Rapunzel
It's all falling apart now. Ephraim's grandson called Carlisle at the hospital this morning.
Dusk is near as we pass through the woods. All the grays and blacks and greens. They are familiar to us now, after two years. Not the same as the patchwork of logged out land and decimated wilderness of '36, but known to us again, in a layer of new trees and new memories.
The Quileutes were not happy to see us when we returned to this part of the world. They were not happy to see their grandfathers' ghost stories standing in front of them. They even harbored an irrational fear that our presence in Forks would somehow draw others of our kind to come.
I should be hunting. I miss Isabella. I can hardly think of anything else. I am exiled, now, from her bedroom. Since giving me back my journal, and her scrapbook with it, she has taken to sleeping in the rocking chair. How can this be good for her? All doubled up in that hardwood embrace, wrapped in those thin quilts, too close to the drafty window, even with the radiator just beneath it. I want to slip in and return her to the bed where she belongs, but I can't. She will know. If she doesn't already. What does she know? Trapped outside the glass, I spend my nights wondering.
She went to the reservation yesterday with her school friends. This morning William Black has called Carlisle to summon us to the border. None of us thinks this is a coincidence. Since our 'reunion' with them, the tribe had ignored us completely, and we had kept well away from La Push. Until now.
We approach the line between their territory and ours. The place where the treaty was first set down, not on paper, but in smoke and gifts and food. The meat for them, the blood for us. The clearing is long-since overgrown, the fire pit covered in wet ferns and a mossy, rotting log.
We approach at human speed. Jasper is holding us calm, to balance our hair-trigger vigilance. The Quileutes are already there, of course. Chief Black is seated on a litter, a blanket covering his legs – both the whole one and the stump. His cohort – Harry Clearwater, Quil Ateara, Kevin Littlesea and Joshua Uley – bear him in the air stoically. They wear jeans and flannel shirts, and jackets that have seen better days. They look like lumberjacks, or hunters, but with darker skin. The new young men of the tribe stand in a semi-circle around them, slender and sharp.
Our family comes to a halt at a careful distance. I hear Esme's thoughts. How these are the only human people who know us, who remember us, from one generation to the next. Her sudden swell of emotion leaks through Jasper to all of us, a sadness, almost a longing, as she searches the faces before us for the faces of the dead. Now I can't help wondering how many times we will return here; and what will it be like, as this tiny tribe's generations roll on through time? Will there come a time when they are no longer here? And at that, I know I can never come back here again, because Bella will not be here. The thought almost cripples me, and I have to force myself to stand still without moving a muscle.
Jasper's mind flickers to me. Mind yourself! He makes a point of reading and showing us the Quileutes' temper – suspicion, hostility, anger. Pride. I scan their minds. I see the dark inside of a makeshift lodge, smell cedar smoke. There is quiet talking in their language, which I should have taken the trouble to learn. It's about the bear. They don't believe it is an animal. An old man sings. The young men are putting on skins.
Now I see the dark pelt that Chief Black has draped casually over one shoulder. One could almost not notice it there; the flattened face and ears are obscured in his lap. He has come in full regalia. I relay everything to my family in our quick, off-pitched speech. The wolves catch it, but cannot make out our words.
"We will all speak openly here, Edward," Carlisle rebukes. For everyone's benefit.
If this were a declaration of war, he would wear the wolf head over his own. Let us not give cause where none is offered.
William Black speaks.
"White folks are saying there's a rogue bear in these parts."
Carlisle answers.
"We've heard the reports."
I see our family through the eyes of these Others. Pale as ghosts. More still than the trees. We are unnatural in this place, dead things in their living world. I hate them for thinking this of my family and me.
Clearwater's eyes flicker up at the crow that glides above, briefly visible between the treetops.
"Have you seen anything?" Black asks.
Carlisle replies cautiously. "We don't usually interfere, but … three deaths. We have begun looking."
"Dogs won't track it."
It's an accusation. I hear it in his thoughts. Jasper feels it. We all know it.
"The conditions have not been favorable for scent," Carlisle points out evenly. There's no denying it. The security guard's body had been out in a soaking sleet for hours. The girl … had not even all been in one place, and the trail had been cold for weeks in any case. The groundskeeper's remains had been found under the thin ice of the lake.
"Bears usually hang around if there's still meat on the bones. Sometimes cache up. This one's just killing and running."
"Chief Black. You can see our good faith in our eyes."
"Bring us the head and the claws and the pelt, then." A challenge. To prove that it is only an animal. "We'll know if it's the one."
"So will we."
Black eyes Carlisle, and all of us, with a stony regard. We know we have been dismissed. It rankles. None of us are accustomed to being treated this way. I have to fight hard not to see them as their ancestors were seen, captured unwillingly in the lenses of the first photographers, clad in trade blankets and skins, appearing to settler eyes as scraggly savages pushed almost to the sea.
We take our leave, backing away for several steps before turning to go.
"Old man!"
Carlisle turns back.
"I know where your son goes at night."
None of us moves a muscle. The eyesight of the entire group of natives fills my mind. The forest is shrouded in deep twilight. Its trees surround us all. In these aboriginals' vision they stand and whisper like relatives. My family and I look like pale spikes of stone in their midst. Unseen, the crow calls from far away. Others answer.
"As do I, Chief Black."
"The treaty stands."
"We have always upheld it and always will."
"That girl is family. We're watching."
"Her father is also my friend. None of us will allow harm to come to her." What is true now is all that matters, all that we will ever say to them.
"Your boy – "
"Put himself and all of us at great risk for her sake."
No one speaks for a long time. In the end, Black allows, "I can't deny that." He looks at me. "But you've got no business with her. She's not your people."
Perhaps it is Jasper, perhaps it is this place – I can almost feel Esme's spirit, like real arms, embracing me.
Black raises his right hand. "We have spoken."
And then it is their band that melts into the darkness, too subtly even for our vampire eyes to follow.
I've had a bad day. Actually, I've had a bad week. Jessica is right. Edward does stare at me in Biology. I never catch him at it of course, but that's because I never turn to look at him. But I can feel his eye-beams boring into the back of my skull.
I should get home, because I have a lot of homework, but I don't want to do it yet. Instead I'm driving around kind of randomly. I realize I'm heading out on 110 toward La Push, and I don't want to go there. I didn't get any answers there at all.
I take a turn off the main road, probably not a good idea, because now I'm going to get lost, but I just need to get to a quiet place somewhere. The days are getting longer now; I have time. Before I know it, the road's not paved any more. It winds on and on and I figure if I don't turn off of it I'll be able to find my way back.
The road makes a long, lazy turn to the left, and there I see it, out through the trees. A windswept bluff, overlooking the ocean.
The track had been getting fainter and fainter all along. It's pretty much petered out here by the edge of the trees. I drive the truck just a little bit further. Out to where it's just grass and gravel, all mixed up with tangles of wild blackberry.
I park where I am, and get out. It's still a long walk to the end of the bluff. There's no one here but me and my monster. My refuge. With the good luck grass, and the warm inside.
The colors all around are dark – the pines behind me, the rocks … and always the clouds. The truck really does sit all red against it; but faded in real life, like bleached out bones.
"Hi, Uncle Billy", I whisper. "Just coming to pay my respects."
The wind whistles around the bluff pretty sharp, and cold, too. It'll probably rain in a little while.
I want to get closer to the edge of the cliff, because I see something out to sea. Not orcas. Something even more miraculous. Something I haven't seen since I came to Forks.
The sun.
Way out there, there's a hole in the sky. And a bar of sunlight shining down through it, onto the water, making it sparkle like a million diamonds. Maybe it's warm out there. Maybe the orcas have come up to play under that sunlight, just under the surface of the water. Who can say?
I don't have any shell, and nothing to burn in it if I did, no raven's wing to send the smoke out to the light. But I have feet. And they're walking me right out to the edge. With the wind blowing in my hair, making it stray outward, like smoke. And filling my jacket, like a sail.
The wind makes sound. Away behind me, up in the tops of the trees. It speaks to me more than people do.
My Dad tries. I know he does.
"How was your day, kid?"
What can I tell him? That I'm just skimming along on the surface? Like an ice-skater on my life? He doesn't hound me. He knows I'm leaving soon. A year and some. Again. I know it, too. Skimming. Like a rock skipped out over the ocean.
"Lauren got her prom dress already. Can you believe it? She went online."
"She's still standing by Tyler even after he got his face all chewed up in the wreck. I never thought she'd do that."
"Ah, he'll be fine. Not like he broke his nose or something. Now that he's got the stitches out it'll all fade."
"Yeah, but still."
"So Angela, hot stuff, Eric finally stepped up!"
Her shy smile.
"Yeah, after SHE asked HIM!"
Her face falls. Did I give her the wrong advice? Will she still be my friend after prom? At graduation? Afterwards … ?
Another goodbye. Too old for friendship bracelets, now.
The wind sighs, sharp and cold, bringing the resin and pine-needle smell from the trees. It's blowing out to sea. Reminding me of the scent that haunts my room now. It's Edward's smell. I know it is. I smelled it when he came to my hospital room, the day of 'the wreck'. When I was standing that close to him, grabbing his shoulders and trying to kick him in the shins for lying to me. Why does he have to lie?
Why does he have to leave his scent all over my Grandma's old rocking chair?
Why do I have to sit in it night after night? Balled up in the quilts – which smelled like him too, until they faded. Pretending it's his chest that I'm curled up against, and not the hard wooden rungs of the chair back. His arms, not the chair arms, holding me together.
I don't understand. If he cares, then why won't he ever talk to me? If he doesn't care, then why save me? Why risk showing himself like that?
And I still don't know what it is that he showed me that day. Super speed. Super strength. Eyes that change from black to amber, and sometimes back to black again.
Cool, sweet breath on my face.
And secrets and lies. Sneaking into my bedroom – when I'm not there? When I AM there? But I can never catch him. He's worse than Santa Claus. Presents and all.
Jacob won't tell me anything either. Even though he knows. I'm sure he does. The closest thing to the little brother I never had. As much as said I'm no sister of his. Even while he's holding me tight.
"Steer clear of him, Bella. Not everything that's pretty is good."
The wind pulls past me and my eyes follow, out to the tiny circle of sunlight. Sparkling. Dancing. Like joy on the water. With orcas underneath.
I stretch out my arms and ask.
Come, wind, blow
Blow me away
Like smoke
Let me grow thin
and blow away
Like smoke upon the wind.
A/N: Gratitude as always to my beta, averysubtlegift. And to you who come to read.