Chapter 4 – Some Kind of Adventure

Emerging from the bathroom I hurry towards the sound of conversation, finding the Cullens in a large, airy parlour. My attention is immediately caught by Rosalie. She's standing by the window, gazing outside, and the light falling through the sheer curtains makes her skin shimmer like the sun reflecting off water.

"What?!" Not paying attention I bump into an occasional table and upset a lamp, and then look down in surprise as I catch it reflexively before it can hit the ground. "Whoops!"

"Vampire reflexes," Edward says. "A little more effective than human ones! The sparkling is just what vampire skin does in the sunlight; yours is the same, go and see."

I stand beside Rosalie at the window, but it's not the sun glittering off the bare skin of my hands that I'm looking at it. It's the profile of her angel face, and the way her heavy dark lashes look against the curve of her cheek. So beautiful.

This reminds me of my own horrifying red-eyed reflection, and I self-consciously rub a hand across my eyes. The Cullens all have eyes in various shades of yellow and gold –why aren't mine the same? They said they were vampires, but why is it only me who flashes this monstrousness every time I open my eyes?

"All vampires wake to this life with crimson eyes," Edward says. "As long as you stick to the animal diet your eyes will eventually become a similar shade to the rest of ours. Vampires who feed on human blood will maintain the red eyes."

His uncanny knack for answering the questions I haven't asked yet is mind boggling. I'm not sure if I like being around someone so perceptive, not in this confusing and uncomfortable new world.

Edward smiles wryly. "I'm sorry. You should know – I'm a telepath. I can read your mind."

"You CANNOT be serious." I gape at him. "Vampires and mindreading and…what else is real? Fortune telling? Ghosts? Witches and the wee folk? Dragons? Do you have one of those in the barn out back?"

Carlisle laughs. "Will it disappoint you if we say no?"

"I can't deny it would have been fun," I say. "But are you saying you can just hear everything I'm thinking right out of my head?"

"Yes, if I'm paying attention. But that's just my thing, not something all vampires can do."

"Okay, I suppose I'd better just watch what I think," I mutter, wondering how exactly I can discipline my mind. Hopefully he wasn't paying attention before when I was looking at Rosalie and thinking…aaagh Eleanor! Think of something else!

"How did this happen?" I say a little desperately. "I thought vampires were just a story. Something to scare people for fun, but here you are and now here I am and…how? I remember the bear, but after that it's all a bit…muddled."

I'm not sure I want to tell them that I had thought Rosalie was an angel taking me away to heaven, or that Carlisle was God bringing down his judgement on me.

"I must take responsibility for changing you to what we are," Carlisle says. "I was the one who bit you, which is what it takes for a vampire to create another."

"Why?" I ask, in honest bewilderment.

"Rosalie brought you here for medical attention. I'm a doctor, and when she found you she hoped I could do something to help you." Carlisle hesitates. "But the attack was not survivable; you were dying when you arrived here, and changing you was the only alternative to death."

"And this is for always? Or could I change back, if I wanted to?"

"No." Rosalie throws me a quick, tormented glance. "There's no way back…I'm sorry." Her jaw clenches. "I'm so sorry."

"It's all right. I'm fine, just a bit…but it's all right…" My voice trails away as Rosalie storms from the room. "What did I say?"

"Nothing," Esme says. "Rosalie can be a little emotional at times, that's all."

"Emotional," Edward snorts. "That's putting it mildly. Temperamental? Cantankerous, perhaps?"

Esme frowns at him. "Be nice."

"Eleanor, can we answer any questions for you?" Carlisle asks. "I understand it's a lot to take in."

"So superhero powers of strength and speed and smell and sight? Sparkling in the sun? Blood instead of bread? I think I've got the basics down," I say. "But my family is really the thing I'm worrying about. You said I can't go back, but surely…you don't mean never, right?"

"I'm afraid I do," Carlisle says. "It's necessary, for several reasons. Firstly, no one can ever know what you are now. Secrecy is the first rule of vampires. Humans are aware we exist, at least as part of their folklore, but it is imperative that we do nothing that would demonstrate otherwise."

It doesn't seem to me like humans knowing anything about real vampires would make any kind of difference – what on earth could they possibly do to us?

"Not much," Edward says, raising an eyebrow. "But the enforcement of that rule isn't something that we'd like to bring down on ourselves either."

"The other reason you have to stay away from your family is because it wouldn't be safe," Carlisle says. "We told you that we only eat animals and abstain from human blood. This allows us to live in the human world, but it's not an easy path. You smelled the humans on your hunting trip – remember how it made you feel? That was at some distance too, if a human was closer to you may have been unable to restrain yourself. It's not a situation to be risked with your family."

The echo of the violent desire that had flooded through me at the scent makes me shiver. "But I must be able to control it! You just said that you live in the regular world, so you must be able to hold back!"

"Oh yes, it's possible," Carlisle assures me quickly. "You'll learn to do it, if you want to. But it takes time and effort, and you must understand that the risks are too high to take chances with your loved ones."

I look desperately for a loophole. I can't imagine never seeing my family again, and they must be going out of their minds with worry. I can't just disappear! But I remember how it felt to smell that faint trace of human on the breeze earlier, and I think about what it would be like if it was nearer, if it was my Mama giving me a hug or Patrick at my shoulder as we hunt or George asking for piggy back rides and I know it's impossible.

"They'll never know what's happened to me?"

"No," Carlisle says. "I'm sorry, but there's no way. They will have found the evidence of the bear attack that was left behind and they'll probably know in their hearts that you won't be coming back. But they won't know for sure."

"But perhaps there's something we could do for them?" Esme jumps in. "Something to make their lives easier? What's your family situation?"

"I've got a big family. I live with my Mama and my daddy, and my grandad lived with us too until he died this past summer. My two oldest brothers are grown - Campbell is married to Florence and they've got Mary and Ian and Rowan and Lachlan, and Simon is married to Lyddie and they have George and baby Maisie. They don't live far though, so we still see them at church and around town and we all visit all the time. Evie is next, and she's just about to get engaged. Then comes Patrick, we're just eleven months apart and he's probably my best friend as well as my brother. Then me, then Catriona, and Scarlett is the baby, although she's sixteen now and thinks she's all kind of grown up. There's all the aunts and uncles and cousins, lots of them live nearby, you can just imagine the chaos of getting everyone together at Christmastime and Thanksgiving, it's…it's always so much fun…" My voice trails off, before I say shakily. "They need me. It's going to be a mighty lean table if I'm not there to help out by hunting and fishing, especially if Patrick manages to get himself taken on down at the dairy. They said they might need him come spring. I can't just never see them again."

"We're very sorry Eleanor," Carlisle says. "But I don't want to give you any false hope or expectations; you won't be able to have any relationship with your family. We have the financial means to help your family in some anonymous way perhaps, but apart from that…I really am very sorry."

"You all left your families? No one ever knew…you just left your lives?" I glance helplessly around. "How did it happen? If you made me…who made you? Is that even the way to say it?"

"Carlisle turned both Esme and I," Edward says. "He was alone and had been considering the idea of a companion for some time when he came across me, dying of the Spanish flu in the epidemic right after the war."

I frown in bewilderment. "After the war? But you must have been a baby…how old are you?"

"Well, how old are you is something of a fraught question for vampires," Edward says. "The vampire transformation is the last change we ever undergo – once it is done, we stay as we are for as long as our particular kind of immortality lasts. So I was seventeen then and I'm seventeen now, although I was born thirty-four years ago…"

"Whoa, whoa, just back up there…immortality? I know you said I couldn't be hurt, but you mean I can't die?!"

"Well, in some ways you're already dead," Edward points out. "It's the question really, isn't it? What exactly we are? But in simple terms, you will never age and die, no. You'll exist, unchanging, for eternity."

"Sweet Jesus." I lean weakly back against the windowsill, and close my eyes for a moment against a world that seems to be reeling around me. "This cannot be real."

It's all too much. Immortality, coming on top of everything else. Angels and vampires and speed and strength and eternal life and a blood hunger more intense than anything I've ever felt…

"I don't know about this," I say, and my voice sounds very small and far away. "The whole world's turned upside down but that grandfather clock keeps ticking and this room smells like same lemon furniture polish my Mama uses and you're a vampire and you're wearing tweed trousers and suspenders…"

But then the surreal humour of it hits me, and there's nothing I can do but laugh.

For a moment they all look alarmed, like they think I've finally cracked and gone off the deep end. But then Esme lets a giggle escape, and everyone relaxes.

"It's a little absurd when you look at it like that," Carlisle admits, fiddling a little self-consciously with the suspenders that set me off.

"We really do live a fairly ordinary sort of life, all things considered," Esme says. "Carlisle works as a doctor, Edward and Rosalie are studying, we take care of the house and garden, enjoy our hobbies and travels and have lots of plans for the future. This might be a different kind of life for you Eleanor, different to what you expected your life to be, but we'll do everything we can to help you find your way through it."

"Well, I do thank you," I say, a little awkwardly. "I appreciate what you're doing for me."

Carlisle clears his throat. "I feel I ought to be clear that it is your life though Eleanor, and you are free to make whatever choices you wish. We would be delighted if you chose to stay with us and consider our way of life, but if you would prefer to go your own way we wouldn't hold you back. There are others of our kind throughout the world, and you could go to them or travel alone…it is entirely up to you."

He's barely finished making his speech before I'm shaking my head. I don't know about these people, and the memory of the scent of human blood makes my throat burn with something that goes beyond want, but here there is Rosalie and I already know I won't willingly leave.

"Oh no, this is fine! I mean, I don't know that you'll think I'm a good…my manners and…gosh, there's an awful lot of breakable things in this house and…clumsy might be the word…but, if you don't mind me I'd really rather stay right here until I figure it all out a bit more."

"That will be wonderful!" Esme says. "Now Edward, perhaps you could show Eleanor around the house? Help her start feeling at home? I'll just go and check in with Rosalie."

Edward leads me from the room and into the broad hallway. I follow him through the house, taking everything in. The Cullens' house is bigger and far more elegant than even the houses my mother used to clean. It's full of books and artworks and plants, furniture and floors all gleamingly polished. Alongside the parlour, the dining room-turned-library, the bedroom and bathroom I've already seen, Edward shows me a sunroom that spans the back of the house and holds a grand piano so big it wouldn't fit into a single room in my family's house, Carlisle's office, and a sparkling kitchen with a laundry and scullery leading off it.

"But you don't cook," I say, noticing the array of copper saucepans hung up in the kitchen and the full complement of china arranged on a dresser. There's a modern oven and stovetop, and even an actual refrigerator humming away in a corner. "Why do you have all this?"

"Camouflage," Edward answers. "We don't have frequent visitors to the house, but it's inevitable that there are occasionally people here. We want everything to look just like people would expect for the home of the well-to-do local doctor."

"Ah, that explains the lack of bats and coffins too. Stone castles protected by howling wolves might raise a few eyebrows when company comes."

Edward laughs. "Something like that. Now upstairs; there's Esme's sewing room, the other bathroom, and the bedrooms- Carlisle and Esme's, mine, and Rosalie's – and the stairs to the attic, but that's Rosalie's space and you probably don't want to go up there unless she invites you."

I'm about to comment on the beds being more of the carefully constructed camouflage, considering they don't sleep, but Edward gives a slightly embarrassed cough and says, "Well Carlisle and Esme are married, so…"

"Say no more," I break in. Obviously there's more to be done in a bed than sleep! "Carlisle and Esme are married. All right. And you and Rosalie…?"

"Very much not married," Edward says emphatically. "Rosalie is…"

"Rosalie is…what?" The door behind him opens and Rosalie appears, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow. "You're not telling tales on me, are you Edward?"

I wonder how long it's going to take before every fresh view of her doesn't make me feel like my insides are melting. She's pinned her hair back since she came upstairs, and this shows the graceful length of her neck and emphasises her high cheekbones and the dark lashes over her golden eyes. I grip my hands together behind my back and try not to stare.

"I'm not," Edward says. "I was just explaining the family relationships to Eleanor, that you and I are basically brother and sister."

Rosalie grimaces. "At best. Adversaries sometimes, reluctant companions at others, very occasionally friends..." She shoots me a quick glance. "I don't know what he's actually told you about me, but I wouldn't necessarily take it as the whole truth."

He pretty much hasn't told me anything about her – I wish he had. I don't even know where to begin talking to her. And I'm confused by the sibling talk too. Are they really related? How does it all work?

"We're not related," Edward says, and I squirm as I'm reminded he can read my thoughts. "Sorry, I started to tell you all this but we got side-tracked."

"Well, yeah. Being told I'm going to live forever kind of does distract from learning the family tree," I say.

Edward laughs. "Conditional immortality. You can be killed, but it takes another vampire to do it and it requires some effort. You're fairly safe. As for the family – Carlisle was first. He was turned back in 1663, although he's never known the vampire who did it. He was horrified when he knew what he'd become, but managed to abstain from drinking human blood despite his suffering. He discovered that he could live on animal blood, and vowed that he'd never take human life."

"All hail blessed Saint Carlisle," Rosalie mutters, and it's impossible to miss the edge in her voice.

"Carlisle lived alone for centuries," Edward continues, ignoring Rosalie's barbed comment. "He spent time with other vampires he met, but never came across anyone who was willing to share his particular lifestyle. He began to think about the idea of creating a companion, but held off for decades, never being sure that it would be right to compel anyone to a vampire life. I was dying and my mother begged – Carlisle admits it was a moment of weakness rather than a considered decision, but he changed me. Esme was dying too when he came across her three years later, and he brought her into the family then."

"So you have to be dying to be changed? You and Esme were, and I certainly wasn't walking away from that goddamned bear."

"No, that's just Carlisle," Edward shrugs. "He's not at all like most vampires. His strength and moral compass, his determination to master his thirst so completely that he can work as a doctor elbow deep in blood without even a quiver – he's rather extraordinary. And he's brought us all along with him, for the most part. We all do our best to stick to the animal diet and we live very much as an ordinary human family. Carlisle and Esme are married, Rosalie and I consider ourselves siblings. It's an unusual way of life for vampires."

I glance over at Rosalie. "He changed you too? When?"

"Two years ago." She doesn't offer any further information, and seeing the tense set of her shoulders I'm aware enough to let the subject drop.

"None of you are from around here though?" They all talk with clipped northern accents that make me aware of my soft Tennessee drawl.

"I'm from Chicago," Edward answers. "Esme was from a rural area in Ohio, and Carlisle was from London, England originally. Rosalie was from upstate New York. We've lived in a few other places together though."

"Yankees through and through," I say with a grin, and for a moment Rosalie's mouth curves up in an answering smile.

"I'm guessing born and bred Tennessee for you."

"Absolutely," I say cheerfully. "Don't think I've been more than twenty miles from Gatlinburg in my life."

"Until now," Edward says. "You're in South Carolina, near Clemson."

"South Carolina? The other side of the mountains?" I say incredulously. "And you carried me here? Did that actually happen? Because that's how I remember it. But I also thought you were an angel and you were taking me off to heaven, and when I got here I thought God came along and sent me down to the other place. So clearly my memory maybe isn't the most reliable here? But really…you carried me all the way to South Carolina? Even with all that blood?!"

"It's more than a hundred miles." Edward looks at Rosalie with clear respect. "I can barely imagine how difficult it was."

Rosalie's long fingers twist the heavy pendant she's wearing at her throat. "I thought Carlisle could do something for you. Heal you. I didn't know…I didn't plan this." The look she gives me is stricken.

Seeing her unhappy raises in me a sudden swell of tenderness. "It's all right," I say. "I can't say I'm not a bit taken aback by it all, and maybe one day you'll want to explain why…but don't worry about me. This is all new and strange, but damned if it's doesn't seem like some kind of adventure for all that."