Carlisle

It was many hours later when Esme knocked on the door. Not only had all of the guests left hours ago but everyone had been cleaning. The house smelled strongly of Pinesol, the leather sofa's had been rubbed down with leather conditioner. Every fabric in the public areas of the house had gone into the washing machine. The house smelt like cleaners rather than humans. We were genuinely doing our best to set Nora up for success.

Everyone was still in funeral formal, but suit jackets had been removed, sleeves rolled up, aprons donned in some cases, rubber wash gloves were still being slowly taken off when Esme opened the door.

"Hi," spoke Nora warily. "Is there a reason you've given your house a wash down like you were trying to hide a crime scene?"

No one laughed. Not even Jasper was entirely sure the question was serious or joking but everyone was staring at him as if it was his place to clarify her question so he was the one to answer her question. "Humans smell like they were meant for us to eat. All of us were human once. It is a choice you have to make. You have to choose to believe it is still wrong to kill people and do everything in your power to choose to be the person you want to be. When you are a brand new vampire it is almost impossible to make a choice rather than to just react to what your nose tells you."

I took over, "You know I'm over 300 years old and I don't know how to turn off my nose? People still smell like food. They will always smell like food. But, I am capable of making a choice to eat something else instead. Some of my favourite people are people. People who are nice people. I don't want to eat them. You told me racoons were better than eating your Gran right?"

Esme blinked at me. I suppose I sounded like a half mad Mr. Rogers.

Nora nodded and spoke sounding far more grown up than I clarified, "You wanted to make it so the house didn't smell like people? So, it's kind of like Uncle Henry and alcohol only for me is it people? Uncle Henry hit someone with his car when he was really drunk. Now Auntie Anna won't even let alcohol be in the house. At first the police made him go to rehab and made him stop drinking because he couldn't do it on his own but eventually he… I don't know. He could choose to not drink mostly on his own but he'll probably always want to but he goes to meetings and things."

"That's a good connection," prompted Rosalie. "People are to vampires like alcohol is to an alcoholic. My name is Rosalie. I won't tell you it's nice to meet you or that I'm happy to meet you. I'm sure you want your family back. I miss the people that are missing from my family."

"Shit, Rose can everyone stop saying people?" Emmett exclaimed. The situation was uncomfortable and everyone was mentally exhausted by grief and near stranger visitors in tears come to pay their respects. There'd been a huge turn out from Renesmee's school.

"Anyway," continued Rosalie. "I am glad to have you with us and not dead."

"Wonderfully warm welcome Rose," spoke Jasper rolling his eyes. He was still sitting by the door to the study where he'd been since just before Nora woke. "I'm Jasper by the way. I'm sorry about everything that happened and hopefully we can be friends. That's Esme, I think I better just warn you she's decided since her children's blood turned you into a vampire, that makes her your grandmother. She's determined to love you to bits and pieces. Carlisle or Doctor Cullen as you know him kind of feels the same way but he's scared you won't like him."

Nora was listening. It was a very strange situation after all.

"Sometimes vampires have special abilities. I'm like a science fiction empath with the ability to sense and manipulate emotions. Here, I'll tell you an empath joke."

Nora laughed suddenly then quickly sobered. "Hey, that wasn't, there was no joke. I didn't think anything was funny but it felt like something was funny."

"You could tell it wasn't your feelings right?" Jasper clarified. "I can make other people feel things but it's obvious it's me if you know I can do it. I don't want you to be scared of me but I thought it was important you really know there are people here interested in caring for you like family."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that but the big guy is right. People, people, people, people. We can stop using the word now. I get it, humans are people, vampires are people too." Nora answered, starting to sound annoyed.

"Emmett, my name's Emmett, not the big guy. Hey, how are you doing?"

"I'm Alice," piped up the only vampire as yet un-introduced.

Nora huffed a long suffering sigh then turned back to me. "Doctor Cullen, you said something about food?"

She looked like she was feeling terribly uncomfortable and didn't know quite where to look. She turned back to Emmett. "I'm hungry, that's how I'm doing Em-ster." She finger gunned him with a pasted on fake awkward smile, "I'm going eat me some forest broccoli. Apparently racoons taste horrible but are still good for you. Am I going to have to chew them up fur and all and suck on them or oh man. Gross times."

"Don't think about it," advised Alice. "Your body will let you know what to do." Alice led Nora down to the garage. "Normally we don't hunt for captive animals but since this is your very first time it seemed this might feel less overwhelming." Alice opened the door to the garage which had been padlocked shut to keep funeral guests out.

Nora just stood in the doorway for a moment looking unsure until one of the racoons started growling at her.

She pounced and from there it was a horror of mayhem, blood, flying animal parts, bits of brain and bone. She didn't stop, didn't pause until the last racoon was dead. She was completely feral and ferocious.

Jasper was panting and his eyes had gone black. He held himself up against the wall.

There had been far more racoons then she could possibly need to satiate the hunger, the thirst. It had been a controlled test.

When it was over she sat on the floor licking the blood from her hands. No film theatrical effect could have done more to emphasise the monstrosity. Alice had dressed Nora in a pretty little dress with frills. The flowered dress and the girl were covered in blood and viscera. It was streaked through her hair and soaked into her socks.

Jasper kept shaking his head in denial.

Esme hid her head against me silently near sobbing.

Alice silently reached out to hold Jasper's hand.

"No." spoke Rosalie in denial looking at her family's horror. "No!"