The Girl Who Was Taken (Renesme Cullens Twin Sister)

Fifty-Three

After Alice announced to everyone in the funeral parlor that Italy was going to be nuked, Jasper rushed her outside, and Edward and Carlisle followed.

"What the hell," Charlie said.

A chatter filled the air with questions and concern about her mental health until Esme stepped up to the podium and got the room under control. "Sorry about that," she said. "It's been an emotionally taxing week on my family, and everyone in this room, for all the lives we have lost. Um," and she looked down at the pamphlet with the order of events, "the next speaker I would like to invite up is Jacob Black."

Jacob went up there, calm and easy going, and gave a wonderful speech about Bella and her stubbornness. "She was a force to be reckoned with," he said, and then his words droned on because I was getting antsy sitting there, and I could feel Renesme was too. We looked toward the doors, wondering what was going on. Knowing that Alice could see the future and wouldn't blurt something out so horrible if it weren't true. But we were left to make it through the grueling funeral. Edward never gave a speech for his dead wife.

As the farewell song played, it sounded off, and I realized that one of the violin players seemed to be missing. I heard a soft laugh from behind me and looked back to see a vampire wiping their mouth.

I turned back in my seat and slumped down and waited for this day to be over. We went to the cemetery and watched the empty caskets lower into the ground, and then we were forced to go to the after party. Even that was a sad occasion. Everyone kept saying how devastating they were, "to lose so many young people so soon" "--only in their late twenties, though none looked a day over eighteen--" "And all gone in a single moment too." And I heard others, much more quietly saying it was because they were rich kids driving fancy Italian cars and counting their money at the same time. "I bet you they had a stack out, and the air conditioners turned on and blew it right in their faces."

"Give me you shoe," I told Renesme. She frowned at me, but I raised my eyebrow, so she slipped it off, and I slipped it on. It was a sharped heel shoe, and I walked over to the people I heard talking, acting innocent before reaching out my foot and stomping down on toes. But that was the most exciting thing that happened after Alice's outburst.

After the party was over, and we went home. As midnight came upon us, we gathered, just our vampire family, and we set up a large bonfire in the backyard and burned their corpses. It was a quiet event. Esme patted her eyes as if she were crying. Alice held tightly onto Jaspers arm, leaning her head on his shoulder. Renesme stood next to Edward, it seemed she was afraid to let him go. His cofus on the fire seemed blank and far away. Carlisle said some comforting words, and then we gathered up their ashes from the ground after the fire faded, it was hours that we just stood there and watched. Renesme had fallen asleep on the edge of a tree trunk that was used as a seat. But I was used to vampire ceremonies like this. They didn't tend to human needs. Vampires could stand vigil for days on end to mourn the loss of another.

I shook Renesme awake, and we brought the gathered ashes to the ocean and scattered them in the breeze so that they could go back to the earth and be more than just who they were. We stood on the side of the beach as a family, listening to the wind speak in our ears, and I wondered if I spoke words of my mother.

The first funeral hadn't meant anything to me more than a ridiculous promotional campaign aimed at humans to make the Cullen's blend in. but hearing all those human's talking about them, I didn't see what the point was. It was only at the real funeral, watching my mother burn, and then scattering her ashes that I realized how much I missed her, even if I never knew her. When we went back home, Renesme and I tucked ourselves into her bed, and I think we slept for seventy-two hours after that. She'd reach out her hand in her sleep, and I'd fall into her dreams with her, reliving everything I missed out on. I was only coaxed out of bed when Alice stuck her head in the bedroom to let us know that they were leaving.

"Where are you going?" I asked, sitting up, my hair was matted, and I probably smelled terrible. Renesme stayed curled up.

"We're going to Italy to negotiate the governance."

"Who?"

"All of us, but you and Renesme can stay here with—"

"I don't want to stay here," I said. "I'm going with." I was already getting up, picking up random pieces of clothes that didn't belong to me to get dressed properly. "I can be ready in like five minutes."

She shook her head, "You can't come."

I stopped. "Why?"

"You don't have to come, this is grown up business—"

"I'm basically a grown-up," I said.

"You're much younger than you think," Alice said.

"But I want to come, I can help."

"You're a child. This will be better for you. You can have your childhood back before you really have to grow up." She squeezed her eyes shut, "I've seen the future where you come with me, and you don't want that one."

"Why?" I asked. "What happens?" But instead of answering me, she grabbed the door handle to close it. I balled up the shirt in my hand and threw it in her direction. "Alice! Please, you said they were going to nuke Italy!" I needed an explanation for it. I had lived there most of my life. The land, the city of Volterra, everything about it was what I knew to be home more than any other place, even if I didn't want to admit it while I was there. "Who's going to nuke Italy? What did you mean? You have to tell me."

She stood quietly. "It hasn't happened yet," she told me. "We're going to make sure it doesn't happen. But you need to stay here. You'll be safer here. You should pack a bag and go stay on the reservation with the wolv—" she caught herself and corrected, "with Paul and Jacob. The packs will keep you safe."

"I don't have a bag to pack," I said. "I don't have any of my things. They're in Italy. They're going to be nuked in Italy."

"They're not going to be nuked in Italy. Italy isn't going to be nuked. The future has already changed since I saw it, and we're going to make sure no one is nuked." She was exasperated trying to explain it to me. "The longer you make me explain this, the more likely it will be nuked, so please, just listen to us and stay here."

I had ground my teeth and nodded. "We can go shopping," Renesme told me, still sounding groggy. But she didn't have it in her to fight to go with. She didn't want to go there. "We'll get you your own stuff," she said. But the clothes were never really the problem. I grew up stealing dresses off clothes lines. It had more to do with how I still wasn't sure how I fit in. I didn't know who I was when I was here.

NOTE-

Haha, what kind of future do you think she'd get if she went to Italy vs what she'll get for staying in La Push?

Dedicated to Lockridgeallison1