Chapter Text
Bella isn’t particularly thrilled by the notion of living in grey and ever-constant raining Forks, Washington, to live with her (somewhat estranged ) dad, Charlie. Especially not when she adores the feeling of sunlight saturating her skin, something she’s been granted excessively, living with her mom Renée in bright and warm Phoenix, Arizona.
She’s also not thrilled by having to share one upstairs bathroom with Charlie, or the fact that her bedroom (wooden floors, light blue walls, peaked ceiling, and yellow lace curtains) hasn’t had much of an upgrade since her childhood. Other than, of course, the switch from crib to double bed, a desk as she was growing, and on it: a second-hand computer.
But she’s even less thrilled by the notion of some random guy in her Biology class stiffening and leaning away from her when she walks by.
On her first day, no less.
As if the whole drive in wasn’t dedicated to reciting numbers: three hundred and fifty-seven students in the whole school, in comparison to more than seven hundred kids in her junior class alone back home. All kids who grew up together, with generations of the same before them.
Then there’s Bella: new girl from the big city, curiosity, freak.
She’s assigned to sit next to the stiffening guy by Mr. Banner – Edward Cullen. He has black eyes the likes of which she’s never seen, and he glares at her as if she’s already managed to offend him with her presence alone. She wonders if that’s because she’s the opposite of a girl from Phoenix – not tan, or sporty, or blonde.
She’s not much for confrontation, but anxiety – well, anxiety has been the prime emotion inhabiting her body for as long as she can remember, and this guy does nothing but crank it higher. Not to mention, she’s weary from lack of sleep because adjusting to drifting off to torrential rain hasn’t yet been successfully accomplished.
With a clenched jaw, Edward leans away when she takes her seat and sits still as carved marble throughout their class. Bella tries to focus on her work. She’s never done well at getting along with people, and this guy just seems to be another one to add to the list – even if she has no idea why he dislikes her so much.
It may be her projecting her anxiety and overthinking, but his behaviour – tense grip on the edge of the table – serves no other agenda than to give her second-hand embarrassment.
He radiates discomfort and anger in her direction. By the time the bell rings and Edward shoots out of his seat, Bella only gives a mildly curious sweep of her eyes to him. She overhears him speaking quietly but urgently, all the same with Mr. Banner, asking to be transferred to another class.
When their teacher refuses, Edward all but storms out of the room. Bella briefly wonders if she smells. She takes a whiff of the ends of her brunette locks on the way to her locker. Surely that’s the only thing that can make a stranger recoil from someone they haven’t spoken to so sharply?
She sees Edward again in the parking lot when she heads to her beat-up red truck, with its big, rounded fenders and bulbous cap. It’s one of the only things she’s liked about being in Forks so far, and Edward’s sneer when she catches his gaze won’t ruin it. Her face spasms, fighting a retaliating glare.
Then she realises she has the attention of his companions too. A burly, dark-haired guy, a lithe, beautiful blonde girl, another dainty, pixie-like girl, and a final, blonde guy with a tense expression.
Faced with a group, her irritation wilts and self-preservation kicks in. Bella can feel a flush on her face as she unlocks her car. She can see they drive nice, expensive ones themselves: a silver Volvo and red BMW. They must be looking down on her ride, sneering at the flaky paint job.
Assholes.
She climbs in hastily. The tan upholstered seats waft the growing-familiar scent of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint as she fires the truck up. It roars, and she tunes the radio in her embarrassment until she hits Twilight 96.7. She’s rewarded with I walk a lonely road, the only one I have ever known.
Bella attempts to decompress from her first day as the new kid, doing the drive back on the wet roads to Charlie’s. She sings along under the grey, misty sky, working to crank the windows down with a huff of exertion so she can cool her cheeks. The byproduct is that she also inhales the lush, damp smell of towering Douglas firs.
Upon her arrival at the house, Charlie’s dark head is climbing out of his police cruiser. Yep – Chief of Police, her dad. They head in at the same time with nods of acknowledgement. Charle doesn’t speak much, a trait she inherited from him.
While unlocking the door, he surprises her by asking, “So, how was your first day, kid?”
She shrugs, heading in behind him. “Not too bad.”
She thinks of Eric Yorkie flashing a camera in her face for the yearbook between periods, Jessica Stanley’s overly sweet voice in gym class this morning, and Edward’s abnormal behaviour in Biology this afternoon. The dark gazes of both him and his friends on her in the parking lot fifteen minutes ago.
Charlie hangs up his gun belt and toes off his boots, while she debates how to answer properly. It wasn’t a bad day per se, just…
“Some people seemed a little… I dunno, strange,” she eventually responds.
Charlie raises his eyebrow, taking himself to the fridge for a beer. “Strange how? Like weird kid – bullied a lot, strange, or ‘I should be worried’, strange?”
“What’s ‘I should be worried’ strange?”
“I dunno, Bells like Dahmer strange. I am a cop, y’know.”
Bella laughs softly, depositing her rucksack. “Maybe a bit of both. Some Edward guy definitely had Dahmer strange going for him. Didn’t seem to like me for like… no reason at all.”
“Cullen?” Charlie asks, twisting the cap off his beer and chucking it on the counter. “His dad or well –” he pauses to raise his eyebrows. “– foster dad or whatever – Carlisle, works at the hospital.”
Bella snorts, leaning against the kitchen arch and crossing her arms. “Doctor? Rich?”
Charlie sips on his beer, leaning back against the kitchen counter and scrunching his brow derisively. “Oh, you bet.”
“That does it then. He’s a snob. Maybe my clothes offended him. The truck definitely did.”
Charlie frowns. “Maybe, Bells. Heard them kids are all real smart, play instruments an’ the like. Set for an Ivy League college kinda kids – never been nothing except polite. But Dr. Cullen’s a brilliant surgeon and he’s an’ asset to the community. He could make ten times the salary he gets here somewhere else.”
Bella frowns back. It’s the most Charlie’s ever said to her at once, and she feels like they’re on opposing sides.
“Well, Edward wasn’t polite to me,” she says, feeling defensive.
Her dad’s dark brow smooths out slightly, and he dips his chin in what seems a concession. “‘Course, I don’t go school with ‘em, so you’d know better than me.”
Bella hums, appeased, and meanders over to the fridge to scan the meagre contents. “Gotta get out to the store, Dad. Think I can scrounge up steak and potatoes tonight though?”
“I love having you home,” Charlie answers in way of agreement.
He pushes off the counter and heads for the stairs without awaiting a response. She already knows that he’ll shower and then park himself in front of the TV. She likes the simplicity of Charlie and his routine. In that way, they’re very qualified to live together.
Renée is more erratic and spontaneous; half the time Bella came home from school, she didn’t know where her mother had been, was, and-or where she was going.
“I’m teaching you how to cook soon!” She shouts after him.
Craning her neck around the wall, she briefly sees Charlie’s hand flapping in her direction before he’s out of sight.
Setting to work, she gathers her various ingredients. She’s in the middle of peeling potatoes when the phone line rings.
Quickly drying her hands, she answers it just before it cuts out. “Hello?”
“Bella! Hey! It’s Jacob! Erm, Jacob Black.”
“Oh.” She tilts her head, trapping the phone between her ear and shoulder, wringing the dish towel between her palms. “Hey, Jacob.”
She saw Jacob briefly on Saturday, her second day in Forks, when he came with Billy, his dad, to drop off her truck, a homecoming present from Charlie. Worked on it himself, he said. Very smiley and almost pretty. She’s never envied a boy's hair so much. Long, dark silky spill over his shoulders and framing his high cheekbones. She kind of envies those, too.
A warm laugh slips through the receiver. “You can call me Jake; you used to when we were little.”
“Yeah.” Bella laughs back, faintly recalling two half-naked toddlers messing in mud. “I remember. Did you want Charlie?”
“Er – actually, I was kinda hoping to talk to you.”
“Oh,” Bella repeats dumbly.
She slings the cloth over her shoulder and grabs the phone again, straightening up.
“Yeah.” Jacob laughs nervously, and she almost pictures him scrubbing at the back of his neck. “Well, look, I know Charlie’s coming down to the Rez on Friday an’ I thought… I dunno, I could show you around? Head to First Beach, maybe?”
Bella tries to recall any kind of desire to be on a wet, cold beach, so bleakly different from the man-made lakes and reservoirs she knew in Phoenix. Every couple of months, she could wheedle her way into getting Renée to take her to Lake Pleasant, nestled in the Sonoran Desert, a good forty-five minutes north of Phoenix.
She recalls it in its full glory, the memory alone soaking her in phantom warmth. A shimmering oasis of deep blue water, hugged by rolling desert hills, rocky outcrops, and towering saguaros. Sunny for three hundred days out of the year, Lake Pleasant is basically paradise for Bella and any fellow sun-lover.
The light glints off the water like shards of glass – that’s her favourite part. Despite the rocky edges, there are scattered sand and pebble beaches where she sprawls out under the sun. The water is always warm too; an embrace when she goes in it – a stark contrast to what she faintly remembers La Push’s frigid ocean to be like.
The air’s always dry and earthy, tinged with desert brush and sun-warmed rock. Speedboats, occasional splashes of jumping fish, and kids laughing is the consistent soundtrack. The sky stretches forever, and the world feels vast and open. She can recollect La Push being completely different. More like a grey sky, wet, empty sand devoid of people, and endless mist.
Jacob fills in her reluctant silence, voice careful and slow. “Or… I mean, we could hang out in the garage. I’m actually building up my Volkswagen Rabbit. If- if you’re into cars an’ stuff?” The end rises hopefully, hesitantly.
Bella’s nowhere near into cars an’ stuff, but she doesn’t particularly have friends here, and she likes the idea of hanging out with smiley Jacob. Especially after the snobbery she seems to have been on the receiving end of today with Edward Cullen.
“Beach sounds good.”
It doesn’t really sound that good, but it seems the lesser of two evils.
“Really? Awesome! Me an’ my friends, we make a bonfire on the night an’ talk about the old stories. You know, the legends?”
“I kinda remember those,” Bella adds, voice now infected with interest. She’s always enjoyed learning new things. “I er- actually used to love the way your dad would tell them.”
Jacob laughs, and it’s rich, full of bountiful warmth. “Yeah, me too, but I don’t tell them half bad myself.”
“That right?” She smiles and then eyes the sink of half-peeled potatoes again. “Friday, then.”
“Friday!” He repeats, jubilantly.
“Friday,” she confirms once more, a smile on her face she can’t shake. “Bye… Jake.”
“Bye, Bella.”
“You know,” she adds quickly, cheeks heating. There’s a rustle, like Jacob’s brought the phone back to his ear. “You can call me Bells; you used to when we were little.”
“Yeah, I remember.” A smile imprints the words as if his teeth are mangling them. “Bye, Bells.”
✧˖°݁𖠰 ݁⦮ ⦯↟✧˖°
Bella’s next two days at school are uneventful. She gets used to the routine of her classes, and can recognise, if not name, almost all the students in school. In gym class, the kids learn not to pass her the ball, recognising her clumsiness.
They’re also sans Snobby Cullen, and she finds herself relieved by his empty seat in Biology. She didn’t grow up with money, and she’s never known how to be around those who have. It makes her uncomfortable – wealth, but even more so, those who revel in and flaunt it.
She’s not looking to make friends with Cullen any time soon, and so tension grips her limbs upon spying Edward on Thursday, back in his regular seat. She sits down stiffly, acting much the same way he did the first time they became aware of each other’s existence. What turns her anxiety radar all the way up is his suspiciously polite smile.
God, she thinks as she pulls out her books, am I about to be some school-wide joke among the popular kids?
It wouldn’t be the first time she’s been bullied for not having branded shoes. She feels a light sweat coat her forehead.
“Hello,” he proffers, voice quiet and eerily musical in tone.
She notices that his eyes aren’t black today. They’re an unnatural shade she can scarcely describe, like honey or amber. They’ve got to be contacts, which she finds both superficial and jarring.
His face is open and friendly, and she can’t help feeling like she’s watching a carefully curated play. No one has such a switch-up in response in three short days like this. Especially when two of those days were spent absent, something that eerily feels as if it’s connected to her.
It’s strange.
On guard and perspiring, Bella gingerly replies, “Hi.”
This also wouldn’t be the first time she’s fallen into a trap of niceness that turned out to be ridicule.
Hey, Bella! Cool bracelet!
T-thanks, my mom go -
Ha! I was joking, you saddo! Look, girls, she’s so desperate for friends she actually thought I liked that hideous thing!
Edward continues, “My name is Edward Cullen. I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last lesson."
Yeah, because you were too busy ignoring me in visible distaste.
“You must be Bella Swan.”
Bella narrows her eyes, the hairs raising on the back of her neck. “How do you know my name?”
“Everyone in town knows who you are,” he answers smoothly. “New people are the only real entertainment in Forks.”
Despite brushing off her suspicions, the jangle of her nerves doesn’t ease. She can’t find an answer for him and merely shrugs dismissively. He frowns lightly and throughout the class, makes numerous attempts to engage her in conversation.
Bella isn’t a talker at the best of times, and she feels wary about divulging information about herself. She keeps her answers short and bland. He continues, even asking why she moved to Forks, which she thinks is unbearably nosy.
He also seems to underestimate her intelligence, requesting to double-check the phases of mitosis in the onion root tip cells beneath their microscope, since they’re forced to work together. It irritates her. Immensely. What, because she’s middle-class, she can’t possibly be smart?
She wonders what Edward is even doing in a public school in the first place. His parents attempt to humble him, or integrate him into society?
They finish their labs first and are given a ridiculous golden onion for their efforts. At the end of class, out in the hall, Bella hands it over to Edward with as much of a smile as she can muster.
“You keep it.”
“Er-”
He takes it in hand and turns it around, examining it as if he’s never seen one before. Bella almost grimaces. She bets he’s never cooked a day in his life. Probably has hired help or something.
“Thanks.”
“Catch you later,” she tells him, already hurrying down the hallway.
Bella has half an absurd belief that he’ll follow her, but when she glances over her shoulder, he’s still just standing in the middle of a crowd of moving students, holding the onion that matches his eyes.
✧˖°݁𖠰 ݁⦮ ⦯↟✧˖°
Friday, Edward reverts to his silent stiffness in Biology. Bella is thrilled he seems to have got the message – she won’t be converted into some joke.
Not for him or his small group of foster siblings, as Jessica informed her at lunch on Tuesday, noting Edward’s absence as the introduction to do so. They all seem to watch Bella weirdly when she catches sight of them, like they did on her first day in the parking lot. She has the strangest notion that she’s been a topic of conversation in their car rides and household.
She rushes straight home at the end of the day for a shower and to change, sparing time to write her mom an email. She finds she’s eager to get on the road and head to the reservation. Jacob may be somewhat of a stranger, but next to Charlie, he and Billy are as close to familiarity as she has in Forks.
She’s also just excited to see it again, somewhere she hasn’t visited since childhood. Forks is a green alien planet compared to the blaze of Phoenix, but there’s always been a magical air on the Rez. In her youth, she would liken its surrounding trees and nature to what she imagined in The Secret Garden.
Charlie drives them in the cruiser down Highway 110, past towering evergreens and moss-covered trees, making everything look lush and green. There are perks to Olympic Peninsula’s alienation – it’s at least beautiful.
Occasionally, her scanning gaze is rewarded with glimpses of the Quillayute River, flashes of cobalt blue through the sitka spruces. Bella once became hyper-fixated on trees and plants, researching the only ones she’s ever known intimately. Phoenix gave her names such as mesquite – drought-resistant twisted branches, and palo verde – green, baked, hardened to the desert.
The trees bracketing Jacob and Billy’s house are tall, with reddish bark that peels in strips. She’s fairly certain they’re called western red cedars. It kind of reminds her of their skin, russet and beautiful. As the cruiser heads down their gravel driveway – pieces crunching under Charlie’s tires – she can smell the damp earth through the open passenger window.
There’s a small clearing where their little red house sits, and the aforementioned detached garage nestled further back. All of it is vaguely familiar, and she locates spots with her eyes where she and Jacob played as children. She faintly recalls his sisters, too, but not with much clarity. Just the same dark features.
Charlie pulls into park and releases his belt from the clip, then clears his throat. “Billy says you an’ Jake are headin’ down to the beach?”
Bella unclips her belt with a nod. “Yeah, he said he and his friends wanna tell me the stories.”
Charlie smiles, scrubbing a hand over his moustache and mouth, briefly covering it. “You always did like those.”
Bella hesitates, sensing something unspoken. “That’s okay, right? Me hanging out with Jacob?”
“What?” Charlie frowns and drops his hand. “Yeah, no.” He raises his hand again to wave it dismissively. “It’s fine. Have fun. Be you know, friendly. Make friends.”
She hides a smile, charmed by his desire for her to integrate back into town. “Thanks, Dad.”
They both exit the car together, and before they even reach the front door, Jacob is opening it. He’s wearing a grey, thermal Henley, fitted jeans, and beat-up sneakers. It’s similar to her look, from the slim pickings of her Phoenix winter wardrobe – Bella and her mom had to pool their resources to supplement it.
She’s struck with those high cheekbones of Jacob’s, and that silky waterfall of hair again – envy mostly, but appreciation too.
Growing up playing on the Rez may have given her a bit of a complex. Their hair was always more luscious. Their eyes are more mysterious than her flat, chocolate pools. Everyone here has gorgeous copper skin, which made – and still makes – her feel obscenely pale in comparison.
Jacob is also way taller than any fifteen-year-old has the right to be, transitioning him into something opposing in his tiny doorway. Being only a measly five-four herself, Bella feels minuscule as she approaches him.
As she does, her gaze catches on something above the door – something Jacob’s large body instinctively makes room for as if he always has. Tucked into the wooden beam are small bundles – one of braided grass, another a knot of cedar branches tied with red thread, and a feather, pale and soft like it had once belonged to an owl.
They don’t seem like decorations. They seem too intentional for that. The way they hang – weathered, quiet, and steady – feels like something sacred. The closer she gets, the more she can smell the faint earth and smoke of the cedar. The feather stirs in the breeze like it’s breathing.
“Hey, Charlie. Bells,” Jacob interrupts her reverie.
“Hey,” she and Charlie grunt back in unison.
Jacob hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Billy’s inside, Chief. I’m gonna take Bella down to First Beach. Quil an’ Embry are waiting for us.”
“Quil an’ Embry?” Bella repeats, eyes finally dragged from the feather, as Charlie warns, “Be careful, you two.”
“Course, Charlie.”
“Yeah, Dad.”
Charlie grunts and heads inside. Bella hears Billy shouting a greeting from within before Jacob pulls the front door closed. Before he turns away, his fingers brush across all three hangings, the way someone might flick a wind chime or light a candle – no ceremony, just instinct. The feather dances when his fingers fall away.
“Quil an’ Embry?” She tries again, following Jacob’s lead. “Your friends?”
Jacob’s tall frame falls in at her side, his hands tucked into his pockets, and his elbow brushing her arm. He takes her through more western red cedars, their trunks dark with moisture and moss creeping up their bases. The floor is covered with thick ferns, patches of moss, and fallen logs that are half-decayed and spongy beneath her sneakers.
“Yeah. Don’t worry, they’re cool.”
“I’m not worried,” she murmurs, swerving around a mud patch.
He laughs and nudges an elbow into her. “Been meaning to ask: how’s school with the pale faces?”
She dredges up the image of Edward Cullen again, puzzle pieces that don’t fit: their tense first meeting, his intimate questions yesterday, and his regained silence today. As well as Mike Newton’s fixed blue gaze on her mouth at lunch.
“Weird,” she admits. “Being the new kid kinda sucks.”
“Wouldn’t know,” Jacob replies cheerfully. “Small community ‘round here. Grew up with most of my classmates.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
He laughs, something he seems to do often. She smiles at the timbre of it.
“Sucks you didn’t grow up on the Rez,” Jacob replies thoughtfully, slowing his stride to match hers. “Quileute language, history, an’ traditions get taught to us in school. You were always into that.”
“I like learning,” she mutters, somewhat defensively.
The truth is, the Rez always seemed richer than her split childhood between two households. A stable community of people who loved and helped each other. Children who grew up together, magic in the atmosphere. Old stories like the Raven who stole the sun, moon, and stars from the Sky Chief, who kept them locked away in beautifully carved boxes.
There was always a sense of power to Jacob and the Quileute people, even at the tender age she was when she was privy to it.
“I know,” Jacob eventually hums. “That’s what I always liked about you. Real brainy type.”
Bella thrills a little at the compliment. She’s never felt like much of a pretty girl, and so accolades about her appearance tend towards discomfort more than anything. She’s smart, though; she can grant herself that. Advanced classes in Phoenix, for example, and now Forks, too. There was never much else to do between running after her hair-brained mom than focus on studies.
“Speaking of,” she starts, “what are those things hanging above your front door?”
“Protection,” he answers simply. “And respect. Telling the land, we see and honour it.”
Bella’s not sure how to respond, mulling this information over. The two of them seem to fall into a natural silence while she does. She’s comfortable in it and Jacob’s presence at her side, large and warm. She’s also enjoying the walk and its scenery; she’s certain he seems to instinctively know that.
It’s a slightly damp walk, from the near-constant moisture in the air. Worn dirt trails weave between the trees, at intervals transforming into wooden plank bridges over creeks or marshy areas. At nearly every turn, there are muddy patches and small puddles. Jacob’s large hand touches her elbow at these points, gently steering her.
She always throws him a grateful smile; sure, he remembers her clumsiness. He grins broadly back every time.
At one point, he guides her around what looks to be yet another mossy patch, but cautions, “That’s a sleeping place. You don’t step there.”
The air smells like salt, pine, and wet earth, cleansing in her lungs. The closer they get to the beach, the more she can hear the crash of waves and the occasional cry of seagulls. The trees begin to thin out, and the salty sea breeze gets stronger, tussling her hair. The ground turns to pebbles, driftwood, and damp sand.
The beach itself is rocky and wild, lined with massive driftwood logs. There are only two other occupants on the sand, crouched around a small fire.
Jacob redundantly points them out. “There’s Quil an’ Embry.”
Bella feels a slight tightening of nerves in her stomach at the prospect of meeting new people, but powers on at Jake’s side. They kick up sand on their way over.
The two other boys are opposites of each other. One tall, gangly with a sharp jaw. The other, stocky and muscular with a round face. They both have warm brown skin and long, dark hair like Jacob’s. They straighten up as Bella and Jacob approach.
Jacob makes the introductions. “Bella Swan, Quil Ateara.” He waves a hand at the round-faced guy. “An’ Embry Call.” Another wave of his hand at the lanky one.
She lifts a hand out of her pocket meekly. “Hey.”
Embry gives a slightly more reserved smile in comparison to Quil’s broad grin.
Quil is the first to speak. “So, you’re the famous Bella Swan, huh?”
Bella blinks, still feeling nervous. “Famous?”
Embry rolls his eyes at Quil before looking at her. “Jake never shuts up about you.”
She flushes. She’s only been back a week. How much could he have even said?
Jake groans, “ignore them.”
Quil chuckles and moves back toward the fire. “You guys gonna sit or what?”
Bella hesitates, scanning her options, then decides to settle onto a driftwood log. Jacob sits next to her. Quil and Embry sit to their right on their own log. The fire crackles, and auburn embers float into the darkening sky. The salty air is thick with burning wood, and the warmth licks at her face. Conversation is light for a while, teasing between the three boys.
She briefly wonders what she must look like sitting with three fifteen-year-old guys. At least, she assumes the other two are Jacob’s age.
“So, Bella,” Quil pipes up after a while, stretching out his legs in the sand. “You like the stories, huh?”
“Erm.” She stiffens a little, feeling put on the spot. “Yeah…”
Embry glances at Jacob and not so subtly whispers, “She’s not gonna run off screaming, is she?”
Jacob smirks, knocking shoulders with her playfully and loudly replying, “nah. Bella’s not easily scared.”
It feels like a glowing recommendation, considering she feels that she is, in fact, easily scared. She’s never been all that great at looking at mannequins or porcelain dolls, for instance. Their stillness freaks her out. Along with public speaking, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
Quil inserts himself back into the conversation. “You ever hear the story of the Cold Ones?”
She shakes her head and finds herself leaning into Jacob’s side. Just the mention of something cold when she’s sitting next to someone nicely toasty sinks like a rock in her gut.
“Our tribe’s oldest enemy,” Quil goes on, straightening his shoulders. “But the Cold Ones are only part of a bigger story.”
Jacob sighs as if put out, but doesn’t interrupt. He presses his arm tight to hers, so they’re squished together, despite the ample room on the log. Embry takes over here as if he and Quil are a practised storytelling team. She wonders if they have younger siblings they deliver this to with animated voices and expressions.
“Long time ago, before the world was as it is now, the Quileute people weren’t born humans. They were wolves.”
Bella arches an eyebrow at Embry’s grin, but otherwise says nothing.
“They lived as a pack and followed the laws of the land. But one day, Q’wati, the Transformer, walked among them.”
Quil tosses another piece of relatively dry driftwood into the fire from the pile at his feet, the flames eating it and snapping higher in response.
“I remember him,” Bella breathes, turning to look at Jacob.
The flames wash him in orange and cherry hues that make him look otherworldly. She struggles to remember that he’s only fifteen like this.
Jake nods at her, holding her eye contact unflinchingly, and takes his turn with the story. “You remember he had great power, then, and that he could change shapes an’ make paths. With a touch of his hand, he lifted the wolves onto two legs, gave them voices to speak, hands to build, and knowledge to protect their land.”
Jake holds her eyes throughout this retelling, stirring her stomach in something not altogether unpleasant.
“But,” Quil now interjects, snapping their gaze from each other. “Q’wati warned them, ‘though you walk as men, the wolf is still inside you. Should danger come, should your people be threatened, the wolf will wake again. You will run as you once did, hunt as you once did, and no enemy will stand against you.’”
“The wolf who breaks the pact with the land forgets his own name,” Jacob whispers, his lips just about brushing the shell of her ear.
When Bella full body shivers in response, Jacob boldly slings his arms over her shoulders. She hopes the fire covers her intense blush.
“For generations, people lived in peace. The shapeshifters were chosen by the spirits of the land to maintain balance between man, beast, and spirit. It was their original sacred duty. But there were creatures who threatened that balance. They were cold things, pale as the dead, with eyes that burned like fire. They were the dlam’iyax – the Cold Ones. They had no love for the land, no honour in their hearts. They only fed, only took, never slept or died; never gave back. That’s not life, it’s theft.”
Bella leans a little out of Jacob’s embrace, enthralled by the story and the atmosphere. The fire pops and crackles, sufficing her in comfort.
“Fed on what?”
Jacob answers, his breath sending tingles across her scalp, “blood.”
She leans away a little more to query Quil and Embry, “like vampires?”
Jacob nods, and Quil pokes at the fire, encouraging golden sparks to go flying.
He picks his story back up. “The strongest among the tribe, those with the truest hearts and wildest spirits, felt their blood burn in the presence of the Cold Ones. The wolf woke inside them, just as Q’wati had said, an’ they became warriors once more. Only now, they weren’t fully man or fully beast – they were both. They drove the dlam’iyax away, swearing to protect the land, their people, and all who walked under the sky.”
With Quil trailing off, Embry tacks on, smirking, “Some say the wolves still watch over the land, waiting in the bodies of men. We’ve been raised to listen to the wind, sea, and earth itself. And when the Cold Ones return, so will the guardians of the land.”
Bella finds she likes this story, tucking it into the space of her favourites alongside the Raven stories of her youth. She likes sitting in the warm embrace of the fire with three fifteen-year-olds, and most surprisingly likes the dull, flat grey of First Beach surrounding them. She likes that it feels both new and familiar.
The overall effect is that after only a week, it makes her slightly more thrilled to be back in Forks.