LIFE AND DEATH (edythe's pov)

Chapter 29 Epilogue: An occasion

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Solar Midnight: Midnight Sun Reimagined (Life and Death, Book I) by beyondthedawn

 Books » Twilight Rated: T, English, Supernatural & Romance, Beau S., Edythe C., Words: 224k+, Favs: 59, Follows: 36, Published: Dec 26, 2020 15Chapter 29: EPILOGUE: AN OCCASION

I felt like I was trapped in one of those terrifying nightmares, one where the outcome was so horribly unthinkable, so absolutely dreaded, that it was incomprehensible. But of course, this hadn't been a dream, and I hadn't been running for my life; I'd been racing to save something infinitely more precious.

Archie had seen there was a good chance things would turn out this way.

I'd had a vision of my own, however—not like Archie, not a true prophecy. It was just a probable scenario. This vision created an intense kind of ache throughout my entire body; it was half agony and half pleasure.

I envisioned Beau twenty years from now, maturing gracefully into middle age. Like his mother, he would hold on to the image of youth longer than most, but when the lines came, they would not mar his beauty. I imagined him somewhere sunny in an elegant yet simple house that was, unless he changed his ways significantly, filled with clutter. Adding to the clutter would be children, two or three. Maybe one girl with Charlie's curly hair and smile, and a boy who took after his father.

I did not try to picture their mother, or think about how her face might be reflected in his children; that was all agony.

One day when they were young adolescents, younger than Beau was now, one of the children would ask Beau what high school was like, what graduating was like, and going to college—so on and so forth.

Beau would say how he wasn't really into school dances or prom. Large parties weren't his forte. And the children would be dissatisfied. Their dad never had any good stories about his teenage years. Hadn't he ever done anything interesting?

Beau would have no funny, lighthearted stories, just a dearth of normal experience, just secrecy and danger and tales so fantastical he might one day wonder whether they had ever been more than his imagination.

Or... Beau could laugh when his child asked, and his eyes would suddenly seem far away.

He would have gone on to a four-year college, where he obtained his degree in education and met mother of his children. He would have lived the American dream. They would have lived happily ever after...

A perfectly normal story—the one we've all heard before.

But this was not that story...

We were a hundred feet up in the branches of a tall hemlock, the thick bough swaying under us in the wind. Beau had his arm around me, and I held his other hand in both of mine. I watched his expression carefully, worried.

We hadn't been able to watch his funeral. The service had taken place inside of a church building. This would have to be enough.

"Are you sure this was a good idea?" I asked.

"I should be here."

"Tell me if it gets to be too much."

He nodded.

The caravan of cars drove up Calawah Way now, headlights on. I made sure that we were upwind, carefully situated so that we were at no risk of any trace of human scent drifting our direction.