by Kim Zarins
Pard screws up his mouth like he tastes something bad. “It’s the wrong myth,” he says archly.
I wonder what the right myth would be, but I stick it to him with pleasure. “You’ve got the undead pale thing going.”
He tilts his head as if to say, That again? and I shrink in my seat. He could tell everyone about the time during PE last year when I insisted he wore color contacts as an albino strategy, and he leaned across our corner table, locked eyes with me up close, and challenged me to find the plastic rims of his contacts. I’d felt his breath on my mouth.
But his mind is on vampires. “You used to sleep in a coffin.”
People talk all at once as they try to figure that one out. I don’t know what to say about my childhood sleeping box, but Reiko saves me, in furious mama-bear style, even though I egged Pard on in the first place.
“Can’t you let Jeff breathe in peace? And for your information, that thing he had was a fort.” This isn’t totally true, but a good thing to say to a girl when she opens your bedroom closet and asks. “A coffin,” she adds, fuming. “How can you talk that way to him?”
I look out the window, because it feels lonely and weird to be an object of pity. I wish Lupe would just get started.
But Lupe’s always been a little protective of me because of Reiko, and now she’s pissed. “Leave Jeff alone, Edward. You’re pale and controlling and moody. Too short to be a proper vampire, but what can you do?”
For some reason gay jokes (or albino jokes) don’t get to Pard half as much as jokes about height, weight, or anatomy. It hurts him every time. He holds up a stubby pencil. “Short, huh? Small people can be powerful, and I can draw you if you need me to prove it.” After the Rooster incident, it’s obvious what his threat entails.
But you don’t threaten Lupe like that. She leans over her seat so that her black hair hangs down, witchy with its blue streaks. “You thought drawing Rooster made you powerful? Is that your power trip? I don’t take kindly to threats, Pard. Try drawing me naked, and I’ll crucify you on a harassment suit faster than it takes to sharpen your very. Small. Pencil.”
The guys give out a low ooo-ooooh, and Mr. Bailey tells Lupe to start her story, while Pard shrinks next to Alison.
Lupe gives Pard one more look, and then says, “We have our lovebirds. But we are going to add another bird.”
“Kai!” Briony practically shouts.
Kai shakes his head, clearly freaked at being in this weird story.
Briony turns toward his row. “You’re a way better Jacob than Pard is an Edward. You’ve got the voice, the body. You’re perfect! I am so Team Jacob now!”
Kai smiles that pushover-boyfriend smile.
“Point taken,” Lupe says, “but I am literally introducing a new bird.”
Everyone’s like, Huh? And Lupe grins.
So, somewhere on the outskirts of the small town of Forks, EdPard and Saga-Bell were cruising through the densely wooded lanes at top speeds in EdPard’s imported vehicle, which Saga-Bell considered both sexy and grossly materialistic.
All of a sudden they see a flash of shadows, and EdPard uses his vampire-fast reflexes, but even he can’t prevent the impact. Saga-Bell hears a thunk.
“Oh, just call me Bella,” Saga says. “Saga-Bell takes forever.”
“Okay,” Lupe concedes.
Pard doesn’t even try to get his name out of the story, but he kind of lucks out anyway.
“What did we hit?” Bella asked with rising panic.
Edward pulled over. “Stay here. I’ll check it out.”
There he was again, trying to control her every move. She snapped back, “Oh no, you don’t. I’m coming with.” Bella fumbled with the door handle and banged her head as she climbed out. “Ow!”
Bella ignored the look Edward gave her. She assumed he thought she was a klutz, though he really was thinking how sexy it was when she bruised that pale skin. He wouldn’t mind having a go at bruising her with caresses.
Suddenly Bella wailed, “Oh no! You killed a bird!”
She rushed to the tiny little body.
“My apologies, dear,” Edward gushed. “That said, it’s just a common crow.”
“Edward would never say something that heartless,” Briony says.
She and Mouse lean forward, like they want to scoop up and save this bird’s fluttering life, while some of the others, girls and guys, look totally bored. Lupe just smiles.
Even in this crisis, Edward’s melodic voice hypnotized Bella. She looked at the bird carefully. “Wait, it’s breathing! But I think it’s fading.” Bella felt so guilty at this likely death-by-Volvo. “If we let this bird die, it will be all our fault.”
Edward rushed over to the suffering avian. The vampire, of course, was keenly aware of the creature’s blood loss. It smelled not unlike strawberries marinated in a tawny port, though the rubbing alcohol aftertaste was a bit nasty.
The crow had suffered some broken bones, and the internal bleeding would kill it quickly. There was only one thing Edward could do: He could save a life . . . but condemn it to eternal beauty, power, sex appeal, and, yes . . . bloodlust.
Edward crouched over the tiny form.
Bella wrinkled her petit nose. “What are you doing? CPR?”
“Saving her the only way I can.” Edward panted.
“Her . . . You can tell she‘s female? Is that a vampire talent?” Edward’s nostrils flared as he nodded, but then Bella saw blood in the corner of his lips. “Wait, did you bite her? I want you to bite me. I’ve been waiting a long time for that bite.”
“Bella . . .”
But before he could finish, the poison in the bird’s body had worked its course, and the crow started to writhe in pain.
They rushed the bird back to their little home outside of Forks. It took all weekend for the crow to go through her transformation.
Bella could not believe this was the same bird they had hit with Edward’s imported vehicle. “Wow, she’s transformed. She’s so pretty now. Like a . . . swan.” Bella Swan couldn’t help but think how pretty she would be if only Edward would grow some balls and bite her. The crow had white feathers—soft as magnolia petals, more delicate even than her favorite lace-eyelet blouse—and different colors of the rainbow shone depending where the light hit her plumage. It was truly magical. Bella reached out to stroke her.
The vampire crow opened her fanged beak.
Edward rushed between them faster than Bella could blink. “Hold on, I’ll need to house-train our new family member.”
He set up Polly with a water feeder, filled with blood.
“Good one,” Rooster booms.
So, anyway, the bird got used to her new feeder and quickly learned to put her tongue to the stainless steel double ballpoint drinking tube to release the blood.
Over the next several months Edward and Polly spent countless hours together. It was important to socialize Polly among both vampires and humans. She had to learn not to bite people, and Edward trained her not to kill any animals, but only to drink the blood of animals that Edward had hunted himself. He didn’t want a wild vampire crow infecting the bird population of Forks. And Polly seemed to understand and accept Edward’s training.
Soon she understood everything Edward and Bella said, and could speak with them as well.
“No deer. Lion!” Polly cawed one evening when Edward put up the feeder.
Edward snickered melodically. “Lion is my dinner, thank you very much. Deer is perfectly acceptable for my dependents.”
“Caw!” Polly protested, but then she finished feeding and fluffed her feathers with absolute contentment. Polly perched on Edward’s shoulder when he played the grand piano in the parlor. Her crest lifted during her favorite parts, and she sang arias with the most beautiful voice. Such moments only made Bella even more jealous that she’d never been bitten, to unlock all of her superpowers.
While everything seemed so charming in the Edwardian household, things below the surface were
changing. So slowly that she barely noticed, Bella was falling in love with another man. She wouldn’t have put it that way, but with Edward busy training Polly and taking her on multiday trips to hunt, she spent most of her time with Kaicob.
Kaicob had always been a good friend. Unlike Edward, Kaicob never grilled Bella with questions, never commanded her to eat, or insisted she stay away from urban areas and wooded areas, which pretty much kept her stuck at home. Kaicob was always good for a walk and a talk. They took to hiking for hours. She felt his sexual energy when he helped her keep her balance on rough footing or lifted her when her feet could make no purchase on the rocks.
She reminded herself over and over how much she loved Edward’s diamond skin and bony ass. She told herself that she and Kaicob were just good friends, easy in each other’s company. These long walks and talks were the relaxing times, whereas the snippy and exhilarating times happened when Edward returned from his travels. So she said.
Then Edward took off alone for Alaska. He didn’t ask if it was all right to leave, just cautioned Bella not to go out, and to be careful cooking hot meals for herself, in case she burned the house down with her in it. He smirked, like always, and Bella drooled and rolled her eyes at the same time.
“I should be back well before Polly needs another bottle. But just in case, I have fresh blood in the thermos in the fridge. It’s lion blood, so Polly should be very polite once she has that. All right, then. Be safe, for once.” He smirked.
Bella was annoyed, partly at Edward and partly at . . . what? She didn’t know what was going on in her head. She tried watching TV. She tried eating chocolate, but of course, her delicate stomach didn’t let her eat very much. And Bella found herself sobbing on the bed. Weeping so hard she wanted to die.
And then she felt warm arms surround her, warm kisses on her face, her neck, her eyes, her lips. His lips were salty with her tears. And she started kissing him back, harder and more urgently.
Kaicob’s body was like a palace—so much to explore, so architecturally rich and varied. He kept his weight on his forearms, while she hooked her legs around his waist. She tugged at her clothes, and he tore them off, gently, so the fabric didn’t pull at her. Her breasts pressed against his hot chest.
She was used to sex with Edward. She loved the look of Edward naked when the sun streamed into the room, and his little pencil was so sparkly it was a shame to roll a condom over it. All this was enchanting, but when Edward’s dry, cold fingers latched on to her, when his naked body pressed on her entire length, when he penetrated her with the bracing chill of a gynecological instrument, the icy touch always gave her goose bumps. He was cold inside and out, like all Cold Ones. She hadn’t known sex could be hot.
Rooster and Bryce crack up.
Meanwhile, it’s dawning on Briony that casting Kai as Jacob was a bad idea. Swallowing hard, Kai stares at the ground. He’s burning with a mix of embarrassment and sexual energy.
Briony looks from Lupe to Saga, like she wants to kill one or both of them. Or even Pard, because he’s stealing glances at Kai. Pard probably has his own revisionist ideas of how the love triangle should resolve itself, and it doesn’t involve Bella Swan.
After throwing herself into the moment and giving Kaicob all her passion, it was a little awkward talking about what just happened while they lay naked on a bed strewn with her torn clothes.
“I didn’t really mean to do that,” Bella confessed.
“Me neither,” Kaicob said, but he was smiling ear to ear. He was soooo happy, and he couldn’t hide it. He’d been waiting for years to do that.
Bella rolled her eyes and punched Kaicob’s shoulder. “You goofball! Let’s get dressed—or have you torn up all my favorite clothes?” She gave him a flirtatiously murderous look that made them both flush with smiles.
The rest of the day was so simple. They strolled outside under the trees, they made dinner and ate together. They had sex a second time—not urgently, and with no tearing of clothes. They did things slowly, like they wanted them to last.
It was too risky to have Kaicob stay the night. This perfect day had to end. She had to think about what had happened, and what she should do.
“Do you still like me?” he asked. “Will you call?” Suddenly, he was a little boy again, hoping to please her.
“Of course. Now shoo!”
Bella tidied up the house while she thought of Kaicob’s baby potentially growing inside her from the unprotected sex—Edward’s condoms wouldn’t have fit Kaicob, of course. She made the house gleam, while her own thoughts stayed muddled.
She talked on the phone with Kaicob the next day, and the next, but she didn’t invite him back. She could sense new life, and she’d heard about werewolves being very virile.
She was pregnant.
She called Kaicob and told him. He begged her to marry him. He came over and held her while she cried. He held her while she warmed up to him. They made love over and over, but she made no promises.
Edward was due home any day now. Kaicob’s friends kept a lookout and gave him notice.
“Please come with me,” he begged Bella. “I don’t like to think of you facing him. Cold Ones can’t be trusted.”
“I trust him,” she said. “Just go. I need to think about things. Go.”
But in the end it didn’t matter what she thought.
She’d forgotten all about Polly.
Edward returned on foot. His family met him first on the road north of Forks, and they discussed vampire news for a while. Then Edward looked up and saw his bird, cawing “Kai! Kai! Kai!” Polly swiftly circled and alighted on Edward’s shoulder.
Edward smirked as his protégé tugged his earlobe for attention. “What’s gotten into you, Polly?”
Polly trilled to the cheerful tune of “Polly Wants a Cracker” for all the vampires to hear. “Kaicob fucked Bella, Kaicob fucked Bella!”
Dr. Bailey and his wife froze in place, as did the other Cold Ones in Edward’s family—Bryce and Rooster and Briony.
“Stay calm, Edward,” said Dr. Bailey. “Let’s talk about this rationally. Wait!”
But Edward was already gone.
Bella didn’t have a chance to say a word once Edward burst through the door. Before she could cry for help or even blink, Edward picked her up and slammed her against a wall.
“Is it true? Answer me!” he roared, teeth bared.
But Bella died instantly. He killed her. Had he meant to? He trembled. Despite a wave of nausea and self-loathing, Edward smelled the most intoxicating, overpowering fragrance: his beloved’s blood staining the back of her head, and there again on the stained wall. With a moan, a loosening of his limbs, he finally gave up all resistance and did the thing vampires do, the thing Bella had begged for, though not like this.
He bit her. And time was lost to him.
Edward rose up from her corpse momentarily euphoric, sated the way sex had never sated him. And he looked down at her, at the shock and horror frozen on her dead face. He had killed the thing he loved, glutted himself on her blood. He licked his lips, tasting her, and hated himself. If only he could die.
Leaving the bedroom, he paced through the house—limbs shaking, teeth chattering—and caught sight of the grand piano in the parlor. Discordant noise flooded his ears as he ripped out the strings and smashed the whole thing to pieces, and then to smaller pieces. He would never make music again.
He went back into the bedroom to bury his beloved’s corpse, and what he saw chilled his already cold body.
Polly’s claws had sunk into Bella’s shoulder. Open wings mantled her prey as she devoured what was left of Bella’s blood, corpse-feeding exactly as she had been trained, though there wasn’t much left to enjoy. Edward snatched Polly and pounded the wall with Polly’s body until the drywall chipped off. Then he pinned Polly to the ground and yanked out every single feather. Sunlight was pouring into the bedroom, and Edward’s face and hands shone like diamonds, just like Polly’s plucked body and
floating feathers.
“You liar!” he snarled, weeping, as he plucked and plucked. “You lied to me! She was innocent. You were jealous that I loved her more, so you lied. Jealous!”
The glitter of diamonds made an almost pretty sight, but the horrible sounds of feathers ripped from flesh were drowned out by Polly’s terrible screams and Edward’s howls until the bird was naked.
Turned out, Polly was a he.
The sight of Polly’s sparkly little pencil tipped Edward over the edge. He stared at it dumbfounded. He’d always assumed . . . but there it was. He was wrong about Polly being a girl, but he wasn’t wrong about Bella’s faithfulness. She’d loved his sparkly pencil, and wouldn’t need any other lover. Certainly not a canine lover. Polly was playing him false. That had to be it.
“Liar!” Edward roared. Without waiting for a reply, Edward bent over the small body. With his teeth he ripped Polly’s vocal box. The foul taste of Polly’s blood reminded Edward that the last time he bit the bird, he’d meant to save her—its—life. He couldn’t process this replayed moment and how his whole world collapsed while he lived on. “Tell me now who’s faithful and who isn’t. Sing if you can.”
Polly’s beak hung open. The bird would never sing again.
The end.
I sit there as stunned as everyone else. It’s like Lupe ripped out our own vocal boxes.
Rooster is the first to respond. “Whoa.”
“No kidding,” Bryce says.
Lupe smiles with mischief.
Marcus blinks as he tries to think of nice sentiments for his girlfriend’s story about blood and torture. As usual, he goes straight to objective facts and says, “You do realize that male corvids lack external phalluses, right?” Lupe ruffles his hair, like this was all cute or something.
Briony cuts in. “You totally ruined the entire book. I mean, you make wisecracks about Edward’s penis, and then Jacob and Bella cheat, and then Edward kills off Bella, which he would never do. Like, what the hell?”
Mouse crosses her arms and puts on a stern Mouse-face in solidarity. Their gods have been mocked.