Meyer Stephenie. Breaking Dawn

   Emmett grunted; his forehead creased and his whole body strained in one rigid line toward the obstacle of my unmoving hand. I let him sweat—figuratively—for a moment while I enjoyed the sensation of the crazy force running through my arm.
   A few seconds, though, and I was a little bored with it. I flexed; Emmett lost an inch.
   I laughed. Emmett snarled harshly through his teeth.
   “Just keep your mouth shut,” I reminded him, and then I smashed his hand into the boulder. A deafening crack echoed off the trees. The rock shuddered, and a piece—about an eighth of the mass—broke off at an invisible fault line and crashed to the ground. It fell on Emmett’s foot, and I snickered. I could hear Jacob’s and Edward’s muffled laughter.
   Emmett kicked the rock fragment across the river. It sliced a young maple in half before thudding into the base of a big fir, which swayed and then fell into another tree.
   “Rematch. Tomorrow.”
   “It’s not going to wear off that fast,” I told him. “Maybe you ought to give it a month.”
   Emmett growled, flashing his teeth. “Tomorrow.”
   “Hey, whatever makes you happy, big brother.”
   As he turned to stalk away, Emmett punched the granite, shattering off an avalanche of shards and powder. It was kind of neat, in a childish way.
   Fascinated by the undeniable proof that I was stronger than the strongest vampire I’d ever known, I placed my hand, fingers spread wide, against the rock. Then I dug my fingers slowly into the stone, crushing rather than digging; the consistency reminded me of hard cheese. I ended up with a handful of gravel.
   “Cool,” I mumbled.
   With a grin stretching my face, I whirled in a sudden circle and karate-chopped the rock with the side of my hand. The stone shrieked and groaned and—with a big poof of dust—split in two.
   I started giggling.
   I didn’t pay much attention to the chuckles behind me while I punched and kicked the rest of the boulder into fragments. I was having too much fun, snickering away the whole time. It wasn’t until I heard a new little giggle, a high-pitched peal of bells, that I turned away from my silly game.
   “Did she just laugh?”
   Everyone was staring at Renesmee with the same dumbstruck expression that must have been on my face.
   “Yes,” Edward said.
   “Who wasn’tlaughing?” Jake muttered, rolling his eyes.
   “Tell me you didn’t let go a bit on your first run, dog,” Edward teased, no antagonism in his voice at all.
   “That’s different,” Jacob said, and I watched in surprise as he mock-punched Edward’s shoulder. “Bella’s supposed to be a grown-up. Married and a mom and all that. Shouldn’t there be more dignity?”
   Renesmee frowned, and touched Edward’s face.
   “What does she want?” I asked.
   “Less dignity,” Edward said with a grin. “She was having almost as much fun watching you enjoy yourself as I was.”
   “Am I funny?” I asked Renesmee, darting back and reaching for her at the same time that she reached for me. I took her out of Edward’s arms and offered her the shard of rock in my hand. “You want to try?”
   She smiled her glittering smile and took the stone in both hands. She squeezed, a little dent forming between her eyebrows as she concentrated.
   There was a tiny grinding sound, and a bit of dust. She frowned, and held the chunk up to me.
   “I’ll get it,” I said, pinching the stone into sand.
   She clapped and laughed; the delicious sound of it made us all join in.
   The sun suddenly burst through the clouds, shooting long beams of ruby and gold across the ten of us, and I was immediately lost in the beauty of my skin in the light of the sunset. Dazed by it.
   Renesmee stroked the smooth diamond-bright facets, then laid her arm next to mine. Her skin had just a faint luminosity, subtle and mysterious. Nothing that would keep her inside on a sunny day like my glowing sparkle. She touched my face, thinking of the difference and feeling disgruntled.
   “You’re the prettiest,” I assured her.
   “I’m not sure I can agree to that,” Edward said, and when I turned to answer him, the sunlight on his face stunned me into silence.
   Jacob had his hand in front of his face, pretending to shield his eyes from the glare. “Freaky Bella,” he commented.
   “What an amazing creature she is,” Edward murmured, almost in agreement, as if Jacob’s comment was meant as a compliment. He was both dazzling and dazzled.
   It was a strange feeling—not surprising, I supposed, since everything felt strange now—this being a natural at something. As a human, I’d never been best at anything. I was okay at dealing with Renйe, but probably lots of people could have done better; Phil seemed to be holding his own. I was a good student, but never the top of the class. Obviously, I could be counted out of anything athletic. Not artistic or musical, no particular talents to brag of. Nobody ever gave away a trophy for reading books. After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to being average. I realized now that I’d long ago given up any aspirations of shining at anything. I just did the best with what I had, never quite fitting into my world.
   So this was really different. I was amazing now—to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined.

27 TRAVEL PLANS

   I took mythology a lot more seriously since I’d become a vampire.
   Often, when I looked back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagined how the thread of my life might look in the Fates’ loom—who knew but that it actually existed? I was sure my thread must have changed color; I thought it had probably started out as a nice beige, something supportive and non-confrontational, something that would look good in the background. Now it felt like it must be bright crimson, or maybe glistening gold.
   The tapestry of family and friends that wove together around me was a beautiful, glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors.
   I was surprised by some of the threads I got to include in my life. The werewolves, with their deep, woodsy colors, were not something I’d expected; Jacob, of course, and Seth, too. But my old friends Quil and Embry became part of the fabric as they joined Jacob’s pack, and even Sam and Emily were cordial. The tensions between our families eased, mostly due to Renesmee. She was easy to love.
   Sue and Leah Clearwater were interlaced into our life, too—two more I had not anticipated.
   Sue seemed to have taken it on herself to smooth Charlie’s transition into the world of make-believe. She came with him to the Cullens’ most days, though she never seemed truly comfortable here the way her son and most of Jake’s pack did. She did not speak often; she just hovered protectively near Charlie. She was always the first person he looked to when Renesmee did something disturbingly advanced—which was often. In answer, Sue would eye Seth meaningfully as if to say, Yeah, tell me about it.
   Leah was even less comfortable than Sue and was the only part of our recently extended family who was openly hostile to the merger. However, she and Jacob had a new camaraderie that kept her close to us all. I asked him about it once—hesitantly; I didn’t want to pry, but the relationship was so different from the way it used to be that it made me curious. He shrugged and told me it was a pack thing. She was his second-in-command now, his “beta,” as I’d called it once long ago.
   “I figured as long as I was going to do this Alpha thing for real,” Jacob explained, “I’d better nail down the formalities.”
   The new responsibility made Leah feel the need to check in with him often, and since he was always with Renesmee…
   Leah was not happy to be near us, but she was the exception. Happiness was the main component in my life now, the dominant pattern in the tapestry. So much so that my relationship with Jasper was now much closer than I’d ever dreamed it would be.
   At first I was really annoyed, though.
   “Yeesh!” I complained to Edward one night after we’d put Renesmee in her wrought-iron crib. “If I haven’t killed Charlie or Sue yet, it’s probably not going to happen. I wish Jasper would stop hovering all the time!”
   “No one doubts you, Bella, not in the slightest,” he assured me. “You know how Jasper is—he can’t resist a good emotional climate. You’re so happy all the time, love, he gravitates toward you without thinking.”
   And then Edward hugged me tightly, because nothing pleased him more than my overwhelming ecstasy in this new life.
   And I was euphoric the vast majority of the time. The days were not long enough for me to get my fill of adoring my daughter; the nights did not have enough hours to satisfy my need for Edward.
   There was a flipside to the joy, though. If you turned the fabric of our lives over, I imagined the design on the backside would be woven in the bleak grays of doubt and fear.
   Renesmee spoke her first word when she was exactly one week old. The word was Momma,which would have made my day, except that I was so frightened by her progress I could barely force my frozen face to smile back at her. It didn’t help that she continued from her first word to her first sentence in the same breath. “Momma, where is Grandpa?” she’d asked in a clear, high soprano, only bothering to speak aloud because I was across the room from her. She’d already asked Rosalie, using her normal (or seriously abnormal, from another point of view) means of communication. Rosalie hadn’t known the answer, so Renesmee had turned to me.
   When she walked for the first time, fewer than three weeks later, it was similar. She’d simply stared at Alice for a long moment, watching intently as her aunt arranged bouquets in the vases scattered around the room, dancing back and forth across the floor with her arms full of flowers. Renesmee got to her feet, not in the least bit shaky, and crossed the floor almost as gracefully.
   Jacob had burst into applause, because that was clearly the response Renesmee wanted. The way he was tied to her made his own reactions secondary; his first reflex was always to give Renesmee whatever she needed. But our eyes met, and I saw all the panic in mine echoed in his. I made my hands clap together, too, trying to hide my fear from her. Edward applauded quietly at my side, and we didn’t need to speak our thoughts to know they were the same.
   Edward and Carlisle threw themselves into research, looking for any answers, anything to expect. There was very little to be found, and none of it verifiable.
   Alice and Rosalie usually began our day with a fashion show. Renesmee never wore the same clothes twice, partly because she outgrew her clothes almost immediately and partly because Alice and Rosalie were trying to create a baby album that appeared to span years rather than weeks. They took thousands of pictures, documenting every phase of her accelerated childhood.
   At three months, Renesmee could have been a big one-year-old, or a small two-year-old. She wasn’t shaped exactly like a toddler; she was leaner and more graceful, her proportions were more even, like an adult’s. Her bronze ringlets hung to her waist; I couldn’t bear to cut them, even if Alice would have allowed it. Renesmee could speak with flawless grammar and articulation, but she rarely bothered, preferring to simply showpeople what she wanted. She could not only walk but run and dance. She could even read.
   I’d been reading Tennyson to her one night, because the flow and rhythm of his poetry seemed restful. (I had to search constantly for new material; Renesmee didn’t like repetition in her bedtime stories as other children supposedly did, and she had no patience for picture books.) She reached up to touch my cheek, the image in her mind one of us, only with herholding the book. I gave it to her, smiling.
   “ ‘There is sweet music here,’” she read without hesitation, “‘that softer falls than petals from blown roses on the grass, or night-dews on still waters between walls of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass—’ ”
   My hand was robotic as I took the book back.
   “If you read, how will you fall asleep?” I asked in a voice that had barely escaped shaking.
   By Carlisle’s calculations, the growth of her body was gradually slowing; her mind continued to race on ahead. Even if the rate of decrease held steady, she’d still be an adult in no more than four years.
   Four years. And an old woman by fifteen.
   Just fifteen years of life.
   But she was so healthy. Vital, bright, glowing, and happy. Her conspicuous well-being made it easy for me to be happy with her in the moment and leave the future for tomorrow.
   Carlisle and Edward discussed our options for the future from every angle in low voices that I tried not to hear. They never had these discussions when Jacob was around, because there wasone sure way to halt aging, and that wasn’t something Jacob was likely to be excited about. I wasn’t. Too dangerous!my instincts screamed at me. Jacob and Renesmee seemed alike in so many ways, both half-and-half beings, two things at the same time. And all the werewolf lore insisted that vampire venom was a death sentence rather than a course to immortality. . . .
   Carlisle and Edward had exhausted the research they could do from a distance, and now we were preparing to follow old legends at their source. We were going back to Brazil, starting there. The Ticunas had legends about children like Renesmee.… If other children like her had ever existed, perhaps some tale of the life span of half-mortal children still lingered. . . .
   The only real question left was exactly when we would go.
   I was the holdup. A small part of it was that I wanted to stay near Forks until after the holidays, for Charlie’s sake. But more than that, there was a different journey that I knew had to come first—that was the clear priority. Also, it had to be a solo trip.
   This was the only argument that Edward and I had gotten in since I’d become a vampire. The main point of contention was the “solo” part. But the facts were what they were, and my plan was the only one that made rational sense. I had to go see the Volturi, and I had to do it absolutely alone.
   Even freed from old nightmares, from any dreams at all, it was impossible to forget the Volturi. Nor did they leave us without reminders.
   Until the day that Aro’s present showed up, I didn’t know that Alice had sent a wedding announcement to the Volturi leaders; we’d been far away on Esme’s island when she’d seen a vision of Volturi soldiers—Jane and Alec, the devastatingly powerful twins, among them. Caius was planning to send a hunting party to see if I was still human, against their edict (because I knew about the secret vampire world, I either must join it or be silenced… permanently). So Alice had mailed the announcement, seeing that this would delay them as they deciphered the meaning behind it. But they would come eventually. That was certain.
   The present itself was not overtly threatening. Extravagant, yes, almost frightening in that very extravagance. The threat was in the parting line of Aro’s congratulatory note, written in black ink on a square of heavy, plain white paper in Aro’s own hand:
   I so look forward to seeing the new Mrs. Cullen in person.
   The gift was presented in an ornately carved, ancient wooden box inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, ornamented with a rainbow of gemstones. Alice said the box itself was a priceless treasure, that it would have outshone just about any piece of jewelry besides the one inside it.
   “I always wondered where the crown jewels disappeared to after John of England pawned them in the thirteenth century,” Carlisle said. “I suppose it doesn’t surprise me that the Volturi have their share.”
   The necklace was simple—gold woven into a thick rope of a chain, almost scaled, like a smooth snake that would curl close around the throat. One jewel hung suspended from the rope: a white diamond the size of a golf ball.
   The unsubtle reminder in Aro’s note interested me more than the jewel. The Volturi needed to see that I was immortal, that the Cullens had been obedient to the Volturi’s orders, and they needed to see this soon. They could not be allowed near Forks. There was only one way to keep our life here safe.
   “You’re not going alone,” Edward had insisted through his teeth, his hands clenching into fists.
   “They won’t hurt me,” I’d said as soothingly as I could manage, forcing my voice to sound sure. “They have no reason to. I’m a vampire. Case closed.”
   “No. Absolutely no.”
   “Edward, it’s the only way to protect her.”
   And he hadn’t been able to argue with that. My logic was watertight.
   Even in the short time I’d known Aro, I’d been able to see that he was a collector—and his most prized treasures were his livingpieces. He coveted beauty, talent, and rarity in his immortal followers more than any jewel locked in his vaults. It was unfortunate enough that he’d begun to covet Alice’s and Edward’s abilities. I would give him no more reason to be jealous of Carlisle’s family. Renesmee was beautiful and gifted and unique—she was one of a kind. He could not be allowed to see her, not even through someone’s thoughts.
   And I was the only one whose thoughts he could not hear. Of course I would go alone.
   Alice did not see any trouble with my trip, but she was worried by the indistinct quality of her visions. She said they were sometimes similarly hazy when there were outside decisions that mightconflict but that had not been solidly resolved. This uncertainty made Edward, already hesitant, extremely opposed to what I had to do. He wanted to come with me as far as my connection in London, but I wouldn’t leave Renesmee without bothher parents. Carlisle was coming instead. It made both Edward and me a little more relaxed, knowing that Carlisle would be only a few hours away from me.
   Alice kept searching for the future, but the things she found were unrelated to what she was looking for. A new trend in the stock market; a possible visit of reconciliation from Irina, though her decision was not firm; a snowstorm that wouldn’t hit for another six weeks; a call from Renйe (I was practicing my “rough” voice, and getting better at it every day—to Renйe’s knowledge, I was still sick, but mending).
   We bought the tickets for Italy the day after Renesmee turned three months. I planned for it to be a very short trip, so I hadn’t told Charlie about it. Jacob knew, and he took Edward’s view on things. However, today the argument was about Brazil. Jacob was determined to come with us.
   The three of us, Jacob, Renesmee, and I, were hunting together. The diet of animal blood wasn’t Renesmee’s favorite thing—and that was why Jacob was allowed to come along. Jacob had made it a contest between them, and that made her more willing than anything else.
   Renesmee was quite clear on the whole good vs. bad as it applied to hunting humans; she just thought that donated blood made a nice compromise. Human food filled her and it seemed compatible with her system, but she reacted to all varieties of solid food with the same martyred endurance I had once given cauliflower and lima beans. Animal blood was better than that, at least. She had a competitive nature, and the challenge of beating Jacob made her excited to hunt.
   “Jacob,” I said, trying to reason with him again while Renesmee danced ahead of us into the long clearing, searching for a scent she liked. “You’ve got obligations here. Seth, Leah—”
   He snorted. “I’m not my pack’s nanny. They’ve all got responsibilities in La Push anyway.”
   “Sort of like you? Are you officially dropping out of high school, then? If you’re going to keep up with Renesmee, you’re going to have to study a lot harder.”
   “It’s just a sabbatical. I’ll get back to school when things… slow down.”
   I lost my concentration on my side of the disagreement when he said that, and we both automatically looked at Renesmee. She was staring at the snowflakes fluttering high above her head, melting before they could stick to the yellowed grass in the long arrowhead-shaped meadow that we were standing in. Her ruffled ivory dress was just a shade darker than the snow, and her reddish-brown curls managed to shimmer, though the sun was buried deeply behind the clouds.
   As we watched, she crouched for an instant and then sprang fifteen feet up into the air. Her little hands closed around a flake, and she dropped lightly to her feet.
   She turned to us with her shocking smile—truly, it wasn’t something you could get used to—and opened her hands to show us the perfectly formed eight-pointed ice star in her palm before it melted.
   “Pretty,” Jacob called to her appreciatively. “But I think you’re stalling, Nessie.”
   She bounded back to Jacob; he held his arms out at exactly the moment she leaped into them. They had the move perfectly synchronized. She did this when she had something to say. She still preferred not to speak aloud.
   Renesmee touched his face, scowling adorably as we all listened to the sound of a small herd of elk moving farther into the wood.
   “ Suuuureyou’re not thirsty, Nessie,” Jacob answered a little sarcastically, but more indulgently than anything else. “You’re just afraid I’ll catch the biggest one again!”
   She flipped backward out of Jacob’s arms, landing lightly on her feet, and rolled her eyes—she looked so much like Edward when she did that. Then she darted off toward the trees.
   “Got it,” Jacob said when I leaned as if to follow. He yanked his t-shirt off as he charged after her into the forest, already trembling. “It doesn’t count if you cheat,” he called to Renesmee.
   I smiled at the leaves they left fluttering behind them, shaking my head. Jacob was more a child than Renesmee sometimes.
   I paused, giving my hunters a few minutes’ head start. It would be beyond simple to track them, and Renesmee would love to surprise me with the size of her prey. I smiled again.
   The narrow meadow was very still, very empty. The fluttering snow was thinning above me, almost gone. Alice had seen that it wouldn’t stick for many weeks.
   Usually Edward and I came together on these hunting trips. But Edward was with Carlisle today, planning the trip to Rio, talking behind Jacob’s back.… I frowned. When I returned, I would take Jacob’s side. He shouldcome with us. He had as big a stake in this as any of us—his entire life was at stake, just like mine.
   While my thoughts were lost in the near future, my eyes swept the mountainside routinely, searching for prey, searching for danger. I didn’t think about it; the urge was an automatic thing.
   Or perhaps there wasa reason for my scanning, some tiny trigger that my razor-sharp senses had caught before I realized it consciously.
   As my eyes flitted across the edge of a distant cliff, standing out starkly blue-gray against the green-black forest, a glint of silver—or was it gold?—gripped my attention.
   My gaze zeroed in on the color that shouldn’t have been there, so far away in the haze that an eagle wouldn’t have been able to make it out. I stared.
   She stared back.
   That she was a vampire was obvious. Her skin was marble white, the texture a million times smoother than human skin. Even under the clouds, she glistened ever so slightly. If her skin had not given her away, her stillness would have. Only vampires and statues could be so perfectly motionless.
   Her hair was pale, pale blond, almost silver. This was the gleam that had caught my eye. It hung straight as a ruler to a blunt edge at her chin, parted evenly down the center.
   She was a stranger to me. I was absolutely certain I’d never seen her before, even as a human. None of the faces in my muddy memory were the same as this one. But I knew her at once from her dark golden eyes.
   Irina had decided to come after all.
   For one moment I stared at her, and she stared back. I wondered if she would guess immediately who I was as well. I half-raised my hand, about to wave, but her lip twisted the tiniest bit, making her face suddenly hostile.
   I heard Renesmee’s cry of victory from the forest, heard Jacob’s echoing howl, and saw Irina’s face jerk reflexively to the sound when it echoed to her a few seconds later. Her gaze cut slightly to the right, and I knew what she was seeing. An enormous russet werewolf, perhaps the very one who had killed her Laurent. How long had she been watching us? Long enough to see our affectionate exchange before, I was sure.
   Her face spasmed in pain.
   Instinctually, I opened my hands in front of me in an apologetic gesture. She turned back to me, and her lip curled back over her teeth. Her jaw unlocked as she growled.
   When the faint sound reached me, she had already turned and disappeared into the forest.
   “Crap!” I groaned.
   I sprinted into the forest after Renesmee and Jacob, unwilling to have them out of my sight. I didn’t know which direction Irina had taken, or exactly how furious she was right now. Vengeance was a common obsession for vampires, one that was not easy to suppress.
   Running at full speed, it only took me two seconds to reach them.
   “Mine is bigger,” I heard Renesmee insist as I burst through the thick thornbushes to the small open space where they stood.
   Jacob’s ears flattened as he took in my expression; he crouched forward, baring his teeth—his muzzle was streaked with blood from his kill. His eyes raked the forest. I could hear the growl building in his throat.
   Renesmee was every bit as alert as Jacob. Abandoning the dead stag at her feet, she leaped into my waiting arms, pressing her curious hands against my cheeks.
   “I’m overreacting,” I assured them quickly. “It’s okay, I think. Hold on.”
   I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial. Edward answered on the first ring. Jacob and Renesmee listened intently to my side as I filled Edward in.
   “Come, bring Carlisle,” I trilled so fast I wondered if Jacob could keep up. “I saw Irina, and she saw me, but then she saw Jacob and she got mad and ran away, I think. She hasn’t shown up here—yet, anyway—but she looked pretty upset so maybe she will. If she doesn’t, you and Carlisle have to go after her and talk to her. I feel so bad.”
   Jacob rumbled.
   “We’ll be there in half a minute,” Edward assured me, and I could hear the whoosh of the wind his running made.
   We darted back to the long meadow and then waited silently as Jacob and I listened carefully for the sound of an approach we did not recognize.
   When the sound came, though, it was very familiar. And then Edward was at my side, Carlisle a few seconds behind. I was surprised to hear the heavy pad of big paws following behind Carlisle. I supposed I shouldn’t have been shocked. With Renesmee in even a hint of danger, of course Jacob would call in reinforcements.
   “She was up on that ridge,” I told them at once, pointing out the spot. If Irina was fleeing, she already had quite a head start. Would she stop and listen to Carlisle? Her expression before made me think not. “Maybe you should call Emmett and Jasper and have them come with you. She looked… really upset. She growled at me.”
   “What?” Edward said angrily.
   Carlisle put a hand on his arm. “She’s grieving. I’ll go after her.”
   “I’m coming with you,” Edward insisted.
   They exchanged a long glance—perhaps Carlisle was measuring Edward’s irritation with Irina against his helpfulness as a mind reader. Finally, Carlisle nodded, and they took off to find the trail without calling for Jasper or Emmett.
   Jacob huffed impatiently and poked my back with his nose. He must want Renesmee back at the safety of the house, just in case. I agreed with him on that, and we hurried home with Seth and Leah running at our flanks.
   Renesmee was complacent in my arms, one hand still resting on my face. Since the hunting trip had been aborted, she would just have to make do with donated blood. Her thoughts were a little smug.

28.THE FUTURE

   Carlisle and Edward had not been able to catch up with Irina before her trail disappeared into the sound. They’d swum to the other bank to see if her trail had picked up in a straight line, but there was no trace of her for miles in either direction on the eastern shore.
   It was all my fault. She had come, as Alice had seen, to make peace with the Cullens, only to be angered by my camaraderie with Jacob. I wished I’d noticed her earlier, before Jacob had phased. I wished we’d gone hunting somewhere else.
   There wasn’t much to be done. Carlisle had called Tanya with the disappointing news. Tanya and Kate hadn’t seen Irina since they’d decided to come to my wedding, and they were distraught that Irina had come so close and yet not returned home; it wasn’t easy for them to lose their sister, however temporary the separation might be. I wondered if this brought back hard memories of losing their mother so many centuries ago.
   Alice was able to catch a few glimpses of Irina’s immediate future, nothing too concrete. She wasn’t going back to Denali, as far as Alice could tell. The picture was hazy. All Alice could see was that Irina was visibly upset; she wandered in the snow-swathed wilderness—to the north? To the east?—with a devastated expression. She made no decisions for a new course beyond her directionless grieving.
   Days passed and, though of course I forgot nothing, Irina and her pain moved to the back of my mind. There were more important things to think of now. I would leave for Italy in just a few days. When I got back, we’d all be off to South America.
   Every detail had been gone over a hundred times already. We would start with the Ticunas, tracing their legends as well as we could at the source. Now that it was accepted that Jacob would come with us, he figured prominently in the plans—it was unlikely that the people who believed in vampires would speak to any of usabout their stories. If we dead-ended with the Ticunas, there were many closely related tribes in the area to research. Carlisle had some old friends in the Amazon; if we could find them, they might have information for us, too. Or at least a suggestion as to where else we might go for answers. It was unlikely that the three Amazon vampires had anything to do with the legends of vampire hybrids themselves, as they were all female. There was no way to know how long our search would take.
   I hadn’t told Charlie about the longer trip yet, and I stewed about what to say to him while Edward and Carlisle’s discussion went on. How to break the news to him just right?
   I stared at Renesmee while I debated internally. She was curled up on the sofa now, her breathing slow with heavy sleep, her tangled curls splayed wildly around her face. Usually, Edward and I took her back to our cottage to put her to bed, but tonight we lingered with the family, he and Carlisle deep in their planning session.
   Meanwhile, Emmett and Jasper were more excited about planning the hunting possibilities. The Amazon offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and panthers, for example. Emmett had a whim to wrestle with an anaconda. Esme and Rosalie were planning what they would pack. Jacob was off with Sam’s pack, setting things up for his own absence.
   Alice moved slowly—for her—around the big room, unnecessarily tidying the already immaculate space, straightening Esme’s perfectly hung garlands. She was re-centering Esme’s vases on the console at the moment. I could see from the way her face fluctuated—aware, then blank, then aware again—that she was searching the future. I assumed she was trying to see through the blind spots that Jacob and Renesmee made in her visions as to what was waiting for us in South America until Jasper said, “Let it go, Alice; she’s not our concern,” and a cloud of serenity stole silently and invisibly through the room. Alice must have been worrying about Irina again.
   She stuck her tongue out at Jasper and then lifted one crystal vase that was filled with white and red roses and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest hint of wilt to one of the white flowers, but Alice seemed intent on utter perfection as a distraction to her lack of vision tonight.
   Staring at Renesmee again, I didn’t see it when the vase slipped from Alice’s fingers. I only heard the whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal, and my eyes flickered up in time to see the vase shatter into ten thousand diamond shards against the edge of the kitchen’s marble floor.
   We were perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced and skittered in every direction with an unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Alice’s back.
   My first illogical thought was that Alice was playing some joke on us. Because there was no way that Alice could have dropped the vase by accident. I could have darted across the room to catch the vase in plenty of time myself, if I hadn’t assumed she would get it. And how would it fall through her fingers in the first place? Her perfectly sure fingers…
   I had never seen a vampire drop anything by accident. Ever.
   And then Alice was facing us, twisting in a move so fast it didn’t exist.
   Her eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling her thin face till they seemed to overflow it. Looking into her eyes was like looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried in the terror and despair and agony of her gaze.
   I heard Edward gasp; it was a broken, half-choked sound.
   “ What?” Jasper growled, leaping to her side in a blurred rush of movement, crushing the broken crystal under his feet. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her sharply. She seemed to rattle silently in his hands. “What, Alice?”
   Emmett moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted toward the window, anticipating an attack.
   There was only silence from Esme, Carlisle, and Rose, who were frozen just as I was.
   Jasper shook Alice again. “What isit?”
   “They’re coming for us,” Alice and Edward whispered together, perfectly synchronized. “All of them.”
   Silence.
   For once, I was the quickest to understand—because something in their words triggered my own vision. It was only the distant memory of a dream—faint, transparent, indistinct as if I were peering through thick gauze.… In my head, I saw a line of black advancing on me, the ghost of my half-forgotten human nightmare. I could not see the glint of their ruby eyes in the shrouded image, or the shine of their sharp wet teeth, but I knew where the gleam should be. . . .
   Stronger than the memory of the sight came the memory of the feel—the wrenching need to protect the precious thing behind me.
   I wanted to snatch Renesmee up into my arms, to hide her behind my skin and hair, to make her invisible. But I couldn’t even turn to look at her. I felt not like stone but ice. For the first time since I’d been reborn a vampire, I felt cold.
   I barely heard the confirmation of my fears. I didn’t need it. I already knew.
   “The Volturi,” Alice moaned.
   “All of them,” Edward groaned at the same time.
   “Why?” Alice whispered to herself. “How?”
   “When?” Edward whispered.
   “Why?” Esme echoed.
   “ When?” Jasper repeated in a voice like splintering ice.
   Alice’s eyes didn’t blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her mouth held on to her expression of horror.
   “Not long,” she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. “There’s snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month.”
   “Why?” Carlisle was the one to ask this time.
   Esme answered. “They must have a reason. Maybe to see . . .”
   “This isn’t about Bella,” Alice said hollowly. “They’re all coming—Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives.”
   “The wives never leave the tower,” Jasper contradicted her in a flat voice. “Never. Not during the southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never.”
   “They’re coming now,” Edward whispered.
   “But why?” Carlisle said again. “We’ve done nothing! And if we had, what could we possibly do that would bring thisdown on us?”
   “There are so many of us,” Edward answered dully. “They must want to make sure that . . .” He didn’t finish.
   “That doesn’t answer the crucial question! Why?”
   I felt I knew the answer to Carlisle’s question, and yet at the same time I didn’t. Renesmee was the reason why, I was sure. Somehow I’d known from the very beginning that they would come for her. My subconscious had warned me before I’d known I was carrying her. It felt oddly expected now. As if I’d somehow always known that the Volturi would come to take my happiness from me.
   But that still didn’t answer the question.
   “Go back, Alice,” Jasper pleaded. “Look for the trigger. Search.”
   Alice shook her head slowly, her shoulders sagging. “It came out of nowhere, Jazz. I wasn’t looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She wasn’t where I expected her to be. . . .” Alice trailed off, her eyes drifting again. She stared at nothing for a long second.
   And then her head jerked up, her eyes hard as flint. I heard Edward catch his breath.
   “She decided to go to them,” Alice said. “Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide.… It’s as if they’re waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her. . . .”
   It was silent again as we digested this. What would Irina tell the Volturi that would result in Alice’s appalling vision?
   “Can we stop her?” Jasper asked.
   “There’s no way. She’s almost there.”
   “What is she doing?” Carlisle was asking, but I wasn’t paying attention to the discussion now. All my focus was on the picture that was painstakingly coming together in my head.
   I pictured Irina poised on the cliff, watching. What had she seen? A vampire and a werewolf who were best friends. I’d been focused on that image, one that would obviously explain her reaction. But that was not all that she’d seen.
   She’d also seen a child. An exquisitely beautiful child, showing off in the falling snow, clearly more than human…
   Irina… the orphaned sisters… Carlisle had said that losing their mother to the Volturi’s justice had made Tanya, Kate, and Irina purists when it came to the law.
   Just half a minute ago, Jasper had said the words himself: Not even when they were hunting the immortal children.… The immortal children—the unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo…
   With Irina’s past, how could she apply any other reading to what she’d seen that day in the narrow field? She had not been close enough to hear Renesmee’s heart, to feel the heat radiating from her body. Renesmee’s rosy cheeks could have been a trick on our part for all she knew.
   After all, the Cullens were in league with werewolves. From Irina’s point of view, maybe this meant nothing was beyond us.…
   Irina, wringing her hands in the snowy wilderness—not mourning Laurent, after all, but knowing it was her duty to turn the Cullens in, knowing what would happen to them if she did. Apparently her conscience had won out over the centuries of friendship.
   And the Volturi’s response to this kind of infraction was so automatic, it was already decided.
   I turned and draped myself over Renesmee’s sleeping body, covering her with my hair, burying my face in her curls.
   “Think of what she saw that afternoon,” I said in a low voice, interrupting whatever Emmett was beginning to say. “To someone who’d lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Renesmee look like?”
   Everything was silent again as the others caught up to where I was already.
   “An immortal child,” Carlisle whispered.
   I felt Edward kneel beside me, wrap his arms over us both.
   “But she’s wrong,” I went on. “Renesmee isn’t like those other children. They were frozen, but she grows so much every day. They were out of control, but she never hurts Charlie or Sue or even shows them things that would upset them. She cancontrol herself. She’s already smarter than most adults. There would be no reason. . . .”
   I babbled on, waiting for someone to exhale with relief, waiting for the icy tension in the room to relax as they realized I was right. The room just seemed to get colder. Eventually my small voice trailed off into silence.
   No one spoke for a long time.
   Then Edward whispered into my hair. “It’s not the kind of crime they hold a trial for, love,” he said quietly. “Aro’s seen Irina’s proofin her thoughts. They come to destroy, not to be reasoned with.”
   “But they’re wrong,” I said stubbornly.
   “They won’t wait for us to show them that.”
   His voice was still quiet, gentle, velvet… and yet the pain and desolation in the sound was unavoidable. His voice was like Alice’s eyes before—like the inside of a tomb.
   “What can we do?” I demanded.
   Renesmee was so warm and perfect in my arms, dreaming peacefully. I’d worried so much about Renesmee’s speeding age—worried that she would only have little over a decade of life.… That terror seemed ironic now.
   Little over a month…
   Was this the limit, then? I’d had more happiness than most people ever experienced. Was there some natural law that demanded equal shares of happiness and misery in the world? Was my joy overthrowing the balance? Was four months all I could have?
   It was Emmett who answered my rhetorical question.
   “We fight,” he said calmly.
   “We can’t win,” Jasper growled. I could imagine how his face would look, how his body would curve protectively over Alice’s.
   “Well, we can’t run. Not with Demetri around.” Emmett made a disgusted noise, and I knew instinctively that he was not upset by the idea of the Volturi’s tracker but by the idea of running away. “And I don’t know that we can’twin,” he said. “There are a few options to consider. We don’t have to fight alone.”
   My head snapped up at that. “We don’t have to sentence the Quileutes to death, either, Emmett!”
   “Chill, Bella.” His expression was no different from when he was contemplating fighting anacondas. Even the threat of annihilation couldn’t change Emmett’s perspective, his ability to thrill to a challenge. “I didn’t mean the pack. Be realistic, though—do you think Jacob or Sam is going to ignore an invasion? Even if it wasn’t about Nessie? Not to mention that, thanks to Irina, Aro knows about our alliance with the pack now, too. But I was thinking of our other friends.”
   Carlisle echoed me in a whisper. “Other friends we don’t have to sentence to death.”
   “Hey, we’ll let them decide,” Emmett said in a placating tone. “I’m not saying they have to fight with us.” I could see the plan refining itself in his head as he spoke. “If they’d just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate. Bella’s right, after all. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that might take away any reason for a fight. . . .”