Stephenie Meyer 23 страница

The difference between the child I’d given birth to and the one I’d met again an hour ago would have been obvious to anyone. The difference between Renesmee an hour ago and Renesmee now was subtler. Human eyes never would have detected it. But it was there.

Her body was slightly longer. Just a little bit slimmer. Her face wasn’t quite as round; it was more oval by one minute degree. Her ringlets hung a sixteenth of an inch lower down her shoulders. She stretched out helpfully in Rosalie’s arms while Carlisle ran the tape measure down the length of her and then used it to circle her head. He took no notes; perfect recall.

I was aware that Jacob’s arms were crossed as tightly over his chest as Edward’s arms were locked around me. His heavy brows were mashed together into one line over his deep-set eyes.

She had matured from a single cell to a normal-sized baby in the course of a few weeks. She looked well on her way to being a toddler just days after her birth. If this rate of growth held…

My vampire mind had no trouble with the math.

“What do we do?” I whispered, horrified.

Edward’s arms tightened. He understood exactly what I was asking. “I don’t know.”

“It’s slowing,” Jacob muttered through his teeth.

“We’ll need several more days of measurements to track the trend, Jacob. I can’t make any promises.”

“Yesterday she grew two inches. Today it’s less.”

“By a thirty-second of an inch, if my measurements are perfect,” Carlisle said quietly.

“ Be perfect, Doc,” Jacob said, making the words almost threatening. Rosalie stiffened.

“You know I’ll do my best,” Carlisle assured him.

Jacob sighed. “Guess that’s all I can ask.”

I felt irritated again, like Jacob was stealing my lines—and delivering them all wrong.

Renesmee seemed irritated, too. She started to squirm and then reached her hand imperiously toward Rosalie. Rosalie leaned forward so that Renesmee could touch her face. After a second, Rose sighed.

“What does she want?” Jacob demanded, taking my line again.

“Bella, of course,” Rosalie told him, and her words made my insides feel a little warmer. Then she looked at me. “How are you?”

“Worried,” I admitted, and Edward squeezed me.

“We all are. But that’s not what I meant.”

“I’m in control,” I promised. Thirstiness was way down the list right now. Besides, Renesmee smelled good in a very non-food way.

Jacob bit his lip but made no move to stop Rosalie as she offered Renesmee to me. Jasper and Edward hovered but allowed it. I could see how tense Rose was, and I wondered how the room felt to Jasper right now. Or was he focusing so hard on me that he couldn’t feel the others?

Renesmee reached for me as I reached for her, a blinding smile lighting her face. She fit so easily in my arms, like they’d been shaped just for her. Immediately, she put her hot little hand against my cheek.

Though I was prepared, it still made me gasp to see the memory like a vision in my head. So bright and colorful but also completely transparent.

She was remembering me charging Jacob across the front lawn, remembering Seth leaping between us. She’d seen and heard it all with perfect clarity. It didn’t look like me, this graceful predator leaping at her prey like an arrow arcing from a bow. It had to be someone else. That made me feel a very small bit less guilty as Jacob stood there defenselessly with his hands raised in front of him. His hands did not tremble.

Edward chuckled, watching Renesmee’s thoughts with me. And then we both winced as we heard the crack of Seth’s bones.

Renesmee smiled her brilliant smile, and her memory eyes did not leave Jacob through all the following mess. I tasted a new flavor to the memory—not exactly protective, more possessive—as she watched Jacob. I got the distinct impression that she was glad Seth had put himself in front of my spring. She didn’t want Jacob hurt. He was hers.

“Oh, wonderful,” I groaned. “Perfect.”

“It’s just because he tastes better than the rest of us,” Edward assured me, voice stiff with his own annoyance.

“I told you she likes me, too,” Jacob teased from across the room, his eyes on Renesmee. His joking was halfhearted; the tense angle of his eyebrows had not relaxed.

Renesmee patted my face impatiently, demanding my attention. Another memory: Rosalie pulling a brush gently through each of her curls. It felt nice.

Carlisle and his tape measure, knowing she had to stretch and be still. It was not interesting to her.

“It looks like she’s going to give you a rundown of everything you missed,” Edward commented in my ear.

My nose wrinkled as she dumped the next one on me. The smell coming from a strange metal cup—hard enough not to be bitten through easily—sent a flash burn through my throat. Ouch.

And then Renesmee was out of my arms, which were pinned behind my back. I didn’t struggle with Jasper; I just looked at Edward’s frightened face.

“What did I do?”

Edward looked at Jasper behind me, and then at me again.

“But she was remembering being thirsty,” Edward muttered, his forehead pressing into lines. “She was remembering the taste of human blood.”

Jasper’s arms pulled mine tighter together. Part of my head noted that this wasn’t particularly uncomfortable, let alone painful, as it would have been to a human. It was just annoying. I was sure I could break his hold, but I didn’t fight it.

“Yes,” I agreed. “And?”

Edward frowned at me for a second more, and then his expression loosened. He laughed once. “And nothing at all, it seems. The overreaction is mine this time. Jazz, let her go.”

The binding hands disappeared. I reached out for Renesmee as soon as I was free. Edward handed her to me without hesitation.

“I can’t understand,” Jasper said. “I can’t bear this.”

I watched in surprise as Jasper strode out the back door. Leah moved to give him a wide margin of space as he paced to the river and then launched himself over it in one bound.

Renesmee touched my neck, repeating the scene of departure right back, like an instant replay. I could feel the question in her thought, an echo of mine.

I was already over the shock of her odd little gift. It seemed an entirely natural part of her, almost to be expected. Maybe now that I was part of the supernatural myself, I would never be a skeptic again.

But what was wrong with Jasper?

“He’ll be back,” Edward said, whether to me or Renesmee, I wasn’t sure. “He just needs a moment alone to readjust his perspective on life.” There was a grin threatening at the corners of his mouth.

Another human memory—Edward telling me that Jasper would feel better about himself if I “had a hard time adjusting” to being a vampire. This was in the context of a discussion about how many people I would kill my first newborn year.

“Is he mad at me?” I asked quietly.

Edward’s eyes widened. “No. Why would he be?”

“What’s the matter with him, then?”

“He’s upset with himself, not you, Bella. He’s worrying about… self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose you could say.”

“How so?” Carlisle asked before I could.

“He’s wondering if the newborn madness is really as difficult as we’ve always thought, or if, with the right focus and attitude, anyone could do as well as Bella. Even now—perhaps he only has such difficulty because he believes it’s natural and unavoidable. Maybe if he expected more of himself, he would rise to those expectations. You’re making him question a lot of deep-rooted assumptions, Bella.”

“But that’s unfair,” Carlisle said. “Everyone is different; everyone has their own challenges. Perhaps what Bella is doing goes beyond the natural. Maybe this is her gift, so to speak.”

I froze with surprise. Renesmee felt the change, and touched me. She remembered the last second of time and wondered why.

“That’s an interesting theory, and quite plausible,” Edward said.

For a tiny space, I was disappointed. What? No magic visions, no formidable offensive abilities like, oh, shooting lightning bolts from my eyes or something? Nothing helpful or cool at all?

And then I realized what that might mean, if my “superpower” was no more than exceptional self-control.

For one thing, at least I had a gift. It could have been nothing.

But, much more than that, if Edward was right, then I could skip right over the part I’d feared the very most.

What if I didn’t have to be a newborn? Not in the crazed killing-machine sense, anyway. What if I could fit right in with the Cullens from my first day? What if we didn’t have to hide out somewhere remote for a year while I “grew up”? What if, like Carlisle, I never killed a single person? What if I could be a good vampire right away?

I could see Charlie.

I sighed as soon as reality filtered through hope. I couldn’t see Charlie right away. The eyes, the voice, the perfected face. What could I possibly say to him; how could I even begin? I was furtively glad that I had some excuses for putting things off for a while; as much as I wanted to find some way to keep Charlie in my life, I was terrified of that first meeting. Seeing his eyes pop as he took in my new face, my new skin. Knowing that he was frightened. Wondering what dark explanation would form in his head.

I was chicken enough to wait for a year while my eyes cooled. And here I’d thought I would be so fearless when I was indestructible.

“Have you ever seen an equivalent to self-control as a talent?” Edward asked Carlisle. “Do you really think that’s a gift, or just a product of all her preparation?”

Carlisle shrugged. “It’s slightly similar to what Siobhan has always been able to do, though she wouldn’t call it a gift.”

“Siobhan, your friend in that Irish coven?” Rosalie asked. “I wasn’t aware that she did anything special. I thought it was Maggie who was talented in that bunch.”

“Yes, Siobhan thinks the same. But she has this way of deciding her goals and then almost… willing them into reality. She considers it good planning, but I’ve always wondered if it was something more. When she included Maggie, for instance. Liam was very territorial, but Siobhan wanted it to work out, and so it did.”

Edward, Carlisle, and Rosalie settled into chairs as they continued with the discussion. Jacob sat next to Seth protectively, looking bored. From the way his eyelids drooped, I was sure he’d be unconscious momentarily.

I listened, but my attention was divided. Renesmee was still telling me about her day. I held her by the window wall, my arms rocking her automatically as we stared into each other’s eyes.

I realized that the others had no reason for sitting down. I was perfectly comfortable standing. It was just as restful as stretching out on a bed would be. I knew I would be able to stand like this for a week without moving and I would feel just as relaxed at the end of the seven days as I did at the beginning.

They must sit out of habit. Humans would notice someone standing for hours without ever shifting her weight to a different foot. Even now, I saw Rosalie brush her fingers against her hair and Carlisle cross his legs. Little motions to keep from being too still, too much a vampire. I would have to pay attention to what they did and start practicing.

I rolled my weight back to my left leg. It felt kind of silly.

Maybe they were just trying to give me a little alone time with my baby—as alone as was safe.

Renesmee told me about every minute happening of the day, and I got the feeling from the tenor of her little stories that she wanted me to know her every bit as much I wanted the same thing. It worried her that I had missed things—like the sparrows that had hopped closer and closer when Jacob had held her, both of them very still beside one of the big hemlocks; the birds wouldn’t come close to Rosalie. Or the outrageously icky white stuff—baby formula—that Carlisle had put in her cup; it smelled like sour dirt. Or the song Edward had crooned to her that was so perfect Renesmee played it for me twice; I was surprised that I was in the background of that memory, perfectly motionless but looking fairly battered still. I shuddered, remembering that time from my own perspective. The hideous fire…

After almost an hour—the others were still deeply absorbed in their discussion, Seth and Jacob snoring in harmony on the couch—Renesmee’s memory stories began to slow. They got slightly blurry around the edges and drifted out of focus before they came to their conclusions. I was about to interrupt Edward in a panic—was there something wrong with her?—when her eyelids fluttered and closed. She yawned, her plump pink lips stretching into a round O, and her eyes never reopened.

Her hand fell away from my face as she drifted to sleep—the backs of her eyelids were the pale lavender color of thin clouds before the sunrise. Careful not to disturb her, I lifted that hand back to my skin and held it there curiously. At first there was nothing, and then, after a few minutes, a flickering of colors like a handful of butterflies were scattering from her thoughts.

Mesmerized, I watched her dreams. There was no sense to it. Just colors and shapes and faces. I was pleased by how often my face—both of my faces, hideous human and glorious immortal—cropped up in her unconscious thoughts. More than Edward or Rosalie. I was neck and neck with Jacob; I tried not to let that get to me.

For the first time, I understood how Edward had been able to watch me sleep night after boring night, just to hear me talk in my sleep. I could watch Renesmee dream forever.

The change in Edward’s tone caught my attention when he said, “Finally,” and turned to gaze out the window. It was deep, purply night outside, but I could see just as far as before. Nothing was hidden in the darkness; everything had just changed colors.

Leah, still glowering, got up and slunk into the brush just as Alice came into view on the other side of the river. Alice swung back and forth from a branch like a trapeze artist, toes touching hands, before throwing her body into a graceful flat spin over the river. Esme made a more traditional leap, while Emmett charged right through the water, splashing water so far that splatters hit the back windows. To my surprise, Jasper followed after, his own efficient leap seeming understated, even subtle, after the others.

The huge grin stretching Alice’s face was familiar in a dim, odd way. Everyone was suddenly smiling at me—Esme sweet, Emmett excited, Rosalie a little superior, Carlisle indulgent, and Edward expectant.

Alice skipped into the room ahead of everyone else, her hand stretched out in front of her and impatience making a nearly visible aura around her. In her palm was an everyday brass key with an oversized pink satin bow tied around it.

She held the key out for me, and I automatically gripped Renesmee more securely in my right arm so that I could open my left. Alice dropped the key into it.

“Happy birthday!” she squealed.

I rolled my eyes. “No one starts counting on the actual day of birth,” I reminded her. “Your first birthday is at the year mark, Alice.”

Her grin turned smug. “We’re not celebrating your vampire birthday. Yet. It’s September thirteenth, Bella. Happy nineteenth birthday!”

24. SURPRISE

“No. No way!” I shook my head fiercely and then shot a glance at the smug smile on my seventeen-year-old husband’s face. “No, this doesn’t count. I stopped aging three days ago. I am eighteen forever.”

“Whatever,” Alice said, dismissing my protest with a quick shrug. “We’re celebrating anyway, so suck it up.”

I sighed. There was rarely a point to arguing with Alice.

Her grin got impossibly wider as she read the acquiescence in my eyes.

“Are you ready to open your present?” Alice sang.

“Present s,” Edward corrected, and he pulled another key—this one longer and silver with a less gaudy blue bow—from his pocket.

I struggled to keep from rolling my eyes. I knew immediately what this key was to—the “after car.” I wondered if I should feel excited. It seemed the vampire conversion hadn’t given me any sudden interest in sports cars.

“Mine first,” Alice said, and then stuck her tongue out, foreseeing his answer.

“Mine is closer.”

“But look at how she’s dressed. ” Alice’s words were almost a moan. “It’s been killing me all day. That is clearly the priority.”

My eyebrows pulled together as I wondered how a key could get me into new clothes. Had she gotten me a whole trunkful?

“I know—I’ll play you for it,” Alice suggested. “Rock, paper, scissors.”

Jasper chuckled and Edward sighed.

“Why you don’t you just tell me who wins?” Edward said wryly.

Alice beamed. “I do. Excellent.”

“It’s probably better that I wait for morning, anyway.” Edward smiled crookedly at me and then nodded toward Jacob and Seth, who looked like they were crashed for the night; I wonder how long they’d stayed up this time. “I think it might be more fun if Jacob was awake for the big reveal, don’t you agree? So that someone there is able to express the right level of enthusiasm?”

I grinned back. He knew me well.

“Yay,” Alice sang. “Bella, give Ness—Renesmee to Rosalie.”

“Where does she usually sleep?”

Alice shrugged. “In Rose’s arms. Or Jacob’s. Or Esme’s. You get the picture. She has never been set down in her entire life. She’s going to be the most spoiled half-vampire in existence.”

Edward laughed while Rosalie took Renesmee expertly in her arms. “She is also the most un spoiled half-vampire in existence,” Rosalie said. “The beauty of being one of a kind.”

Rosalie grinned at me, and I was glad to see that the new comradeship between us was still there in her smile. I hadn’t been entirely sure it would last after Renesmee’s life was no longer tied to mine. But maybe we had fought together on the same side long enough that we would always be friends now. I’d finally made the same choice she would have if she’d been in my shoes. That seemed to have washed away her resentment for all my other choices.

Alice shoved the beribboned key in my hand, then grabbed my elbow and steered me toward the back door. “Let’s go, let’s go,” she trilled.

“Is it outside?”

“Sort of,” Alice said, pushing me forward.

“Enjoy your gift,” Rosalie said. “It’s from all of us. Esme especially.”

“Aren’t you coming, too?” I realized that no one had moved.

“We’ll give you a chance to appreciate it alone,” Rosalie said. “You can tell us about it… later.”

Emmett guffawed. Something about his laugh made me feel like blushing, though I wasn’t sure why.

I realized that lots of things about me—like truly hating surprises, and not liking gifts in general much more—had not changed one bit. It was a relief and revelation to discover how much of my essential core traits had come with me into this new body.

I hadn’t expected to be myself. I smiled widely.

Alice tugged my elbow, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I followed her into the purple night. Only Edward came with us.

“There’s the enthusiasm I’m looking for,” Alice murmured approvingly. Then she dropped my arm, made two lithe bounds, and leaped over the river.

“C’mon, Bella,” she called from the other side.

Edward jumped at the same time I did; it was every bit as fun as it had been this afternoon. Maybe a little bit more fun because the night changed everything into new, rich colors.

Alice took off with us on her heels, heading due north. It was easier to follow the sound of her feet whispering against the ground and the fresh path of her scent than it was to keep my eyes on her through the thick vegetation.

At no sign I could see, she whirled and dashed back to where I paused.

“Don’t attack me,” she warned, and sprang at me.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, squirming as she scrambled onto my back and wrapped her hands around my face. I felt the urge to throw her off, but I controlled it.

“Making sure you can’t see.”

“I could take care of that without the theatrics,” Edward offered.

“You might let her cheat. Take her hand and lead her forward.”

“Alice, I—”

“Don’t bother, Bella. We’re doing this my way.”

I felt Edward’s fingers weave through mine. “Just a few seconds more, Bella. Then she’ll go annoy someone else.” He pulled me forward. I kept up easily. I wasn’t afraid of hitting a tree; the tree would be the only one getting hurt in that scenario.

“You might be a little more appreciative,” Alice chided him. “This is as much for you as it is for her.”

“True. Thank you again, Alice.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Alice’s voice suddenly shot up with excitement. “Stop there. Turn her just a little to the right. Yes, like that. Okay. Are you ready?” she squeaked.

“I’m ready.” There were new scents here, piquing my interest, increasing my curiosity. Scents that didn’t belong in the deep woods. Honeysuckle. Smoke. Roses. Sawdust? Something metallic, too. The richness of deep earth, dug up and exposed. I leaned toward the mystery.

Alice hopped down from my back, releasing her grip on my eyes.

I stared into the violet dark. There, nestled into a small clearing in the forest, was a tiny stone cottage, lavender gray in the light of the stars.

It belonged here so absolutely that it seemed as if it must have grown from the rock, a natural formation. Honeysuckle climbed up one wall like a lattice, winding all the way up and over the thick wooden shingles. Late summer roses bloomed in a handkerchief-sized garden under the dark, deep-set windows. There was a little path of flat stones, amethyst in the night, that led up to the quaint arched wooden door.

I curled my hand around the key I held, shocked.

“What do you think?” Alice’s voice was soft now; it fit with the perfect quiet of the storybook scene.

I opened my mouth but said nothing.

“Esme thought we might like a place of our own for a while, but she didn’t want us too far away,” Edward murmured. “And she loves any excuse to renovate. This little place has been crumbling away out here for at least a hundred years.”

I continued staring, mouth gaping like a fish.

“Don’t you like it?” Alice’s face fell. “I mean, I’m sure we could fix it up differently, if you want. Emmett was all for adding a few thousand square feet, a second story, columns, and a tower, but Esme thought you would like it best the way it was meant to look.” Her voice started to climb, to go faster. “If she was wrong, we can get back to work. It won’t take long to—”

“Shh!” I managed.

She pressed her lips together and waited. It took me a few seconds to recover.

“You’re giving me a house for my birthday?” I whispered.

“Us,” Edward corrected. “And it’s no more than a cottage. I think the word house implies more legroom.”

“No knocking my house,” I whispered to him.

Alice beamed. “You like it.”

I shook my head.

“Love it?”

I nodded.

“I can’t wait to tell Esme!”

“Why didn’t she come?”

Alice’s smile faded a little, twisted just off what it had been, like my question was hard to answer. “Oh, you know… they all remember how you are about presents. They didn’t want to put you under too much pressure to like it.”

“But of course I love it. How could I not?”

“They’ll like that.” She patted my arm. “Anyhoo, your closet is stocked. Use it wisely. And… I guess that’s everything.”

“Aren’t you going to come inside?”

She strolled casually a few feet back. “Edward knows his way around. I’ll stop by… later. Call me if you can’t match your clothes right.” She threw me a doubtful look and then smiled. “Jazz wants to hunt. See you.”

She shot off into the trees like the most graceful bullet.

“That was weird,” I said when the sound of her flight had vanished completely. “Am I really that bad? They didn’t have to stay away. Now I feel guilty. I didn’t even thank her right. We should go back, tell Esme—”

“Bella, don’t be silly. No one thinks you’re that unreasonable.”

“Then what—”

“Alone time is their other gift. Alice was trying to be subtle about it.”

“Oh.”

That was all it took to make the house disappear. We could have been anywhere. I didn’t see the trees or the stones or the stars. It was just Edward.

“Let me show you what they’ve done,” he said, pulling my hand. Was he oblivious to the fact that an electric current was pulsing through my body like adrenaline-spiked blood?

Once again I felt oddly off balance, waiting for reactions my body wasn’t capable of anymore. My heart should have been thundering like a steam engine about to hit us. Deafening. My cheeks should have been brilliant red.

For that matter, I ought to have been exhausted. This had been the longest day of my life.

I laughed out loud—just one quiet little laugh of shock—when I realized that this day would never end.

“Do I get to hear the joke?”

“It’s not a very good one,” I told him as he led the way to the little rounded door. “I was just thinking—today is the first and last day of forever. It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around it. Even with all this extra room for wrapping.” I laughed again.

He chuckled with me. He held his hand out toward the doorknob, waiting for me to do the honors. I stuck the key in the lock and turned it.

“You’re such a natural at this, Bella; I forget how very strange this all must be for you. I wish I could hear it.” He ducked down and yanked me up into his arms so fast that I didn’t see it coming—and that was really something.

“Hey!”

“Thresholds are part of my job description,” he reminded me. “But I’m curious. Tell me what you’re thinking about right now.”

He opened the door—it fell back with a barely audible creak—and stepped through into the little stone living room.

“Everything,” I told him. “All at the same time, you know. Good things and things to worry about and things that are new. How I keep using too many superlatives in my head. Right now, I’m thinking that Esme is an artist. It’s so perfect!”

The cottage room was something from a fairy tale. The floor was a crazy quilt of smooth, flat stones. The low ceiling had long exposed beams that someone as tall as Jacob would surely knock his head on. The walls were warm wood in some places, stone mosaics in others. The beehive fireplace in the corner held the remains of a slow flickering fire. It was driftwood burning there—the low flames were blue and green from the salt.

It was furnished in eclectic pieces, not one of them matching another, but harmonious just the same. One chair seemed vaguely medieval, while a low ottoman by the fire was more contemporary and the stocked bookshelf against the far window reminded me of movies set in Italy. Somehow each piece fit together with the others like a big three-dimensional puzzle. There were a few paintings on the walls that I recognized—some of my very favorites from the big house. Priceless originals, no doubt, but they seemed to belong here, too, like all the rest.

It was a place where anyone could believe magic existed. A place where you just expected Snow White to walk right in with her apple in hand, or a unicorn to stop and nibble at the rosebushes.

Edward had always thought that he belonged to the world of horror stories. Of course, I’d known he was dead wrong. It was obvious that he belonged here. In a fairy tale.

And now I was in the story with him.

I was about to take advantage of the fact that he hadn’t gotten around to setting me back on my feet and that his wits-scramblingly beautiful face was only inches away when he said, “We’re lucky Esme thought to add an extra room. No one was planning for Ness—Renesmee.”

I frowned at him, my thoughts channeled down a less pleasant path.

“Not you, too,” I complained.

“Sorry, love. I hear it in their thoughts all the time, you know. It’s rubbing off on me.”

I sighed. My baby, the sea serpent. Maybe there was no help for it. Well, I wasn’t giving in.

“I’m sure you’re dying to see the closet. Or, at least I’ll tell Alice that you were, to make her feel good.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Terrified.”

He carried me down a narrow stone hallway with tiny arches in the ceiling, like it was our own miniature castle.

“That will be Renesmee’s room,” he said, nodding to an empty room with a pale wooden floor. “They didn’t have time to do much with it, what with the angry werewolves....”

I laughed quietly, amazed at how quickly everything had turned right when it had all had looked so nightmarish just a week ago.

Drat Jacob for making everything perfect this way.

“Here’s our room. Esme tried to bring some of her island back here for us. She guessed that we would get attached.”

The bed was huge and white, with clouds of gossamer floating down from the canopy to the floor. The pale wood floor matched the other room, and now I grasped that it was precisely the color of a pristine beach. The walls were that almost-white-blue of a brilliant sunny day, and the back wall had big glass doors that opened into a little hidden garden. Climbing roses and a small round pond, smooth as a mirror and edged with shiny stones. A tiny, calm ocean for us.