Carry the News

I've been home for three days. And the weekend, so now it's the end of the fifth day. And it's April Fool's Day, too. I'm grounded. My Dad gave me this big lecture about running off with the Quileute boys and climbing rocks by the ocean; about running off anywhere without telling him where I was going; about doing something like that when I was supposed to be waiting for him at the school library. So I guess I know, now, what Uncle Billy and the men told my Dad. I wonder how they explained the finger marks on my face?

Edward hasn't come yet. Not even to secretly leave medicine on the porch. Not even to sit in my Grandma's rocking chair while I'm sleeping. The wood doesn't smell like him any more. I don't understand. Is it because I brought home quilts from La Push, where he and his family aren't allowed to go? I made sure my Dad took them back to Auntie Sue. Maybe the tribe is watching our house? I never see anyone, but maybe they're still angry at the Cullens for breaking the treaty. I don't understand that either. Edward and Alice were saving my life.

My Dad's been at work a lot. Coming home with a frown on his face and not saying much of anything. I guess it's about the "bear." I wonder if he knows that it will never be found. Alice said they were going to kill "it", now, for real. I don't really want to think about that. I think I can understand why Dr. Cullen didn't want to do it at first. How do you kill something that has the same face as you? I hunch up on my bed and try to think happier thoughts.

My arms are still a little sore where Alice had held me so tightly. So are my back and sides and legs where the tree branches whipped me. But the bruises are getting green and yellow now. I go to the bathroom for the millionth time to look at my face. There's nothing else to do all these days. I still don't look normal, but at least it doesn't look like a handprint.

I want Edward. Why hasn't he come?

Monday morning. I'm sitting in the cruiser with my Dad. He won't let me drive the truck to school. I'm still grounded. At least I've been able to convince him to let me out a little ways from the school. It'll be bad enough showing up on foot. I have my lie all ready to go – I was in a fender bender and face-planted on the steering wheel. Truck is in the shop.

"Bells."

"I'll be at the library, Dad. I promise. I'm not going to go running off again. I learned my lesson."

He sighs, looking straight out the windshield. Just like me.

"I only got one of you, kid. I missed – "

Missed seeing me grow up. I know that. I missed it, too. Missed him. Never understood why Mom didn't.

"Dad, I'm not flighty like that."

I'm really not. It was a one-time thing. But I've just cursed my Mom out big-time. That's not what I meant. I just meant to tell him I'm going to be okay, going to be where he expects me to be.

"I'll be in the library."

"I know. If I can't get there before the school closes I'll send Dave around for you. Just don't get in any cars with anyone else, you hear?"

"I won't."

I want to go now. Edward and his family are probably already there. I want to bust out of the car and run to the school. I want to see Edward's car in its space, away from all the others. I want to get to my locker before the bell rings. I want to sneak my one peek at him when I walk into biology class. And one more when I walk into the cafeteria. When no one's looking. Except him. He'll know. I'm sure he will. I feel him, and his car, pulling at me, tugging at my heart, making my stomach all jumpy and twisty.

"Bella." I feel my Dad turn toward me in his seat. I look at him. His face looks still pretty much the way it did the night after his friend was pulled out of the lake. He's been dealing with this all alone. Somebody he knew since he was a kid. Killed like that. Found like that. I'm a bad daughter.

"Town's full of talk these days."

I can only imagine. I've never actually grown up with anyone for more than a few years at a time. But if I did, and if we were my Dad's age, what would it be like to lose them in such a freakish, horrible way? To see the body. To hear people talk.

"This case won't be closed until I say it is."

A chill runs over me. What will happen if he finds out what really killed Uncle Waylon, and all those others? Words fly on the wind. And bring back teeth. What does that even mean? I don't know. And I can't even tell my Dad to just leave it be, just accept that it was a bear, and maybe that bear was really sick and has died in the woods. I can't say anything.

My Dad's looking at me hard. "Look, Bells, just … don't believe everything you hear, okay? People shootin' their mouths off don't know squat. And my boys know better than to talk while there's an investigation going on. So don't go believing everything you hear."

I think of him and Dr. Cullen in that drizzly night, looking at pieces of a man – waterlogged, bloodless pieces. I wonder what Dr. Cullen said that night, wonder what he's writing in his medical report. I'll probably never know.

"Okay, Dad." I kiss him on the cheek. I don't know what else to do. "Have a good day."

I'm out of the car. I walk until I hear the cruiser gone, then I run.

The sky opens up just as I get to the school. I put up the hood on my parka and run into the building. Edward's Volvo is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Emmett's Jeep. First bell isn't for another ten minutes, and I'm certainly not going to hang around near the doors waiting to catch sight of them. That would be way too obvious.

Just be normal. Just be normal. Like nothing happened. I catch up with Jessica and Mike at her locker before first period. They ask about my face. I tell them my lie. They believe me.

"Does it look really bad?"

"Nah, you can hardly see it."

I know what they're thinking. That I got off way easier than Tyler. I think of Dr. Cullen stitching him up so skillfully, so invisibly. I wonder if he prescribed some kind of magic herb or something to help the skin heal without any lasting scars. Anything seems possible to me now.

Biology is first period, today, and I feel like I'm jumping out of my skin on the way to class. I button myself down as hard as I can, but I am so ready to see Edward. I can barely hear what Jess and Mike are saying because I'm telling myself over and over again, Just go to your seat, don't stare, don't run to the back of the room and throw yourself on him.

But nothing, nothing, can stop my eyes from going straight to Edward's seat as I walk in the door.

It's empty.

I stare too long, in spite of myself.

Stop it. Stop it. Be normal. He has to be normal, too. That means not slipping into his chair until just before the bell – after I'm already in my seat and facing front. That's what he's always done – well, most of the time. Mr. vampire ninja. Lauren is sitting right next to me. I can't sneak any peeks backwards. The class lasts forever and a day. This time it's me who gets up to leave at the first sound of the bell. I make a mess of it, spilling my books on the floor. But I do get a chance to shoot my eyes over to Edward's seat.

It's empty.

It's been empty all class. I know this in my gut. I didn't feel his eyes on me. He didn't come.

Why?

I wonder if I'm going to see his brothers and sisters at the cafeteria without him, just like last time. But why would he do that? It's not like we had a fight or anything.

I wonder if they'll all glare at me like before? Alice wouldn't. Not now. Not after everything that's happened. I think of her careful, tentative hug, how happy she was that I let her braid my hair, the fire that she built to keep me warm. If there's anything going on, she'll tell me. I'm sure she will. Maybe I can find a way to go to her between classes.

I completely fail at paying attention to anything all morning. I'm going to have to get notes from Angela. I just hope to God I looked like I was paying attention. Everything feels weird today. Like people are walking on eggshells around me. Like Jessica is dying to tell me something or ask me something but hasn't found the right opening.

My Dad is right. The town is full of talk, and so is the school. Maybe they want to know if my Dad said anything about his friend, any gory details about the body.

It's lunchtime and I know that I can't just run to the Cullens' table and disappear among them, but I want to. I want to go to their house with the meandering gardens and the trickling water and the echoing bamboo. I want to lie on the fluffy rug with Alice and listen to Edward playing the piano. The sound of that, the memory of their house, fills me up as I walk into the cafeteria and glance over at their table.

No one is there.

Jessica catches me at it, because I have stopped dead.

"I know, right?" she says. "I mean, I know they were a weird family, but it's just horrible."

"Horrible?"

"Yeah, their house burning down like that. Can you imagine?"

"What?" I sound so stupid.

Jessica looks at me like I've got three heads. "You didn't know?"

All I can do is stare back at her.

"Oh my God, Bella." And Jessica launches into the whole story.

"… burned to the ground …"

"… says it had to be arson …"

"… three thousand degrees at least …"

"… all their cars still in the garage, melted to the floor …"

"… sifting the ashes for pieces of bone, or teeth …"

Angela has her arm around my waist and is walking me over to our table and helping me sit down.

"Are you okay?" she whispers.

My heart is racing and I feel sick to my stomach.

How can that house not exist any more? The green drifting in through the windows, the Campbell's soup and the cross and the fragrance and the murmuring brothers and Rosalie's puzzle and the rain on the eaves.

The piano with its dark wing raised. The melody that ached through my heart.

I stare at the five empty seats, the completely vacant table.

"It's so horrible," Jessica says again. "I mean, who would do something like that?"

"It was on the news and everything," Mike adds.

"You didn't see it on T.V.?" Eric asks.

I was too busy dreaming about Edward every day. Waiting for him to come in my window every night. Leaving quilts for him. Sniffing chair rungs.

Everybody is staring at me.

"Your dad never said anything about it?" This is what Jessica has been dying to ask me: do I have any inside details. Like my Dad would actually talk about this at dinner or something.

"I don't think he's allowed to," I mumble.

I need to get away from everyone. I wonder if they can see my feelings on my face.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. Be normal.

Be normal.

"Bella, you look really pale. Are you okay?" Angela hasn't left my side.

"I feel … kind of nauseous." It's completely true. Along with weak, and scared.

"You want to go to the nurse's office?" She's my Alice, my human Alice. Catching me as I'm hurled out over black water. Spiriting me away, far from the fray.

"Maybe."

"Did they check you for concussion after your accident?" Keeping me hidden. Keeping my secret. Even though she doesn't know what the secret is.

"I don't remember."

"Come on." And she shepherds me out of there.

The nurse takes my temperature and spends a long time inspecting my face. I wonder if she believes my story about the steering wheel. She asks me if I feel safe at home. I tell her yes. She gives me two Tylenol and lets me lie down. I tell her I don't want her to call my Dad. I hope this doesn't make her think the wrong thing. But even the wrong thing is better than the real thing.

I lie on the cot. I turn one way and the other. I curl up and straighten out. It doesn't help. Nothing helps. Now I know what worried sick means. I try not to make any noise. Try not to make the nurse get up from her desk to come look in on me.

I'd thought everyone was talking about Uncle Waylon. All the snatches of whispers about "Who did it?" I should have known that would make no sense. Uncle Waylon grew up in Forks, and never left. How would he have any mafia connections? Or CIA. Or aliens.

Don't believe everything you hear.

Was this what my Dad was talking about, then? Not Uncle Waylon, but the Cullens? I hold onto that as hard as I can. I wonder what my Dad knows? Auntie Sue said I can't say anything to anyone. So how can I ask my Dad?

How many vampires were chasing Edward and me? What happened after he threw me to Alice? She said she had to help her family. She said that they were going to kill the bad vampires.

Every time my mind inches toward the idea of a battle it runs away again. If the Cullens lost that battle, how could Uncle Billy let me and my Dad leave the reservation with the bad vampires still around?

I can't lie still. I have to do something.

I have to go to La Push.

It's the only place I can ask the questions. The only place I can get the answers.

I get up and go to the nurse's desk, tell her I feel better and want to go back to class now. I need to get back into class so I can catch up to Tyler before he leaves. I'm going to need a ride. I almost think the nurse is going to keep me here until my Dad can pick me up after work, but she writes me a note and lets me go.

I spend the last hour of school figuring and planning and turning it over and over in my mind, trying as hard as I can not to think of a black scar in the earth where the Cullens' house used to be, trying as hard as I can to not think of even one of them – no, I won't think that. I can't. My chest and stomach feel hollowed out and twisted in knots all at the same time, right through to the last bell.

I empty my backpack into my locker and run straight to Tyler's van. I tell him I need a lift to the Thriftway to pick up some stuff for dinner. He asks if I want a lift home as well. I tell him no, my Dad's picking me up. Lie after lie. I wonder what's going to happen when all of this catches up to me.

Riding with Tyler and Lauren is awkward, me in the back seat, them in the front. Nobody says anything. Every red light drives me crazy. I try to be nonchalant as I say goodbye in the parking lot.

My Dad's going to be so mad when I'm not at the library waiting for him. But he likes the Cullens. He wanted to call Dr. Cullen right away when he got to Auntie Sue's. He said he won't rest until he gets to the bottom of what happened. If he was talking about what happened to the Cullens, maybe he'll understand why I have to do this; even though I can't tell him what I find out.

We've never gone empty-handed to the rez. And Uncle Billy and Jacob have never come empty-handed to our house. That's just how it's done. I wander to the produce section. A box of clementines: that looks right. Small and lots of them, easy to share. I think of my truck – used to be Uncle Billy's truck – and how it smells. I pick up a bag of Starlight peppermints – the sugar free ones. I don't want to poison him after all.

I need one more thing. Something to show that this is a serious question, and I'm sincere. The twist of something that will be burned in the shell. Cigarettes are all locked up behind glass, and I'm too young to buy them. But the chewing tobacco is out where I can get it. It's the middle of the afternoon and there aren't many people in the store. I slip one little can into my pocket as I walk by. I know it's wrong but I just don't want anyone asking questions. All the cashiers know my Dad, know me, and know that my Dad doesn't chew. I don't want anyone taking note of me being here.

The clementines box is too bulky and its wood corners hurt my back through the backpack. I stop in the parking lot and dump them all in the plastic bag, leave the box in an empty shopping cart. Time to go. I walk as fast as I can through town, trying to get to the highway. I can't hitch until I get past the city limits.

I can't run. Someone will notice. Chief's daughter. They'll call the station and it will be all over. It takes forever to get past the last house, get to where the road is lined with just trees again. I turn my back to the direction I'm headed and stick out my thumb. Cars pass me without even slowing down. Is it because I'm walking backward instead of standing and waiting? But I have to. I have to get there before dark.

This all would have been so much easier if my Dad hadn't taken the truck keys. I still can't believe he did that. I guess he really, really didn't want me going off by myself.

I look at the trees beside me, tall and silent and strong. Walking backwards like this, it looks like they're walking backwards, too, away from me. The grandfathers. I pray to them. Keep the Cullens safe. Hide them in your secret places. I imagine the seven of them, living in the land like wild animals. They can. It's how they eat to begin with. Maybe they won't miss human civilization that much.

But come back to me, Edward, please?

A logging truck roars toward me, loaded to the top with the bodies of dead trees, straight and heavy and sawed off at both ends. I don't like how it makes me feel as it passes. The grandfathers that I just prayed to, killed and laid flat, on their way to be cut into boards and two-by-fours.

The trucker doesn't stop for me either. But then, he's not going to LaPush.

The cars all still in the garage doesn't mean a thing. If the Cullens needed to escape, cars would only slow them down. They who can run faster than any car ever made, faster than the wind.

It's getting late and I'm getting desperate, and not anywhere near close enough to my goal. It starts to drizzle. Just what I need. Another cold.

I see a car approaching, driven by an older couple. Through the windshield I can see the wife talking to the husband. They look like tourists. The car passes me. I was so sure they would stop. I turn and just keep trudging forward. I don't care if it takes me 'till midnight to get there. I have to go. Have to know.

I hear a sound and look up. The car is backing up towards me. They did stop. The woman has her window rolled down and she calls to me as they come even with where I am.

"Where are you headed?"

"La Push."

She turns to her husband. "You see, Henry, I told you we had to stop for her. What are the odds?"

The man just shakes his head. His wife opens the back door for me.

"Get in. We're going to La Push, too."

She doesn't have to ask me twice. The husband glances at me in the rear view mirror as he pulls back out onto the road. "You live in La Push?"

"Yes," I lie. They are tourists, here for whale watching. They agree to let me off at the general store. I'm pretty sure I can get a ride from there to Uncle Billy's house. I guess I'm lucky that it started raining when it did, made them take pity on me. Lucky that these people who saw me in the rain are normal, and not predators. They ask me where's the best place to eat in La Push and I just lie, because I have no clue. I've only ever eaten at Uncle Billy or Auntie Sue's houses.

They drop me off and I thank them, give them two oranges out of my bag.

The inside of the store smells like leather, jerked fish and smoke. Sam is there, loitering at the counter with the woman who runs it. He looks me up and down as I come in, making a jangly sound with the bells on the door. His eyes say I'm nothing but trouble.

"I need to see Uncle Billy," I say, in a very small voice. Sam shakes his head and walks out. I follow. His car is an old Rabbit. The doors creak, but it runs.

"Can you call my Dad and tell him I'm here?"

He pulls a cell phone out of the pocket of his flannel shirt and tosses it to me. "Tell him yourself." I fumble the phone and it ends up on the floor at my feet. He slows down a little, but doesn't offer me any other help.

Please let this go to voice mail; please let this go to voice mail.

The phone rings once, twice, three times, then I hear my Dad's voice. "You know what to do." And "beep."

"Dad. I'm at Uncle Billy's house." What else can I say? "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Uncle Billy's house is pretty close to the beach. It's old and low. There's a totem pole outside with all the paint weathered off of it. Wolf, raven and whale. I wonder if they're all the same spirit, but just in different bodies. Sam stops in the driveway. Uncle Billy is on his porch, sitting in his wheelchair. I wonder how long he's been there. I offer an orange to Sam, and say thanks for the ride. He cracks a smile and looks sad at the same time. "Go on, now," he murmurs. And then I'm standing alone in front of the house.

Uncle Billy and I just look at each other under the clouds for the longest time.

I give the sack of oranges to Rebecca, since she's kind of the mom in their house now. I'm pretty sure there's enough to go around, to their other relations, too, even though I've shared a few out along the way.

I thank everybody for looking after me when I was half frozen from getting thrown in the water. We sit there making small talk on the porch for a while, and then Uncle Billy's family drifts away. I open my backpack and give him the mints and the tobacco. Truth is, I have no idea what I'm doing, only that after this long, terrible day there's an ocean of tears rising up in my chest fit to drown me. I'm scared, so scared, from all the questions I couldn't ask, from the rumors at school, from my Dad all tight-lipped at home.

Somewhere behind the clouds the sun goes under the horizon, and it crashes in on me at last - the whole week, the whole day, the big wave that I'm powerless to stop. And I'm sitting on the deck by Uncle Billy's chair, leaning on his good knee, bawling my eyes out.

I hear him sigh, feel his hand, big and heavy and warm, on the back of my neck. A cold mist has come in off the water, but Uncle Billy's hand seems to send heat all the way through me.

"Say what's on your mind, Bella. Just say what's on your mind", he says.

It takes me a lot of hitching and hiccupping and wiping my face on my sleeve before I can breathe well enough to ask the terrible question.

"What happened to them, Uncle Billy?"

"What happened to who?"

"Edward. And … and his family … You know, right? I mean, you … you know …"

"Yes, Bella, I do know."

I just look at him, all my insides shivering and hurting and scared. He looks back at me for a whole minute, maybe more.

"They're dead, Bella."

I can't breathe. I have no air at all. My mouth makes a 'no', but no sound comes out. It's like one of those dreams, where you're screaming and screaming, but nothing comes out.

I suck hard on the cold, damp air, and try again.

"No." I sound like a frog.

"Yes, Bella."

"Not all! They can't all …"

"They are, Bella, all of them. They're dead."

I hear a sea gull cry. High and keening. And loud, like it's right above us. It cries again. And again. Uncle Billy's eyes are dark and sad. He puts his hands on my head, and the bird stops calling, and flies away.

There are others about. I see them moving in the corners of my eyes. But they keep a polite distance. Move on about whatever their business may be. Time passes.

"Where?" I ask at last. "Where are they?"

"Where?"

"Edward. And his family. I have to bury them." My throat closes on the words. Stomach clenches. I'm curled against the wheel of Uncle Billy's chair.

He's shaking his head. "Bella."

He sighs.

I wait.

Time passes.

At last, he relents.

"Only way to kill their kind is tear 'em apart and burn the pieces. They go straight to smoke and ash, Bella. Ain't nothing left to bury."

Edward.

Gone straight to smoke and ash.

I see his face, gazing at me as we lay there, upside down to each other in the meadow. I feel his too-hard back under me, his shoulders and waist encircled by my arms and legs. I smell his hair, and his skin. Nothing but ashes, now. Smoke upon the wind. Alice, with her black hair and golden eyes. Naked statue unashamed. Running in beauty. Dr. Cullen. All of them. Their strange, beautiful tribe. Gone.

It's not a bird. It's me. I'm shrieking. And I'm being held down. A piece of jerked fish is being put in my mouth. Someone is pinching my earlobes. People are calling my name. I hear Jacob's voice.

"For Christ's sake, Dad, why the hell'd you have to tell her that?"

"She asked."

Thank you for reading.