.

"Well," I answered, probably looking a bit fish-eyed at the shock of yet another miracle from the 'white robed' indestructible (or so I hoped) angel in front of me, "that makes us quite the well-matched odd couple, doesn't it?"

Rosalie grimaced at this, so I added: "... and since we've both taken the cake, I suppose we won't have to worry about what's for dessert after supper, now will we?"

Rosalie looked irritated at me wrecking her grandiose plan for her scientific experiment. "Yes, joy! One more thing I can cross of my list of things to worry about."

"Good," I said forcefully. "It's always a good thing to cross items off your list, so let's do this sign-language thing so you can cross that off, too, huh?"

Yes. Sign language lessons or something — anything! — to move away from exploding vampires and grand conspiracies of the Vampire Mafia.

"How did you maneuver the situation so that you are driving the schedule now?" Rosalie demanded petulantly.

Well, somebody has to take charge around here! I groused to myself, and if Rosalie was hell-bent on destruction, well, then I had to make sure there was something on the schedule to keep her otherwise occupied.

But I answered a bit differently: "Fine, then let's go to the outhouse, then lunch then quiet time, you can go off and get the ..."

"Oh, no you don't, young lady!" Rosalie exclaimed. "You're not worming your way out of this morning's ..."

I went to the table and sat down, my notebook in front of me. "So let's get started already!"

Rosalie glared at me. I smirked at her.

Rosalie moved to the other side of the table, but didn't sit down.

"Your little attempt at reverse psychology is so blatant I won't even suffer myself to acknowledge it: I'm going to give you this lesson anyway." Schoolmarm Rosalie didn't look all that pleased delivering her 'I'm so superior' speech.

I rolled my eyes. Whatever, I thought.

Rosalie visibly collected herself and maneuvered herself into her chair with controlled grace.

"So," I said, waiting.

Rosalie looked at me for a second.

"Four signs," Rosalie said, and she raised her right hand with four fingers up, palm facing her, then twirled her index fingers together, then her hands became a (slow for her) blur of motion as she continued to speak.

"What we will ..." she began.

"Wait, Rosalie, stop! I'm not getting any of this at all!" I cried desperately. There was no way I was going to be able to pass her first test.

Rosalie smiled reassuringly at me. "Don't worry about it," her hands continued their motions, "you are a smart girl," she said slowly, pointing at me, then flicking her ring finger off her forehead then moving her thumb along her cheek.

She resumed normal speaking speed, her hands keeping pace with her spoken words: "I will point out the signs you are to learn, and we'll practice them together."

I did manage to pick out the twirling index fingers in all that mess.

"You're not going to be signing to me all day every day from now on, are you?" I demanded. I feared my head exploding from concentration and information overload.

Rosalie gave me a very small grin, and I swallowed hard.

"No," she said finally, and her hand became a little bird talking, "but immersion is a good way of learning ..."

"Um," I said, a bit helplessly.

Rosalie chuckled. "Let's just start with four signs, then, shall we?" I saw the four fingers and the twirl again.

Four signs sounded much better than immersion to me. "Okay," I agreed quickly.

"But Rosalie ..." I said. She waited. "Why are we doing this all again? And, um, it's just a question, okay? Not a philosophical debate."

Rosalie paused.

"Yes," she said, her hand nodding with her. "Why?" She pulled a 'Y' out of her right temple.

"Um, I asked you first, Rosalie," I said hesitantly, "so that means you have to answer."

She smiled. "Okay," she said, "you see that sign language is a language, yes?"

I was catching more of it. I saw a 'you' when she pointed at me. I saw a 'see' from her two fingers moving away from her eyes. I saw the twirling index fingers which I guessed mean 'sign' or 'sign language.' I saw the hand nodding 'yes.'

"Yeah, ..." I said, agreeing. Trying to keep up with her and follow the conversation was kind of hard.

"So, you see we are communicating ideas through sign language, yes?"

More signs, but I was just letting them flow over me as I concentrated on what she was saying now, and not so much how she said it ... or, more correctly, signed it.

"Okay," I said, "I'm still with you ..."

"So," she continued, "if I am unable to speak for some reason, because I must control my breathing for extended periods ..."

Rosalie looked at me expectantly.

I am an idiot.

I blushed and looked away. "Oh," I said meekly.

"Um," I added helpfully.

"Look," I said finally, "can we just start today over and pretend the whole argument thing we had where I told you that you didn't want to talk to me anymore just didn't happen?"

I risked a peek at Rosalie.

She had that slight smile on her face. "Yes, I accept your apology."

I didn't realize I was apologizing. Then I realized: I wasn't apologizing, but I should have been.

I turned away again and covered my face with my hands. "I'm sorry," I whispered.

"But that's not the only reason," Rosalie continued her lecture as if nothing amiss had transpired. For all I knew she was signing away. I couldn't tell, as I was still buried in my hands.

"There is the possibility that you may have to communicate something to me, but you must not speak for some reason, perhaps so as not to give away your location."

"Because another vampire is looking for me?" I surmised, curious.

Silence.

"Look at me," Rosalie commanded quietly. I looked at her. Her hands were on the table, resting there. She was still.

I began to associate her stillness with seriousness.

"If you are aware of another vampire near you, scream as loud as you can. Scream for me, or scream for help." She looked me dead in the eye: "Scream."

"But won't that give me away?" I asked confused.

Rosalie shook her head in a no, her eyes not leaving mine. "Your heartbeat and scent have given you and your exact position away long before you and your weak senses will ever become aware of a vampire. If you see a vampire, it's because that vampire wants you to see it, perhaps because it's toying with you ... some vampires like to play with their food. Use that lapse on their part. Draw as much attention to yourself as possible and that may be enough to drive them away. No predator desires the spotlight."

"But couldn't it grab me before anybody else showed up?" I persisted.

"I didn't say it would work; I said to do it," Rosalie said with distaste. "Anything is worth a try up to that point, because after that point, nothing tried will work."

"Oh," I said. I thought about that for a second. "I'm after that point with you, right?"

Rosalie looked away. "Yes," she finally answered, "after I took you from the Cullen's house, there's nothing possible to save you now. You are finite; I am eternal. There is no force that you yourself can bring to bear against me that I cannot counter with a much greater force ... and quite easily at that. You are entirely in my power."

"So what's the point of me trying anything if nothing is possible?" I demanded.

She looked back at me: "You'll just have to find something outside the realm of possibility to win. I didn't say it would be easy, and it's not even possible."

"Then what can I do, if I can't possibly do anything?"

"There's always prayer," she answered coolly. "Miracles are impossibilities, and it would take a bona fide miracle to effect your escape."

I examined her closely. She wasn't teasing me.

"So it's all up to God?" I asked. A God, after Rosalie's little Bible verse demonstration, I was now so much more uncertain about.

"Yes," she said, "and you."

I sighed. "Thanks for that help," I said lightly, trying to keep the rancor from my voice.

"My pleasure," she said, but the grimace on her face didn't make her look pleased.

"Can we do the signs now?" I begged.

How come not one single thing that Rosalie ever did with me was just that? Bathroom trips were life-and-death experiences. PBJs were wall-art. Chicken noodle soup was a deadly tickling game. And let's not even talk about my period.

It was all about being on the knife's edge ... all the time.

"All right," Rosalie said, returning to what we were supposed to be doing. "Your first, most important, sign is this."

Rosalie put her left hand out, palm up then brought her right hand down onto it: a cleaver striking the chopping block.

What did I just think about knife's edge?

I looked at her a bit dubiously. Was this some kind of joke? Was this a 'time for you to die' sign?

"Okay," Rosalie said, "now you repeat it."

"Um," I said cautiously, "Rosalie, what does that mean?"

"Do the sign first," Rosalie countered, "then I'll tell you what it means."

"No way," I said, not budging. "I'm not doing a sign unless you tell me first."

If I was going to be signing, 'Oh, kill me now, Rosalie,' I'd prefer to know about it.

Wouldn't you?

Rosalie sighed. "Always so adamant at always the most surprising times!"

"Yup," I growled, "that's me, so you'd better get used to that, sister!"

Rosalie's eyes widened a bit at my last statement, so I hemmed a bit: "So, um ..."

"This sign," Rosalie interrupted and repeated the chopping block motion, "means 'stop.'"

"Oh," I said.

"So," she continued into my surprise, "when this sign is made, everything stops. This sign is not to be used lightly. When I sign this to you, you stop. Don't talk; don't move; don't think; try to regulate even your breath. When you sign this to me, I stop. I will approach you no further. I will stop my breath. If I am holding you, I will not alter position. If I am apart from you, I will maintain my distance. I will employ all my senses of the surrounding area to ensure your safety. If I am the danger, I will stop myself until the moment of danger is in the past. Do you understand me?"

She looked at me with serious eyes.

I swallowed convulsively and nodded.

"Now: you know what the sign means," she said. "Let's practice it together: 'stop.'" She barked out the last word and did the chopping block.

I imitated her.

"Good," she smiled at me. "Let's do this sign twice more: 'stop.'" She made the motion, and I did it, too.

"Good," she said, "One more time: 'stop.'"

We did it one more time.

"Okay," she said. "Have you got it?"

I nodded.

"Good," she said. "Now let's do the next most important sign for you. Repeat this sign."

She put her thumb between her first two fingers of her fisted hand and nodded it.

I repeated the sign.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

Rosalie looked at me levelly. "Potty," she said factually.

My hand was wiggling up and down still as the meaning hit me.

"Oh, my God!" I burst out, blushing hard, and covering my face with my hands.

I somehow managed to take my hand out of the fist before I did that. Thankfully. Poking my eye out with my thumb? That would have been a journalling moment right there.

"I don't see what the problem is ..." Rosalie said in confusion.

"You don't see the problem because you don't have to say: 'I need to go number two' in sign language!" I retorted.

"And ...?" Rosalie asked, curiously.

"Gah!" I exclaimed.

I could almost hear her shrug. "You can either say that out loud for all to hear, or you can sign it privately, and most will be none the wiser ... which did you prefer again?"

I sighed and uncovered my face. "It's just embarrassing, is all, okay, Rosalie?"

Rosalie looked at me blankly.

I sighed again.

"Okay," Rosalie said, "now let's practice that sign."

We practiced it. I blushed through that whole iteration. I wonder if my name should be 'Cherry'-something. Hm. 'Cherry Red Riding Hood'?

I remembered the Volturi wore hooded cloaks. Suddenly that new name didn't seem all that appealing.

"Rosalie ..." I said.

"Just a couple more signs," Rosalie said didactically, "then you can ask questions."

I ignored her command.

"Do the Volturi wear cloaks?" I asked.

Rosalie regarded me in stillness

"Grey cloaks?" I clarified. "With hoods?"

Rosalie just looked at me.

"Did you tell me that? I don't remember if you told me that or not."

I waited a moment. "You didn't tell me that," I said with certainty. "How did I know that if you didn't tell me that?"

"I think," Rosalie said slowly, mulling over her words, "that we can talk about this and more about your dreams while we're walking ... how does that sound?"

"Okay," I said, "you're also going to show me some stuff, too, right?"

"Yes," she said, nodding, "let's do that after this lesson, all right?"

"Okay," I said again.

"Next two signs?" she asked gently.

I nodded.

She smiled at me.

When she smiles at me like that ...

I looked away from her. She's just being a schoolmarm, I reminded myself ... a nice schoolmarm; that's all.

"That's the next sign," she said.

I no longer knew what she was addressing: my thoughts or something else. I looked back at her. She raised her right hand in a fist and nodded it.

"This means 'yes,'" she said. "And this," her fist opened up to a parrot speaking, "means 'no.'"

"Okay," I said, "I get the 'yes,' that's easy enough. But why is 'no' that?"

"Sign the words as you say them," she commanded. "Now ask your question again."

"Um," I said, paying close attention to my words. "Okay, um ... so 'yes' is this," I nodded my fist, "but why is 'no' that?" I had the parrot speaking.

Rosalie shrugged, "That's just the sign for 'no.' I don't know the particular rhyme nor reason to it."

I narrowed my eyes at her. Making me ask the question again in signs and not knowing the answer? That was dirty pool.

"Okay," she said. "Let's do all four signs. I'll call out the words, and you sign them."

And that's what we did. They were just four signs, and she called them out in order. I got them with a little bit of thought, then she called them in random order. Sometimes I would anticipate wrong, so she kept repeating until the four signs came a bit more naturally to me.

It was hard work!

Rosalie smiled at me.

"What's that for?" I demanded.

"Congratulations!" she enthused. "You are learning a new language."

"Huh!" I said. "Well, I'll be! I am learning a new language, aren't I?"

"Yes, indeed, you are!" She seemed genuinely pleased with me.

"Oh, Rosalie?" I said.

"Yes?" she looked at me quizzically.

I put my thumb between my first two fingers of my closed fist and wiggled it up and down.

Rosalie positively beamed at me.

Chapter End Notes:

* St. Augustine posed that betting on Heaven is a sure win. If you bet against Heaven existing, and you live the bad life, you get "rewarded" during your life (you are unhappy because living badly is never satisfying, as people who make poor choices keep rediscovering), and if Heaven does exist, then you go to Hell, as well, for making those bad choices, so you are doubly punished. Either way you lose.

But then he said if Heaven doesn't exist and you live a good life, then you receive the reward for that in your life (you were good; good for you). But if Heaven does exist, then you get to go there. Either way you win.

St. Augustine, incidentally, should know: he tried living both ways. He wrote his wager after a long life of youthful, erhm, experimentation and then living a repentant life.

* Rosalie recites the passage from the beginning of Revelations, chapter 7, when she presents her captive of the conundrum of the possibility of what the 'new Earth' might mean to some.

* In the opening chapters of Eclipse the newspapers reported that the victims (of what was later found out to be Victoria's newborn army) had been burnt, and an unidentified accelerant was used to burn them. This accelerant was vampire venom. That's why Irina basically exploded into flame when she was sectioned and ignited by the Volturi in Book III of Breaking Dawn: her own internal (exposed) fluids accelerated her destruction.

* American Sign Language has more than several resources online. Of course, there are courses available, perhaps even at your local community college and Joy of Signing is a popular book, sometimes used in these courses. That's what I had to do to learn sign language "in my day." These days there are additional resources, such as DVDs ("Signing Time" is a popular children's series which I, as an ancient mariner, have found to be very educational, so long as I'm willing to pretend I'm a member of the targeted audience (children from two to seven years of age)).

* Today, December 26, 2009, Boxing Day, marks the one-year anniversary of this story. Happy birthday, MSR!