Chapter 33~ The Weeping Bride

Edward and I were like two amazingly in love children, giggling all the way to the garden. We were abruptly interrupted by the sounds of dry crying. We slinked back and arched our heads around the rose covered archway. We saw Esme, she was slumped over three waiting pools, she was gingerly tossing flowers into it. Her pain was so immense, she could never shed a tear, and as I watched I realized the flowers were the dry tears that fell from within her trapped soul. Edward whispered to me ," We should go and leave her be."

" Edward we can't leave her, can't you see her suffering?" I turned to him and saw the sorrow in his eyes, " Oh of course you can, you know why she is sad."

" I am not sure we should be here Bella, let's go inside."

I just smiled reassuringly, " Edward everyone here has suffered terribly at the hands of my family, her pain calls to me, maybe I can do something for her."

" She isn't like Stefan, she wishes for death but her prayers have no certainty to them, she wants life."

" Yes, and I might be able to help her if I know what troubles her."

He stared at me for a long moment, and then dropped his hands from my shoulders, " Alright, go on.

I winked and turned, carefully walking toward Esme, not wanting to startle her. Not like creeping up on a vampire is even possible. I was only a foot from her but she wasn't even reacting to my presence. " Esme?"

She leaped up, " Oh Bella, I didn't hear you I was just," She was flustered trying to find an excuse to explain herself.

I wasn't sure what the right reaction was so I simply grabbed her and wrapped my arms around her embracing her into the biggest hug I could muster, " I wish I could absorb your pain."

Her silent sobs began again, she nestled her head onto my chest and hugged my waist. I wasn't taller than her but her pain weighed on her shoulders so much she was the size of a child. I stroked her head and rocked back and forth like I would for Mara if she woke from a startling nightmare." Tell me why your fire has burned out Esme?"

Slowly she lifted her head, her inconsolable eyes met my gaze," I figured you knew, didn't Edward tell you?"

I turned to see Edward just walking around the garden, " No Esme that's not how Edward works. He has no way to turn off his gift, he sees it as intrusive at times, he doesn't feel he has the right to share the diaries of the people he encounters."

She shot me an aching grin, " An honorable man, so much like Carlisle." She sat down on a bench facing the waiting pools. 

I sat beside her, my eyes taking in her expressions. " I want to help you Esme, I do so much, how can I?"

She cocked her head up and looked into my all too hopeful eyes. " You are amazing Bella, it is so hard to believe you were created in malice, and born through evil, and then raised by the hurtful hands of your father."

Shame washed through me. it was impossible to not feel responsible for what Aro and Moriana had done to so many. Esme lovingly lifted my chin up with her finger. " Do not ever look to the door of hell for what your parents have done. when you were born you were gifted with wings, for you are an angel."

" You shouldn't be consoling me Esme, It is I who wants to help you."

She nodded," you are," she chuckled just once, " you remind me so much of my daughter."

"Your daughter?"

Her eyes traveled to the water again," Oh my yes, she was just as beautiful as you, and her heart was five times the size of her body."

I realized the three waiting pools symbolized people in her life that no longer breathed, that too soon were taken from her. " The pools, who are they?"

She gave me a smile of reminisce, " The large one is my Love, the middle one my daughter, and the tiny one is for my son."

I knew the answer to my question before I asked it, perhaps it was wishful thinking that she would supply me with a different answer, but I asked it anyway, " Where you a vampire and they were not, and you outlived them?"

She shook her head, " No sweet child, I wish that was the case." 

I just waited for Esme to speak, her eyes were just shifting from one pool to the other. 

 "Alistar and I fell in love when we were young, deep love is what my mother called it. It was impossible to keep our hands off of each other, so when I became pregnant with my daughter it was no surprise to anyone." She let out one single laugh." Alistar and I never believed marriage was the way to show we loved each other, so we just never did." She closed her eyes before she continued. " Charlotte was born in the rain, literally, we got stranded in the middle of a hurricane. We were on a road right in front of a makeshift sign that said welcome to Charlotte, NC, so we took it as a sign." She opened her eyes again. " When she was born she was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, when we finally got home we just spent the next four years adoring her and teaching her. We were a happy little family, and then Peter was born and it just made us complete."

I felt Esme's body stiffen, I knew this story was going to a dark place.

" One day we were all in our garden and a passerby came to the door, he was looking for food and shelter for the night since a storm was rolling in. Alistar and I had not heard that any storm was coming but travelers tend to feel things and he had such an innocent young face, he couldn't have been older then twelve or thirteen."

I knew she was referring to Alec, I reached out and grabbed her hand.

" I woke in the middle of the night to screams, Alistair and I rushed down the stairs to find the traveler tying up Charlotte, and a man with raven hair was cradling Peter in his arms." She paused for a moment, trying to gather strength to continue I am sure." He turned to me and Alistar and gave such a sadistic grin, and I knew in that moment we were in such trouble, his blood red eyes and pale skin, it was like he was torn out of the tales my mother would read to us." She squeezed my hand. " The man, he asked me to choose a child to keep, said one could stay but the other went with him. Alistar became enraged and charged the traveler, but half way to him he doubled over in pain, and a fair haired little girl darkened my door way."

Jane, with her gift of pain it could be no other. As I listened to Esme my heart sank deeper and deeper into sadness. My father was a stranger to me, only now am I seeing that every embrace, and tender touch was laced with darkness and hatred.

" I remember falling to the ground begging him to spare the children and to take me instead, but he just laughed and told me he would take me anyway, that he was simply offering me a parting gift, A PARTING GIFT can you believe that?"

All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.

" That was when He... Aro... grabbed Alistar by his throat and slammed him against the wall and told him that he was an honorable man for attempting to save his family, and  then like a rag doll he shred him to pieces." She hung her head and cupped her hands over her eyes. " One moment he was there and the next he was gone, they all laughed like it was sport." She was silent for a bit, her next words were just whispers, " Charlotte's screams haunt me still to this day, she called for her father even as he lie there on the ground in a pool of blood, she wanted him to save her. I should have tried, I couldn't move, all I could do was reach for peter and hope to just touch him one more time, but I couldn't reach him." 

Her silent sobs were tearing me up inside, I could feel her emotions crash through me.

" I looked to Charlotte and just told her I loved her, told her to be brave and not to cry, told her she would be with daddy soon enough, I knew Bella, I knew he was not going to spare anyone, and I knew I didn't have a chance to save anyone, so if I couldn't save them from the torture they would receive then I would at least make their death fast, painless." She griped my hand with all her might. " I asked if I could just hug my children one last time, and I don't know if it was morbid curiosity or something else but he allowed it, and it was all I needed, I squeezed Charlotte tightly as he placed Peter in my arms, I remember their smells, the feel of their skin, the sound their heart beats made. Aro just watched our private moment like we were entertaining him, I refused him the right to my babies, and I did the unthinkable."

I reached around and put my arms around Esme, I knew what she did was consuming her for eternity.

" As I hugged them Peter suffocated in my bosom, and I grabbed the rope that was around Charlottes neck and gripped it tighter, I felt them leave this world, I told them to go to daddy now, to run in the sunflower fields, and to chase the butterflies."

Scarlet tears poured from my eyes like a water fall, my heart was burning.

" What I did angered him so much, he told me how my suffering had only begun. And he was right, he bound me and took me to his castle, I was knocked out but when I woke I was in a wedding dress, it was like no dress I had ever seen, but as I walked in it a stream of blood followed behind me. Without a hint of emotion Aro told me I would marry him. I refused, so he had some vampire bind me to him, her name escapes me, and so I married him, after I painfully said I do he leaned into me and whispered, my children and lover were with me this day as he pointed to the bottom of my dress, it was soaked in my family's blood."

I saw Edward from a far his head in his hands as he listened to the story that he had heard played over and over in Esme's mind.

"That night he turned me into this, told me my punishment for betraying him was an eternity of remembering." She tossed some daisies into the water, " I escaped one night during a party, and found Carlisle here in an abandoned house, and I never left, and I learned to love him, but Aro's curse forever haunts me."

I was speechless, I knew there was nothing I could do, Edward knew no magic inside me could bring her family back. " I wish I was powerful enough to give you back all my father took from you."

She looked at me, " Bella, when Carlisle told me of your birth, I hoped for a miracle with you, and you have not disappointed, when you came into this world you were the complete opposite of what Aro wanted, but more powerful than his wildest dreams, what you do with what has been given to you is what determines the fate of us all, you fight, and you win, with that I will find my peace."

" I promise."