Solstice

DISCOVERIES

'The afterlife looks pretty good,' Angela told me, looking up at the beautiful big house and laughing, as she got out of her Toyota. She'd pulled her soft brown hair back into a smooth ponytail and was wearing a white t-shirt, summer sandals and jeans: the thermometer stood at seventy-five, and all of us were in light, cool clothes. Angela took off her sunglasses and her eyes widened. She held up a hand, pretending to shield herself from the glare. 'I can see why you can't go out in the sunshine now – I thought you were exaggerating,' she laughed as she hurried to give me a hug. I could see my reflection – ice-white, my skin glittering like a thousand prisms, every facet a diamond-hued rainbow. My skin was nearly warm in the sunshine, but she still shivered. 'Edward!' she called, waving, and he darted to my side.

'Angela,' he said in his beautiful, velvet voice and kissed her cheek with lips that must have felt wintry to her. 'Welcome. We're all so glad you're back in Bella's life – our lives.'

'Oh, so am I.' Angela left her windows open and strolled with us around the house and into the garden, where Alice had set up a small table under the trees. Dappled blotches of light danced across the white tablecloth and shining silverware. 'This place is so peaceful. Even more so than Forks, where nothing ever happens – although I guess it was happening all the time under my nose; I just didn't notice it.' She looked from Edward to me, and grinned. 'And you managed to have a daughter as well. How did you even survive, Bella?'

'Emergency vampirization,' I began.

'I was hard-pressed to get enough venom into her to save her life,' Edward interjected, his eyes hard with remembered stress. 'She'd just given birth to Renesmee – and the birth of a non-human child to a human mother is...'

'Messy?' I suggested, and he rolled his eyes.

'A bit more than messy,' he scoffed. 'Ness had superhuman strength – her movements broke Bella's spine –'

'But it was all worth it,' I interrupted as Angela's eyes widened, and she shivered. I sat her down on the sunny side of the porch and poured us both a glass of lemonade. 'You'll see what I mean when you meet her. And I got the life that I wanted. Mainly.'

'Mainly?' asked Angela tentatively, and I sighed.

'I won't go into it too much – bore you with the details – but do you remember Jacob Black?' Angela nodded, rubbing sun lotion into her arms. 'He's a shapeshifter, you know. He imprinted on Ness when she was less than an hour old.'

'And since he's not here, I guess that she didn't want to have him around any more...'

I nodded. 'See, the usual pattern is that a wolf imprints on a human – always a girl – of whatever age. If she's very young, he stays with her as she grows up; becomes her friend, her protector, her brother.... But at some point, the relationship always turns romantic. The imprinter gets the girl. Sam Uley – remember him? – said he had never heard of an imprinter being rejected. Ness was the first.' I winced, remembering Jacob's broken expression, watching the light seep out of his eyes. 'Jacob's gone – we don't know where.'

'You need to be very careful of her,' Angela said earnestly. 'I learnt about imprints when I was in grad school. That witch, Bethan – I think I mentioned you to her the other night? – had a sister, Adeline, who was imprinted on. She's married to him now, but remembering the way he looked at her...' She shook her head. 'I think it would be pretty hard to resist that level of devotion,' she confessed. 'But, on the other hand, if you do, you've got this creepy, persistent stalker dogging your every step. And I saw what happened when the wolves fought each other at a reservation in Canada. We went up as a coven to learn some of the magic and rituals of a Woodland Cree tribe,' she told me. 'Two very young wolves got in a fight. It was terrifying. I was glad of the fact that I have powers.'