Chapter 7: Chapter Seven: Nightmare

I told Dad I had a lot of homework to do, and that I didn't want anything to eat. There was a basketball game on that he was excited about, though of course I had no idea what was special about it, so he wasn't aware of anything unusual in my face or tone.

Once in my room, I locked the door. Bella eyed me as I dug through my desk until I found my old headphones, and I plugged them into my little CD player. I picked up a CD that Phil had given us for Christmas. It was one of his favorite bands, but they used a little too much bass and shrieking for Bella's taste so I held onto it. I popped it into place and lay down on my bed. I put on the headphones, hit Play, and turned up the volume until it hurt my ears. I closed my eyes, but the light still intruded, so I added a pillow over the top half of my face.

I had told my sister what Jacob said when we'd gotten home that night. She didn't seem to know what to think, either. I often found her retreating into her own mind and zoning out.

I concentrated very carefully on the music, trying to understand the lyrics, to unravel the complicated drum patterns. By the third time I'd listened through the CD, I knew all the words to the choruses, at least. I really did like the band, the blaring noise aided in drowning out my thoughts. The shattering beats made it impossible for me to think — which was the whole purpose of the exercise. I listened to the CD again and again, until I was singing along with all the songs, until, finally, I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes to a familiar place. Aware in some corner of my consciousness that I was dreaming. I recognized the green light of the forest. I could hear the waves crashing against the rocks somewhere nearby. And I knew that if I found the ocean, I'd be able to see the sun. I was trying to follow the sound, but then Jacob Black was there, tugging on my hand, pulling me back toward the blackest part of the forest.

"Jacob? What's wrong?" I asked. His face was frightened as he yanked with all his strength against my resistance; for some reason, I didn't want to go into the dark.

"Run, Alex, you have to run!" He whispered, terrified.

"This way, Alexandra!" I recognized Eric's voice calling out of the gloomy heart of the trees, but I couldn't see him.

"Why?" I asked, still pulling against Jacob's grasp, desperate now to find the sun.

But Jacob let go of my hand and yelped, suddenly shaking, falling to the dim forest floor. He twitched on the ground as I watched in horror.

"Jacob!" I screamed. But he was gone. In his place was a large red-brown wolf with black eyes. The wolf faced away from me, pointing toward the shore, the hair on the back of his shoulders bristling, low growls issuing from between his exposed fangs.

"Alexandra, run!" Eric cried out again from behind me. But I didn't turn. I was watching a light coming toward me from the beach.

And then Christian stepped out from the trees, his skin faintly glowing, his eyes black and dangerous.

He held up one hand and beckoned me to come to him. The wolf growled at my feet.

I took a step forward, toward Christian. He smiled then, and his teeth were sharp, pointed.

"Trust me," he purred.

I took another step.

The wolf launched himself across the space between me and the vampire, fangs aiming for the jugular.

"No!" I screamed, wrenching upright out of my bed.

My sudden movement caused the headphones to pull the CD player off the bedside table, and it clattered to the wooden floor.

Our light was still on, so Bella must've dozed off accidentally, too. I was sitting fully dressed on the bed, with my shoes on. I glanced, disoriented, at the clock on my dresser. It was five-thirty in the morning.

I groaned, fell back, and rolled over onto my face, kicking off my boots. I was too uncomfortable to get anywhere near sleep, though. I rolled back over and unbuttoned my jeans, yanking them off awkwardly as I tried to stay horizontal. I could feel the braid in my hair, an uncomfortable ridge along the back of my skull. I turned onto my side and ripped the rubber band out, quickly combing through the plaits with my fingers. I pulled the pillow back over my eyes.

It was all no use, of course. My subconscious had dredged up exactly the images I'd been trying desperately to avoid. I was going to have to face them now.

I sat up, and my head spun for a minute as the blood flowed downward. When my eyes focused, I saw my twin staring back at me, silent. She was probably waiting for me to wake up.

"Did I wake you?" I asked her. I felt kind of bad now.

"Hardly. Are you okay? Nightmare?" she replied, shaking her head.

"You could say that. Guest starring Jacob Black and Christian Hale."

"No way. Edward was in mine." she was almost in shock and so was I.

Without answering her, I got up and grabbed my bathroom bag.

The shower didn't last nearly as long as I hoped it would, though, even taking the time to blow-dry my hair, which I never did, I was soon out of things to do in the bathroom. Wrapped in a towel, I crossed back to my room. I couldn't tell if Dad was still asleep, or if he had already left. I went to look out my window, and the cruiser was gone. Fishing again.

I dressed slowly in my most comfy sweats and then made my bed — another thing I never did. I couldn't put it off any longer. I went to my desk and switched on my old computer. I hated using the Internet here. Our modem was sadly outdated, our free service substandard; just dialing up took so long that I decided to go get Bella and I each a bowl of cereal while I waited and she finished showering.

I ate slowly, chewing each bite with care. When we were done, I washed the bowls and spoons, dried them, and put them away. My feet dragged as I climbed the stairs. Bella had pulled up a chair and was waiting for me at my desk. It was like she could read my mind. I went to my CD player first, picking it up off the floor and placing it precisely in the center of the table. I pulled out the headphones, and put them away in the desk drawer. Then I turned the same CD on, turning it down to the point where it was background noise.

With another sigh, I turned to my computer and my waiting sister. Naturally, the screen was covered in pop-up ads. I sat in my hard folding chair and began closing all the little windows. Eventually I made it to my favorite search engine. I shot down a few more pop-ups and then typed in one word. Vampire.

My twin eyed me from my side.

It took an infuriatingly long time, of course. When the results came up, there was a lot to sift through — everything from movies and TV shows to role-playing games, underground metal, and gothic cosmetic companies.

Then I found a promising site — Vampire A-Z. We waited impatiently for it to load, quickly clicking closed each ad that flashed across the screen. Finally the screen was finished — simple white background with black text, academic-looking. Two quotes greeted me on the home page:

Throughout the vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. ⎼Rev. Montague Summers

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires? ⎼Rousseau

The rest of the site was an alphabetized listing of all the different myths of vampires held throughout the world. The first I clicked on, the Danag, was a Filipino vampire supposedly responsible for planting taro on the islands long ago. The myth continued that the Danag worked with humans for many years, but the partnership ended one day when a woman cut her finger and a Danag sucked her wound, enjoying the taste so much that it drained her body completely of blood.

I read carefully through the descriptions with Bella, looking for anything that sounded familiar, let alone plausible.

It seemed that most vampire myths centered around beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like constructs created to explain away the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity. Many of the stories involved bodiless spirits and warnings against improper burials. There wasn't much that sounded like the movies I'd seen, and only a very few, like the Hebrew Estrie and the Polish Upier, who were even preoccupied with drinking blood.

Only three entries really caught our attention: the Romanian Varacolaci, a powerful undead being who could appear as a beautiful, pale-skinned human, the Slovak Nelapsi, a creature so strong and fast it could massacre an entire village in the single hour after midnight, and one other, the Stregoni benefici.

About this last there was only one brief sentence.

Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires.

It was a relief, that one small entry, the one myth among hundreds that claimed the existence of good vampires.

Overall, though, there was little that coincided with Jacob's stories or my own observations. I'd made a little catalogue in my mind as I'd read and carefully compared it with each myth. Speed, strength, beauty, pale skin, eyes that shift color; and then Jacob's criteria: blood drinkers, enemies of the werewolf, cold-skinned, and immortal. There were very few myths that matched even one factor.

And then another problem, one that I'd remembered from the small number of scary movies that I'd seen and was backed up by today's reading — vampires couldn't come out in the daytime, the sun would burn them to a cinder. They slept in coffins all day and came out only at night.

Aggravated, I snapped off the computer's main power switch, not waiting to shut things down properly. Bella jumped at my sudden, violent movement.

Through my irritation, I felt overwhelming embarrassment. It was all so stupid. We were sitting in our room, researching vampires. What was wrong with us? I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks — and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter.

I had to get out of the house, but there was nowhere I wanted to go that didn't involve a three-day drive. I pulled on my boots anyway, unclear where I was headed, and went downstairs. I shrugged into my raincoat without checking the weather and stomped out the door with Bella chasing after me.

It was overcast, but not raining yet. I ignored our truck and started east on foot, angling across Dad's yard toward the ever-encroaching forest. I didn't think she'd follow, but still she persisted. It didn't take long until we were deep enough for the house and the road to be invisible, for the only sound to be the squish of the damp earth under our feet and the sudden cries of the jays.

There was a thin ribbon of a trail that led through the forest here, and I was betting that's why Bella risked wandering with me like this. Even though both of us had a hopeless sense of direction, I was unafraid of getting lost.

The trail wound deeper and deeper into the forest, mostly east as far as I could tell. It snaked around the Sitka spruces and the hemlocks, the yews and the maples. I only vaguely knew the names of the trees around me, and all I knew was due to Dad pointing them out to us from the cruiser window in the earlier days. There were many I didn't know, and others I couldn't be sure about because they were so covered in green parasites.

Bella made no attempt at conversation and neither did I. We just trudged in silence, knowing that talking would be pointless.

We followed the trail as long as my anger kept pushing me, and therefore us, forward. As that started to ebb, I slowed. A few drops of moisture trickled down from the canopy above, but I couldn't be certain if it was beginning to rain or if it was simply pools leftover from yesterday, held high in the leaves above us, slowly dripping their way back to the earth. A recently fallen tree — I knew it was recent because it wasn't entirely carpeted in moss — rested against the trunk of one of her sisters, creating a sheltered little bench just a few safe feet off the trail. I stepped over the ferns and sat carefully, making sure my jacket was between the damp seat and my clothes wherever they touched, and leaned my head back against the living tree.

This was the wrong place to have come. I should have known, but where else was there to go? The forest was deep green and far too much like the scene in last night's dream to allow for peace of mind.

Now that there was no longer the sound of our soggy footsteps, the silence was piercing. The birds were quiet, too, the drops increasing in frequency, so it must be raining above. I noticed Bella recoiling into her jacket as much as possible. She hated it out here, but didn't want me to be alone. The ferns stood higher than our heads, now that we were seated, and I knew someone could walk by on the path, three feet away, and not see us.

Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands seemed much more likely in this green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom.

I forced myself to focus on the two most vital questions I had to answer, but I did so unwillingly.

"First, we have to decide if what Jacob said about the Cullens could possibly be true." I finally said aloud.

Immediately my mind responded with a resounding negative. It was silly and morbid to entertain such ridiculous notions. But what, then? I asked myself. There was no rational explanation for how my sister was alive at this moment. I listed again in my head the things I'd observed myself: the impossible speed and strength, the eye color shifting from black to gold and back again, the inhuman beauty, the pale, frigid skin. And more — small things that registered slowly ⎼ how they never seemed to eat, the disturbing grace with which they moved. They had skipped class the day we'd done blood typing. He hadn't said no to the beach trip until he heard where we were going. He had told me people would call them monsters...

"Could the Cullens be vampires?" Bella spoke my thoughts.

"Well, they're something. Something outside the possibility of rational justification. Whether it be Jacob's cold ones or some superhero theory... They're not human. Something more." Saying it instead of thinking it made it sound even more ridiculous, but my sister didn't laugh.

"What are we going to do if it's true?" she asked.

I looked at her then. She seemed to have her answer. Even if I decided to steer clear of Christian Hale, I knew she'd never leave Edward Cullen. No matter what she tried to put on, I knew my sister. She was falling very hard, very fast even if she didn't totally realize it. So my decision was made, too. I couldn't leave my sister alone in this. She was my responsibility as I was hers. So, if we were right about this, we were in it together.

And so the day was quiet, productive when we returned home. We finished our papers before eight. Dad came home with a large catch and Bella asked me to remind her to buy a book of recipes for fish when she went to Seattle next week. We didn't talk much about her going with Edward, even though she said we would. Thinking about that weekend, and what Christian said, I felt the same curiosity as I had when I was with Jacob Black on the beach. I shouldn't, though. I should be afraid, I thought. But I wasn't.

I slept dreamlessly that night, exhausted from beginning my day so early, and sleeping so poorly the night before. I woke, for the second time since arriving in Forks, to the bright yellow light of a sunny day. I was stunned to see that there was hardly a cloud in the sky. I opened the window for Bella. She was just waking up and I could already see the electricity in her eyes, happy for another day of warmth and a blue sky.

Dad was finishing breakfast when we came downstairs and he picked up on Bella's mood immediately.

"Nice day out," he commented.

"Yes," she agreed with a grin.

He smiled back, his brown eyes crinkling around the edges. When Dad smiled, it was easier to see why he and my mother had jumped too quickly into an early marriage. Most of the young romantic he'd been in those days had faded before I'd known him, as the curly black hair — the same color, if not the same texture, as mine — had dwindled, slowly revealing more and more of the shiny skin of his forehead.

But when he smiled, I could see a little of the man who had run away with Renee when she was just two years older than I was now.

We ate breakfast cherrily, watching the dust moats stirring in the sunlight that streamed in the back window.

Dad called out a goodbye, and I heard the cruiser pull away from the house. I hesitated on my way out the door, hand on my rain jacket. I decided to leave it, as I liked the rain anyway, but Bella folded hers under her arm, not willing to take the chance.

By dint of much elbow grease, we were able to get both windows in the truck almost completely rolled down. We were some of the first ones to school; not even checking the clock as I hurried out of the house after Bella. She parked and we headed toward the seldom-used picnic benches on the south side of the cafeteria. The benches were still a little damp, so we shared Bella's coat to sit on. Our homework was done — the product of a slow social life — but there were a few Trig problems I wasn't sure I had right. I took out my book, but halfway through rechecking the first problem I was daydreaming, watching the sunlight play on the red-barked trees. I sketched inattentively along the margins of my homework. After a few minutes, I felt a nudge to my side. I glanced at my sister to see her waggling her eyebrows at me. I suddenly realized I'd drawn six pairs of dark eyes staring out of the page at me. I scrubbed them out with the eraser.

"Bella!" I heard someone call; it sounded like Mike.

I looked around to realize that the school had become populated while I'd been sitting there, absentminded. Everyone was in t-shirts, some even in shorts though the temperature couldn't be over sixty. Mike was coming toward us in khaki shorts and a striped Rugby shirt, waving.

"Hey, Mike," Bella called, waving back.

He came to sit by her, the tidy spikes of his hair shining golden in the light, his grin stretching across his face. He was so delighted to see her.

"I never noticed before — your hair has red in it," he commented, catching between his fingers a strand that was fluttering in the light breeze.

"Only in the sun," she replied.

I watched as he tucked the lock behind her ear and made a gagging face he couldn't see.

"Great day, isn't it?" He said.

"My kind of day," Bella agreed. "Alex doesn't like the sun too much, though." She glanced over to me.

"What did you do yesterday?" His tone was just a bit too proprietary as he ignored my sister trying to include me in the conversation.

Bella told him we worked on our essays and they chatted about its due date for a little while until...

"I was going to ask if you wanted to go out." The confidence he had! Asking a girl out in front of her sister. I felt bad for Bella, the poor girl couldn't have one conversation with Mike that didn't turn awkward. "We could go to dinner or something..." He smiled at her hopefully.

"Mike... I don't think that would be the best idea."

His face fell. "Why?" he asked, his eyes guarded.

I whispered Edward Cullen under my breath and received an elbow to the ribs.

"I think... and if you ever repeat what I'm saying right now I will cheerfully beat you to death," Bella threatened, "but I think that would hurt Jessica's feelings."

He was bewildered, obviously not thinking in that direction at all. "Jessica?"

"Really, Mike, are you blind?" I spoke up.

"It's time for class, and we can't be late again," Bella took advantage of his dazed state to make an escape. I gathered my books and stuffed them in my bag.

We walked in silence to building three, and his expression was distracted. I hoped whatever thoughts he was immersed in were leading him in the right direction.

When we saw Jessica in Trig, she was bubbling with enthusiasm. She, Angela, and Lauren were going to Port Angeles tonight to go dress shopping for the dance, and she wanted us to come, too, even though we didn't need any. I was indecisive. It would be nice to get out of town with some girlfriends, but Lauren would be there. Bella hadn't seemed to notice her hostility towards us, so she gave Jess a maybe, telling her we'd have to talk to our dad first.

She talked of nothing but the dance on the way to Spanish, continuing as if without an interruption when class finally ended, five minutes late, and we were on our way to lunch. I was far too lost in my own frenzy of anticipation to notice much of what she said. I was painfully eager to see not just him, but all the Cullens ⎼ to compare them with the new suspicions that plagued my mind. As we crossed the threshold of the cafeteria, I felt the first true tingle of fear slither down my spine and settle in my stomach. Would they be able to know what I was thinking? Would Christian try to sit with me again? Would Edward be waiting on my sister?

As was our routine, we glanced first toward the Cullens' table. A shiver of panic trembled in my stomach as I realized it was empty. With dwindling hope, my eyes scoured the rest of the cafeteria. The place was nearly filled — Spanish has made us late — but there was no sign of Christian or Edward or any of their family. I felt Bella tremble beside me. She was looking forward to this as much as I was, if not more.

We were late enough that everyone was already at our table. Bella obviously avoided the empty chair next to Mike in favor of one by Angela. I vaguely noticed that Mike held the chair out politely for Jessica, and that her face lit up in response.

Angela asked a few questions about the Macbeth paper and Bella answered with almost no emotion. She, too, invited us to go with them tonight, and Bella agreed now, probably needing a distraction.

The rest of the day passed slowly, dismally. In Gym, we had a lecture on the rules of badminton, the next torture they had lined up for us. But at least it meant we got to sit and listen instead of stumbling around on the court. The best part was the coach didn't finish, so we got another day off tomorrow. Never mind that the day after they would arm us with a racket before unleashing us on the rest of the class.

I was glad to leave campus and I could tell Bella was, too, so she could be free to pout and mope before we went out tonight with Jessica and company. But right after we walked in the door of Dad's house, Jessica called to cancel our plans. Apparently Mike had asked her out to dinner. She rescheduled our shopping trip for tomorrow night.

Which left us with little in the way of distractions. Bella had fish marinating for dinner, with a salad and bread left over from the night before, so there was nothing to do there. I spent a focused half hour on homework, but then I was through with that, too. I checked my e-mail, unsurprised that I had none from my mother, though Bella had plenty.

I decided to kill an hour with non-school-related reading. I had a small collection of books that came with me to Forks, the shabbiest volume being a compilation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I selected that one and headed to the backyard, grabbing a ragged old quilt from the linen cupboard at the top of the stairs and not bothering to check what my sister was doing with her time.

Outside in Dad's small, square yard, I folded the quilt in half and laid it within the reach of the trees' shadows on the thick lawn that would always be slightly wet, no matter how long the sun shone. I lay on my stomach, crossing my ankles in the air, flipping through the different novels in the book, trying to decide which would occupy my mind the most thoroughly. My favorites were The Masque of the Red Death and The Tell-Tale Heart. I'd read the latter most recently, so I started into The Masque of the Red Death only to realize the parallels that could be found in that story and the vampiric legends I'd recently discovered. Angrily, I shut my book and sighed, rolling onto my back.

Trying to think of nothing at all, I remembered that a certain someone had my number and had texted me before. Pulling out my phone, I flipped it open and checked my messages, knowing he hadn't texted but still looking anyway.

Taking a moment to be brave, I sent him a text.

I know about you.

Before I could stop myself, I sent the message and closed my phone, throwing it to the side. He was a pain in the ass most of the time, so I was hoping to freak him out with this message. We'll see how well that's gonna work.

The breeze was still light, but it blew tendrils of my hair around my face and that tickled a bit. I pulled all my hair over my head, letting it fan out on the quilt above me, and focused again on thinking of nothing.

The next thing I was conscious of was the sound of Dad's cruiser turning onto the bricks of the driveway. I sat up in surprise, realizing the light was gone, behind the trees, and I had fallen asleep. I looked around, muddled, with the sudden feeling that I wasn't alone.

"Dad?" I asked. But I could hear his door slamming in front of the house.

I jumped up, foolishly edgy, gathering the now-damp quilt and my book. I ran inside to see Bella putting dinner on the table. Dad was hanging up his gun belt and stepping out of his boots when I came in.

"Nice nap?" Bella asked when she saw me. I stifled a yawn.

I watched TV with Dad after dinner, for something to do. There wasn't anything on I wanted to watch, but he knew I didn't like baseball, so he turned it to some mindless sitcom that neither of us enjoyed.

He seemed happy, though, to be doing something together. And it felt good to make him happy.

"Dad," I said during a commercial, "Jessica and Angela are going to look at dresses for the dance tomorrow night in Port Angeles, and they wanted us to help them choose... Do you mind if we go with them?"

"Jessica Stanley?" he asked.

"And Angela Weber," Bella sighed as she joined in on the conversation.

He was confused. "But you girls aren't going to the dance, right?"

"No, Dad, but we're helping them find dresses — you know, giving them constructive criticism." I wouldn't have to explain this to a woman.

"Well, okay." he seemed to realize that he was out of his depth with the girlie stuff. "It's a school night, though."

"We'll leave right after school, so we can get back early. You'll be okay for dinner, right?" Bella asked.

"Bells, I fed myself for seventeen years before you girls got here," he reminded her.

It was sunny again in the morning. Bella dressed for warmer weather in an outfit she wore in the dead of winter in Phoenix. I slipped on a dark green blouse that was long-sleeved but airy and light in fabric.

Bella had planned our arrival at school so that we barely had time to make it to class. Since she drove mostly, I had to go along with this. I know we both noticed the silver Volvo that was clearly not in the school parking lot.

She parked in the last row and we hurried to English, arriving breathless, but subdued, before the final bell. It was the same as yesterday — waiting in anticipation, even more so now since I sent that text yesterday, only to be both disappointed and strangely relieved when the Cullens did not appear.

The Port Angeles scheme was back on again for tonight and made all the more attractive by the fact that Lauren had other obligations. I was anxious to get out of town so I could stop glancing over my shoulder. Bella and I vowed to each other that we would be in a good mood tonight and not ruin our friends' enjoyment in the dress hunting.

Maybe we would do a little clothes shopping as well. I refused to think that I might be alone this weekend, no longer interested in the earlier arrangement. Surely he wouldn't cancel without at least telling me. I wondered if my twin was thinking the same.

After school, Jessica followed us home in her old white Mercury so that we could ditch our books and truck. Bella brushed through her hair quickly when we got inside and I threw mine up into a loose bun, feeling a slight shift of excitement as I contemplated getting out of Forks. Bella left a note for Dad on the table, explaining where to find dinner. I switched my scruffy wallet from my school bag to a purse I rarely used, and we ran out to join Jessica. We went to Angela's house next, and she was waiting for us. My excitement increased exponentially as we actually drove out of the town limits.