Valentine

It's Valentine's Day already. Tyler is back in school. His face looks a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle, but the stitches are all out, and the doctors are saying the scars will hardly be visible after a year. The kids say it was Dr. Cullen who sewed him up.

I saw that Lauren got a single red rose in her locker this morning. It's from Tyler, of course. It's all curled up in a bud, but the stem is in a little bulb of water. Over the next few days it will gradually open for her. That's a really meaningful gift. She tries to blow it off with her tough-girl attitude, but I bet she's happy inside.

Jessica got a box of chocolates from Mike. He's taking her to the dance this Saturday, and she's ecstatic. She let me choose first when she shared all the chocolate around in advisory. She fed one to Mike with her hand, which made him pretty happy, too.

My locker is empty, except for my books and parka.

I had thought of slipping a card into Edward's locker, to at least thank him for the journal or something, but I chickened out. I need to give him something, though, I just haven't figured out what. Maybe … maybe the scrapbook. I've been making it for myself, but … maybe he might like it, maybe even want to keep it. I would like that, even more than keeping it for myself.

The cafeteria is serving cupcakes with pink icing and red-hot cinnamon hearts on top.

People have stopped talking about the dead girl.

They're talking about Jasper instead.

He's been gone a week, now. It's a big deal, especially since Emmett was gone too until yesterday. And then there was Edward's week-plus absence after my awful first day. I guess none of the Cullen kids were ever absent for so many days in a row before, especially since the weather has just been its old, cloudy drizzly self all along. The teachers aren't saying anything, but the kids sure are.

About how the Cullens are falling apart. How you can't keep a bunch of reject foster kids together in a family for long. How they're bound to have problems and issues, and they probably had to move here from Alaska because the kids got into trouble there, too.

I don't know why everyone likes to talk about this, even more than the snowboarder girl. She was old news in two days. Maybe because she's dead and that's that. With the Cullens, nobody knows for real what is going on, so everyone has a theory.

Jessica is telling everybody that Jasper got Alice pregnant and Dr. Cullen had to give her an abortion and Jasper got sent away to reform school. That doesn't really explain why Emmett was absent, though.

Brendan says Dr. Cullen is secretly performing experiments on the kids, and the Emmett who came back is a clone. Shelley hits him for that, because she doesn't want anyone bad-mouthing Dr. Cullen. But he's pretty pleased, because she used to ignore him completely.

It feels like the first day of school all over again. Or when Edward was absent. I don't want to even ask questions. I just keep my head down and eat.

Angela nudges me. "You okay?"

"I'm good."

"There has to be a good reason. Not this bunko stuff everyone is saying."

Thank you, Angela.

She's talking in a normal voice, but very softly. Whispering would just get everyone's attention.

"Maybe Jasper had to go and get an operation. You know, for his heart."

I glance over to their table – still off in a corner by the windows. And still no one sitting there except them. They still look like a picture, but with a piece missing. Again.

"Emmett probably went to keep him company, so he wouldn't be alone when he came out of surgery."

I wonder why Dr. Cullen didn't operate on him. Maybe he can't. His own kid. Even if only adopted. Who could do that? Open heart surgery. They use this round saw like in a lumber mill, only small enough for a human body. They saw through your breastbone and crack your whole chest wide open. My mom used to watch weird stuff like that on T.V. I didn't want to be alone in my room so I watched it with her.

I wonder if that's what happened to Jasper. Why didn't Alice go to stay with him, then? Why Emmett?

I glance at their table again. Alice looks really sad and worried. She closes her eyes a lot. Does that mean Jasper's not doing well? Rosalie just looks angry. Rosalie pretty much always looks angry. But ever since Jasper's been absent, she's taken anger face to a whole new level. Maybe being angry feels better than being scared. Jasper is her real brother. Maybe the only family she has.

The day just drags and drags. I see Mike with his arm slung over Jessica's shoulders the whole time. Would that have been me if I had said yes when he asked me to the dance? Jessica is still saying that Edward stares at me. I never see it. I'm beginning to think she made it up all along.

And then I remember everything that is hidden in my bed.

His arms around me, and the shower of broken glass.

I don't know. I don't know anything any more. I don't even know if he likes girls. He doesn't look at me. He doesn't speak to me. But he has put strange things on my porch, and on my bookshelf. And my grandma's rocking chair still smells like him. What is it that is between us then? Is it nothing? Or is it the love of angels, which exists only in the spirit? And does it make me happy? Or does it make me sad? Today, on Valentine's Day.

After school I go into town to do some shopping. We had some really good lasagna at the diner last week and I want to see if I can make it myself. As I'm wandering through the aisles wondering which ricotta is better, whole milk or skim, I realize there is something else I want to do.

I don't really know where the churches are in town. My dad doesn't really go to church. He goes fishing instead. I only remember there is a Catholic church, not far from the hospital. I head out that way, after all the groceries are stowed on the seat next to me.

Passing a patch of trees, I hit a pothole with an unholy CLUNK. This is not good. I have to keep this truck in good shape for Jacob. It's my red monster, and my responsibility, until it's time to give it back.

I pull over and get out to check the wheels and undercarriage. I don't see anything obvious. I don't remember any potholes in this part of the road before, but with all the rain and ice, I guess that could change. The tarp is rumpled and covering the truck bed. I get back inside and start up again, listening and feeling for anything wrong as I roll forward back onto the road. The engine rumbles like always; the shocks are bouncy-stiff like always; the steering feels fine. I think I'm safe.

After a few wrong turns I find St. Ann's Catholic church. Forks is not just a small town, it's kind of a poor town. The church is small and built in a weird, boxy shape with a concrete apron in front, vertical vinyl clapboards all in white, and big black doors. I don't see any stained glass anywhere. There is not a soul in sight, although there are one or two cars in the parking lot. My truck looks like a red behemoth beside them.

The shopping had taken longer than I expected and it's already almost dusk. It's going to be dark by the time I'm done here. I suddenly worry, what if the doors are locked? It's a Wednesday. Do they even open on a Wednesday?

The big black door is heavy, but it isn't locked, and so I go in. Inside is dim, with most of the light coming from the windows behind the choir balcony. The walls are painted white, and it looks almost more like a meeting hall than a church. But there's an altar in front, and over on the side I find what I'm looking for: a little table with a rack for candles, and a small crucifix on the wall above it.

For a minute I panic and think I should have brought my own candle, but then I see the little tray of votives beside the rack. I don't really know how to do this, but I'm committed, now, and so I look for some place to leave an offering. There's a wooden box with a slit in the top. I put a dollar in. I see there is a Bic lighter on the table there. The candle rack looks very forlorn. All the other candles on it are long ago burned out. The one that I am lighting will be all alone. I put it in the middle of the rack, and then I get down on my knees.

I cross myself, though I'm not sure I've ever done it before, and put my hands together. The lone flame of the candle wavers. It's very beautiful and golden in the dimness. Above is the holy tree, and the one who sacrificed himself.

I talk to God in the flame and on the tree.

Please take care of Jasper. Hold him like you hold the sparrows.

Please take care of Alice and Rosalie, too. Don't let them be afraid or alone.

I close my eyes and breathe, and ask for God to be close to the Cullens, and to everyone in need.

It's peaceful here, and I let myself stay for a little while. Then it's time to say thank you, and amen.

I pick myself up, and out of the corner of my eye I think I see a flash of shadow. A sound, like a breath of wind. I look behind me, to where the doors are. Nothing. No sound, either.

"Hello?"

No answer.

Was it the pastor? Or just a trick of the light.

It's dark outside now, like I knew it would be. I smell incense, like roses and some kind of spice, as I walk through the door.

Hurricane Ridge. Again. It's Rosalie's idea this time.

"You need to hunt," she hisses, as we walk from our last class out to the parking lot. "Look at you."

And I see my coal-black irises both through her sight and reflected from her corneas. I've been hunting far more frequently than any of my family members, but with Isabella in school every day, and me haunting her bedroom every night, I am in a state of perpetual thirst.

"You're a danger to all of us like this."

Rosalie is right. But I cannot stay away from Bella.

Alice has been searching piteously for a future in which Jasper returns to her. I don't believe anything that she has seen, and I don't think she does either. It all looks too much like wishful thinking. I tell her not to try so hard, to let it come by itself, though God knows I wish as hard as she does for his return and reconciliation.

With Jasper's whereabouts unknown, I have been … uneasy.

I shadow and track Bella all day through the eyes of her classmates, grasp at stray glimpses of that red truck in townspeople's eyes when she is in transit, suffer through the time when I must leave her alone to hunt, and finally stake vigil at her window each night. She has been staying up inordinately late these evenings, poring over my old journal. So long as her light is on, I am kept at bay in the tree outside, barely daring to peek around from time to time. Though I cannot see what page she reads, just the knowing that my journal is in her hands, under her eyes, makes my insides shiver and ache. It's almost worse than the thirst.

When her light goes out, I wait for her breathing to settle into the rhythms of sleep, and then, wretched creature that I am, I creep in at the window and take my place in the rocking chair. There is no pretense of protecting her, then. In such close proximity, surrounded by her scent and her breath and her heartbeat, I am the greatest danger to her. And yet I cannot help myself. I cannot leave until the sky begins to lighten, until her father begins to stir. It's insane and it's dangerous. And I do it every night.

Today my siblings have corralled me into a group expedition. I see in their minds how disturbed they are by my behavior these weeks. That is all that I see whenever I am with my family. I have become their problem child. Do they wonder that I spend all my time away, haunting Bella? And yet, isn't that very action the source of all their worried thoughts?

There are only four of us, and so we all crowd into Emmett's jeep. No way am I taking my Volvo on that road if I don't have to. We have to keep the canopy on, since it is far too cold still for humans to drive with open top. The morass of everyone's thoughts under the closed space is stifling.

Alice's eyes are closed. She is searching again for her reunion with Jasper. I am not the only one who is obsessed. That fact is no comfort to me at all.

Piece by piece, yet another variation of the scene forms in Alice's head, built by her desire.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean – "

"Shhh, shhhhh, hush you now, it's all right. I can feel, remember? You'd never wish me harm; I know that. You're not her."

She climbs into his lap and clings to him. He rocks her. "My little blackbird. You're just a little greedy, is all. Wantin' another sister." He smiles his long, slow smile and brushes her hair back so he can kiss her temple.

The intimacy embarrasses me, small though it is. And yet I feel such a pang of longing.

"I can't blame you," he murmurs, lips against her skin. "It's in all of our natures to be greedy."

"She's going to love you, too, Jasper. I've seen it. She's going to love all of us, not just Edward. She's a nice girl."

"She's human, Alice."

"I know."

"You're just playin' with fire. You and Edward both."

The light of her inner sight gutters. We both know that what she has seen is far more wish than vision.

I'm sorry, Edward. I'm so sorry. I didn't know what to do. I had to stop him. I couldn't let him do what I saw … I had to do something.

I close my eyes, too. I don't want to answer her. I don't want to be overheard; and really, what is there to say? She goes back forlornly to her visioning, and I can't help but wonder if she isn't trying to create the future out of her wishes, and place it like a lodestone out in the ether, to pull us all toward it. Is that even possible? And if it is, what does it mean about all our destinies? Do we all do that to ourselves, as Rudolf Steiner thought?

The trees whiz past even in the steeply rising switchbacks as we approach our goal. Emmett is not sparing the horses at all, and he is relying on me to warn if there is any approach of the law. His mind is on Jasper, too, as he drives: how he saw the lay of Jasper's trail and made a guess; how he ran and swam straight across from Bremerton to Redmond, then cast out eastward, back and forth, back and forth, in ever-widening arcs, until he'd finally caught up with Jasper in the wilds of the Wenatchee.

Jasper had been surprised to see him, but not displeased.

"I ain't got no talent, but I got dog sense."

They both had chuckled at that, then sat and parlayed for a while.

"I'm heading up Canada way," Jasper says. "Hear there's a park up there named after me." The corner of his mouth lifts in a wry smile. "They say the elk up there are fat."

"How long you reckon you'll stay?"

"Long enough, I 'spect."

"Your girl is pinin' fer ya."

"I know."

And then he's gone. So fast that the air nearly pops with his passing. A trail of swirled snow follows his path.

I see Emmett's memory of himself turning back for home. He believes Jasper. I am not so sure.

Already we have left the jeep far behind. The terrain is different today than it was on our last hunt here. The snow is denser and wetter. Thick ice glazes portions that have been lit by sun during the day. We course just below the ridgeline, senses spread for sheep or mule deer or elk or anything else that might cross our path, and all I can think of is finishing this as quickly as possible and getting back to Bella. I hate being this far away, this far out of range. Suspended between Emmett's memory and Alice's vision, I feel fear gnawing and twisting inside my thirst … and the memory of her scent.

Only Rosalie's mind is focused on the hunt itself, and it is she who spies the sheep herd first. They are downwind of us, on the slope below. As soon as our gaze touches them, they bleat and run in panic. I recognize them. It is the same group we had walked down a month ago. Their luck has ended today. We are among them in seconds, bringing them down two apiece, crippling, biting, drinking. Killing.

I have set my mouth into the second ewe when I see it: a real vision, bursting and blossoming in Alice's mind as she gulps the blood from her ram's heaving neck.

It's Jasper.

He is leaping into the bed of Bella's truck, as she passes a patch of trees. The movement is too fast for any human eye to see, but sound and jostling at his impact are inevitable.

"Alice!"

I've already jumped off of my sheep and onto her. Rosalie and Emmett are quick to grapple me to the ground. The vision spools out before Alice's eyes and mine.

Jasper conceals himself under a tarp on the truck bed, as Bella pulls over to stop. He lulls and dulls her concern as she inspects the wheels and the back, so that she notices nothing amiss in the shape of the wet canvas that covers him.

When? When? Is this today? Tomorrow? A week from now? Frantically I analyze the light angles in the scene. If it is today it is only minutes away from beginning.

"He's in town! He's hunting her!"

"No!" Alice curls into a ball and blanks her mind.

I fight my way back onto her. "Show me!"

"Don't force me to see!"

Images leak.

St. Ann's church, by the hospital. Bella disappearing inside. Jasper slipping in behind her.

I have to get to her.

"Stop him!" Alice screams, as everything is obliterated by Jasper and me locked in deadly combat, the screeching sound of limbs tearing, the sickly scent of venom pouring from sundered flesh, humans drawn to the noise, Jasper's head rolling down two shallow cement steps.

Alice wails and wraps herself around my legs; Rosalie and Emmett pile on with her. No matter how I fight and squirm and bite they curl me into their clutches. I drag them a mile and a half before they find the holds that immobilize me completely. Rosalie and Emmett are cursing. Alice is sobbing. I twist with all my strength under the bodies that pin me, but all I can do is grind my own face into the corn sugar snow.

The vision of me killing Jasper flickers out. Instead I see him snatch Bella as she walks out through the big black door of the church.

He wants no suffering for her, remembers what Alice had seen before, and so gives her a single blow with the back of his fist to her forehead. It is night already. No one sees him drive away in her truck. She lies across his lap. Two bags of groceries have spilled out on the passenger side floor.

"Let me go! Let me go!" Three vampires, only three, are enough to render me helpless.

Alice is weeping in horrible dry heaves. Suddenly a vision of Jasper returning to her flashes in perfect tableau. "Please, please!" she gasps.

This is no wish or dream. This is truth, stark and clear, as she flies to him and holds him tight. The other vision, of Bella's death, overlaps.

Jasper has a greater horror of fire than any of us, and so, though the gas tank is indeed full and would burn all evidence to cinders, he drives to the coast instead.

"Let me go! Please! Let me go!" I'm begging, now. What else can I do?

Alice can barely say the word, "No."

Rosalie and Emmett obey her grimly. "It's fer the best. It's got to be; you'll see."

They both know what Alice is doing. She is putting Jasper above Bella. Bartering Bella's life to bring her mate back. Having killed Bella he will return. He owes Carlisle that, at least. And then he will learn what Alice did. And the rift between them will be healed. The vision of his return strengthens, brightens, settles into fact with every second that they hold me down.

He is filled with sorrow and chagrin as he holds Alice to him. "Oh my darling, what I cost you! All for my foolish pride."

"It's all right," she answers.

"You brought me to this family. I have to keep them safe, keep you safe …"

"I know."

Intertwined with Jasper's return is the sacrifice.

The bruise from Bella's crushed forehead is spreading down her face. Though her higher functions are gone, her heart still beats. The scent of her blood leaks thickly through the battered skin. Jasper curses it, curses me for all the single-minded lust he has absorbed from me, and which now, with her blood in his nostrils, he can no longer endure. He cradles her up against his chest.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Bella."

The skin of her throat opens beneath his teeth.

Alice's mind reels in my head at this sight, but her whole body clamps around me with desperate strength.

I'm sorry Edward! We need Jasper. We need him. I need him …

The vision is flickering erratically – as happens when the present catches up to the future.

Isabella's body is wrapped in the canvas tarp. Jasper whirls the bundle like a hammer-throw, and sends her sailing far, far, far out to sea.

There are orca in these waters. The mark of his bite will be obliterated.

He pushes the red truck through the guardrail and over the cliff to the tide below.

It's over. There is nothing now. Only the four of us tangled in a knot. My vision goes black. As if at a very great distance I hear Alice tell the others to let me up. She sees me running. Running south and east. Running away.

But not yet. I lie where they had held me.

"What now?" Rosalie asks.

"We need to scatter the carcasses." Eight dead sheep in one place is too much to chance being found, and too much for wolves or other scavengers to dispose of quickly. Even the rogue bear would not eat that much in one feeding. There are tracks to obscure, as well.

I haven't moved, and all of them are worried. Though Rosalie and Emmett have not seen as Alice and I have, they know well enough what has happened. Emmett kneels and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Edward, git up and come with us."

"Don't touch me!" I roar, springing to a crouch. "All of you! Leave me alone!"

They step back. Alice is shaking. Their minds are bare to me, and never have I wished so much that I did not have this gift.

"None of us feel good about this, Edward," Rosalie scolds. "You know that. None of us had any quarrel with her. It's just shit luck. The whole thing is shit luck from start to finish." Her voice and face soften. "But you have to go on. We all just have to go on."

"Just leave me alone."

They look to Alice. She nods. They gather the dead sheep and skim away over the snow.

"Come home when you're done, Edward."

Their voices echo behind them.

"Come home."

"Come home."

I'm alone. Night fell as they were holding me down. A thin veil of cloud shimmers above, reflecting the white and red ground.

I run.