Descending Star

FIRST DESCENT

"What is Edythe going on about?" Esme asked of Ben. "What's she looking for?"

Ben hissed, "Her one birthday wish."

Esme's focus snapped to Edythe, penetrative, calculating. "What wish?"

Edythe crossed her arms and glared at the ceiling. She said, "Ben, don't. This is our conversation and our problem to solve. It's none of their business."

Esme's unnaturally washed-out pallor seemed to become a shade lighter, as she understood just what Edythe wanted. Emelia understood, too. Did Alice understand? She remained inscrutable, gazed up toward nowhere, and feverishly calculated probabilities.

Edythe read their minds and knew that they had all connected the dots.

Esme chuckled bitterly and breathed, "So Edy wants to be human again. For Ben. For compatibility. We've all wanted it at one time or another. God knows that Rex has wanted it, every moment since he died. And now Edythe loves a human boy, so it comes as no surprise that this is the thing she wants. But we're turning on an academic point, because it's impossible."

Ben reproachfully interjected, "Oh, Edythe says she's not so sure, and though it torments me to admit it, I do see her point." None of them had to be mind-readers to catch up with him. They had all seen Edythe's eyes return to the gray-blue of her first life, albeit ephemerally, for her irises had rapidly reverted and washed back out to gold. Since then, her eyes had been fading to a black so deep and impenetrable that her family were becoming concerned that she might soon go ravenous and kill autonomously, if she did not feed. They had also seen her body and breath warm for Ben. She sat beside him now, in casually intimate contact, and they could feel the warmth of her body in the convection of the surrounding air. Thirdly, they had all heard her heart sporadically beating, as though trying to prime itself on the dusty drafts in her vestigial arteries. And most significantly, Ben didn't react normally to her venom. Whereas it should have anesthetized him or set him to burning agony, depending on its application, it did neither of those things. To the contrary, her venom protected and preserved his humanity, while amplifying his libido, a potent aphrodisiac. Could it not be said conclusively that she had already changed for him, to some unknown degree? And that being the case, how could Esme credibly assert the impossibility of Edythe ever reverting entirely to humanity, with the restoration of her mortality?

Esme sat back, tapped her chin, and shrewdly speculated, "Ben, I am thinking it might not be an entirely bad thing, that you're partially immobilized by body casts. You two have been effectively separated to your corners. You've had some time to consider and reflect. Yes, it's no bad thing to take a breather and assess our choices clearly."

Ben cried with exasperation, "There are no choices. There is only Edythe."

Esme patiently retorted, "And here we return, to where we began. In about a month, you might be right about that, quite literally, whether or not that is what you want. I was in the process of saying that I am torn about this friend of yours, Zoey. You make Edythe happy. Generally. Perhaps not so much, today. But the human girl would be better for you. If you'll only look deeply within yourself, I'll wager that you know it, too. Edythe certainly knows it. Hence her one birthday wish, an evocation of her deepest desire: she most wants that which comes to your friend Zoey naturally: perfect physical compatibility. And now I can explain why I spoke to you harshly. That girl deeply offends me, Ben Swan. I am offended by the method that your friend from Phoenix has chosen, to die. Because I chose that method, too.

"You've heard Carlisle's story. Would you like to hear mine? I'll tell you that it is not pleasant. But if I've come off as intolerant toward your friend and her birthday plans, my point of view might be instructive."