The Twilight Saga Collection part 1(97)
I pursed my lips skeptically. “Emmett?”
“Well, he thinks I’m a lunatic, it’s true, but he doesn’t have a problem with you. He’s trying to reason with Rosalie.”
“What is it that upsets her?” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer.
He sighed deeply. “Rosalie struggles the most with . . . with what we are. It’s hard for her to have someone on the outside know the truth. And she’s a little jealous.”
“Rosalie is jealous of me?” I asked incredulously. I tried to imagine a universe in which someone as breathtaking as Rosalie would have any possible reason to feel jealous of someone like me.
“You’re human.” He shrugged. “She wishes that she were, too.”
“Oh,” I muttered, still stunned. “Even Jasper, though . . .”
“That’s really my fault,” he said. “I told you he was the most recent to try our way of life. I warned him to keep his distance.”
I thought about the reason for that, and shuddered.
“Esme and Carlisle . . . ?” I continued quickly, to keep him from noticing.
“Are happy to see me happy. Actually, Esme wouldn’t care if you had a third eye and webbed feet. All this time she’s been worried about me, afraid that there was something missing from my essential makeup, that I was too young when Carlisle changed me. . . . She’s ecstatic. Every time I touch you, she just about chokes with satisfaction.”
“Alice seems very . . . enthusiastic.”
“Alice has her own way of looking at things,” he said through tight lips.
“And you’re not going to explain that, are you?”
A moment of wordless communication passed between us. He realized that I knew he was keeping something from me. I realized that he wasn’t going to give anything away. Not now.
“So what was Carlisle telling you before?”
His eyebrows pulled together. “You noticed that, did you?”
I shrugged. “Of course.”
He looked at me thoughtfully for a few seconds before answering. “He wanted to tell me some news — he didn’t know if it was something I would share with you.”
“Will you?”
“I have to, because I’m going to be a little . . . overbearingly protective over the next few days — or weeks — and I wouldn’t want you to think I’m naturally a tyrant.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, exactly. Alice just sees some visitors coming soon. They know we’re here, and they’re curious.”
“Visitors?”
“Yes . . . well, they aren’t like us, of course — in their hunting habits, I mean. They probably won’t come into town at all, but I’m certainly not going to let you out of my sight till they’re gone.”
I shivered.
“Finally, a rational response!” he murmured. “I was beginning to think you had no sense of self-preservation at all.”
I let that one pass, looking away, my eyes wandering again around the spacious room.
He followed my gaze. “Not what you expected, is it?” he asked, his voice smug.
“No,” I admitted.
“No coffins, no piled skulls in the corners; I don’t even think we have cobwebs . . . what a disappointment this must be for you,” he continued slyly.
I ignored his teasing. “It’s so light . . . so open.”
He was more serious when he answered. “It’s the one place we never have to hide.”
The song he was still playing, my song, drifted to an end, the final chords shifting to a more melancholy key. The last note hovered poignantly in the silence.
“Thank you,” I murmured. I realized there were tears in my eyes. I dabbed at them, embarrassed.
He touched the corner of my eye, trapping one I missed. He lifted his finger, examining the drop of moisture broodingly. Then, so quickly I couldn’t be positive that he really did, he put his finger to his mouth to taste it.
I looked at him questioningly, and he gazed back for a long moment before he finally smiled.
“Do you want to see the rest of the house?”
“No coffins?” I verified, the sarcasm in my voice not entirely masking the slight but genuine anxiety I felt.
He laughed, taking my hand, leading me away from the piano.
“No coffins,” he promised.
We walked up the massive staircase, my hand trailing along the satin-smooth rail. The long hall at the top of the stairs was paneled with a honey-colored wood, the same as the floorboards.
“Rosalie and Emmett’s room . . . Carlisle’s office . . . Alice’s room . . .” He gestured as he led me past the doors.
He would have continued, but I stopped dead at the end of the hall, staring incredulously at the ornament hanging on the wall above my head. Edward chuckled at my bewildered expression.