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ari_o (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ari_o) wrote,@ 2009-04-22 19:28:00 |
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BLOODY RUSSET: A Tribute to Lady Sybilla's Tribute to Breaking Dawn
Diclaimer: I will never try to sell this fanfic or publish it. I mean who in their right mind would give me money for an unbeta'd unproofed piece of crap like this? All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer and Hachette Books. Nothing belongs to Lady Sybilla and any characters in my story are not based on any person living or dead except by coincidence because we all share a Universal Mind.
Prologue:
Potatoes don't do very much. They just kind of lie there. If you expose them to light they start to turn green--that's chlorophyll, but it's poison because potatoes are nightshades. Deadly nightshades! They also grow those creepy eye things. But every once in a while at noon some potatoes go bad. They grow fur and fangs and for almost sixty whole seconds they are able to rip out the throats of chickens and stoats--if those creatures happen to place their necks limply within tearing range (approximately .2 mm) of the were-potatoes jaws. Jacob was just such a potato with beautiful russet skin and dozens of knobby white eyes.
Chapter One
Jacob was lying in a bag in the pantry waiting for noon to arrive. He could feel the energy of the universe pulsating in his oblong potato body. He hoped someone would come and take him out of the brown paper sack so he might rip and tear out the throats of chickens or maybe a random chipmunk. He prayed to his ancestors, the ancient starch Gods, to deliver him to his fate.
And lo! The starch Gods heard him and a child with perfect ringlets picked him up and sat him on the kitchen table. She lay her head in her hands on the table close to Jacob and waited for noon. She watched him transform and didn't bat an eyelash. She hardly seemed to breath. Jacob was pretty sure he could take a chunk out of the perfect curve of her cheek so he hurled himself, or lobbed himself and bit into her flesh with all his potato might.
There was a dreadful cracking sound. All of Jacob's teeth shattered and rained down on the table with a noise like the tinkling of sunlight on a Vampire's naked chest.
"That didn't go the way you thought it would--did it?" The child picked up the were-potato and skipped off to make him outfits. Jacob was terrified with a terror he hadn't known since he'd been ripped from his native soil months ago.
Chapter Two
It's a little known fact that although potatoes have eyes they can't see very well. Jacob the were-potato could tell the child was carrying him around inside a very large house. There were lot's of windows and he could feel himself slipping back into his natural russet form. There wasn't much sun, so he wasn't too concerned about turning green. Green potatoes should be thrown away.
"What've you got there Nessie?" A blonde lady bent down to look at Jacob.
"It's a were-potato, Auntie Rose. I'm going to make it fairy costume with lots of glitter." Nessie skipped off to the craft room. Uncle Esmet made lots of jokes about how her father didn't use the craft room so much at night since he got married. That made her father angry, but Nessie figured he just missed all the glitter and glue and the pinking shears.
In no time Nessie had constructed a pair of wings and filmy tunic for the were-potato. She coated it liberally with purple glitter and ran to show her mother. Jacob caught sight of himself in a mirror when the girl skipped by one. All he could make out was that he was a dazzling purple blur.
He would have his revenge. Oh, yes. Maybe? He had no idea how since his teeth were broken and that was about the only mildly deadly weapon he had both access to and the ability to use. He would have to find another way. He sank into deep starchy ruminations on vengance.
Chapter Three
"Daddy! Look!" Nessie shoved the purple thing practically right up her father's nose.
"What on earth is that thing?" Her father didn't sound happy at all. He sounded angry, on the edge of pouty.
Nessie reached up and touched her father's cheek with one of her sticky purple paws. She beamed him what she'd been doing and why and his face softened. Jacob came out of his stupor, but no one noticed--because what potato ever looks alert? Jacob thought if he could just get near the child's father's softened face he might be able to gum it sufficiently to make a red mark. That would show them. That would be really, really crappy revenge. But it would be his. Oh, yes.
"Where's mommy?" Nessie tossed Jacob into the air several times.
"She's with your Auntie Alice arguing about clothing. Again." Jacob didn't catch the expression on the man's face because he was being hurled repeatedly into the air. He was pretty sure he was close to hurling. Of course he had no mouth in his non-were-potato form and that was a horrifying idea. He thought dirty thoughts--like--about dirt. Potatoes don't have sex. Were-potatoes are another story. Oh, wait. Were-potatoes are actually this story. Right.
Anyway. The child left Jacob on the stairs outside while she went to rip out the throats of innocent forest creatures with her father--something Jacob longed to do deep in his starchy oblong.
Chapter Four
It was cold and boring on the porch. It grew dark and the child and her father hadn't come back from hunting. Jacob could feel someone's footsteps coming up the stairs, but he couldn't see in the twilight.
"What is that?" A beautiful woman with long chestnut hair and russet eyes bent down and peered at Jacob. He was honestly a little tired of being peered at.
"Oh, Nessie found him!" Another woman leaped lightly onto the stairs with the grace of eight hundred Sugar Plum Fairies.
"She found a potato covered in glitter?" The brown haired woman picked Jacob up from the ground. Her fingers were hard and cold like diamonds embedded in glaciers on a frozen planet with no sun.
"No, she's found her soul mate!" The happy woman whirled around.
"Her soul mate is a potato? Is this like that time you said I was going to eat my father and marry my mother? Because that was really strange."
"Bella! That was an April Fool's day prank. This is destiny!"
"Alice, my child is not destined to be with a potato. I mean how long can a potato survive after it's been dug up? Nessie is immortal. She's a half vampire thingy."
Jacob thanked the Starchy Gods he had no blood, but asked why they had dumped him in a house full of creepy vampires.
Chapter Five
Nessie was playing doctor with Jacob. This mostly consisted of poking him with a rectal thermometer and then putting a wee cold compress over the most thickly sprouted patch of eyes. Her parents were fighting again.
"She needs a proper teacher. Emmet convinced her that the capital of Peru is Las Vegas and that selling body parts over the internet is a good way to make pocket money." The mother, Bella, was pacing around the livingroom.
Her husband growled. "Who are we going to hire? I know Nessie won't eat anyone unless we say it's all right--but really, Bella. Where are we going to find a nanny for a half Vampire who is kind of psychic."
"Who's a psycho?" Emmet bounded into the room looking for something, or pretending to look for something. Jacob had noticed he was always poking his nose into everyone else's business. He also kept accidentally walking in on Bella while she was changing her clothes.
"PSYCHIC!" Bella and Edward both screamed at Emmet.
"Why would you need a psychic?" Emmet looked puzzled, well--more puzzled than usual.
Jacob could sort of see all this because Nessie had stopped probing him and had crept to the doorway to watch.
"We don't need a psychic. We need a tutor for Nessie," Bella said.
"Did you check Craigslist?" Emmet turned on the computer.
"You are a moron." Edward glowered at Bella. Bella sighed. Nessie could tell they were going to have to go out into the house in the woods and make a lot of noise soon. They would tell her to stay at the big house and play dress up with Auntie Alice.
Emmet tapped the screen. "Who's the moron now? Moron!"
Bella crossed the room and read over his shoulder.
"Bella." Edward rolled his eyes. "You're a vampire. You can see the screen from across the room. You don't have to walk over there like a human."
"Wow." Bella turned to Edward. "He was right. I really think this woman might be the answer to our problem. Let me sit down Emmet."
Emmet gestured at his lap and Edward growled at him.
"Bite him, daddy!" Nessie liked it when Uncle Emmet and Daddy wrestled. It made her feel all tingly.
Edward dove at his sort of brother and knocked him to the floor. Bella ignored them and sat down and drafted off an email in less than two seconds. Vampires are very speedy typists and make very few grammatical errors.
"Edward, I've emailed this Lady Sybilla and asked her to come for an interview." Edward was trying to bite Emmet's hand and the sound was like metal on glass on a chalkboard with finegrnail soup.
"Ugh." Bella covered her ears. She picked up her child and flew out the door. "Lunch time, baby. Let's go see what's wandering around and eat it's face off."
"YAY!" Nessing clung to her mother's back. Carnage was delicious. And she wasn't worried about the new nanny because she was perfect. Nessie. Not the Nanny.
Chapter Six
The entire Cullen clan was clustered around the prospective governess. Jasper was drooling a little. Nessie was seated on her mother's lap listening.
"So what is your teaching method?" Edward scanned the woman's curriculum vitae.
"I believe that learning is highly subjective. There are no original ideas. We are all one Shared Mind. I can help Renesmee recall all that knowledge from the collective unconscious." The woman tossed her mane of chestnut curls and took a deep breath. Jasper leaned forward and sniffed. The woman tried not to look nervous.
"What?" Carlisle folded his arms. "Look, Ms. Sybilla. I'm over four hundred years old. Not only have I read Freud, Jung, and Kierkegaard--I met them. I went to their lectures. Your method is nonsense. It like someone put Bartlett's Familiar Quotations in a blnder and hit chop."
"Carlisle, please." Esmee pulled him back down onto the loveseat next to her.
"What else do you have to offer?" Edward said, trying very hard not to smile.
"I'm very good at PR and I refuse to recognize any and all basic common sense. I'm relentless. I can offer the most insincere apologies you've ever heard. And when I don't get my way I will willfully misunderstand things and break the law until I either have an anyeurism or get an official letter from legal representation or someone holds a gun to my head. Also I'm clinically insane."
"I really don't see how any of that is going to help Ness." Bella put her arms protectively around her child, but Nessie turned and put her hand on her mother's cheek. Bella cocked her head like she was listening and then Bella looked at Edward who nodded.
"All right. We'll want you to start immediately. I'll have our lawyer draw up a contract with salary agreements." Bella set Nessie on Alice's lap.
"This is going to be so much fun!" Alice giggled into her niece's hair. Nessie giggled too. Jasper's stomach growled.
Jacob the potato had been dropped behind the couch. Most of his glitter had worn off, but he could hear everything that happened. He had a bad feeling about anything Alice thought was funny since the time she and Nessie had dug out all his eyes with a grapefruit spoon and replaced them with googlie stickers.
Chapter Seven
The morning after Lady Sybilla was hired to be Renesmee's governess (Edward insisted that Governess had a more stick up your ass antiquated quality than au pair or nanny) her mother found her sitting at the kitchen table making a tulle wedding gown for Jacob the were-potato. Jacob was really unhappy about this turn off events. So was Bella.
"Nessie, where is your Governess?" Bella was dressed in a long trailing evening gown and had her hair piles elaborately on her head.
"Auntie Alice isn't done yet. She still wants to put makeup on you." Nessie continued pinning tulle to the potato. She liked to feel sharp things slide through the potato's thin skin and into its firm flesh. Thankfully potatoes are not highly developed organisms and without a nervous system they don't feel much beyond the general existential malaise we all hold in common. Shared Mind, you know?
"Where is Lady Sybilla?" Bella put her hands on her hips, which was not a good sign. After that came growling. And after that you really don't want to know. It's bloody.
"She's on the computer--totally obsessed with some girl in Japan. She was writing an important Press Release and chewing her own hair off last time I checked on her." Nessie arranged the last bit of tulle and Bella had to admit her spawn was talented. The dress was a tiny perfect replica of Princess Di's wedding gown--but on a potato.
"Sweetie, don't you think you've been dragging that nasty potato around long enough? Why don't you get a fresh one from the bag in the pantry. Speaking of which? Why do we even have potatoes? We don't eat carbs." Bella started to take the pins out of her elaborate hair torture when a piercing scream came from upstairs.
"Noooooooooooooooo! I'm not done yet!" Alice came pelting down stairs with a can of Aquanet in one hand and a crimping iron in the other. Nessie knew when battle was imminent and decided it would be better to be elsewhere. She didn't like it when mommy and auntie Alice tore each others clothing off.
"This potato is special," Nessie said. She got down from her chair and skipped into the other room to show her governess.
"Are you really a Lady? Like really royalty? Because you don't sound British," Nessie pinched Sybilla hard, but the woman didn't seem to notice.
Nessie held up the potato so that it was between Lady Sybilla and the computer monitor. "See my potato? It's a were-potato."
"Really? We could film it for my website. Do you have a video camera?" Lady Sybilla didn't stop typing or even look at the potato.
"Mommy and Daddy have a camera." Nessie reached up and touched Sybilla's cheek to show her what they did with the camera. Sybilla stopped typing. Her jaw went slack. Her pupils dilated.
"Can you get the camera for me so we can make a film about your, um...?"
"Were-potato." Nessie rolled her eyes. She put the potato on the table next to Sybilla's arm and skipped off to the little house in the woods to get the video camera.
Two very strange things happened at once. It was noon again and the were-potato transformed right next to Sybilla who was still busy stalking some poor girl who's only crime was that she was a plucky girl detective. Jacob latched onto Sybilla's wrist and even without teeth he managed to gum her something fierce--it was almost like an Indian sunburn. Sybilla was too busy reading every comment every written by or about her new BFF, Caito.
And also? The second strange thing? Nessie returned from the little stone house with the camera--and she had physically aged 12 years. She'd skipped off as a four year old and returned as a sixteen year old. And the dress she had on really was too small. Jacob the were-potato transformed back into a normal potato in a shredded up wedding gown and his metaphorical heart sped up. He was in love with Nessie and hoped she wouldn't impale him anymore because he feared he was sprouting mold on his posterior.
Chapter Eight
Everyone stared at Nessie, except her governess who was still typing frantically at the computer. They'd tried unplugging the keyboard, but Sybilla continued to keysmash away at the desk.
"That's Nessie?" Edward kept his eyes carefully on his daughter's face.
"She's so..." Emmet said, letting his eyes wander.
"Yeah, she, um..." Carlisle looked his granddaughter up and down. Esmee smacked him on the back of the head.
"Alice, did you know this was going to happen?" Bella said in a voice like velvet and poison that also smelt of bitter almonds and death--so kind of like musty marzipan.
Alice shook her head and stared pop eyed at Nessie. "I knew she was going to hook up with the russet. That's all."
"Why are you all staring at me?" Nessie pouted. Then she spotted Jacob on the floor and ran to pick him up. Her dress was not equipped to deal with bending over and Edward darted forward and blocked everyone's view of his daughter.
"Alice. Get her something that fits." Edward hissed through his dazzling teeth.
"It'll have to be something of Rose's," Alice said. "And I'm not even sure Rose is that stacked. I might have to go shopping."
"Just cover her up." Edward growled at Emmet who was trying to siddle by him to see what Nessie was doing now. "Emmet. She. Is. Your. Niece."
"Right. But not by blood--"
There was a ringing slap. Esmee who'd been quiet til that moment had slapped Emmet so hard his eyes crossed. "We are a family. You are my children. Nessie is my granddaughter. Got it?"
"Sure." Emmet backed away.
Alice, Bella, and Rose scooped Nessie up and took her upstairs. Most of Rose's clothing was very fitted--tailored to her specifically. And that meant the waists were too large and the busts were too small. Rose had to leave the room and fled the house in search of comfort food.
"I'll have to go shopping. I bet I can get to the Place Vendome before the stores close." Alice clapped. They had gotten Nessie into a nightgown of Rose's and told her to stay upstairs because it was on the diaphanous side (from the Greek, διφαινω-- to see through).
"Why are you all fussing over me than normal? I mean I know you're all barren and I'm your creepy live doll--but seriously. W.T.F?" Nessie glowered and looked so much like her father that Bella laughed.
"Wow. She really is a teenager now. She's using chat text and everything." Alice shook her spiky little head, but in a graceful way--you know like all graceful and shit. You know? Like a giraffe.
"You really didn't see this coming?" Bella asked and Alice shook her head.
Bella turned her daughter toward the mirror. Nessie stared and gaped, but a pretty gape--all graceful and shit. (Author's note: Somehow the narrator of Wide Awake has crept in here. I think. My sincerest apologies. D:)
"So I'm an adult now? I was four for like three weeks and now I'm..." Nessie turned paler than she should have been able to turn. She sort of shimmered and went invisible. (You know, like Frodo maybe would have turned into a glass filled with the pure light of Valinor? Like that. Except he went to the undying lands and no one knows what happened to him.)
"What?" Bella and Alice rushed forward. Nessie's face turned pink.
"I don't feel well." She wrapped her arms around her middle.
"What has she eaten today?" Bella got hysterical and tried to stick her fingers down her child's throat to induce vomiting. "Do you know what your birth was like? Do you know how long I was in labor? Do you know what your father had to do to get you out?!"
"Bella!" Alice shook her. "It's not something she ate. She has her period."
Bella and Alice both noticed the thin trickle of blood on Nessie's leg. They pinched their noses and ran from the room. It smelled awful. (Sorry no femslash orgy here.)
Bella raced Alice to the garage and they refused to tell Edward where they were going. But Edward read Alice's mind and ran to the liquor cabinet. He found an ancient bottle of creme de menthe and drank the entire thing. It wasn't enough. He ran for the garage too and raced off on an errand of mercy--for himself. There just wasn't enough liquor to blot out the image of his daughter bleeding from her ladybits. At least he knew it smelled awful and not as they'd all feared--like Veal.
Jacob (remember this is a Team Jacob fic) had gotten all dusty in a corner. Nessie picked him up and went into Auntie Rose's en suite bathroom. She ran herself a hot bath and craddled her potato in her cleavage and sank into the hot water. She took up a lot more room in the tub than she had yesterday. She could touch her toes to the bottom of the tub now. She leaned back and fell asleep.
When she woke up the water had a pink tinge to it and her potato was gone. There was a giant standing on the bathmat. He was naked. And his skin was russet colored. It was her prince! Her were-potato! Her Jacob!
"Was it my blood?" Nessie stood up naked in the bathtub.
"No. I'm a shape shifter," he said. "Do you have any clothes I can borrow?"
"I don't think we have any that will fit you." Nessie found a maribou trimmed robe of Auntie Rose's. It would have to do since Uncle Emmet didn't seem to have much in the way of clothes.
Jacob slid the robe on and stroked the fluffy cuffs. "This is nice. Soft. Thanks."
Edward knocked at the door. "Ness? You OK? Who are you talking too in there?"
Nessie shoved Jacob into her aunt's large walk in closet. "No one Daddy. Just my potato."
She opened the door and Edward paled and ran because she had forgotten to put Auntie Rose's nightgown back on. Edward could still read her mind as he ran downstairs. He'd seen her push a man tall man in a frilly robe into Rosalie's closet. He turned and sped back up the stairs as lightly as a cougar on buttered paws, but without the inevitable crash into a wall that would ensue if you actually buttered a cougar's paws and made him run upstairs.
"Put on some clothes, Nessie. And explain to me who the hell that is in Rose's closet. You've been a teenager for two hours and you're already hiding men in the closet!" Edward was so enraged spittle (really venom, not saliva--because vampire's don't got none) flew out of his mouth and burned small holes into Nessie's borrowed nightgown.
"You used to sneak in to Mom's room. You even got stuff to make the window stop squeaking it when you snuck in and grandpa Charlie never even knew!" Nessie looked a lot like Bella when she was angry.
"That's different. Our love was MEANT TO BE." Edward pounded on the door to the closet. "Come out of the closet now, young man."
Jacob opened the door and stepped out still in the robe. Edward backed up a little.
"Who the hell are you?" Edward narrowed his eyes.
"Jacob."
"Daddy, he's my potato princess!" Nessie stomped her foot.
"Why did we have potatoes anyway? We don't eat carbs."
"Auntie Alice wanted to make her own wrapping paper. She saw it on Martha Stewart." Nessie said.
"But that doesn't explain how your potato turned into a man." Edward sat down on the edge of Rose's bed and ruffled his hair.
"How can you be her father? You look the same age." Jacob looked back and forth at father and daughter. "She could be your sister, I guess."
"Vampire," Nessie and Edward said at the same time.
"Oh." Jacob ran and flung himself out the window. When he landed he was a large red-brown wolf and he ran into the forest.
"Thanks a lot, Dad." Nessie locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out no matter what they promised her.
Chapter Nine
"Sweetie, I'll take you to the zoo? You can eat whatever you want." Edward leaned against the door reeking of banana flavored rum.
"Do you always have to be such a girl about everything, Edward." Rosalie took the empty bottle from him and sniffed it. She almost wretched. This whole thing was ridiculous and she needed to get into her bathroom. It was four pm and that was the time of day she spent looking at herself in a several mirrors.
Bella kicked the door down. "Renesmee Carlie Cullen! Come out of this bathroom this minute or you will be very sorry."
"Whatever." Nessie had been busy putting on lots of black eye makeup and learning to slouch. She shuffled out of the bathroom still in Rose's nightgown. Edward made a wretching sound. The nightgown plunged kind of far and there was a lot of Nessie's real estate showing.
"I told you not to drink that stuff." Alice held up shopping bags and she had that manic look that made Bella wonder if Alice had been in the insane asylum for more than just her precognition.
"Come on, Nessie! I can't wait to see if you're a Spring or a Summer." Alice yanked the child into her bedroom and started shoving clothes on her.
"I'm not wearing pink." Nessie pretended to stick her finger down her throat when Alice pulled a pale pink dress out of one of the bags.
"I have lot's of other colors..." Alice did that thing where she stopped paying attention too whomever was in front of her because she was busy seeing the future. "Oh. I see."
"What?" Bella came into the bedroom.
"Where's Dad?"
"He had to go throw up and eat something. Vampires can't metabolize alcohol." Bella raised her eyebrows to indicate that she held no truck with drinking and Nessie had better not try it. Or else. After all she knew the police chief. She could have people arrested by their own grandfather.
Alice hadn't bought a lot of black clothing. She held up a long sleeved black tee shirt and a pair of black jeans. Nessie pulled them on.
"What about underwear and shoes?" Bella asked.
"I didn't think of underwear. Damn." Alice flopped with the grace of a feather floating on thermals into the pile of shopping bags on her bed. "I didn't know her shoe size. She'll probably fit into someone's shoes."
"Her feet are huge," Bella put her dainty size six feet next to her daughters. "You wear, what? Size Four? Rose wears a seven. She looks like she's a ten at least."
"She'll fit into Edward's shoes." Alice hurried off and returned with an old pair of Edward's sneakers (black of course) and some socks. They fit Nessie like she was the anti-Cinderella.
"Stand up straight," Bella said.
Nessie shrugged and trudged into her father's old bedroom to listen to music and put on black nail polish, which she had stolen from Alice.
"Bella?" Alice sounded alarmed. "Your father..."
"Yeah, what are we going to tell him?" Bella paced back and forth.
"He just pulled in to the driveway and he has that kid with him--the one who jumped out the window?" Alice looked worried and Bella really didn't want to know what future thing she was worrying about. Sometimes it is better to just encounter the bad things when and if they happen.
"Great. I'm going to just have to tell him the truth." Bella marched downstairs to face her father.
"Whoa. When did Bella get so much backbone?" Jasper leaned in the doorway.
"I don't know. She is completely out of character. Edward seems almost afraid of her." Alice started to pack up the clothing Nessie would not be wearing.
"Is that a cheer leader outfit?" Jasper said.
"It's too big for me." Alice said.
"Not for you, silly." Jasper pulled off his button down shirt and pulled the royal blue and gold sweater over his head. It was on the tight side.
"You're going to have to shave if you want to wear this." Alice held up the tiny matching skirt.
Meanwhile downstairs, Bella poured her father a glass of banana flavored rum and told him to drink it.
"I'd rather not." Charlie wrinkled his nose and put the glass down. "Just tell me what's going on. I brought Nessie a present. Where is she?"
"She's upstairs. I'll get her in a minute. First I have to prepare you for a shock." Bella waiting to see if her father got at all agitated. He didn't.
"Bells, I know already. Jacob told me all about it." Charlie patted her knee.
"You know what? That he was a potato this morning? That Nessie is now sixteen and looks like she's twenty-five, but is still emotionally four years old, but actually is acting like a sixteen year old and her nanny won't get off the internet and Edward tried to get drunk after he saw his daughter naked because she's hot and he is now mentally scared for life--and you know when you're a vampire life is kind of forever. We're not like Dracula. We're actually really hard to kill. And I know we agreed never to say the V word, Dad. But I'm in over my head here and I just want to cut the crap and be honest. I'm twenty-two years old and I have a sixteen year old daughter. And what the hell are we supposed to do with a were-potato turned werewolf?"
"Wow." Jacob stepped forward. "You're hot when you're hysterical."
"I thought you were in love with Nessie. You told me all about imprinting on her or soul bonding--you said it was forever?" Charlie shook his head and took a swig of the disgusting rum.
Bella went upstairs and brought Nessie down. She'd straightened her hair and dyed it black. It hung across half her face.
"Yeah, I definitely want the mom now," Jacob said.
"I sort of don't blame you." Charlie squinted at Nessie. "What happened to her?"
"Hormones," Bella said. "She experienced incredibly rapid growth and intense hormonal changes. She got her period today. Imagine an older woman having ten years worth of menopause in one day. We're lucky she didn't explode."
Jasper came leaping down the stairs in his new outfit at that moment. He was running so fast he was only a blur to Charlie's eye. But Bella saw what he was wearing.
"I've really had it with these lunatics." She stormed out and Jacob followed her.
Nessie trudged up to her room and slammed the door.
Sybilla was in the corner counting something she couldn't see and mumbling about subjectivity. No one was paying any attention to her. But she would get their attention. In the end everyone would heed her because she knew what was coming. Only she had the answers. Only she had the power. Only she could right all the wrongs. They'd all rue the day. Oh, yes.
---->Chapter 10
Diclaimer: I will never try to sell this fanfic or publish it. I mean who in their right mind would give me money for an unbeta'd unproofed piece of crap like this? All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer and Hachette Books. Nothing belongs to Lady Sybilla and any characters in my story are not based on any person living or dead except by coincidence because we all share a Universal Mind.
Prologue:
Potatoes don't do very much. They just kind of lie there. If you expose them to light they start to turn green--that's chlorophyll, but it's poison because potatoes are nightshades. Deadly nightshades! They also grow those creepy eye things. But every once in a while at noon some potatoes go bad. They grow fur and fangs and for almost sixty whole seconds they are able to rip out the throats of chickens and stoats--if those creatures happen to place their necks limply within tearing range (approximately .2 mm) of the were-potatoes jaws. Jacob was just such a potato with beautiful russet skin and dozens of knobby white eyes.
Chapter One
Jacob was lying in a bag in the pantry waiting for noon to arrive. He could feel the energy of the universe pulsating in his oblong potato body. He hoped someone would come and take him out of the brown paper sack so he might rip and tear out the throats of chickens or maybe a random chipmunk. He prayed to his ancestors, the ancient starch Gods, to deliver him to his fate.
And lo! The starch Gods heard him and a child with perfect ringlets picked him up and sat him on the kitchen table. She lay her head in her hands on the table close to Jacob and waited for noon. She watched him transform and didn't bat an eyelash. She hardly seemed to breath. Jacob was pretty sure he could take a chunk out of the perfect curve of her cheek so he hurled himself, or lobbed himself and bit into her flesh with all his potato might.
There was a dreadful cracking sound. All of Jacob's teeth shattered and rained down on the table with a noise like the tinkling of sunlight on a Vampire's naked chest.
"That didn't go the way you thought it would--did it?" The child picked up the were-potato and skipped off to make him outfits. Jacob was terrified with a terror he hadn't known since he'd been ripped from his native soil months ago.
Chapter Two
It's a little known fact that although potatoes have eyes they can't see very well. Jacob the were-potato could tell the child was carrying him around inside a very large house. There were lot's of windows and he could feel himself slipping back into his natural russet form. There wasn't much sun, so he wasn't too concerned about turning green. Green potatoes should be thrown away.
"What've you got there Nessie?" A blonde lady bent down to look at Jacob.
"It's a were-potato, Auntie Rose. I'm going to make it fairy costume with lots of glitter." Nessie skipped off to the craft room. Uncle Esmet made lots of jokes about how her father didn't use the craft room so much at night since he got married. That made her father angry, but Nessie figured he just missed all the glitter and glue and the pinking shears.
In no time Nessie had constructed a pair of wings and filmy tunic for the were-potato. She coated it liberally with purple glitter and ran to show her mother. Jacob caught sight of himself in a mirror when the girl skipped by one. All he could make out was that he was a dazzling purple blur.
He would have his revenge. Oh, yes. Maybe? He had no idea how since his teeth were broken and that was about the only mildly deadly weapon he had both access to and the ability to use. He would have to find another way. He sank into deep starchy ruminations on vengance.
Chapter Three
"Daddy! Look!" Nessie shoved the purple thing practically right up her father's nose.
"What on earth is that thing?" Her father didn't sound happy at all. He sounded angry, on the edge of pouty.
Nessie reached up and touched her father's cheek with one of her sticky purple paws. She beamed him what she'd been doing and why and his face softened. Jacob came out of his stupor, but no one noticed--because what potato ever looks alert? Jacob thought if he could just get near the child's father's softened face he might be able to gum it sufficiently to make a red mark. That would show them. That would be really, really crappy revenge. But it would be his. Oh, yes.
"Where's mommy?" Nessie tossed Jacob into the air several times.
"She's with your Auntie Alice arguing about clothing. Again." Jacob didn't catch the expression on the man's face because he was being hurled repeatedly into the air. He was pretty sure he was close to hurling. Of course he had no mouth in his non-were-potato form and that was a horrifying idea. He thought dirty thoughts--like--about dirt. Potatoes don't have sex. Were-potatoes are another story. Oh, wait. Were-potatoes are actually this story. Right.
Anyway. The child left Jacob on the stairs outside while she went to rip out the throats of innocent forest creatures with her father--something Jacob longed to do deep in his starchy oblong.
Chapter Four
It was cold and boring on the porch. It grew dark and the child and her father hadn't come back from hunting. Jacob could feel someone's footsteps coming up the stairs, but he couldn't see in the twilight.
"What is that?" A beautiful woman with long chestnut hair and russet eyes bent down and peered at Jacob. He was honestly a little tired of being peered at.
"Oh, Nessie found him!" Another woman leaped lightly onto the stairs with the grace of eight hundred Sugar Plum Fairies.
"She found a potato covered in glitter?" The brown haired woman picked Jacob up from the ground. Her fingers were hard and cold like diamonds embedded in glaciers on a frozen planet with no sun.
"No, she's found her soul mate!" The happy woman whirled around.
"Her soul mate is a potato? Is this like that time you said I was going to eat my father and marry my mother? Because that was really strange."
"Bella! That was an April Fool's day prank. This is destiny!"
"Alice, my child is not destined to be with a potato. I mean how long can a potato survive after it's been dug up? Nessie is immortal. She's a half vampire thingy."
Jacob thanked the Starchy Gods he had no blood, but asked why they had dumped him in a house full of creepy vampires.
Chapter Five
Nessie was playing doctor with Jacob. This mostly consisted of poking him with a rectal thermometer and then putting a wee cold compress over the most thickly sprouted patch of eyes. Her parents were fighting again.
"She needs a proper teacher. Emmet convinced her that the capital of Peru is Las Vegas and that selling body parts over the internet is a good way to make pocket money." The mother, Bella, was pacing around the livingroom.
Her husband growled. "Who are we going to hire? I know Nessie won't eat anyone unless we say it's all right--but really, Bella. Where are we going to find a nanny for a half Vampire who is kind of psychic."
"Who's a psycho?" Emmet bounded into the room looking for something, or pretending to look for something. Jacob had noticed he was always poking his nose into everyone else's business. He also kept accidentally walking in on Bella while she was changing her clothes.
"PSYCHIC!" Bella and Edward both screamed at Emmet.
"Why would you need a psychic?" Emmet looked puzzled, well--more puzzled than usual.
Jacob could sort of see all this because Nessie had stopped probing him and had crept to the doorway to watch.
"We don't need a psychic. We need a tutor for Nessie," Bella said.
"Did you check Craigslist?" Emmet turned on the computer.
"You are a moron." Edward glowered at Bella. Bella sighed. Nessie could tell they were going to have to go out into the house in the woods and make a lot of noise soon. They would tell her to stay at the big house and play dress up with Auntie Alice.
Emmet tapped the screen. "Who's the moron now? Moron!"
Bella crossed the room and read over his shoulder.
"Bella." Edward rolled his eyes. "You're a vampire. You can see the screen from across the room. You don't have to walk over there like a human."
"Wow." Bella turned to Edward. "He was right. I really think this woman might be the answer to our problem. Let me sit down Emmet."
Emmet gestured at his lap and Edward growled at him.
"Bite him, daddy!" Nessie liked it when Uncle Emmet and Daddy wrestled. It made her feel all tingly.
Edward dove at his sort of brother and knocked him to the floor. Bella ignored them and sat down and drafted off an email in less than two seconds. Vampires are very speedy typists and make very few grammatical errors.
"Edward, I've emailed this Lady Sybilla and asked her to come for an interview." Edward was trying to bite Emmet's hand and the sound was like metal on glass on a chalkboard with finegrnail soup.
"Ugh." Bella covered her ears. She picked up her child and flew out the door. "Lunch time, baby. Let's go see what's wandering around and eat it's face off."
"YAY!" Nessing clung to her mother's back. Carnage was delicious. And she wasn't worried about the new nanny because she was perfect. Nessie. Not the Nanny.
Chapter Six
The entire Cullen clan was clustered around the prospective governess. Jasper was drooling a little. Nessie was seated on her mother's lap listening.
"So what is your teaching method?" Edward scanned the woman's curriculum vitae.
"I believe that learning is highly subjective. There are no original ideas. We are all one Shared Mind. I can help Renesmee recall all that knowledge from the collective unconscious." The woman tossed her mane of chestnut curls and took a deep breath. Jasper leaned forward and sniffed. The woman tried not to look nervous.
"What?" Carlisle folded his arms. "Look, Ms. Sybilla. I'm over four hundred years old. Not only have I read Freud, Jung, and Kierkegaard--I met them. I went to their lectures. Your method is nonsense. It like someone put Bartlett's Familiar Quotations in a blnder and hit chop."
"Carlisle, please." Esmee pulled him back down onto the loveseat next to her.
"What else do you have to offer?" Edward said, trying very hard not to smile.
"I'm very good at PR and I refuse to recognize any and all basic common sense. I'm relentless. I can offer the most insincere apologies you've ever heard. And when I don't get my way I will willfully misunderstand things and break the law until I either have an anyeurism or get an official letter from legal representation or someone holds a gun to my head. Also I'm clinically insane."
"I really don't see how any of that is going to help Ness." Bella put her arms protectively around her child, but Nessie turned and put her hand on her mother's cheek. Bella cocked her head like she was listening and then Bella looked at Edward who nodded.
"All right. We'll want you to start immediately. I'll have our lawyer draw up a contract with salary agreements." Bella set Nessie on Alice's lap.
"This is going to be so much fun!" Alice giggled into her niece's hair. Nessie giggled too. Jasper's stomach growled.
Jacob the potato had been dropped behind the couch. Most of his glitter had worn off, but he could hear everything that happened. He had a bad feeling about anything Alice thought was funny since the time she and Nessie had dug out all his eyes with a grapefruit spoon and replaced them with googlie stickers.
Chapter Seven
The morning after Lady Sybilla was hired to be Renesmee's governess (Edward insisted that Governess had a more stick up your ass antiquated quality than au pair or nanny) her mother found her sitting at the kitchen table making a tulle wedding gown for Jacob the were-potato. Jacob was really unhappy about this turn off events. So was Bella.
"Nessie, where is your Governess?" Bella was dressed in a long trailing evening gown and had her hair piles elaborately on her head.
"Auntie Alice isn't done yet. She still wants to put makeup on you." Nessie continued pinning tulle to the potato. She liked to feel sharp things slide through the potato's thin skin and into its firm flesh. Thankfully potatoes are not highly developed organisms and without a nervous system they don't feel much beyond the general existential malaise we all hold in common. Shared Mind, you know?
"Where is Lady Sybilla?" Bella put her hands on her hips, which was not a good sign. After that came growling. And after that you really don't want to know. It's bloody.
"She's on the computer--totally obsessed with some girl in Japan. She was writing an important Press Release and chewing her own hair off last time I checked on her." Nessie arranged the last bit of tulle and Bella had to admit her spawn was talented. The dress was a tiny perfect replica of Princess Di's wedding gown--but on a potato.
"Sweetie, don't you think you've been dragging that nasty potato around long enough? Why don't you get a fresh one from the bag in the pantry. Speaking of which? Why do we even have potatoes? We don't eat carbs." Bella started to take the pins out of her elaborate hair torture when a piercing scream came from upstairs.
"Noooooooooooooooo! I'm not done yet!" Alice came pelting down stairs with a can of Aquanet in one hand and a crimping iron in the other. Nessie knew when battle was imminent and decided it would be better to be elsewhere. She didn't like it when mommy and auntie Alice tore each others clothing off.
"This potato is special," Nessie said. She got down from her chair and skipped into the other room to show her governess.
"Are you really a Lady? Like really royalty? Because you don't sound British," Nessie pinched Sybilla hard, but the woman didn't seem to notice.
Nessie held up the potato so that it was between Lady Sybilla and the computer monitor. "See my potato? It's a were-potato."
"Really? We could film it for my website. Do you have a video camera?" Lady Sybilla didn't stop typing or even look at the potato.
"Mommy and Daddy have a camera." Nessie reached up and touched Sybilla's cheek to show her what they did with the camera. Sybilla stopped typing. Her jaw went slack. Her pupils dilated.
"Can you get the camera for me so we can make a film about your, um...?"
"Were-potato." Nessie rolled her eyes. She put the potato on the table next to Sybilla's arm and skipped off to the little house in the woods to get the video camera.
Two very strange things happened at once. It was noon again and the were-potato transformed right next to Sybilla who was still busy stalking some poor girl who's only crime was that she was a plucky girl detective. Jacob latched onto Sybilla's wrist and even without teeth he managed to gum her something fierce--it was almost like an Indian sunburn. Sybilla was too busy reading every comment every written by or about her new BFF, Caito.
And also? The second strange thing? Nessie returned from the little stone house with the camera--and she had physically aged 12 years. She'd skipped off as a four year old and returned as a sixteen year old. And the dress she had on really was too small. Jacob the were-potato transformed back into a normal potato in a shredded up wedding gown and his metaphorical heart sped up. He was in love with Nessie and hoped she wouldn't impale him anymore because he feared he was sprouting mold on his posterior.
Chapter Eight
Everyone stared at Nessie, except her governess who was still typing frantically at the computer. They'd tried unplugging the keyboard, but Sybilla continued to keysmash away at the desk.
"That's Nessie?" Edward kept his eyes carefully on his daughter's face.
"She's so..." Emmet said, letting his eyes wander.
"Yeah, she, um..." Carlisle looked his granddaughter up and down. Esmee smacked him on the back of the head.
"Alice, did you know this was going to happen?" Bella said in a voice like velvet and poison that also smelt of bitter almonds and death--so kind of like musty marzipan.
Alice shook her head and stared pop eyed at Nessie. "I knew she was going to hook up with the russet. That's all."
"Why are you all staring at me?" Nessie pouted. Then she spotted Jacob on the floor and ran to pick him up. Her dress was not equipped to deal with bending over and Edward darted forward and blocked everyone's view of his daughter.
"Alice. Get her something that fits." Edward hissed through his dazzling teeth.
"It'll have to be something of Rose's," Alice said. "And I'm not even sure Rose is that stacked. I might have to go shopping."
"Just cover her up." Edward growled at Emmet who was trying to siddle by him to see what Nessie was doing now. "Emmet. She. Is. Your. Niece."
"Right. But not by blood--"
There was a ringing slap. Esmee who'd been quiet til that moment had slapped Emmet so hard his eyes crossed. "We are a family. You are my children. Nessie is my granddaughter. Got it?"
"Sure." Emmet backed away.
Alice, Bella, and Rose scooped Nessie up and took her upstairs. Most of Rose's clothing was very fitted--tailored to her specifically. And that meant the waists were too large and the busts were too small. Rose had to leave the room and fled the house in search of comfort food.
"I'll have to go shopping. I bet I can get to the Place Vendome before the stores close." Alice clapped. They had gotten Nessie into a nightgown of Rose's and told her to stay upstairs because it was on the diaphanous side (from the Greek, διφαινω-- to see through).
"Why are you all fussing over me than normal? I mean I know you're all barren and I'm your creepy live doll--but seriously. W.T.F?" Nessie glowered and looked so much like her father that Bella laughed.
"Wow. She really is a teenager now. She's using chat text and everything." Alice shook her spiky little head, but in a graceful way--you know like all graceful and shit. You know? Like a giraffe.
"You really didn't see this coming?" Bella asked and Alice shook her head.
Bella turned her daughter toward the mirror. Nessie stared and gaped, but a pretty gape--all graceful and shit. (Author's note: Somehow the narrator of Wide Awake has crept in here. I think. My sincerest apologies. D:)
"So I'm an adult now? I was four for like three weeks and now I'm..." Nessie turned paler than she should have been able to turn. She sort of shimmered and went invisible. (You know, like Frodo maybe would have turned into a glass filled with the pure light of Valinor? Like that. Except he went to the undying lands and no one knows what happened to him.)
"What?" Bella and Alice rushed forward. Nessie's face turned pink.
"I don't feel well." She wrapped her arms around her middle.
"What has she eaten today?" Bella got hysterical and tried to stick her fingers down her child's throat to induce vomiting. "Do you know what your birth was like? Do you know how long I was in labor? Do you know what your father had to do to get you out?!"
"Bella!" Alice shook her. "It's not something she ate. She has her period."
Bella and Alice both noticed the thin trickle of blood on Nessie's leg. They pinched their noses and ran from the room. It smelled awful. (Sorry no femslash orgy here.)
Bella raced Alice to the garage and they refused to tell Edward where they were going. But Edward read Alice's mind and ran to the liquor cabinet. He found an ancient bottle of creme de menthe and drank the entire thing. It wasn't enough. He ran for the garage too and raced off on an errand of mercy--for himself. There just wasn't enough liquor to blot out the image of his daughter bleeding from her ladybits. At least he knew it smelled awful and not as they'd all feared--like Veal.
Jacob (remember this is a Team Jacob fic) had gotten all dusty in a corner. Nessie picked him up and went into Auntie Rose's en suite bathroom. She ran herself a hot bath and craddled her potato in her cleavage and sank into the hot water. She took up a lot more room in the tub than she had yesterday. She could touch her toes to the bottom of the tub now. She leaned back and fell asleep.
When she woke up the water had a pink tinge to it and her potato was gone. There was a giant standing on the bathmat. He was naked. And his skin was russet colored. It was her prince! Her were-potato! Her Jacob!
"Was it my blood?" Nessie stood up naked in the bathtub.
"No. I'm a shape shifter," he said. "Do you have any clothes I can borrow?"
"I don't think we have any that will fit you." Nessie found a maribou trimmed robe of Auntie Rose's. It would have to do since Uncle Emmet didn't seem to have much in the way of clothes.
Jacob slid the robe on and stroked the fluffy cuffs. "This is nice. Soft. Thanks."
Edward knocked at the door. "Ness? You OK? Who are you talking too in there?"
Nessie shoved Jacob into her aunt's large walk in closet. "No one Daddy. Just my potato."
She opened the door and Edward paled and ran because she had forgotten to put Auntie Rose's nightgown back on. Edward could still read her mind as he ran downstairs. He'd seen her push a man tall man in a frilly robe into Rosalie's closet. He turned and sped back up the stairs as lightly as a cougar on buttered paws, but without the inevitable crash into a wall that would ensue if you actually buttered a cougar's paws and made him run upstairs.
"Put on some clothes, Nessie. And explain to me who the hell that is in Rose's closet. You've been a teenager for two hours and you're already hiding men in the closet!" Edward was so enraged spittle (really venom, not saliva--because vampire's don't got none) flew out of his mouth and burned small holes into Nessie's borrowed nightgown.
"You used to sneak in to Mom's room. You even got stuff to make the window stop squeaking it when you snuck in and grandpa Charlie never even knew!" Nessie looked a lot like Bella when she was angry.
"That's different. Our love was MEANT TO BE." Edward pounded on the door to the closet. "Come out of the closet now, young man."
Jacob opened the door and stepped out still in the robe. Edward backed up a little.
"Who the hell are you?" Edward narrowed his eyes.
"Jacob."
"Daddy, he's my potato princess!" Nessie stomped her foot.
"Why did we have potatoes anyway? We don't eat carbs."
"Auntie Alice wanted to make her own wrapping paper. She saw it on Martha Stewart." Nessie said.
"But that doesn't explain how your potato turned into a man." Edward sat down on the edge of Rose's bed and ruffled his hair.
"How can you be her father? You look the same age." Jacob looked back and forth at father and daughter. "She could be your sister, I guess."
"Vampire," Nessie and Edward said at the same time.
"Oh." Jacob ran and flung himself out the window. When he landed he was a large red-brown wolf and he ran into the forest.
"Thanks a lot, Dad." Nessie locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out no matter what they promised her.
Chapter Nine
"Sweetie, I'll take you to the zoo? You can eat whatever you want." Edward leaned against the door reeking of banana flavored rum.
"Do you always have to be such a girl about everything, Edward." Rosalie took the empty bottle from him and sniffed it. She almost wretched. This whole thing was ridiculous and she needed to get into her bathroom. It was four pm and that was the time of day she spent looking at herself in a several mirrors.
Bella kicked the door down. "Renesmee Carlie Cullen! Come out of this bathroom this minute or you will be very sorry."
"Whatever." Nessie had been busy putting on lots of black eye makeup and learning to slouch. She shuffled out of the bathroom still in Rose's nightgown. Edward made a wretching sound. The nightgown plunged kind of far and there was a lot of Nessie's real estate showing.
"I told you not to drink that stuff." Alice held up shopping bags and she had that manic look that made Bella wonder if Alice had been in the insane asylum for more than just her precognition.
"Come on, Nessie! I can't wait to see if you're a Spring or a Summer." Alice yanked the child into her bedroom and started shoving clothes on her.
"I'm not wearing pink." Nessie pretended to stick her finger down her throat when Alice pulled a pale pink dress out of one of the bags.
"I have lot's of other colors..." Alice did that thing where she stopped paying attention too whomever was in front of her because she was busy seeing the future. "Oh. I see."
"What?" Bella came into the bedroom.
"Where's Dad?"
"He had to go throw up and eat something. Vampires can't metabolize alcohol." Bella raised her eyebrows to indicate that she held no truck with drinking and Nessie had better not try it. Or else. After all she knew the police chief. She could have people arrested by their own grandfather.
Alice hadn't bought a lot of black clothing. She held up a long sleeved black tee shirt and a pair of black jeans. Nessie pulled them on.
"What about underwear and shoes?" Bella asked.
"I didn't think of underwear. Damn." Alice flopped with the grace of a feather floating on thermals into the pile of shopping bags on her bed. "I didn't know her shoe size. She'll probably fit into someone's shoes."
"Her feet are huge," Bella put her dainty size six feet next to her daughters. "You wear, what? Size Four? Rose wears a seven. She looks like she's a ten at least."
"She'll fit into Edward's shoes." Alice hurried off and returned with an old pair of Edward's sneakers (black of course) and some socks. They fit Nessie like she was the anti-Cinderella.
"Stand up straight," Bella said.
Nessie shrugged and trudged into her father's old bedroom to listen to music and put on black nail polish, which she had stolen from Alice.
"Bella?" Alice sounded alarmed. "Your father..."
"Yeah, what are we going to tell him?" Bella paced back and forth.
"He just pulled in to the driveway and he has that kid with him--the one who jumped out the window?" Alice looked worried and Bella really didn't want to know what future thing she was worrying about. Sometimes it is better to just encounter the bad things when and if they happen.
"Great. I'm going to just have to tell him the truth." Bella marched downstairs to face her father.
"Whoa. When did Bella get so much backbone?" Jasper leaned in the doorway.
"I don't know. She is completely out of character. Edward seems almost afraid of her." Alice started to pack up the clothing Nessie would not be wearing.
"Is that a cheer leader outfit?" Jasper said.
"It's too big for me." Alice said.
"Not for you, silly." Jasper pulled off his button down shirt and pulled the royal blue and gold sweater over his head. It was on the tight side.
"You're going to have to shave if you want to wear this." Alice held up the tiny matching skirt.
Meanwhile downstairs, Bella poured her father a glass of banana flavored rum and told him to drink it.
"I'd rather not." Charlie wrinkled his nose and put the glass down. "Just tell me what's going on. I brought Nessie a present. Where is she?"
"She's upstairs. I'll get her in a minute. First I have to prepare you for a shock." Bella waiting to see if her father got at all agitated. He didn't.
"Bells, I know already. Jacob told me all about it." Charlie patted her knee.
"You know what? That he was a potato this morning? That Nessie is now sixteen and looks like she's twenty-five, but is still emotionally four years old, but actually is acting like a sixteen year old and her nanny won't get off the internet and Edward tried to get drunk after he saw his daughter naked because she's hot and he is now mentally scared for life--and you know when you're a vampire life is kind of forever. We're not like Dracula. We're actually really hard to kill. And I know we agreed never to say the V word, Dad. But I'm in over my head here and I just want to cut the crap and be honest. I'm twenty-two years old and I have a sixteen year old daughter. And what the hell are we supposed to do with a were-potato turned werewolf?"
"Wow." Jacob stepped forward. "You're hot when you're hysterical."
"I thought you were in love with Nessie. You told me all about imprinting on her or soul bonding--you said it was forever?" Charlie shook his head and took a swig of the disgusting rum.
Bella went upstairs and brought Nessie down. She'd straightened her hair and dyed it black. It hung across half her face.
"Yeah, I definitely want the mom now," Jacob said.
"I sort of don't blame you." Charlie squinted at Nessie. "What happened to her?"
"Hormones," Bella said. "She experienced incredibly rapid growth and intense hormonal changes. She got her period today. Imagine an older woman having ten years worth of menopause in one day. We're lucky she didn't explode."
Jasper came leaping down the stairs in his new outfit at that moment. He was running so fast he was only a blur to Charlie's eye. But Bella saw what he was wearing.
"I've really had it with these lunatics." She stormed out and Jacob followed her.
Nessie trudged up to her room and slammed the door.
Sybilla was in the corner counting something she couldn't see and mumbling about subjectivity. No one was paying any attention to her. But she would get their attention. In the end everyone would heed her because she knew what was coming. Only she had the answers. Only she had the power. Only she could right all the wrongs. They'd all rue the day. Oh, yes.
---->Chapter 10
