- Chapter 22: Más Allá -
For an age, there was nothing but pain. Incinerating, unrelenting, all-encompassing pain.
There was no past, no future, no reason. I could hear nothing, see nothing, feel no sensation on my skin—for that matter, I couldn't sense my own body. I was merely a spectre in a black void, a metaphysical realm of licking flames without form.
But slowly, so slowly I couldn't mark when it truly began, I became aware of a voice. Faint and garbled at first, as though I were underwater and the speaker above.
"—time unbind this soul of mine…other part, and on this shore, I will not leave the memory in which I burned—"
That scrap of my awareness not consumed by the inferno clung to the sound. Edward. His voice grew in clarity, pulling me closer to the surface of the sea of flames in which I drowned.
"You will leave your body, not your care; you will be ashes, but you will feel it there; dust will you be, but dust eternally enamored."
"Well, that's not very comforting."
A woman's voice, high and clear as a silver bell. The name came to me a moment later—Alice.
"It's Quevedo." A tinge of reproof in his tone.
"Baroque nonsense. Isn't she suffering enough already? Read her something nice."
What a delightful surprise, to find I could still find something funny, even in this strange shadow world.
Edward made no reply, but carried on reading. Poem after poem, paragraph after paragraph. Some I knew, many I didn't. In English, in Latin, Russian, French, more languages I couldn't identify.
But even in the midst of my torment I could recognize the one commonality: every word he read spoke of love.
I wished I could see him. I wished I could throw my arms around him, feel his body against mine. I wished I could speak, scream, let my anguish and adoration be known to him.
But I remained locked in.
Still, something about Edward's never-ending flow of speech seemed to draw my consciousness further into reality. The world around me solidified; memories slowly returned. And quite suddenly, as he recited something in Italian, everything fell into place.
I was changing.
Thank God, thank God. The pain was not senseless, was not punishment for some unnamed sin. I was becoming like him.
I could have sobbed in relief. There would be an end to this. It would not last forever.
"Ma pur sí aspre vie né sí selvagge cercar non so ch'Amor non venga sempre ragionando con meco, et io co llui."
As he finished the final stanza, I felt it. The faintest pressure, the first physical sensation I'd experienced in what seemed like days—his cool fingers grasping mine.
That one touch became my lifeline. The proof that I was anchored to the real world, that there would be some route back, that I was not lost to the flame.
I willed my entire awareness to that one point of contact. I was a refugee, huddled in the atoms where Edward's skin touched mine. Though the torment raged on, something about the realization that there was still beauty in the world made it easier to bear.
Other sensations followed, slowly, one by one, as the venom seared through my bloodstream to heal my mortal wounds. Crisp, starchy cotton sheets against my legs. The gentle give of the mattress that cradled my body. Dappled warmth of sun through leaves, dancing on my cheek. A soft spring breeze, ruffling my hair.
And alway, always, always, that hand squeezing my fingers.
Visitors came and went, though I couldn't always tell who they were at first—Edward had the annoying habit of responding to their thoughts without saying the name, so I could usually only guess.
"No, not a twitch."
Silence, and a scoff.
"As though you'd be any better."
Another pause.
"She's not sure yet."
And on.
Had I not been burning alive in my own mind, I might have been amused at my own capacity for irritation over this relatively small vexation. But their words were one of my few distractions from the pain—that, and my anchor in the dark, Edward's constant touch.
It was Nessie who ended the benign torture of my curiosity.
A knock, followed by Edward's gentle, "Come in."
My battered heart swelled when I heard her sweet voice in answer.
"Is Miss Bella getting better?"
"I hope so," Edward replied.
Light steps from the door to my side, the slide of fabric. I could almost picture him lifting the girl into his lap—one-handed, of course, as his grip remained on my fingers.
"She looks better." Small, warm hands brushed hair back from my forehead. I ached to lean into the touch—I was fairly certain now that I could move—but I feared that if I so much as twitched an eyelash, I would erupt in the screams of the damned, terrifying poor Nessie and turning Edward inside out with agonizing guilt and worry. No, better to burn alone.
"It will take time."
The little hand fell away from my face.
"Nessie." His voice was tight. "I think it's time for you to return to Culwoode."
She inhaled sharply.
"Without you?" The pain in her tone cut through the flame that engulfed me.
"For a little while."
"But you promised!"
Edward sighed, and I heard him pull her closer.
"I need to take care of Miss Bella for a little while longer."
"I can help! I'll be so good, you'll see!"
She was frantic now, and Edward made soft shushing noises, trying to soothe her.
"Ah, my darling Nessie," he murmured miserably. "I swear I'm not abandoning you. But it will not be…there are…considerations. Problems. It won't be safe for you to help care for Miss Bella when she wakes."
"Because she'll be like all of you?"
Strange, that such a small, tearful voice could seem to stop time.
The shocked silence stretched for a moment that seemed like an age, before Edward finally broke it.
"What do you mean?"
"You made her change, like the man wanted."
She said it so matter-of-factly, no doubt or question in her tone.
She had no idea she was signing her own death warrant.
"Where did you hear that?" Edward was struggling to keep the terror from his own voice, I could tell.
Another rustle. I could picture her little shrug, so childlike in her nonchalance. "Grandmama did."
"Auntie Esme, you mean?"
"No," Nessie corrected with an exasperated air, as though Edward were being purposefully obtuse. "Grandmama Lizzie."
His hand flexed around mine, and I almost felt the frisson of shock jump between our skin.
"Explain."
So she did.
"Grandmama Lizzie left a box of things when she died that she wanted to go to her first grandchild. Miss Maggie gave it to me when Papa died."
"What was inside?"
Could he not already see? He could read her mind as well as anyone, I knew.
"Oh, all kinds of the most wonderful things. Jewelry, fans, pretty dresses…and her diaries, of course."
Edward gripped my fingers more tightly.
"Her diaries."
"Yes! Dozens of them."
"What did they say?" He was barely whispering now. I wondered if his beautiful face was frozen in that mask he wore when he didn't want anyone to know what he was feeling. I rather thought it would be.
"At first, they were so sad," Nessie confessed. "She had so little when she was a girl, and I felt bad that she worked so hard. But then she wrote about when you came to find her and give her lots of money."
"Me?"
"Yes! She called you her brother then, though she wrote that it all seemed very strange, and she noticed things about you that were odd. Your eyes and your skin and all that. And then, when you came back all those years later, she wrote about you again. She described you just the same. You said you were her nephew, the son of the brother she'd met so long before. But she didn't believe it."
"But she did believe me," Edward murmured. "I know she did."
I knew where his mind was going—he'd heard Lizzie's thoughts, hadn't he? He would have known if she suspected anything.
"Well, of course she didn't tell you," Nessie said, as though it were obvious. "It was a Secret."
There was some gravity to the word, some heaviness in the way she spoke it that made it clear she meant no ordinary secret.
"She wasn't sure at first," Nessie continued. "But when you stayed, she saw it all and remembered all the things she'd noticed before. And then she was sick, and you came again, and she knew. The last entry said, 'My father is with me.'"
A small intake of breath, too soft to be a gasp.
"She said you were strange, so cold and still. That it hurt to look at you sometimes, because you were so beautiful, more than any person had a right to be. She drew a picture of you, too, though she said she couldn't get it right no matter how many times she tried. But when you came to fetch me, I recognized you. Grandmama's papa."
Edward made an odd choking noise.
"Nessie…"
"So you see, it's all right," she said, a hint of desperation undercutting her cheerful cajoling. "I've known your Secret all along! You don't have to send me away!"
"Carlisle," Edward muttered brokenly. "What do I…"
Nessie made a little noise of greeting.
"Incredible," Carlisle's voice came from the doorway, low and awed.
"But Eleazar said—"
"Oh, but this is a Secret, too," Nessie said. "I kept it from him. He was looking for it, but I never share Secrets. I kept them from you, didn't I? And the bad man, when he looked, too. But it's safe to tell you now, I promise."
Was it possible? I wondered. My own mind had been closed to Edward and Aro, though I was human. Could Nessie, the great-granddaughter of a mind reader and whatever Antoinette had been, choose to close off parts of her mind to those who would discover them? Had Lizzie been able to do something similar?
"She's right," Alice's voice chimed in from the direction of the hall. "If the Volturi ever come back, she'll let Aro read her mind."
"And when he does, I'll just keep my Secret," Nessie jumped in stubbornly. "So he'll never see what I know."
Edward let out a single, strange bark of a laugh. "Oh, God."
"Please don't send me away without you," Nessie begged. "You don't have to keep the Secret from me."
"Nessie, darling." It was Esme's gentle voice—I wondered if the whole family were in the room now. "You've done so well to keep our Secret, and yours, of course. But that's not the only reason it's not safe for you to be here when Bella wakes up."
I suddenly remembered what Edward had told me about his first moments as a vampire, what he'd done. His fingers twitched, and I knew he was thinking of it, too.
"Then why not?" Nessie's plea was thick with building tears.
There was a heavy silence, and I could almost sense the mental conversation flowing between Edward and Alice.
"Esme, will you and Rose…?" Edward finally said.
"Of course."
I could have screamed in my frustration—what had been decided? When all this was over, I was going to kill him. Couldn't he say one damnable thing out loud? I still didn't even know what had happened with the Volturi before Edward had found me.
A harassed chuckle escaped him, and for a moment I thought he had heard my thoughts at last.
"I'll tell her everything when I'm done with Nessie, I promise," he said.
"You'd better," Alice responded warningly, and I realized she'd had a vision of some sort. "All that newborn strength…Carlisle and Esme are rather attached to this place, you know."
When the door closed with a soft click, I knew the rest of the family had left. Edward explained the dangers my change would pose to Nessie—to all humans, for that matter—with a tenderness that made my bruised heart ache. He was careful not to reveal the full horror to her young mind, sidestepping the words vampire and blood with aplomb. As had been the case with me, he let her draw her own conclusions about what his kind were.
My kind, soon.
"But how long til she can come home?" Nessie had demanded, a whine creeping into her tone.
"Some time," Edward replied gently. "Each of us is different."
It seemed impossibly strange to me, that I should ever feel such an inexorable urge to kill and drain the beautiful, vibrant girl I had come to love so much.
In the end, Edward managed to convince Nessie to return to Culwoode that very day. She would travel with Rose, Emmett, Esme, and Carlisle, whom Edward had asked to call Mrs. Weber and Angela back into service. The two of them, he told Nessie, would help care for her, as I had done.
"What about you?" she'd asked tearfully.
"I'll wait for Bella to wake, and get her settled. And then I will go back and forth for a time, until it's safe for her to return."
"Because you love her?"
Edward hesitated, and I felt a stab in my gut. What kept him from saying it now?
"I love you, my dear Nessie," he said smoothly. "I could not part from you for long."
"But you'll marry Miss Bella, won't you?" Her tone was growing eager. "And she'll be my mama, and you my papa?"
The image of that long-ago dream floated into my mind—the three of us, a family. Oh, how I longed for it, with an ache that ran even deeper than the searing heat of my change.
"I would very much like to be your papa, if you will allow it," Edward said, and I heard the deep yearning there that matched my own. "As for Miss Bella…of course, I cannot speak for her. So you see why I must be here when she wakes."
Nessie squealed in excitement, and a soft thump announced that she had launched herself at Edward to embrace him. His hushed chuckle made me wish I could see his expression.
Of course I would marry him, I thought. Of course I would be Nessie's mama. I wanted it more than anything in the world.
Though how long I would have to wait, there was no way of knowing.
For now, I burned on.
- o - o - o -
It was quick work to prepare Nessie to return to Washington. Rose and Esme were to drive, with Carlisle and Emmett trailing the automobile on foot for protection.
They all came to my bedside to say goodbye to Edward and me. Nessie, the love, pressed a kiss to my forehead, whispering in my ear, "Please come home soon, Miss Bella."
Through it all, Edward never released my hand.
After they were gone, Jasper lingered.
"Alice said if we keep holding our tongues around her, she'll be spittin' mad when she wakes," he said in his slow drawl.
I could just picture that slight smile on Edward's face. "Indeed."
"Sounds like she'll be a right pistol."
Edward laughed—a sound that lightened my heart. "As if she weren't already."
"Well." He paused. "I'm glad you can hear us, Miss Bella. I shouldn't like to think of you layin' around with nothing but the pain to focus on."
His solicitousness touched me. The others of the Cullen clan hadn't addressed me directly so.
"You're going hunting?"
"Yep. Me and Alice are sorely in need. I thought we'd bring something back for you? I know you don't want to leave her now. But you might oughtn't let yourself be too thirsty while you're helping her hunt the first few times. Just in case."
Edward made an affirmative hum, and then I was certain we were alone again.
There was a long silence.
Then the mattress sunk beside me—he was climbing into the bed. With great care, he arranged his long body along mine, his chest pressed to my side, keeping his hold on my hand. I could feel his cold breath along my ear.
Strange, to feel the chill of his body at the same time as the inferno raged in my blood. It didn't dull the flames, but there was some small psychological relief. More areas of refuge against which I could press my psyche, a place to hide from the pain.
"All right," Edward said softly. "Let us begin at our parting, shall we?"
Author's Note: I'd intended to give you Edward's rundown of everything that happened with Antoinette and the Volturi while they were apart in this chapter, but it's proving tricky to write! So here's something to tide you over while I wrestle it into submission. :)
Footnotes:
The first poem in this chapter (and the title) is from Amor constante más allá de la muerte (Love that endures beyond death) by Francisco de Quevedo, which felt very appropriate.
Edward reads Gabrielle Ponce's translation:
The final shadow that will carry me
away on that white day could strike me blind,
and time unbind this soul of mine
from its bittersweet affinity.
But to this other part, and on this shore,
I will not leave the memory in which I burned.
My flame knows how to swim cold waters, and more,
to lose respect for laws it finds too stern.
Soul, for whom a god has been a prison,
Veins, who to the humors so much fire have given,
Marrows, that have gloriously risen,
You will leave your body, not your care;
You will be ashes, but you will feel it there;
Dust will you be, but dust eternally enamored.
The second poem is the last lines of Petrarch's Sonnet 35. In English:
Yet I find there is no path so wild or harsh
that love will not always come there
speaking with me, and I with him.