Luminosity Read online

  After about a minute and a half of gently whizzing along, Esme came to a halt and I opened my eyes. Carlisle, Edward, and Esme, who was still holding me, all stood at the edge of a clearing about twice the size of a baseball stadium. (I had seen one of those up close while Phil had been attempting to bond with his future stepdaughter.)

  Emmett, Alice, and Jasper were already present. Alice skipped up to me, grinning, and Esme put me down. "I think it would be most impressive if I were the one to pick something heavy up," Alice said brightly. "Since I'm smaller than everyone else. Want to go hunting for a good log or do you just want me to tell you which one you're going to pick?"

  I didn't really want to go hunting for a good log. It was wet out, and I didn't care very much anymore about doing controlled tests. "Lead the way," I told Alice, and she traipsed back into the forest with me following. It was difficult to pick my way through the thick undergrowth, and I was glad I was in unfavorite pants.

  The log was a monstrosity. The tree that had died to create it must have been many times older than me. I gave it a kick; it was sturdy, not particularly rotted, and didn't budge a bit with the force my human leg could offer. It was satisfactory. I stepped back - I thought Alice could pick up the tree, but I didn't think she could prevent damp debris from falling off of it as she did, and I didn't care to have to pick it out of my hair.

  Alice sauntered up to the log, found a good spot in the middle to lift it from, and hefted it high above her head in a single motion. Leaves, bits of bark, and droplets of moisture rained down around her; she shook her head back and forth so fast that her face was a blur, shaking off most of it. Then, just to top it all off, she started doing a little Celtic-ish dance while carrying the dead tree. It was a reasonably comical sight. Tiny Alice - two inches shy of five feet, her limbs a fraction of the diameter of the log she was holding, leaping about and kicking the air as though unburdened and also the star of Riverdance. I laughed, and Alice tossed the tree into the air, swept herself into a curtsey, and caught it as it fell. Then she swiftly dug a hole in the dirt with one foot - I winced on behalf of her shoe - and planted her log, root end first, in the ground. It sank quite a bit deeper than the hole should have allowed, and stayed in place once she let go.

  My mouth was hanging open by the end of her performance, and Alice smirked at me. "Cross off test one?" she asked smugly.

  I managed to get my jaw closed, and nodded at her. I followed her back to the clearing. "Edward is fastest," said Alice, "and it's pretty flat here, so we probably don't need to put you up a tree so you can see."

  Wordlessly and with the edge of a smile on his face, Edward walked into my field of vision, spread his arms as though to simply remark that he was present, and then spun 180° like a top and was at the far edge of the field in a moment. Once there, he paused long enough to be visible and just barely recognizeable, waved, and was back at my side before my vision had completely refocused.

  "Wow," I breathed. I was beginning to think that the only reason Alice hadn't seen me calling off the "experiments" on account of uncuriosity halfway through was because they were just that fascinating to watch. I didn't want to know what would happen, I wanted to watch it happen. With a pang, I realized this made the entire exercise considerably more like what Rosalie had called it - "tricks". But Alice had seemed to be having fun, at least. It was at least possible that they thought it was amusing to show off to someone who didn't find their abilities commonplace. At any rate, none of them had complained much about Rosalie's declining to participate, so I had to conclude that they were all there of their own free will.

  Edward smiled at me. It was somewhat dazzling, and I found that I needed to check my list of tests to find what was next. It was the vision and hearing ones - not as spectacular, but impressive in their own right. I explained the protocol, and Jasper volunteered silently for the first: he raced to the opposite edge of the clear spot - staying in sight - almost as fast as Edward had done. (I wasn't sure if my impression that he went slower was due to my having been told that Edward was faster, or due to Jasper deliberately going under his top speed, or due to my actually having the ability to detect a difference in vampiric levels of rapidity over short distances.) I muttered under my breath a series of digits that I'd invented and memorized earlier: "two, five, two, one, eight, eight, zero, three, nine, four, two, three, seven, one, five, six, zero, four. All done."

  Jasper zipped up to me, took my list of tests and my pencil deftly from my hands, and wrote "252188039423715604" next to the third description. He returned the objects and went to stand next to Alice.

  Carlisle obliged me with the vision test, reading from across the field handwriting so tiny that I could barely make it out with my eye right next to the paper.

  Emmett was Edward's source of information for the mindreading test. The range of mental hearing was a few miles for familiar "voices" like Emmett's, if they were being deliberately sought, and so Edward simply went back to the Cullen house in order to attend to the various things I showed his brother. As with the other tests of senses, Edward returned to the group and reproduced everything with perfect fidelity.

  "Do vampires," I wondered aloud when I'd heard Edward's verbatim recital, "have perfect recall? Is that another one of your things?"

  "Yes," said Edward, "but only of memories we form as vampires. It's very hard to hold onto human experiences."

  "That must be nice," I said with an envious moan, checking off #5. "Alice, when can we expect sunshine?"

  Alice said serenely, "Right... about... now." As she spoke the last word, she pivoted and shoved Esme a few feet forward; Esme, though she looked startled, still kept her footing and managed to look graceful in her trajectory. It took her right in the middle of a single sunbeam that broke the clouds overhead.

  Esme, posed with perfect stillness once she noticed the sun and realized what Alice had done, shone with brilliant color. No longer chalk - she was crushed diamonds, each speck of her skin throwing light from a thousand facets. She'd been beautiful. Now she was spectacular. I could barely take my eyes off her.

  Esme looked at me and smiled. "It's a pity Rosalie wasn't here," she said, as the sunbeam was obscured by encroaching clouds and the gem sparkle faded. "That's one thing she does like."

  I could imagine. It would be implausible to be as gorgeous as Rosalie without developing at least a little vanity. Edward's comment about letting me admire her in the sun made more sense now - I enjoyed a brief mental image of a golden-haired statue of a goddess showering everything around her with tiny rainbows.

  Yep. I was leaning towards liking the idea of being a vampire again. I could probably not eat anybody. Vampires were so cool.

  * * *

  With all the tests complete, the vampires decided - too rapidly for me to have any input - that it was time for us all to retire to the drier, more comfortable location of their house. Esme waited for another nod from me before lifting me into her arms again and taking off after the group.

  She put me down on the porch, which was a wide and well-furnished affair that wrapped around the entire first floor. I was the last through the door (Edward held it for my benefit). The entire interior of the house was done in white: the walls, the carpet, the furniture, almost all the decor. Little shadows and flecks of color, here and there, stood out brightly. I'd walked into an enormous, high-ceilinged hall - it had to have been several large rooms originally, with walls and floors knocked out. From the south wall, made entirely of glass, I could see the river flowing by not far from the building.

  On my left, a raised part of floor, just one step up, held a grand piano. Beyond that, I saw the open door into the kitchen - I supposed houses in general came ready-made with kitchens and there was no strong reason to rip it out of the house, especially if they might sell it and move later. The dining room was screened off from the front hall with a low, curving wall, over which I spied a table surrounded by eight chairs. I supposed it wasn't that odd that they'd have
an extra, given that seven was an odd number and would make the furniture look asymmetrical arranged around the rectangular table. The vampires all took off their shoes, which were covered with mud, and I followed suit, dropping my knapsack next to my sneakers.

  I saw a wide, swooping staircase, and looked up. It led to a landing, visible from the ground floor through its railing, but the halls on either side were hidden by walls. They wound in a semicircle, leaving the main hall room for its vaulted, high-beamed ceiling. I'd seen three stories total from outside, and supposed the rooms on the third floor were stacked on top of the ones from the second. It looked like they didn't jut up against the glass wall - the far point of the staircase, which extended beyond the horseshoe of higher stories, admitted enough room for someone to walk between it and the giant window.

  "Want a tour?" Edward asked in my ear. Suddenly distracted from my admiring gaze at the house, I jumped just a little, then tried to cover it by turning to look at Edward. He seemed to have been enjoying my appreciation of the architecture.

  "All right," I said. After I'd agreed and Edward was gliding towards the stairs with the expectation that I'd follow, it occurred to me that invitations like that might mean, "Do you have an interest in looking at this pretty house?", but might also mean, "Are you interested in me, as a person of the opposite sex, such that you are willing to be conducted around this pretty house by me?" I was not sure which he'd meant. I still hadn't gotten all the time I needed to think about that. Why did I have to go to school? Why did school have to assign homework? Why couldn't Charlie cook to save his life? Why did I have to sleep? The day after tomorrow would be Saturday and I'd have some unclaimed time, but what if I had to make a decision before then about something I hadn't given enough thought?

  I must have had a ridiculous look on my face when I thought this, because when Edward looked over his shoulder to confirm that I was following him, he looked concerned. He stopped in his tracks, waiting for me to catch up. "Bella, are you all right? I know we must be a lot to get used to..."

  "No, I'm fine," I said at once, and I sped up a little to prove it. "It is a lot to handle, but I think I'm adjusting to it okay. Let's see the house." And I started marching up the stairs.

  "Bella," said Edward, catching my shoulder. I stopped and turned around, and, of course, fell off the step and directly onto him. He caught me just as before, and set me down on my feet on the ground floor.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.

  I thought about this. "I'm sure I don't want to discuss it right now," I said finally.

  Edward looked disappointed. It was really a strange expression on him - he made it seem more like he was wronged than, say, foiled or unlucky as some disappointed people appeared. I supposed he wasn't used to having to wait until people wanted to talk about things before he got to find out what they were. It probably didn't feel fair, from his end, but I was grateful in the extreme for my privacy. "What do you want?" he asked.

  "To see the h-" I began. My stomach growled; I looked at my watch, which identified the time as seven-thirty. "To eat my sandwich,"I corrected, "and then to see the house later." I went over to my knapsack, pulled out my wrapped-up dinner, peeled it open and took a big bite.

  * * *

  "You're welcome to have a seat at the dining room table," Edward invited. I, concerned with the possibility of getting crumbs on the nice white carpet, went where he directed and sat. He took a chair beside me. I didn't see any of the other vampires; they must have scattered elsewhere through the house while I'd been in the middle of blinking or otherwise paying insufficient attention.

  Edward sighed - this had to be for effect, if vampire breathing was only for the purpose of speech and smell. "Alice told me a lot about you," he murmured, "but I'm still constantly surprised."

  I looked up from my food. "What did she say?" I hadn't known Alice that long - I wasn't sure where she'd have gotten a good read on my personality unless... Oh, of course. If she felt like it, she could see how I'd react to all kinds of possible situations, when my tendencies were consistent enough that I wouldn't deliberate about it too much before doing something.

  "She told me not to interrupt you," said Edward. "I slipped up once there, and I'm sorry. She told me that if I ever lied to you it would end badly. She told me that it wasn't safe for you to have secrets kept, because if you knew something was missing, you'd look for it until looking got you killed."

  I nodded slowly; that all sounded about right - although if I knew that a secret would kill me, I thought I could leave well enough alone, I didn't believe I'd do the same with a secret of unknown hazard. "Alice is pretty smart," I said.

  "She is," laughed Edward wryly. "And she told me to go slowly."

  I froze, my partially-finished sandwich halfway through my mouth. "Well," I quipped, "you were the one who did the speed test."

  "That's not what I mean," he said in a low voice.

  I hadn't thought it was. Now I knew that he knew that Alice had told me that - my head spun. But I still didn't want to talk about it. I needed to think, I needed to think when Edward wasn't there being beautiful and solicitous and possibly thirsty. "You know," I said, "I have a huge list of questions about how vampires work. I take it you're going with Alice's advice on not keeping secrets?"

  Edward nodded slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on mine. I broke eye contact, popped the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth, and crossed the room to retrieve my notebook. From it, I started reading off questions. Edward looked frustrated, but did his best to answer them.

  * * *

  He didn't know some of them. He didn't know what it was about vampire physiology that Jasper controlled; he didn't know why he couldn't read me; he didn't know whether or not Alice had a time limit (but noted that he'd never heard of a vision more than a few months in advance); he didn't know what power I had but suspected it would be related somehow to my unreadability; he knew the procedure but not the mechanism of turning.

  The things I learned were fewer than I'd hoped. Alice could "get to know" people through visions of futures that wouldn't happen, because they displayed their personalities even in such unreliable visions; that was fairly obvious, and Edward had no less plain applications. Although exact duplicate powers were unheard of, there were some that were similar - for instance, one of the Volturi, a fellow named Aro, was a mind-reader like Edward, but limited in range to those he physically touched, and broader in scope to the point of learning "every thought you've ever had in your life", as Edward put it. (Edward could only read current surface thoughts, not draw out specific items he wanted to hear.) Strength and speed in vampires were correlated with the same abilities in human life, and varied similarly, but with a longer right tail on the distribution. Eating humans made vampires physically stronger, but mentally weaker, in the sense that if they did it they were less likely to be able to resist continuing to do it except inasmuch as it relieved thirst.

  Eye color depended on diet. One that had recently fed on a human had burgundy-colored ones. Feeding on animals resulted in the gold color I'd seen more of. With breaks between meals, these colors changed over time. A hungry vampire had black eyes - that helped explain why Edward had been especially perturbed on my first day of school; he'd been without food for a while. A brand-new vampire's eyes were bright blood red; the color faded over a year or so, faster with animal blood than human.

  Not all vampires were pretty. However, prettiness, like other traits, was intensified by the turning process - and vampires looking for someone to turn would preferentially turn attractive humans. This also explained the spread of ages the Cullens exhibited. (And selection effects like that helped explain why I would ultimately be a vampire: empowered as I was to resist Edward's mindreading, I was likely to turn up an interesting power as one of the undead, and I could easily imagine vampires picking over the human population looking for talents like that.) I was a little confused by Carlisle having chos
en who to turn on the basis of prettiness, but couldn't think of a polite way to ask - I'd get individual backstories from each of the others later and try to put together a pattern myself.

  Vampires were made of cells, not rocks, and their strength matched their rigidity pretty neatly - vampires felt as malleable to each other as humans did to other humans. They weren't brittle, just tough, like steel cables. Accordingly, they bent, as opposed to breaking or grinding themselves to powder, when they moved around. Vampire hair did grow, albeit slowly - it wasn't much different from human hair, and broke sometimes, so if it didn't grow at all, a vampire Carlisle's age would necessarily be bald.

  It was uncommon for vampires to live in groups that resembled the Cullens. The theory was that eating animal blood "civilized" them - the other family-style assembly of vampires that the Cullens knew about, their Denali friends, also abstained. (Apparently the in-joke was to call vampires who didn't eat people "vegetarians".) "Normal" vampires lived in small groups called "covens" - two, three, sometimes four. They were likely to travel a lot rather than settling down and enmeshing themselves in human civilizations. However, pairing off romantically was not limited to the Cullens - a lot of vampires did it.

  Edward had never heard of a vampire couple breaking up.

  Edward had never heard of a vampire surviving the death of his or her mate and then finding another one later.

  Edward had heard of quite a few vampires.

  Oh yikes.

  I went right to the question about the Volturi, trying not to be too overt about my reaction to that.