The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide (19 page)

Then the growling stopped and Emmett felt like he was flying. He managed to open his eyes and saw what he thought was an angel. When the transformation began and the fiery agony spread through his body, he was sure he’d died and gone to hell.

In his delirium, he’d seen Rosalie as an angel and Carlisle as God, but in fact they were both vampires—and now he was a vampire, too.

When the pain left him, Emmett learned what had really happened to him. In his delirium, he’d seen Rosalie as an angel and Carlisle as God, but in fact they were both vampires—and now he was a vampire, too. He took the truth in stride; Emmett was never one to worry about situations outside of his control. He continues to think of Rosalie as his angel.

With his naturally happy nature, Emmett adjusted easily to the idea of being a vampire. Learning to control himself, however, was a more difficult challenge. In the years just after his transformation, Emmett was often unable to resist human blood. The Cullens were forced to move often until Emmett learned to restrain himself.

“I
T WAS ONLY TWO YEARS LATER THAT SHE FOUND
E
MMETT
. S
HE WAS HUNTING
—
WE WERE IN
A
PPALACHIA AT THE TIME
—
AND FOUND A BEAR ABOUT TO FINISH HIM OFF
. S
HE CARRIED HIM BACK TO
C
ARLISLE
,
MORE THAN A HUNDRED MILES
….”

—Edward, on Rosalie (
Twilight
, Chapter 14)

He genuinely bonded with all the members of his new family and, aside from his dietary lapses, also made their lives more comfortable. Emmett’s easygoing nature brought out Edward’s more optimistic side, and Rosalie became a different person altogether. When Emmett, ever practical, wanted to provide for his human family, Edward gave him a small fortune, which Emmett left in a bag on their doorstep. Even though he knew he could never again be a part of their family, he wanted to ease the burden of losing a strong, hardworking son. After doing what he could for them, he didn’t look back.

Eventually, Emmett and Rosalie married—and have remarried more than once over the years, because Rosalie enjoys the process and the attention so much. At various times they have lived apart from the rest of the Cullen family as a married couple.

Mary Alice Brandon—or Alice, as she was commonly known—lived in a middle-class home in Biloxi, Mississippi, with her parents and her sister, Cynthia, who was nine years younger. Her father was a jeweler and a pearl trader. He bought the pearls from local divers and then moved the pearls inland to be sold in more profitable markets away from the coast. His job kept him away from the family for days at a time. Alice’s mother tended to their home and the orchard on their property, and took care of Alice and Cynthia. The girls were fairly close despite the wide age difference between them.

Alice had the gift of foresight even as a little girl, but her premonitions were not nearly as strong as they would be later in her life. They came to her more as feelings than visions. At first her parents thought her premonitions were
amusing. “Alice is always right,” they would say when the five-year-old dressed herself in a slicker even though the sky was blue; later, of course, the rain would begin. “Grandma will be here soon,” she would announce. They would laugh and put out an extra plate.

“Alice was a character who just popped into existence fully formed—so easily. It was like if Edward existed, then he must have a sister named Alice, and she would be this person. And she was one of the things that was sad for me with the book, because I wanted her to be real so much. Oh, I would love to have a friend like that. There must be someone just like her somewhere, because it seemed so obvious that she must exist.”
—Stephenie

As Alice grew older, she became more hesitant to share her predictions. She hated looking ridiculous when her premonitions turned out to be wrong. (Weather was the easiest for her to predict correctly, because it didn’t involve people and their tendencies to change their minds.) By age ten, she rarely voiced her predictions at all, but those she did give came true often enough that people started to talk. “That uncanny child of the Brandons” was seldom asked to other children’s birthday parties. Alice’s mother loved her deeply and counseled her to keep quiet about her premonitions.

By the time Alice turned eighteen, she’d learned to ignore her gift, for the most part, but occasionally she felt compelled to speak.

People started to use the words
witch
and
changeling
when talking about her.

By the time Alice turned eighteen, she’d learned to ignore her gift, for the most part, but occasionally she felt compelled to speak. When she did, it sometimes turned out badly, such as when Alice warned a friend not to marry a certain man; the friend ignored her, and it was revealed that the man’s family had a history of insanity. Rather than blame herself or her husband, the friend whispered to others that Alice had put a curse on her. On another occasion, one of Alice’s favorite cousins planned to go west to seek his fortune, and Alice begged him not to. The cousin died in an accident on the road, and his parents—Alice’s aunt and uncle—blamed Alice for jinxing his trip. People started to use the words
witch
and
changeling
when talking about her.

Then Alice had her most terrifying vision. She saw her mother being murdered by a stranger in the woods on her way into town. She told her mother what she had seen, and her mother listened to her. Alice’s mother kept her daughters in the house with the doors locked and a pistol loaded. Mr. Brandon returned home from a trip two days later to a dirty house full of terrified women and empty of food. On Mrs. Brandon’s insistence, he searched the woods near the road but found nothing. He was angry with Alice’s “damned stories” and ordered Alice not to put everyone in a panic again.

Alice began to be haunted by flashes of the stranger, still stalking her mother. When she told her parents what she’d seen, her father was furious with Alice’s hysteria. He insisted that the family go about their usual routine. But he was often gone, and when he was, Alice’s mother followed Alice’s desperate warnings as much as possible. Still, she had to shop for supplies and tend her orchard. When a month passed and no one had seen the man, Mrs. Brandon grew less wary. She began returning her friends’ visits and attending sewing circles. She took the pistol with her every time she left the house—at first. After two months, she started to forget.

One night Alice had a perfectly clear vision of the man in a Model T running her mother’s buggy off the road just outside of town, where there was a steep drop. Alice’s mother had already left home in the buggy. Alice ran after her, seeing in her mind the stranger watching the crashed buggy to be sure there was no movement inside. Next she had a vision of the man driving away from the scene of the accident. Alice knew she was too late, but she kept running.

The death of Alice’s mother was declared accidental, and
Alice’s protestations to the contrary were met with disdain and suspicion. Alice’s father ordered her to be silent.

Mr. Brandon remarried within six months of his wife’s death. The woman was a blond Yankee from Illinois who was only ten years older than Alice; Mr. Brandon had frequently sold pearls to her jeweler father in the past. The new Mrs. Brandon was quite cold to Alice, though she made a pet of the younger Cynthia.