In Which I Suffer Through New Moon: Chapter 10 -- The Meadow · 2:09pm Mar 22nd, 2018
Jacob’s sickness gets worse; according to Billy, he has mono and shouldn’t have visitors for more than a month. To make matters worse for Bella, the phone lines around La Push are acting up, so she can’t call him. Bella, however, is suspicious after looking the disease up online; mono isn’t very infectious and a lot of the symptoms don’t match what Jacob was like before he got sick. Besides, the main way you get mono is by kissing someone else with the virus, and they haven’t been kissing. Bella decides she’ll give it a week, then try again. Billy can’t possibly enforce the no-visitors rule for a month, right?
A week was long. By Wednesday, I was sure I wasn’t going to live till Saturday.
CM + 1
However, even as she’s waiting, Bella doesn’t get any messages from Jacob and the phone lines are still acting up when she tries to call him. The week doesn’t treat her well and she start falling back into moping as it drags on. Once the week’s up, she calls the Blacks. Billy answers quickly. When Bella asks how Jacob is, Billy says he’s out for the day, to which Bella points out that that means he’s feeling better. Billy quickly says that mono wasn’t what Jacob had, it turned out to be another virus. Right now, he’s giving some friends a ride to Port Angeles.
Jacob was better, but not well enough to call me. He was out with friends. I was sitting home, missing him more every hour. I was lonely, worried, bored… perforated — and now also desolate as I realized that the week apart had not had the same effect on him.
CM + 1
Charlie hears about this and asks if Bella needs him, but she says she’ll just spend the day with one of her other friends, maybe Jessica. Charlie likes this idea, joking that Bella’s spent so much time with Jacob, her other friends might think she’s forgotten them.
I smiled and nodded as if I cared what my other friends thought.
Well, you should. God, Bella.
Reassured, Charlie leaves for a fishing trip with friends, but not before telling Bella to stay out of the forest. There’s been more bear trouble. Once he’s gone, Bella ponders how she’ll eat up her empty day.
I wasn’t going to call Jessica. As far as I could tell, Jessica had crossed over to the dark side.
You pushed her! You refuse to talk to her for months, ask if she wants to go to a movie out of nowhere — you’re lucky she decided to go with you at all, by the way! — and then act mentally unsound during the trip? Of course she’s not going to like you!
Instead, Bella decides she’s going to try to keep looking for Edward’s meadow. Following the instructions Jacob had set up during their first outing, she actually finds it. Unfortunately, while it still looks the same, while it’s still beautiful, it only has memories, memories she’s been trying to avoid.
There was nothing special about this place without him.
CM + 1
As Bella works up the courage to leave the place once and for all, a figure steps out of the trees on the other side of the meadow: Laurent. He sees her and they exchange some light conversation (he wanted to see if the Cullens were still around), but there’s something off about him. Then Bella realizes: Laurent had supposedly left to find another “vegetarian” coven of vampires, but vampires who feed on animal blood have golden eyes. Laurent has red eyes; he’s still feeding on humans. As Bella’s fear kicks in, she hears Edward again. Laurent asks if the Cullens still visit, and the hallucination tells her to lie. A hallucination is more proactive than Bella.
You know how Kristen Stewart plays Bella in the movies? When she was younger, she played a preteen in Panic Room. In spite being barely thirteen, that character did stuff. What kind of stuff? She attempted to signal for help through a vent using morse code and a flashlight, stabbed a bad guy with her diabetes syringes, and taught Jodie Foster how to properly use “fuck”. I miss that girl.
Bella’s lies are weak and Laurent sees right through them. He reveals that he has a hard time staying on animals and has come back to Forks to perform a favor for Victoria, James’ mate: Edward killed her mate, so she’ll kill Edward’s mate.
He shook his head and chuckled. “I know, it seems a little backward to me, too. But James was her mate, and your Edward killed him.”
Even here, on the point of death, his name tore against my unhealed wounds like a serrated edge.
Laurent was oblivious to my reaction. “She thought it more appropriate to kill you than Edward — fair turnabout, mate for mate. She asked me to get the lay of the land for her, so to speak. I didn’t imagine you would be so easy to get to. So maybe her plan was flawed — apparently it wouldn’t be the revenge she imagined, since you must not mean very much to him if he left you here unprotected.”
Another blow, another tear through my chest.
CM + 2
Laurent admits that Victoria will be angry that she didn’t get to Bella first, but through chance, he met her while he was thirsty and he’s not feeling very restrained at the moment. Prompted by her hallucination (facepalm), Bella tries different ways to get him to turn away — threatening that Edward will know it was him, begging for her life — but Laurent ignores them. However, just before he moves in for the kill, he backs away as a horse-sized wolf comes out of the forest and begins stalking towards him. Four more giant wolves follow in seconds, and Bella gasps at the sight.
The wolf closest to me, the reddish brown one, turned its head slightly at the sound of my gasp. The wolf’s eyes were dark, nearly black. It gazed at me for a fraction of a second, the deep eyes seeming too intelligent for a wild animal.
As it stared at me, I suddenly thought of Jacob — again, with gratitude. At least I’d come here alone, to this fairytale meadow filled with dark monsters. At least Jacob wasn’t going to die, too. At least I wouldn’t have his death on my hands.
Foreshadowing.
Laurent turns and runs. The wolves give chase and Bella’s alone in the meadow again. It doesn’t make sense to her: the wolves should’ve given Laurent a wide berth and he should’ve easily been able to kill them. He should’ve been hunting them, not the other way around. But either way, Bella decides it’s time to get moving. It takes a while, thanks to her panic, but she manages to find her way back to her truck.
Charlie reprimands her gently for going into the forest when she gets home. She promises no more hiking and means it this time. She tells him what she saw: that the “bear” they’ve been getting reports of isn’t a bear, it’s a wolf. Rather, a pack of wolves. Charlie suddenly remembers something; Bella had told him that Jacob was heading to Port Angeles, but he saw him in town today with some friends. Bella assumes they just got back early.
With the knowledge that Victoria’s looking for her, Bella has a hard time sleeping that night. She locks her doors even as she knows that won’t do any good. She even realizes that, if Victoria finds her scent, it’ll lead her straight to Charlie, putting him in as much danger as she’s in, without the benefit of knowing what’s going on. For once, her nightmares aren’t because of a lack of Edward.
Clinginess Meter: 38 x 3
Is this the first time she’s ever thought of him as something other than an obstacle?
4822475
Pretty much.
What I'm getting from this is that Bella only registers her own common sense and survival instincts if they speak to her in Edward's voice.
God, I wish she were perforated. <.<