Luminosity

by Alicorn

  "It's a good idea, Bella," Edward soothed, cool fingers resting on the back of my neck. "We'll ask them. But I think it's time we got you home now."

  "Okay." I relaxed into his embrace. I was tired of holding myself up. "Oh. There's one thing I'd like to do first - if it's okay." I glanced over at the Volturi, who had witnessed our entire conversation with expressions ranging from mild curiosity to bemusement to morbid fascination. (I became more convinced that most vampires did not first meet their mates as humans. I wouldn't have been such an interesting sight otherwise.) "I want to talk to Gianna, and thank her." And figure out what in the hell she's doing here, I didn't add.

  "Of course. Santiago," said Aro with a small, flicking gesture. Santiago bowed again, turned, and led me, Edward, Carlisle, and Esme into the maze.

  "Did you meet Gianna?" I asked Edward in a low voice. To let me walk, he'd released me from his hug, but we were holding hands.

  "I noticed her. We weren't formally introduced," he murmured. "What are you thanking her for?"

  "She left me these clothes, and some food, and I think I was sleeping in her bed - I don't know why else there would be a bed in here, unless there are other humans involved."

  "Just her," he said.

  Santiago showed us to the room I'd slept in. Gianna was inside, changing the sheets. I motioned for Edward and his parents to hang back while I went in; Santiago swooshed away up the hall without prompting, apparently expecting us to be able to find our own way out when we were done.

  "Gianna?" I said. I wasn't sure if her spoken English was as good as her writing.

  "Hello, Bella," she said, turning a pleasant smile on me. "I've put your clothes in the wash, but they aren't done yet. Do you want me to send them to you in America?" She had an accent, but it was faint and pleasant, and didn't make her hard to understand at all. She chose words quickly and confidently, so I assumed she'd been working with English for some time, even if it wasn't her native language.

  "No, thank you," I said. "Uh, do you want me to send you these?" I tugged at the skirt, which swished around my ankles.

  "They're yours," she said, patting my arm. "I hope I found you enough food. I usually eat out, and only had a few snacks around."

  "It was perfect, I came to thank you," I said. "Thank you, for the food, and the note, and the clothes, and the bed - it was just what I needed to wake up to after the trip I had."

  "It was no trouble at all," she assured me.

  "Is this - uh, looking after human visitors - what you mostly do here?" I asked. It felt like an intrusive question, only a hair more polite than "What the hell are the Volturi doing breaking their own laws by having you around?"

  "No, guests like you are very rare," she said, not looking offended at all. "I'm the human representative when the Volturi need to send someone into a context where one of their guard would be too noticeable - anything outdoors in the daylight, where they can't go cloaked. I handle the laundry. When I'm not doing that, I sit at the reception desk - you saw - but there aren't many receptionist tasks to do. It's light work." She tossed her hair with a cheerful smile.

  "How do you even get a job like this?" I asked. "They can't advertise in the classifieds, Wanted: Representative/Laundress/Secretary for Vampire Ruling Coven, and get serious answers..."

  "They don't," she laughed. "I believed all the legends, when I was a little girl. They tell a lot of vampire stories in this town. I never quite stopped thinking they were true. And one day I decided to go searching for them. I found what I was looking for." Her smile was genuine, but closed, somehow. She didn't want me to ask too many questions about that. She didn't want to tell me what would make her go on a vampire hunt. She didn't want to share the story of how she'd convinced them to hire her and not kill her.

  I nodded slowly. "I need to go home," I said, "my father's probably absolutely frantic - but I just wanted to thank you. Um, if you have an e-mail address or a phone number... We're probably the only two humans in the world who hang out with vampires all the time," I offered, as a rather pathetic excuse to keep in touch with her. I was mostly curious - and a little afraid for her life. She hadn't been eaten so far; she certainly might be later, if the Volturi tired of her. "We should talk more."

  Gianna had a tiny notebook in the pocket of her leaf-patterned skirt. Clearly, a woman after my own heart. She wrote down an e-mail address on it, and a phone number complete with country code, then handed me the detached page. "I can't always answer the phone," she said. "I keep irregular hours and I sometimes have business unexpectedly. I get to a computer every three or four days. But I'd like to hear from you, Bella."

  I smiled at her. "Well, thanks again. Um, bye." And then I turned to go back to Edward.

  "Bye, Bella," called Gianna.

  Edward put his arm around my shoulders after I'd pocketed Gianna's contact information, and the two of us, followed by Carlisle and Esme, made our way out of the compound.

  Once we were out of doors, and in the car the Cullens had rented to get around Volterra (with a sufficiency of window tint to let them be unobtrusive), Edward handed me a phone. "Come up with a better story if you've got one, but here's our idea," he said. "The illness you were faking sometimes causes sleepwalking and erratic circadian rhythms. You wandered onto the bed of someone's pickup truck, curled up there, and were driven all the way to California without waking up or being noticed, since you pulled a tarp over yourself to keep warm. When you woke up in a parking lot all alone, you found a gas station, borrowed quarters, and called me right away because you were embarrassed at the prospect of asking Charlie for taxi money. Carlisle was in town for a medical conference and I told you so, and sent him to pick you up. You just met up with him and you'll be home in twelve hours. You are also over your disease now."

  It was a convoluted, ridiculous story, but I didn't have any other way to explain why I'd disappeared from my bed, been gone for two days without contacting my parents, and was about to return safe and sound. I dutifully took the phone, dialed home, and recited the lies to Charlie. He seemed incredulous, but I put Carlisle on the phone, who confirmed it all (including the humbug about sleepwalking) with such a serious and honest tone that I was half-inclined to believe him myself. I took the phone back and told Charlie that, no, I didn't have the license number of the pickup truck. He uttered a few fussing, fretting sentences, but wasn't in a position to actually do anything. Finally, he let me off the phone with a gruff, "I love you, Bells."

  "I love you, too, Dad," I told the phone. "I'll see you soon." And then I flipped it closed. "I wish I could tell him everything," I sighed, putting my head on Edward's lap. The no-seatbelts precaution made it a lot easier to move around freely in the car.

  Edward stroked my hair and said nothing.

  * * *

  The way Cullens got onto airplanes was this: accepting pat-downs after they made the scanning machines go absolutely haywire, complaining vaguely of having "weird bioelectricity". When that didn't quite work, outright bribery in large denominations. And, apparently, flirting with the security officers. Esme made awfully compelling doe-eyes at one portly fellow, accompanied by a flutter of Italian. He stammered at her a little and waved her through, then looked hurt when she joined an indulgent Carlisle and kissed him.

  I was much easier to get through security: Edward had found my passport in my room before leaving for Italy and the security equipment didn't so much as blink a light at my passage. And the plane rides, spent in first class and in Edward's arms, were much more pleasant than my other recent experiences with aircraft. Particularly since I was welcome to any food I wanted from what the Cullens received, and therefore had not one, but four miniature cheesecakes. There was, however, a tense moment when I described for him the tests Aro had undertaken of my witchcraft.

  "He told Jane to try -" sputtered Edward, looking angrier than I'd ever seen him except when he'd been roaring at James.

  "It didn't work," I hurried to say. "Nothing happened. She l
ooked really upset about it. Why, what does she do?"

  Edward's teeth were clenched so tightly I thought he might split a molar. Carlisle explained for him. "Jane's talent is a sadistic one," he said in a soft voice that carried to my seat and no farther. "She can cause pain. A purely mental pain, but a disabling one. She is limited to one subject at a time, and is restricted to victims in her line of sight, but she's feared nonetheless. You are very lucky to have proven immune."

  "Oh," I breathed. Lucky indeed. I loved my witchy talent very much. "Uh, and the boy who looks like her - I didn't get his name? He doesn't work on me either," I said.

  "Alec," said Edward, finally relaxing his jaw enough to talk. "He is Jane's biological twin. And his power is the opposite of hers in many ways. He's anaesthetic where she is torture - he turns off all senses, even proprioception. He can affect several at a time and doesn't need to look at all of his targets, but his power moves slowly."

  That was consistent with what I'd seen. "James fell over when Alec looked at him," I remembered. "I guess it's hard to stand up if you can't feel where your legs are." Edward nodded with a sort of grim satisfaction.

  "What does "la tua cantante" mean?" I asked him, changing the subject from what grotesque powers I was protected from.

  "It means "your singer"," Edward said. "That's what the Volturi call someone who smells the way you do to me - they think of it as your blood singing for me."

  "That's kind of gross," I remarked.

  "A little," laughed Edward. "They think it's a waste that I haven't eaten you. They consider singers the ultimate delicacy. And Aro said he'd never have believed there was a singer so powerful if he hadn't smelled you in my memories."

  "He read you." My stomach turned a little. I didn't like the idea of Aro spying on Edward... or me, through Edward's eyes. I'd been careful not to drop hints of my plans for world domination, but I wasn't too pleased with the notion that Aro now had a full complement of memories of Edward kissing me, Edward leaving me gifts, Edward carrying me through the woods, Edward guarding me for days at a stretch. I hadn't liked Aro before; now I liked him less.

  Edward nodded, looking somber but not nauseated. "It's his standard means of communication for anything complicated. Marcus rarely speaks at all, preferring to simply transmit to Aro and let him do the talking."

  "I'm glad my mind is safe," I murmured. "I wish yours were."

  Edward kissed the crown of my head. "I'll admit it chafes at me a bit that I can't read you," he said. "But I'm glad you prefer it that way, since it doesn't seem there's any way around it."

  "It's good there's no way around it," I said. "If there were, then Aro could decide to coerce me into dropping the shield. Since I can't drop the shield, he knows there's no point in threatening me or anything - it won't do any good. It's to my advantage not to be able to turn it off. Even if I wanted to let you in, just having that ability would be bad."

  Edward looked thoughtful. The conversation lulled, and then turned to other subjects: the Denali coven and speculations about how they would get on with David; whether Laurent was still with them and how, if at all, the news of his coven-mates' destruction could be broken; James's knowledge of Alice's origins, and the development of a plan to send her to the region where she'd woken, to search for herself in asylum records. (I didn't like to think of Alice locked up in a psychiatric hospital, especially not in the early nineteen hundreds. She was so bubbly, and seemed to take so much joy in things, that it seemed unreasonably cruel. And, on top of that, her visions were true - or, at least, were in her vampire life. I supposed they could have been hallucinatory when she was human.)

  * * *

  Chapter 12: Norway

  After entirely too much travel, I arrived back home in Forks, alone in a car with Carlisle. Esme and Edward had gotten out and were running home to prop up my preposterous story, although Edward had promised to come by and see me soon.

  When I got in the door of my house, it was almost ten p.m. (Friday) local time, and I was even about the right amount of tired. Charlie was waiting up for me, and engulfed me in a tremendous hug when I lurched through the door. "Bells, you're home! I missed you."

  "I missed you, too, Dad," I said with a watery sort of smile.

  "I called your mother," Charlie went on, and I winced; "she's expecting you to get on the phone with her tomorrow, but I convinced her to leave you be tonight."

  "Thanks, Dad."

  "Why didn't Dr. Cullen warn us that you'd sleepwalk ahead of time?" he asked, looking over my head at Carlisle, who was sitting in his car in the driveway. Carlisle waved, smiled, and drove off, having confirmed that I was safely home.

  "Uh, it's a really rare symptom," I said. "I guess he didn't think it was worth worrying us about."

  "Hmph," Charlie said. "Well, I'm glad you're better. You've looked under the weather for weeks."

  I hadn't thought Charlie had noticed - Rosalie's drug schedule, and the fortunately-complete-before-I-was-kidnapped egg extraction surgery, had left me a little less than my best, but no one had commented. Well, Edward had commented, mostly to see if there was anything he could do for me, but he knew what was going on - no humans had said anything about it.

  "I feel fine now," I assured him. "Just kind of tired - lots of travel."

  Charlie nodded, patted me on the head, and released me from the hug. "Get a good night's sleep, Bells," he instructed, and I nodded.

  When I got up to my room, Edward was already there.

  "Your father would have turned me away if I'd gone by the door," Edward explained. "But I did say I'd drop by."

  "Soon, you said, not immediately," I laughed softly, not wanting to alert Charlie to the fact that I was having a conversation.

  "Immediately is soon," he countered, pulling me into another hug. He smelled so nice. All of the vampires did, although there were variations - Esme reminded me of vanilla, for instance. I leaned on him sleepily and inhaled.

  "I'm tired," I announced.

  "All right," he said, kissing my forehead. "I'll leave you be to rest; James isn't after you anymore, thankfully, so you don't need constant supervision."

  "You could stay anyway," I suggested, half conscious, and then Edward tucked me into bed and I was out like a light.

  I woke up still in the clothes Gianna had given me. Edward was lying next to me, on top of the covers that I was tucked under; I could feel his arm around me. Through the blanket, I could barely tell that he was cold.

  "Morning," I yawned, burrowing my head a little deeper into the pillow. It was Saturday, nobody was trying to kill me, and I could lounge in bed all day if I wanted to.

  * * *

  Interestingly, my exciting week didn't prevent life from going back to normal. Or rather, what had become normal in recent months. After Emmett and Jasper went on a road trip to truck David up to Denali, I was able to resume my visits to the Cullen house. Alice decided that she needed to plan my wedding - "after all," she explained, "even if you decide not to actually get married when you tell everyone you are, you'll have to send home convincing photos, so that means decorations and cake and clothes!" She had a point, and I turned the responsibility over to her after securing veto power over anything I found absolutely tasteless.

  Gianna took ten days to reply to my first e-mail, which I sent the Monday after my return. It had been a brief thing - "I'm home safe, how are you, thanks again for the clothes, what's up in Volterra". I was fishing for tidbits with which to start some more substantial exchange, and from there I hoped to segue into asking the questions that really itched at me.

  Dear Bella, her reply began. Apparently she was in the habit of treating e-mails like letters.

  I'm glad you got home okay, and I hope everything continues to go smoothly for you. I'm doing fine. Today I finally found out why Santiago goes by a man's name - it's not her name at all, it's the city she's from. She didn't tell me her real name, though, and I try not to ask too many questions in a row, because it makes the
m suspicious. Maybe I'll find out the next time I talk to her. But she seems to prefer to go by "Santiago", so I'm not sure how useful that would be. I have heard that Carlisle, from your coven, lived with the Volturi long ago. Perhaps he knows. Sincerely, Gianna"

  This read to me like either an out-of-place bit of dwelling on Santiago's name - I hadn't even known it wasn't a girls' name - or a subtle direction to go to Carlisle, not Gianna, for info on the Volturi. That was all well as far as it went. (And it might also mean they were reading her mail.) But Carlisle had lived in Volterra before Gianna had even been born, and it was her I was most interested in learning about.

  Dear Gianna, I wrote a few days later, following the convention she preferred. I asked Carlisle and he says Santiago is a more recent addition to the guard, so he doesn't know her name. During the entire time he was there, in fact, no one new arrived. So he only knows a few things about how they normally bring in new people. Apparently they go out of their way to add witches, or rather vampires with extra talents, but not everyone in the guard has one. How do people without extra talents get admitted to the guard? Sincerely, Bella

  We went back and forth at a snail's pace - short, oblique e-mails every week or two. It was frustrating. I eventually gave up on figuring out the details of how Gianna had come to work for the Volturi or whether she expected to join them one day. I settled for newsy personal exchanges. We both stuck to innocuous information that her bosses wouldn't care about: I never told her if Jasper came close to slipping up in public or anything about Quileutes. Gianna would mention if she traveled internationally, but never specified city and only sometimes told me the country. She often told me in glowing terms about her favorite restaurants in Volterra, which was the very safest of topics and was frequently mouthwatering to read.

  Edward offered me once to tell me what he'd read off Gianna's mind when he'd been nearby. I asked how much he'd listened to, and it wasn't much - enough to answer a fraction of my questions but not all of them. He hadn't heard enough to know whether Gianna had a good reason to be cagey, and that was the part that made me refuse. I had no idea how often Aro read her, or how little it would take to turn her into a snack. If the Volturi were reading the correspondence, and I accidentally hinted something I'd learned from Edward, they could think she'd spilled the beans some other way. Refusing information was hard, but it was the sort of thing I'd need to be able to do if I was going to spend any time with Edward.