Life and Death

by Stephenie Meyer

  Of course he knew the names of all the kids going, and their parents, and their great-grandparents, too, probably. He obviously approved. I wondered if he would approve of my plan to ride to Seattle with Edythe. He seemed to like the Cullens a lot. But there was no reason to tell him about it.

  “Dad, do you know a place called Goat Rocks or something like that? I think it’s south of Mount Rainier.”

  “Yeah, why?”

  I shrugged. “Some kids were talking about camping there.”

  “It’s not a very good place for camping.” He sounded surprised. “Too many bears. Most people go there during hunting season.”

  “Huh. Maybe I got it wrong.”

  I meant to sleep in, but the light woke me. Instead of the same gloomy half-light I’d gotten up to for the past two months, there was a bright, clear yellow streaming through my window. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was—finally—the sun. It was in the wrong place, too low and not as close as it should be, but it was definitely the sun. Clouds still ringed the horizon, but a wide blue patch took up most of the sky. I threw on my clothes quickly, afraid the blue would disappear as soon as I turned my back.

  Newton’s Olympic Outfitters was just north of town. I’d seen the store but never stopped there—not having much desire for the supplies needed to intentionally stay outdoors over an extended period of time. In the parking lot I saw McKayla’s Suburban and Taylor’s Sentra. As I pulled up next to their vehicles, I saw the kids standing around in front of the Suburban. Erica was there, and two other girls I knew from class; I was pretty sure their names were Becca and Colleen. Jeremy was there, flanked by Allen and Logan. Three other guys stood with them, including one I remembered falling over in Gym on Friday. That one gave me a dirty look as I climbed out of the truck, and then said something to Logan. They laughed loudly, and Logan pretended he was passing out. The other guy caught him at first, then let him fall. They both busted up again, Logan just lying there on the pavement with his hands behind his head.

  So it was going to be like that.

  At least McKayla was happy to see me.

  “You came!” she called, sounding thrilled. “And I promised it would be sunny, didn’t I?”

  “I told you I was coming.”

  “We’re just waiting for Leann and Sean … unless you invited someone,” she added.

  “Nope, it’s just me,” I lied lightly, hoping I wouldn’t get caught. But then again, it would be worth getting caught out if it meant I could spend the day with Edythe.

  McKayla smiled. “Do you want to ride with me? It’s either that or Leann’s mom’s minivan.”

  “Sure.”

  Her smile was huge. It was so easy to make her happy.

  “You can have shotgun,” she promised, and I saw Jeremy look up at us and then scowl. Not so easy to make McKayla and Jeremy happy at the same time.

  The numbers worked out, though. Leann brought two extra people, so every space was necessary. I made Jeremy climb in before me so that he was wedged between McKayla and me in the front seat of the Suburban. McKayla could have been more gracious about it, but as least Jeremy seemed appeased.

  It was only fifteen miles to La Push from Forks, with thick green forests edging the road most of the way and the wide Quillayute River snaking beneath it twice. I was glad I had the window seat. We’d rolled the windows down—the Suburban was claustrophobic with nine people in it—and I tried to absorb as much sunlight as possible.

  I’d been to the beaches around La Push lots of times during my Forks summers with Charlie, so the mile-long crescent of First Beach was familiar. Still breathtaking, though. The water was dark gray, even in the sunlight, white-capped and heaving onto the rocky shore. Islands rose out of the steel harbor waters with sheer cliff sides, each with a spiky crown of black firs. The beach had only a thin border of actual sand at the water’s edge; after that it was a million smooth rocks that looked uniformly gray from a distance, but close up were every color a stone could be. The tide line was piled with huge driftwood trees, bleached white by the salty waves—some piled together against the forest’s edge, and some lying alone just out of reach of the waves.

  There was a strong breeze coming off the waves, cool and briny. Pelicans floated on the swells while seagulls and a lone eagle circled above them. The clouds still crowded the edges of the sky, but for now the sun shone warmly in its backdrop of blue.

  We trudged through the thick sand down to the beach, McKayla leading the way to a circle of driftwood logs that had clearly been used for parties before. There was a fire ring already in place, filled with black ashes. Erica and the girl I thought was named Becca gathered broken branches of driftwood from the driest piles against the forest edge, and soon had a teepee-shaped construction built atop the old cinders.

  “Have you ever seen a driftwood fire?” McKayla asked me. I was sitting on one of the bleached benches; Jeremy and Allen sat on either side of me, but most of the other guys sat across the circle from us. McKayla knelt by the fire, holding a cigarette lighter to one of the smaller pieces of kindling.

  “No,” I said as she placed the blazing twig carefully against the teepee.

  “You’ll like this, then—watch the colors.” She lit another small branch and laid it alongside the first. The flames started to lick quickly up the dry wood.

  “It’s blue,” I said in surprise.

  “The salt does it. Cool, isn’t it?” She lit one more piece, placed it where the fire hadn’t yet caught, and then came to sit by me. Luckily, Jeremy was on her other side. He turned to McKayla and started asking her questions about the plan for the day. I watched the strange blue and green flames crackle upward.

  After a half hour of talk, some of the girls wanted to hike to the nearby tide pools, but most of the guys wanted to head up to the one shop in the village for food.

  I wasn’t sure which side to join. I wasn’t hungry, and I loved the tide pools—I’d loved them since I was just a kid; they were one of the only things I ever looked forward to when I had to come to Forks. On the other hand, I’d also fallen into them a lot. Not a big deal when you’re seven and with your dad. It reminded me suddenly of Edythe—not that she wasn’t always somewhere in my thoughts—and how she’d told me not to fall into the ocean.

  Logan was the one who made my decision for me. He was the loudest voice in the argument, and he wanted food. The group splintered into three pieces—food, hiking, and staying put—with most people following Logan. I waited until Taylor and Erica had committed to going with him before I got up quietly to join the pro-hiking group. McKayla smiled wide when she saw that I was coming.

  The hike was short, but I hated to lose the sun in the trees. The green light of the forest was a strange setting for the teenage laughter, too murky and menacing to be in harmony with the joking around me. I had to concentrate on my feet and head, avoiding roots below and branches above, and I fell behind. When I broke through the dark edge of the forest and found the rocky shore again, I was the last one. It was low tide, and a tidal river flowed past us on its way to the sea. Along its rocky banks, shallow pools that never completely drained were filled with tiny sea creatures.

  I was cautious not to lean too far over the little ocean ponds. The others were reckless, leaping over the rocks, perching precariously on the edges. I found a stable-looking rock on the fringe of one of the largest pools and sat there, totally entertained by the natural aquarium below me. The bouquets of anemones rippled in the invisible current, hermit crabs scurried around the edges in their spiraled shells, starfish stuck motionless to the rocks and each other, and one small black eel with white racing stripes wove through the bright green weeds, waiting for the sea to return. Watching took most of my attention, except for the small part of my mind that was wondering what Edythe was doing now, and trying to imagine what she would be saying if she were here instead.

  Suddenly everyone was hungry, and I got up stiffly to follow them back. I tried to keep up bett
er this time through the woods, so naturally I tripped. I got some shallow scrapes on my palms, but they didn’t bleed much.

  When we got back to First Beach, the group we’d left behind had multiplied. As we got closer I could see the shining, straight black hair and copper skin of the new arrivals, teenagers from the reservation come to socialize. Food was already being passed around, and the hikers hurried to claim a share. Erica introduced us to the new kids as we each entered the driftwood circle. Allen and I were the last to arrive, and, as Erica said our names, I noticed a younger girl sitting on the ground near the fire look up at me with interest. I sat down next to Allen, and McKayla joined us with sandwiches and sodas. The girl who looked to be the oldest of the visitors rattled off the names of the seven others with her. All I caught was that one of the boys was also named Jeremy, and the girl who noticed me was named Julie.

  It was relaxing to sit next to Allen; he was an easy person to be around—he didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with talk, leaving me free to think while we ate. And what I thought about was how strangely time seemed to flow in Forks, passing in a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. And then, at other times, every second was significant, etched into my mind. I knew exactly what caused the difference, and it was troubling.

  During lunch the clouds started to move in, darting in front of the sun momentarily, casting long shadows across the beach, and blackening the waves. As they finished eating, people started to drift away in twos and threes. Some walked down to the edge of the waves, trying to skip rocks across the choppy surface. Others were gathering a second expedition to the tide pools. McKayla—with Jeremy shadowing her—headed up to the little store. Some of the local kids went with them; others went along on the hike. By the time they all had scattered, I was sitting alone on my driftwood log, with Logan and Taylor talking by the CD player someone had brought, and three teenagers from the reservation, including the girl named Julie and the oldest girl, who had acted as spokesperson.

  A few minutes after Allen left with the hikers, Julie came over to take his place by my side. She looked fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had long, glossy black hair pulled back with a rubber band at the nape of her neck. Her skin was really beautiful, like coppery silk, her dark eyes were wide-set above her high cheekbones, and her lips were curved like a bow. It was a very pretty face. However, my positive opinion was damaged by the first words out of her mouth.

  “You’re Beaufort Swan, aren’t you?”

  It was like the first day of school all over again.

  “Beau,” I sighed.

  “Right,” she said, like she’d already known that. “I’m Julie Black.” She held out her hand. “You bought my mom’s truck.”

  “Oh,” I said, relieved, shaking her warm hand. “Bonnie’s your mom. I probably should remember you.”

  “No, I’m the youngest of the family—you would remember my older brothers.”

  And suddenly I did. “Adam and Aaron.” Charlie and Bonnie and Bonnie’s husband—George, I remembered now; he’d died a few years back, car accident or something, and Charlie had been really sad—had thrown us together a lot during my visits, to keep us busy while they fished. We’d never made much progress as friends. Of course, I’d objected often enough to end the fishing trips by the time I was eleven. “Adam and Aaron and … Jules, wasn’t it?”

  She smiled. “You do remember. No one’s called me that since my brothers left.”

  “They aren’t here?” I examined the boys at the ocean’s edge, wondering if I would be able to recognize them now.

  Jules shook her head. “No, Adam got a scholarship to Washington State, and Aaron married a Samoan surfer—he lives in Hawaii now.”

  “Married. Wow.” I was stunned. The twins were only a little over a year older than I was.

  “So how do you like the truck?” she asked.

  “I love it. It runs great.”

  “Yeah, but it’s really slow,” she laughed. “I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My mom wouldn’t let me work on building another car when we had a perfectly good vehicle right there.”

  “It’s not that slow,” I objected.

  “Have you tried to go over sixty?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Good. Don’t.” She grinned.

  I couldn’t help grinning back. “It does great in a collision,” I offered in my truck’s defense.

  “I don’t think a tank could take out that old monster,” she agreed with another laugh.

  “So you build cars?” I asked, impressed.

  “When I have free time, and parts. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?” she added jokingly. She had an interesting voice, warm and kind of throaty.

  “Sorry,” I laughed, “I haven’t seen any lately, but I’ll keep my eyes open for you.” As if I knew what that was. She was very easy to talk with.

  She flashed a brilliant smile, looking at me in a way I was learning to recognize. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  “You know Beaufort, Julie?” Logan asked. I should have known someone like Logan would notice how much I disliked my full name.

  “Beau and I have sort of known each other since I was born,” Jules said, smiling at me again.

  “How nice for you,” Logan said. I hadn’t noticed before how fishy his pale green eyes were.

  Jules raised her eyebrows at his tone. “Yes, isn’t it wonderful?”

  Her sarcasm seemed to throw Logan off, but he wasn’t done with me yet. “Beau, Taylor and I were just saying that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn’t anyone think to ask them?”

  He looked at me like he knew I’d asked Edythe to come, and thought it was hilarious that she’d turned me down. Only, it hadn’t felt like a rejection in the moment—it’d felt like she’d wanted to come with me, but couldn’t. Had I read her wrong?

  My worries were interrupted by a strong, clear voice.

  “You mean Dr. Carine Cullen’s family?”

  It was the older girl who had first introduced the local kids. She was even older than I’d thought, now that I looked at her closer. Not really a girl at all, but a woman. Unlike Julie’s, her hair was cut short as a boy’s. She was standing now, and I saw that she was almost as tall as I was.

  Logan glared at her, glared up because he was shorter than she was, irritated because she’d spoken before I could respond. “Yes, do you know them?” he asked in a patronizing tone, only half-turned toward her.

  “The Cullens don’t come here,” she said, and in her clear, forceful voice, it sounded less like an observation and more like … a command. She had ignored his question, but clearly the conversation was over.

  Taylor, trying to win back Logan’s attention, asked his opinion of the CD she held. He was distracted.

  I stared at the woman—she stood with a confident, straight posture, looking away toward the dark forest. She’d said that the Cullens didn’t come here, but her tone had implied something more—that they weren’t allowed to come, that they were prohibited from coming here. Her manner left a strange impression with me that I couldn’t shake.

  Jules interrupted my meditation. “So, is Forks driving you insane yet?”

  I frowned. Possibly, I was literally insane at this point. “I’d say that’s an understatement.”

  She grinned sympathetically.

  I was still turning over the woman’s brief comment on the Cullens, and piecing it together with what I’d read from Edythe’s reactions the other day. I looked at Jules, speculating.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You want to take a walk down the beach with me?”

  She looked at Logan, then back to me with a quick grin. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

  As we walked north toward the driftwood seawall, the clouds finally won. The sun disappeared, the sea turned black, and the temperature started to drop. I shoved my
hands deep in the pockets of my jacket.

  While we walked, I thought about the way Edythe could always get me to talk, how she would look at me from under her thick eyelashes and the gold of her eyes would burn and I would forget everything—my own name, how to breathe, everything but her. I eyed the girl walking alongside me now. Jules just had on a long-sleeved t-shirt, but she swung her arms as she walked, not bothered by the cold. The wind whipped her silky black hair into twists and knots on her back. There was something very natural and open about her face. Even if I knew how to do that burning thing that Edythe did, this girl would probably just laugh at me. But not meanly, I didn’t think. With Jules, you would always be in on the joke.

  “Nice friends,” she commented when we were far enough from the fire that the clattering of the stones beneath our feet was more than enough to drown out our voices.

  “Not mine.”

  She laughed. “I could tell.”

  “Were those other kids your friends? That one seemed kind of … older.”

  “That’s Samantha—Sam. She’s nineteen, I think. I don’t hang out with her. One of my friends was there before—Quil. I think she went up to the store.”

  “I don’t remember which one she was.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t catch many names, either. I only remember yours because you used to pull my hair.”

  “I did? I’m so sorry!”

  She laughed. “Your face. No—that was just my brothers. But I totally could have convinced you that you were guilty.”

  It was easy to laugh with her. “Guess so. Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What did that girl—Sam—what did she mean about the doctor’s family?”

  Jules made a face and then looked away, toward the ocean. She didn’t say anything.

  Which had to mean that I was right. There was something more to what Sam had said. And Jules knew what it was.

  She was still looking at the ocean.

  “Hey, um, I didn’t mean to be rude or anything.”