"He began to make better use of his time. He'd always been intelligent, eager to learn. Now he had unlimited time before him. He studied by night, planned by day. He swam to France and -"
"He swam to France?"
"People swim the Channel all the time, Bella," he reminded me patiently.
"That's true, I guess. It just sounded funny in that context. Go on."
"Swimming is easy for us -"
"Everything is easy for you," I griped.
He waited, his expression amused.
"I won't interrupt again, I promise."
He chuckled darkly, and finished his sentence. "Because, technically, we don't need to breathe."
"You -"
"No, no, you promised." He laughed, putting his cold finger lightly to my lips. "Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"You can't spring something like that on me, and then expect me not to say anything," I mumbled against his finger.
He lifted his hand, moving it to rest against my neck. The speed of my heart reacted to that, but I persisted.
"You don't have to breathe?" I demanded.
"No, it's not necessary. Just a habit." He shrugged.
"How long can you go... without breathing?"
"Indefinitely, I suppose; I don't know. It gets a bit uncomfortable - being without a sense of smell."
"A bit uncomfortable," I echoed.
I wasn't paying attention to my own expression, but something in it made him grow somber. His hand dropped to his side and he stood very still, his eyes intent on my face. The silence lengthened. His features were immobile as stone.
"What is it?" I whispered, touching his frozen face.
His face softened under my hand, and he sighed. "I keep waiting for it to happen.""For what to happen?"
"I know that at some point, something I tell you or something you see is going to be too much. And then you'll run away from me, screaming as you go." He smiled half a smile, but his eyes were serious. "I won't stop
you. I want this to happen, because I want you to be safe. And yet, I want to be with you. The two desires are impossible to reconcile..." He trailed off, staring at my face. Waiting.
"I'm not running anywhere," I promised.
"We'll see," he said, smiling again.
I frowned at him. "So, go on - Carlisle was swimming to France."
He paused, getting back into his story. Reflexively, his eyes flickered to another picture - the most colorful of them all, the most ornately framed, and the largest; it was twice as wide as the door it hung next to. The canvas overflowed with bright figures in swirling robes, writhing around long pillars and off marbled balconies. I couldn't tell if it represented Greek mythology, or if the characters floating in the clouds above were meant to be biblical.
"Carlisle swam to France, and continued on through Europe, to the universities there. By night he studied music, science, medicine - and found his calling, his penance, in that, in saving human lives." His expression became awed, almost reverent. "I can't adequately describe the struggle; it took Carlisle two centuries of torturous effort to perfect his self-control. Now he is all but immune to the scent of human blood, and he is able to do the work he loves without agony. He finds a great deal of peace there, at the hospital..." Edward stared off into space for a long moment. Suddenly he seemed to recall his purpose. He tapped his finger against the huge painting in front of us.
"He was studying in Italy when he discovered the others there. They were much more civilized and educated than the wraiths of the London sewers."
He touched a comparatively sedate quartet of figures painted on the highest balcony, looking down calmly on the mayhem below them. I examined the grouping carefully and realized, with a startled laugh, that I recognized the golden-haired man.
"Solimena was greatly inspired by Carlisle's friends. He often painted them as gods," Edward chuckled. "Aro, Marcus, Caius," he said, indicating the other three, two black-haired, one snowy-white. "Nighttime patrons of the arts."
"What happened to them?" I wondered aloud, my fingertip hovering a centimeter from the figures on the canvas.
"They're still there." He shrugged. "As they have been for who knows how many millennia. Carlisle stayed with them only for a short time, just a few decades. He greatly admired their civility, their refinement, but they persisted in trying to cure his aversion to 'his natural food source,' as they called it. They tried to persuade him, and he tried to persuade them, to no avail. At that point, Carlisle decided to try the New World. He dreamed of finding others like himself. He was very lonely, you see.
"He didn't find anyone for a long time. But, as monsters became the stuff of fairy tales, he found he could interact with unsuspecting humans as if he were one of them. He began practicing medicine. But the companionship he craved evaded him; he couldn't risk familiarity.
"When the influenza epidemic hit, he was working nights in a hospital in Chicago. He'd been turning over an idea in his mind for several years, and he had almost decided to act - since he couldn't find a companion, he would create one. He wasn't absolutely sure how his own transformation had occurred, so he was hesitant. And he was loath to steal anyone's life the way his had been stolen. It was in that frame of mind that he found me. There was no hope for me; I was left in a ward with the dying. He had nursed my parents, and knew I was alone. He decided to try..."
His voice, nearly a whisper now, trailed off. He stared unseeingly through the west windows. I wondered which images filled his mind now, Carlisle's memories or his own. I waited quietly.
When he turned back to me, a gentle angel's smile lit his expression.
"And so we've come full circle," he concluded.
"Have you always stayed with Carlisle, then?" I wondered.
"Almost always." He put his hand lightly on my waist and pulled me with him as he walked through the door. I stared back at the wall of pictures, wondering if I would ever get to hear the other stories.
Edward didn't say any more as we walked down the hall, so I asked, "Almost?"
He sighed, seeming reluctant to answer. "Well, I had a typical bout of rebellious adolescence - about ten years after I was... born... created, whatever you want to call it. I wasn't sold on his life of abstinence, and I resented him for curbing my appetite. So I went off on my own for a time."