EPILOGUE

An Epoch Later…

When my Professor assigned this project to me, I was more than just disappointed. As an aspiring photographer, who's majoring in Visual Arts, in his under graduate studies, Italy and Venice are havens.

Not a rainy, cold Podunk town in the state of Washington.

I took up this project as a challenge, but inwardly I was sullen. That son of a bitch, Ben Cheney was enjoying tiramisu with the classiest wines and I was here, driving my Volvo into the city limits of Forks, Washington.

After few minutes of maneuvering around the town, I found a decent looking bed and breakfast. It was deserted, when I went in there. The young kid at the reception looked just as bored as I was. Maybe it was the air. It made people sullen.

On my drive up till here, I had noticed nothing but forests on both the sides of the road. Forests could be my subjects, but for that I'll have to venture into them. Hiking wasn't something I had done much. But I was game for it. My last project in Atlas Mountains had toughened me up for almost everything.

I fell into an exhausted sleep minutes after I collapsed in the surprisingly comfortable bed.

.

I watched the dawn break in Forks. It was gray, pink, orange, purple and off white… And I was shocked to realize it was beautiful.

I freshened up quickly and picked up my DSLR, my laptop and my tripod. I jumped into my car and drove into Forks. The aim was to just find something worthwhile anywhere. People, trees, hills, roads, rain… anything.

I spent hours at the edge of the forests that skirted Forks. I had not anticipated for myself to get so fascinated by them. It was eerie. I browsed through the hundred or so pictures of that lone house at the end of one neighborhood, which had deep forests not twenty feet from its backdoor. The house was empty. But it was locked. I paused at the picture of a window, concealed a little by the foliage of one tree close to the house. The window was wide open. The room was pitched black when watched with naked eyes. But in this picture, it was gray. Lighter.

I shook my head and drove towards the town to buy myself some food. I had ignored breakfast in all my excitement.

.

"The Volturi Home." The old man rasped. "I used to work there. Once upon a time."

This almost hundred year old man had decided to play the good host for me, as I sat down in this small diner for a quick meal. He had curly hair, all steel gray, which fell over his ears. His face had too many folds and wrinkles. He laughed too much.

He had prodded me so much that I had spilled why I was here and what I did. He was telling me about the places where I could go and take pictures. He still hadn't told me what this Volturi Home was. But from his broken yet wistful descriptions, I was half ready to visit it already.

"It's on the edge of a huge forest. But the grasslands in the backyard of the Home are beautiful. You may need to talk to that demented Aro's kid who has taken over the management. That place misses me, ya know. I used to mop the floors… but who cares about old scum like us anyway. Oh! The good doctor cares but only he does…only he does…"

None of the rant was making any sense to me. I wondered if this guy would even be able to tell me the address of this Volturi place. The cashier girl at the diner helped me. She gave me the address and her phone number, on a piece of paper. I smirked at her crookedly and thanked her. If nothing I could land some stress relieving night in my fifteen days here.

I was about to get out of the diner when I heard the old guy holler.

"Camera boy! Wait!"

He stumbled right to the point where I was standing and removed a thick strand of hair from his face.

"You remind me of someone… do I remind you of someone?"

"Uh… I am sorry. You don't…" I didn't know what the Podunk protocol of manners was when addressing elders.

"Huh." He grunted. "Why would you remember? Thirty years is long time. But I remember. Your eyes are still green."

With that he turned and went back to sit on the same table.

I shrugged and slipped out into the rain. Volturi place was my next stop.

.

.

.

I hadn't imagined anything like this.

No, I hadn't.

I was standing at the other side of the huge iron gates of The Volturi Charity Hospital and Shelter for Children.

This was Volturi Home.

It was still drizzling. But the sky had started to lighten. The shade was a white gray rather than the murky slate. I wished it would clear up more so that I could do some more outdoor shoots.

I didn't think further and walked through the wide open gates of the Volturi Home.

.

Three days. The sun made me wait for three days.

When I had visited the Home on my first day in Forks, I had forgotten everything. Yeah, it was like amnesia. A love induced amnesia. I was platonically attached to the place and I didn't want to go.

But constant downpour had been a problem.

The old man was right; I smiled at the light yellow glow of the sun. The backyard of the Volturi Home was stunning. The vast grasslands and the most natural looking gardens took my breath away. Trees lining the edge on which the sky and the earth met, rugged hills in the distance… Boy, I had become poetic.

The buildings were fascinating structures too. Wide archways and doorways and the heavy ledges of the doors and windows were very Italian in nature. I was surprised to know that Aro Volturi was an Italian by birth and had come to America a century ago. The story was that he had fallen in love with this American girl, Iris. She had been his lover for one fine summer in Italy, but he had followed her later after realizing that she was the one for him.

Aro had found her after months of search. And he was very happy until he had come to know that she had leukemia. And that was she was dying.

Unfortunately, all true love stories are tragic. I sighed.

The Iris Wing of the Shelter was where all the sick children, whether orphaned or abandoned by their families, learnt music, painting, sculpture and all sorts of things. It was a beautiful gray stone building with wide rooms and glass walls overlooking the forests and the grasslands.

This place was heaven.

Aro Volturi had created a heaven in the middle of a forest, to honor the one woman he had loved.

He had made a cemetery a few yards away from the buildings. All the children of the Home who couldn't survive were laid to rest there. My shots of the cemetery were also beautiful. Especially, the pictures of the life size stone statue of Mother Mary that was installed on a small pedestal at the gates. I wasn't a very religious person, but today I had kneeled down in front of Mother Mary and prayed.

I had clicked around three thousand pictures, (yeah, that's how fanatically I had photographed this place), yet I hadn't had enough. An unthreatening wisp of cotton white cloud covered the sun as I turned to explore another end of the backyard.

I had clicked pictures of some children here, some old matronly nurses, some old frail men smiling from there hospital beds but, in all honesty, I hadn't found that one candid shot that could become my signature photograph. Every excellent photographer had a signature photograph and I wanted mine. I was only twenty two, but this strange paranoia had gripped me; that if I won't find my signature photo here, I won't find it ever.

That paranoia had lasted for about eight hours, approximately seventeen minutes and some seconds.

Because in the first second of those last few seconds, I had laid my eyes upon a picture that could never be anticipated, manipulated, imagined, painted… it could only be captured. And capture it was.

Seven consecutive shots were taken in roughly, one and a half minute.

A tree separated from the forests on a low hillock… its foliage dark green and thick… two uniform dark gray stone graves under it, closely placed… and a girl sitting at the foot of the graves with a mouthorgan pressed to her lips…

I didn't want to speak.

She was creating a very simple yet profound music with it. Her dark, long hair was swept to hang on her left shoulder. Her blue plaid shirt was too big on her petite frame. Her black converses were unlaced.

I kept watching her, unblinkingly. Until…

Until, her beautiful chocolate brown eyes locked with mine.

-E3B-

A/N: I didn't tell you we have an epilogue to this? Well, we do. But don't ask me what this epi means. I want you to wonder what could this be. As to why I want you to wonder… because it's so cool to just… imagine.

Rose, I love you and I love your stories. And I love my Rob. Yes, he's mine. Sorry, my BFF. ;-)

Liz… THANK YOU a zillion trillion tonnes for beta'ing it as so well.

:-D