An Experimental Study of a Woman on Edge (Part Two)

She needed to mourn. Good Lord, she needed to mourn. She stared at the mirror in front of her, locking eyes with the woman - no, girl - in front of her. She didn't blink for a full moment so that when her eyes watered, she could pretend they were tears.

She used to be good at make-believe. For a good while, she believed that the ingredients for happiness were love and faith. Love and faith. Two strange concepts she realized she never fully grasped to begin with.

Leah threw the hand mirror across the room. The glass shattered and scattered across the floor in glittering patterns. Lovely. Maybe no one would enter her bedroom if they saw the safety hazard. Ignoring the danger, Leah sat down in the corner, legs sprawled out in front of her like a child.

Where were her family? How did she get here? These questions gnawed at her mind but required too much energy to answer.

She felt as if she'd woken from a dream. Was it true? Was she really the girl others admired? Who searched for her boyfriend when no one else would? Who looked death in the eye and parried with vampires? That girl was strong and brave and good. That didn't seem right. That didn't seem to suit the girl she knew herself to be.

Sleeping was good. Sleeping was healthy. So she crawled into bed and prayed for a dreamless night.

Until fourth grade, a girl named April lived next door. When you're a little kid, you're friends with everybody your age. So while Leah didn't have many memories about April herself, she did recall they had playdates and sleepovers.

The first time that April spent the night, Leah's parents told her April experienced something called sleep paralysis. Their explanation was very perplexing, due to Sue's very scientific approach and Harry's constant reassurances.

Leah decided to just ask April herself. The other little girl simply said, "Sometimes I wake up and I can't move. It's like a weight is sitting on my chest."

"That's pretty scary."

"I guess. It's worse when the shadow people come in the room. Papa says they aren't real, but I always forget."

After that, Leah started sleeping with a night light...

And a decade later, Leah's mind drifted to April. So this is what it was like.

She felt trapped in her own body as if her soul was locked inside of a prison cell. The wires connected between her brain and the rest of her body seemed to be cut. And a translucent apparition stood by the window, the moonlight shining through it.

Oh, well. What was an imaginary figure compared to vampires and werewolves? Maybe she'd gotten lucky and this was the grim reaper, ready to cart her away.

"Please. Do not be afraid," it said in its lilting voice. As it came closer, she could see it was a female dressed in a long summer dress. Petite with flowing hair.

The trapped feeling ebbed away, bit by bit until Leah felt in control of her body again. What a bizarre sensation. She stretched her muscles and wiped her face.

Then she reared on the ghost-woman-thing.

"Look here, lady. I've dealt with real, live vampires. And werewolves. I don't know what on earth you could possibly be, but I'm not interested. Leave," she growled. Somewhere in her mind, she was screaming at herself not to pick fights with magical beings, but she needed to yell at someone. Better to take it out on this ghost than her mother.

In front of her very eyes, the woman's form filled out until she looked like a real flesh-and-blood human. "I apologize for my impudence. I didn't want us to get off on the wrong foot."

Leah flopped back onto her bed. "I must be on drugs. I must be on hard drugs." It was likely she had gotten high behind the high school with Jimmy's gang as Brooke and Maggie speculated. That wouldn't be very farfetched. They were the ones who taught her to smoke.

"You are not under any influence, Leah," the lady tittered.

"Oh, yeah, lady? Are you sure? I just had a nightmare of a day then I wake up to a ghost-angel in my room. Makes total sense."

"Call me Ella." The lady sat on her bed next to her as if they were good friends. Upon closer inspection, Leah could make out her wrinkled face and enchanting eyes - a vivid green that could inspire sonnets. Her hair fell past her shoulders in lovely red ringlets.

"Fine. Ella. Who may or may not be a sign that I have lost touch with reality. How would you feel if after having the shittiest year of your life, the world just stabbed you in the back? Would you want to be woken in the middle of the night?"

"What happened?"

"Let's see...my boyfriend disappeared on me, I found him but all he did was try to control me and keep secrets from me, my dad nearly died, the only person that understood me was banned from seeing me, my dad exiled me to this little reservation for a year, I realized my closest friends are morons, my boyfriend dumped me out of nowhere and told my cousin he's in love with her, my cousin pretended to be disgusted, she nearly died, and she just admitted today she loves him, too. All in all, a great year."

"Are you quite finished pitying yourself?" Ella hissed with surprising disdain.

Dumbfounded, Leah nodded.

"Despite the melodrama of your dizzying storytelling, I'd agree, life has treated you unkindly, dear. That'll be hard to rectify."

"Rectify? As in fix? What are you, my fairy godmother?"

Ella's deadpan expression gave all the answers.

Leah jumped off the bed again. "You're kidding me."

"I never 'kid'."

This didn't make any sense. She wasn't a storybook princess. She was a teenager living in 21st-century America. "Why would I have a fairy godmother?"

"I do enjoy that title, but this is more charity work than anything. I find those in distress and help them to the best of my ability."

"Why would you want to do that?" wondered Leah, realizing she sounded very thickheaded.

Ella regarded the shards of glass on the carpet. "There's a lot of ugliness in the world, wouldn't you say?"

"It seems quite a hefty task to take on. Almost not even worth it."

"Tell me, when you comfort a friend in need or you share your food with a neighbor down on their luck, do you feel afterward that you wasted your time because you barely made a dent in solving their problems?"

Well, when she put it like that… "No."

"Then tell me how I can help you." Ella held out her hand.

Leah took it.

The four walls began to melt away, pooling in a liquid and dripping onto the floor. Her bed, the glass, her clothes, one by one, they faded away.

"Don't scream, you'll break my concentration," Ella warned. Her eyes were closed. "You're still in your family's house."

She'd just have to trust her.

The walls were replaced with leaves and wind spinning in a tight circle around them. The whirlpool encased the fairy and the girl, blocking their sight from all surroundings. The speed of the wind gusts whistled in Leah's ears and the cold stung her skin. She looked down to realize that her feet were no longer on the carpet, but on the dewy grass.

"Where are we?" she wondered.

"This is the start of where life deviated from the expected course. If you concentrate, you will unearth what it is you desire to recompense for your sufferings."

"...In English?" Leah was too tired to think of big words.

"What will make things right, dearie? And don't say a time machine. I'm not a witch." Ella pulled a thin wand out of her billowing skirts. A green glittering mist emanated from it and encircled Leah's entire body. "You won't feel a thing," the old fairy claimed.

Leah closed her eyes and tilted her head to the sky. Even if she could go back in time, she wouldn't want to. She'd learned that the people she trusted were traitors, so they would have stabbed her in the back at some point or another. If her father's heart never failed, he might have never worked to get back in shape. If she never met Alice or Edward -

What did that matter, anyway when they were gone? She was alone, truly alone. Unable to face her fears. Weak. Pathetic. Embarrassing.

"I want...to not be weak," she whispered.

"You're thinking shallowly. Concentrate."

"I want to be able to face my problems without cowering or crying or...or," she rambled.

A thunderclap sounded above their heads.

"I want to not be pitied," she declared.

"More."

"I want to be strong!"

"More!"

Her hands curled into fists. Her face dripped with sweat. "I want to be powerful!" Leah shouted.

A howl broke her focus. Leah fell to the ground, unable to go on. The mist of magic snapped back into Ella's wand like a tape measure.

The fairy bent down and placed a gentle hand on Leah's shoulder. "There is power locked inside of you. So much power."

"Sure there is," Leah sneered.

"I think I have just what you need." Without warning, Ella pointed the sharp tip of her wand on Leah's temple.

The forest transformed into an empty space of white.

**break line**

When Leah could finally speak again, she asked, "Where are we?"

"The In-Between."

"That explains everything."

"We are in-between reality and imaginary. So, not in a make-believe world, but not in a real-world either."

"Okay, let's start with a simple question because you lost me there. What happened?"

"I granted your wish. You are now all you hoped for."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"It'll take some time for you to realize you are one of the strongest, most powerful people in - well, let's say your tribe, at least."

"I doubt that. I dated a werewolf."

"A werewolf is nothing in comparison to you." Her conviction was magnified by the fierceness in her eyes.

Leah's stomach turned. "What can I do?"

Ella circled her, like a general inspecting a soldier. "I did more for you than I've ever done for any human. There was too much possibility within you. You could be so...helpful. So, I replicated some of my abilities and transferred them to you.

"What can be unlocked remains to be seen. The most basic fairy skills will likely work -so, you may be able to cast charms and heal others. You may be able to hear a target or shoot a target from a mile away. It depends on how hard you work for it."

Leah was growing frustrated. "Ella, with all due respect, why on earth would I want to work for those things? How is that going to fix my life - making spells I don't need? Why would you even do this?"

"If I gave you the charm to put your broken heart back together, it'd be broken again. Maybe that'd be fine for some people. But if I give you abilities that no other human could possess without cracking like an egg, you will have an outlet to help you heal. You will have something far greater than any ridiculous human love could bring - magic.

"And if you play your cards right, one day you can join us. You will be a protector, a guardian. A role model, a favorite of the community."

"I'm not sure those are things I want."

Ella pointed in front of them, summoning a mirror. "Look at yourself," she spat.

Leah reluctantly stared into the full-length glass mirror. She couldn't believe her eyes. Her face was red and puffy. Her waist-length hair was tangled and more animalistic than feminine. She still wore her hideous waitressing uniform. I'm revolting, she thought.

"Your only other option is to be pitied in your community as the most scandalous piece of gossip. The girl who was left for her cousin by the love of her life. Do you even know for certain you will find love again? Sure, even if you are accepted into college - will that take away the pain? The embarrassment?"

No.

Still, Ella patted Leah's cheek in a grandmotherly fashion and said, "Why don't you "sleep on it" as they say? You're not in a position to make big decisions. We'll be in touch."

It was like being kicked off a cloud. One second, Leah stood in the In-Between, the next she was flat on her back, on the bed of her house on 333 James Street in La Push, Washington.

The clock read "3:03". Her mind drifted in and out of sleep, never tired enough to slip into unconsciousness, but never alert enough to do anything but lay there. Maybe she was in her own in-between.

Highly unlikely, since someone was in her house.

The air seemed to buzz with the electricity of a fourth person. She could identify the presence of her mother and father downstairs, and her brother down the hall. Everything was clearer now as if her head had been buried under sand for eighteen years. She could see, hear, and feel more. "Great. My spidey senses are tingling," she mumbled.

Robberies weren't rare in La Push. Occasionally, some thug would decide that he wanted his neighbor's radio or TV. The only thing that prevented crimes like that was that everyone knew everyone, so the thug would be discovered in a few days, he'd be beaten over the head by his mother, and the stolen items were usually returned. Justice.

Still, it wasn't impossible that someone would decide to rob the Clearwaters. No one could be trusted too much.

Leah pulled the comforter off her head. Next to her closet stood a man.

"Don't scream," he whispered.

"Why do people keep telling me that?" she muttered as she lunged for the Swiss Army knife in her nightstand drawer.

He grabbed her arm. The nerve!

Enraged, Leah slapped him. Consequences be damned.

But there'd be none because, in the lamplight, she recognized him.

He grabbed the offending arm and poked and prodded it. "You're lucky you didn't injure yourself," he scolded her.

"Nevermind that, why on earth did you break into my house?"

Edward met her eyes. His hesitation gave her a moment to take him in. Of course, he didn't look a bit different - he had the same fair skin, sharp jawline, thick eyebrows, and of course, the red hair that looked like he'd been running. Though, his eyes now held a heaviness that contrasted with his youth.

"Well?" Leah pressed, her anger fading to curiosity.

For once, he was quiet. He pulled her into a brief embrace. Leah squeaked in surprise but didn't push him away. He said, "I had to make sure you were safe."

"Of course, I'm safe. I haven't been in the woods at all. You seem to be the one that's in trouble." She never took notice of the purple-black bruises under his eyes. Without thinking, she reached up to touch them and he didn't stop her. "Have you been trouble sleeping?"

"I don't sleep. That's a very significant fact about vampires. What else have you forgotten?" he teased, looking more like himself.

"Now that you mention it, I'm having trouble remembering your name - Earl? Edwin? Hedwig?"

"I concede that your memory is remarkable. The bruises appear when I've gone a substantial amount of time without feeding."

Leah took a step back. "Are you sure that's safe?"

Edward grabbed her wrist and brought it to his face. He inhaled deeply. Oddly, he grimaced. "I'm certain."

"Really? Is this why you came? To tell me you fed on so many animals you became immune to human blood?" Leah joked but she was very concerned. There were simply too many surprises that night to wrap her head around them all.

"I promise that what I'm about to tell you is completely true," he told her.

"Not much could shock me after tonight," she told him, sitting down in the corner she just yesterday had been her hideout from the world. Some great powerful protector she was - it seemed like everyone she loved either left or got hurt or both. She cursed Ella under her breath.

Edward didn't follow her. His face was distant but she felt the anger rolling off of him in waves. "They turned you into an experiment," he growled.

Everything about him was more feral than she'd ever seen him - except maybe the night they'd met. Leah feared for the targets of his rage - an upset Edward was something fearsome.

"Edward, I'm going to have to ask you to calm down right now. If you wake my family up, I'll have a lot of explaining to do."

"Then tell me why you volunteered to let them do that to you!"

Under the critical gaze, Leah blushed. "I felt as if there was no other choice."

His face fell. He sat down next to her. For a minute, he seemed like any other seventeen-year-old - unsure and fragile. "I'm too late, then."

"You're too late for what?"
"To rescue you."

Leah didn't want an explanation right now, but she needed one. He had met a fairy in New York who was pressuring the Cullens into an alliance. Apparently, this Echo person was the granddaughter of Ella. Carlisle wisely declined the proposition, so Echo told Edward -

"Wait. She took away your sense of smell?" Leah now understood his anger over Ella. Without his permission, they changed an integral part of him. Good intentions or not, that was twisted.

"Almost. She reduced my craving for human blood."

"That shouldn't be possible. Why would she even do that?"

"She...she...she misinterpreted our...relationship," he struggled. Leah would have laughed at him if her heartbeat wasn't going crazy. "Ella seemed to think she was helping me by taking away that...barrier...in between us."

"And this Echo chick gave away their scheme? Wow."

"She was trying to convince me to agree, so she told me, 'We could help her love you back.'" He swallowed, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. If he was human, he'd probably be bright red.

Leah tried to hide her shock. "Edward...do you…"

"No. And even if I did, they have no right. That, combined with tonight's events proves that they are not to be trusted."

Thankfully, the awkward moment between them passed as quickly as it had come.

"Then what will you do?"

"We will move again, try to evade them."

Leah began to pace back and forth, thinking it over.

Edward continued, "And you disagree." It was a statement, not a question.

"Did I say that?"

"No, but you're realizing it as you think it over. You're starting to feel that I'm wrong.

Leah echoed the words she had been told only a few hours ago: "You're thinking shallowly."

'You have the chance to learn a little more about the world. These people could hurt...or they just might help. You could regret this. And Carlisle, when he thinks about it...he will, too. Don't live in fear because of a risk of danger.'

"Leah, why should we join forces with people that offered you to me as a bargaining tool?"

She caught herself before she winced. "We're past that, Edward. I am practically one of them, now. If you guys are working with them, then I'd have someone on my side."

"I never asked you to do that. This was one of the worst decisions you could have made."

Leah frowned. They were arguing now. She needed to get the conversation back on track. "This is the chance to test the validity of their claims. The legends mention zilch about anything close to fairies. If that story Echo fed you is true, then why not ask them for a favor?"

He caught the direction of her thoughts. "You're insane."

"But you love me, anyway." She needed to test the waters, make sure nothing was weird between them.

He smirked. "All is well."

"Good. Now you think that over and I'm going to sleep before I pass out." Leah crawled under the covers.

"Leah, I'm not going to change my mind. The safety of my family comes before everything."

"I know. They're your tribe. But sometimes you have to take risks to protect your tribe."

After that, Edward didn't respond. She supposed he left. There was nothing more to be said. Neither of them was going to change their minds. Geez. He was a rebel one moment than a stickler than next. "An enigma," she slurred.