Beast at My Side

An Unfinished Sky

Alice. I imagine her as a paper crane. Unblemished wings folded with a peerless precision, a delicate shell to house the heart of the sweetest songbird. She was once a Cullen, I am told. Once, a lot of things. Edward's sister, Bella's friend, Jasper's wife. Now they call her Volturi. That word so small and insignificant to me saturates the room with a rage that is both dark and tempting. My heart gives an irregular, sloppy thump and their eyes all turn to mine. For the first time I am truly experiencing the fear—the thrill—of being here without the numbness of my loss. Wherever this discussion now leads it is not for my ears. I gather my wits and my jacket, then make for the door.

Dark mud and thin fog are canopied by leaves of green. The woods are damp and warm, rich with colour and sound. Breath slow. Eyes closed. I feel a calm in these trees that I can find nowhere else. Too soon it is broken by the snapping of twigs, the dragging of feet. I hear her only because she lets me. Each sound a deliberate warning of her approach.

"That was a whole new level of tension, huh?" Even here in the bowels of the forest, knee-deep in weeds Bella is beautiful. Too beautiful.

I nod in response. There is no tactful way to enquire about Alice, to slake the burn of my curiosity. All I can do is arrange my face into a look that urges and implores.

She takes pity on me then. She tells me the story of Alice: a broken girl left to wither in darkness, turned cold by a stranger and preyed upon by a demon, saved from her torment by a vision of the future. A future with Jasper. "And they fixed each other," Bella continues, "they loved each other until they were whole again." She wears a smile that would once have seemed dopey. On her immaculate, snowy mask it looks only serene.

"Then why did she leave?"

"To make a new future."

Two creatures whose hearts would beat forever, stitched together by the threads of fate - suddenly undone. That even her kind were not guaranteed love eternal must have been a sobering revelation for Bella. I ask how she feels about it all and her smile takes an enigmatic curve. It's better this way, she tells me. Better for whom, I do not know.

---

The Cullen house is filled with open spaces, dusted with creamy carpet, and spotted with golden sunlight. Patterned china and priceless works of art line the white walls but nothing under its roof is quite as stunning as Rosalie Hale. Startled by her invitation I hover near the door. My hands sweat. Sitting at a vanity, her reflection greets me with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. She looks breathtaking. I look awful.

"You look awful," she says.

I laugh and she counters with a rueful smile. Creatures as lovely as her say what they please. She extends her arm in a placid appeal and I drift to her side without further thought.

"What must you think of me?" Her tone implies an inquiry but questions such as these are rarely answered to satisfaction, and I would be loathe to dissatisfy her. "Perhaps you think me cold," she hums, "cruel? Many do, Bella among them. I'm not... adept at first impressions, or so I am told."

"Guarded," I say, "not cruel. To protect a family like this I imagine I would be too."

A quirk of the mouth, a pinch in the cheek. Rosalie Hale wears her affection with a practised subtlety. She beckons me closer, pats my hair like a child. There is something in her touch that is almost warm, almost maternal. But it is only an echo, a shadowy remnant of a woman who no longer exists. Much of her seems this way. Glossy varnish coating the muddled brush strokes of an unfinished sky.