The Blessing Way

It doesn't rain all day. Around noon it almost looks like the sun will come out. It never does, but for a little while the clouds are lighter than I've seen them since I got to Forks. Uncle Billy and Jacob are here at the house. Jacob and I are washing and waxing the truck together, while Uncle Billy and Dad talk and watch T.V., and wait for the fish they caught to marinate. It's much nicer to take care of the truck with Jacob than alone. Even if he does pretend like he's going to spray me with water from the hose. He doesn't though. It's still way too cold for that.

I watch my hands holding the cloth, making circles of streaky white on the faded red skin of my monster. It looks like mist, swirling in spirals, or one of those circle labyrinths they have in monasteries. I think of Uncle Billy doing the blessing. I see it in my mind the way I imagined it … the high place looking out over water, the dark trees and the truck bright red, the abalone shell with something burning and making a good smell.

The raven's wing sweeps the swirls of smoke. Wax on.

The wind carries it away. Wax off.

"Earth to Bella."

I startle. Jacob is right beside me. His cloth is almost touching mine. "Hey," he says.

"What?"

"You been waxing that fender for the past five minutes."

"I have not!"

"Well, three, anyway."

"You've been timing me? Where's your watch?"

"Hey! Hands off the goods!" And he runs around the other side of the truck. I am so not going to be bested by him. I throw the cloth on the hood of the truck and pick up the hose.

"I'm going to spray you with water, Jacob Black." I think of the mud pies. Now it's car wax and water we're getting all over ourselves. He dodges and weaves, ducks behind the fenders, and soon the truck is dripping, the tarp in the back is all rumpled and soaked, and I somehow manage to get myself wet, too, but Jacob is pretty much untouched. Stupid boy. But we're both laughing, and I'm happy.

I'm happy.

It feels nice.

All of a sudden he comes up behind me and takes the hose away. "C'mon, Bella, you need to get changed now, it's freezing out here."

I look at the truck – half of it still whitewashed in stubborn wax circles, half if it sort of shining. No rust anywhere. "I got this," Jacob says. And that's when I know, I know, that this was supposed to be his truck. But then I came back from Phoenix. And Uncle Billy gave it to me. Why?

I make a promise to myself, to give the truck back to Jacob when I leave Forks. It won't be that long, after all, a year and a half. When I graduate. Jacob will be just about legal to drive it on his own by then. It'll be all right. It'll be perfect, actually. I just have to take really good care of it in the mean time.

I run my hand along the cab door, right where I almost lost my life. Almost blessed the truck with my blood. My hand is on the cold metal; and Edward's arms around me, and the warm inside of my monster, are all mixed up in my mind. The feeling washes over me. I'm attached. I can't help it. It's going to hurt when I leave. Again.

"Hey, you smell that? Our dads are cooking!" Jacob's smile is a mile wide. "I can't wait! I'm starving. Hurry up and change, Bella."

"Okay."

I come downstairs in dry clothes, and Jacob comes inside, just as my dad is plating up the fish. It's steelhead, the four-pounder. There's another one, almost six pounds, sitting in the ice chest, that Uncle Billy's going to take home and jerk. We'll get some of that in a couple of weeks. Tonight's meal is strip filets in lemon butter, with garlic and parsley, Worcestershire, and a dash of Tabasco, all wrapped in tin foil and broiled up just right.

I'd begged off the fishing trip at five o'clock this morning, told my dad I had some craft things I wanted to get in town. I really did have to get those things, even though it's not exactly for school. But Dad didn't ask, and I sure can't tell, so it's all right. Right now my mouth is just watering like crazy for the fish. I make sure we all have water (or beer for the grown-ups), and we go into the den to eat.

Dad says a nice grace tonight, and I'm glad, because this fish died just a few hours ago so we could eat it. I always wonder if some of the soul might still be hanging around in the flesh when we strip it off the bones and throw it on the fire. There's no way to know, I guess, but it's always good to say thank you.

"Jacob!" Uncle Billy's looking over at his son pretty sternly. "Wash your hands before you eat."

"Oops." Jacob runs up the stairs to the bathroom. He plunks himself down on the floor next to me when he comes back and starts tucking into the fish. Pretty much the only noise in the room is the Sonics game on the flat screen – that and a lot of chewing and grunting. Even me.

After a little while, Jacob stops to get his second wind, and leans over to me and whispers, "Your bedroom smells funny." I try not to choke or panic or do anything obvious. For the first time I realize what a huge guilty conscience I've got, hiding Edward's journal and all the secrets it represents under my mattress in my room.

Jacob couldn't have smelled Edward just in the air of my room, could he?

I still smell Edward, just barely, in my pillow and quilts, in the journal, too, of course, and, strangely, in my grandma's rocking chair. Still.

But not in the air.

I need to cover up, and fast, so I whisper back, "What the hell were you doing in my room, Jacob?"

"I didn't go in. Jeez, Bella, what kind of guy do you think I am? But that girly smell is all the way out in the hall."

What does he mean, girly smell? I'm not on my period. But at least it's not Edward smell. Edward and his secrets are safe. I duck my head down and shovel more fish into my mouth, and hope Jacob means my shampoo or something, and not some kind of weird body odor. "Well, I am a girl, you know." Sometimes the best defense is a strong offense.

Jacob just shakes his head. "You should really think about changing your bath products. I'm just saying."

Uncle Billy is looking at us hard, and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. It's a horrible thing to think, but right now I am glad, so glad, that he is in a wheelchair, and can't get up the stairs. I pretend like I don't feel him staring, and just finish up my plate. I even grab another dinner roll to wipe up all the juice. Jacob is completely oblivious. I'd say he packs away half of that fish all by himself.

It's a lazy kind of a day, and after clearing we all settle back in the den. Jacob and I play checkers on the floor. That's our thing, now. Along with waxing the truck. Out of the corner of my ear, I hear Uncle Billy and my dad talking low, their voices weaving in and out with the sports announcer and the crowd roaring for the 3-point play.

" … Cullen boys've gone missing."

What? How does Uncle Billy know?

"C'mon, Billy, even Carlisle's kids are allowed to get sick once in a while. And they've all got medical issues to begin with, you know that."

Jasper was absent on Thursday. Then he and Emmett both were out of school yesterday. Of course the rumor mill started right up. I try not to listen to that kind of stuff. But why would Uncle Billy care? I don't want to look straight back at him but I'm listening good and hard now.

Uncle Billy just gives a really skeptical sounding "Hmm." I hear him take a swig of his beer. "See if they turn up by Monday," he mutters.

And that's all anybody says about it for the rest of the night.

Jacob and Uncle Billy stay until after dark. It's almost like Uncle Billy is doing it on purpose. He jokes with me like always, brushes my hair with his hand like always, but I wonder why he's hanging around so late. Finally Dad has to shoo them both home. It's completely not legal for Jacob to be driving after dark, and by seven o'clock my dad is sincerely antsy about it.

"C'mon Billy, you're gonna make me look bad, here." Chief of Police and all.

"In for a penny in for a pound, Charlie." Because it's not really legal for Jacob to even be driving at all. Even with his dad in the front seat next to him. Even if his dad had both his legs. Jacob's still a couple of months shy of fifteen.

I watch my dad get Uncle Billy down the steps of our porch, and then into the car. He's careful, and he knows what he's doing. I remember that my mom said they were in the same unit in Iraq, something about Uncle Billy being my dad's C.O. I watch them; watch their faces in the dark. To remember.

After all the goodbyes Dad and I go back inside to clean up. The kitchen is really messy. It's not that the men can't cook, it's just that they don't clean up as they go.

A/N: The Blessing Way:

(via Wikipedia) "The Blessing Way or Hózhójí is one half of the major Diné (Navajo) song ceremonial complexes, the other half being the Enemy Way. The rites and prayers in the Blessing Way are concerned with healing, creation, harmony and peace. The song cycles recount the elaborate Diné mythology related to the rites contained within the Blessing Way.

Perhaps the most important of all these rituals is the Kinaaldá ceremony, in which a young girl makes the transition to womanhood upon her menarche. During the course of the ceremony, the girl enacts the part of Changing Woman (Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé), the deity responsible for fertility entering the world.

Additional information may be found here:

: / / navajopeople dot org / navajo-culture dot htm

The Enemy Way ...

(via Wikipedia) The Enemy Way or Ana'í Ndáá' is one half of the major Diné song ceremonial complexes, the other half being the Blessing Way. The Enemy Way is a traditional ceremony for countering the harmful effects of alien ghosts or chindi, and has been performed for returning military personnel.

The Enemy Way ceremony involves the patient identifying (through chant, sandpainting, and dance) with the powerful mythical figure Monster Slayer. The ceremony lasts three days; on the second morning a mock battle is performed.

Associated with the Enemy Way is a Girl's Dance, to which young men are invited by marriageable women. This derives from an aspect of the Monster Slayer myth, in which two captive girls are liberated.