Midnight Sun Part 2

carilsie

No doubt Carlisle had heard me telling Bella his story. I knocked on the door to his office and waited for him to acknowledge us.

“Come in,” Carlisle invited. He marked his place in the large medical book he was reading and stood. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to show Bella some of our history. Well, your history, actually.”

“We didn’t mean to disturb you,” Bella apologized.

“Not at all. Where are you going to start?”

“The Waggoner,” I said putting one hand on Bella’s shoulder and rotating her to face the wall behind us. Covering the wall and surrounding the doorway was Carlisle’s collection of paintings and lithographs that served as a centuries–long record of his life.

Bella’s heart began to race and with his doctor’s ear, Carlisle automatically noted it. I heard him wonder whether her reaction was due to the impressive wall of paintings, his own presence, or the fact that my hand was on Bella’s shoulder. The latter, he decided, because he’d noticed it downstairs as well. I smiled to myself. Bella definitely wasn’t frightened.

I pulled Bella toward the left side of the wall where the 17th–century painting by Waggoner hung. It was a small, but detailed depiction of London from across the Thames. The old London Bridge, with its collection of residences and shops and even a tiny cathedral perched on it, spanned the river. Waggoner, who is famous for his 1666 painting called “The Great Fire of London,” had painted this one from the same perspective before the fire.

“London in the 1650s,” I told Bella.

“The London of my youth,” Carlisle added. Bella flinched when he spoke. He had stepped up quietly beside us, forgetting, no doubt, that Bella couldn’t hear him move. I squeezed her hand.

“Will you tell the story?” I asked Carlisle. Bella and I both turned toward him.

“I would, but I’m actually running a bit late. The hospital called this morning Dr. Snow is taking a sick day. Besides, you know the stories as well as I do.” With a parting smile for Bella, he left for work. I loved and admired my father, not only for his singular qualities of integrity and compassion, but also for the respectful, loving way he treated me. He knew as well as I did that telling a human about us was an infraction punishable by death in our world. But after I’d saved Bella’s life and she learned what we are, he trusted my judgment to handle the situation. When I knew that I loved Bella, Carlisle didn’t question my decision to pursue her. And now that I was bringing her into our lives, Carlisle accepted her as one of us, human or not.

Bella, likewise, treated my family as if we were human. It was remarkable how well she was absorbing all this information that would startle even some vampires. Still, I was keeping an eye on her, watching for signs of shock or overload.

After a few more minutes examining the London painting, Bella asked, “What happened then? When he realized what had happened to him?”

Because I couldn’t read her mind, it took me a second to realize that she wanted me to continue with Carlisle’s story. I glanced at the painting of the English countryside and the cliff from which Carlisle had jumped in a failed suicide attempt, and decided not to share the details of that episode.

“When he knew what he had become,” I continued the tale, “he rebelled against it. He tried to destroy himself. But that’s not easily done.”

“How?” Bella blurted out, seeming to surprise herself.

“He jumped from great heights. He tried to drown himself in the ocean…but he was young to the new life, and very strong. It is amazing that he was able to resist” I chose my word carefully“feeding…while he was still so new. The instinct is more powerful then, it takes over everything. But he was so repelled by himself that he had the strength to try to kill himself with starvation.”