A few minutes later, Nessie went into the living-room and played with her little uncle and his fascinating new video game. They spent the next hour and a half together, giggling and laughing, as they played digital football, battled digital dragons and raced digital cars. They were interrupted at the end of this time by the arrival of Sharon and her children: Brian and Julia. Nessie was introduced as Edward's niece and a close member of the family. Sharon was nice, but cool and distant by Nessie's estimation. Her time in the home was brief, despite Renee's best effort to make her feel welcomed and wanted. After a dozen minutes, more or less, Sharon left leaving her progenies behind. Nessie did not care for the way she treated Renee and was predisposed to dislike her until given reason to think otherwise.
Nessie remained for another hour. She spent a small portion of this time with Phillip and his two cousins. Her little uncle had someone who could share in his fascination for the video gaming world and she was suddenly in the way. She backed away and watched them at play for a short time. Nessie developed a growing indifference to the eldest of the Cunningham kids, Brian. He seemed, to her, a bit of a bully and a know it all. She suspected, outside of the presence of an adult, he was not a nice little boy. Julia, however, was innocent and sweet. She won Nessie's affection at first sight.
Renee and Nessie spent the remainder of their time together agreeably conversing about school, work and community gossip. On her way home in the car, Nessie reprimanded herself for talking with Renee about Jacob.
15- Show and Tell
"I won!" Phillip exclaimed with glee as he thrust his hands into the air.
"So what, it's a stupid game anyway," Brian sulked as he tossed the game controller on the floor.
Phillip's excitement was well earned. The seven year old had been losing regularly to the ten year old. The new game the two boys just completed had the advantage, for Phillip, of being one that his opponent had never played before. He, Brian and Julia were seated on the floor, in the living-room, in front of a large flat screen monitor, situated on a knee-high TV stand. Renee was in the kitchen preparing the evening meal. Brian and Julia spent the past two hours, from the time of his arrival at the Swan home, playing video games with Phillip. Julia did more watching than playing. This was due partly because of Brian and Phillip's domineering of the game controls and partly because of her disinterest. She was more amused by the antics of her brother and cousin then she was by anything happening on the video screen. Renee tried to spend some time amusing her, but she shortly gave up after noting that she was less entertaining to Julia than the boys were. Julia was contented to simply be in the company of her brother and cousin.
"You wanna play another game?" Phillip suggested with an eager smile.
"No," Brian insisted. "Your games are stupid.
"I wanna play," Julia quickly volunteered.
Brian ignored his little sister's plea as though she was not there. "What other kinda games you got?" Brian's request was in a commanding tone of voice.
"I've got a football," Phillip reported with an all new expression of excitement. "You wanna play catch."
"Hah, I bet you got a nerf-ball," Brian countered with scorn.
"No it's not," Phillip defensively contradicted.
An instant behind this assertion, Julia jumped up and declared, "I wanna play catch,"
"Okay," Phillip spoke up with a grin as he got up off the floor and onto his feet. Julia eagerly jumped up as well. Brian followed their lead with less enthusiasm.
The trio raced through the house, across the kitchen and out the back door. Renee noted their passing with a brief look and a smile and then continued with her preparations for the evening meal. Phillip's play with his cousins gave her reason to be happy. She knew that the events of her past would likely not affect their relationship with one-another in the future. Renee was hopeful that Phillip had a connection to his father's family, even if she did not.
It was a pleasant, day in Port Angeles. The temperature was in the upper-seventies and the sky was stuffed with fluffy white clouds. An offshore breeze kept the city comfortably cooled in the summer. The smell of the nearby ocean spilled inland across the entire community. It was an ideal day from Phillip's perspective. Running about out of doors was his favorite activity. The only requirement he had for this was someone to play with. Normally this would have been one or more of his friends in the neighborhood, but Renee had been keeping him indoors, and clean, all morning in preparation for Brian's and Julia's visit. It took only a small amount of encouragement from his two cousins to get him out of the house.
The Swan's backyard was wide and clean. A well tendered carpet of grass covered the bulk of it. An apple tree, and a pear tree, was situated at the far end of it, opposite the house. A sparse collection of flowers ringed the yard. Phillip, Brian and Julia spilled out into the area and raced over to the football lying in the middle of it. Phillip quickly snatched it up off the ground.
"That's not a real football," Brian exclaimed.
"Yes it is."
Phillip's defense was based upon his ignorance regarding the size and makeup of a regulation football. The ball he had was made of rubber and was half as large as the football that the professionals used. This variation from the original was of no importance to Phillip. It looked and functioned just like a football and that was all he cared about. As he and Brian argued over this difference, Julia wandered about a group of flowers and studied them with awe.
"It's a stupid ball," Brian declared with finality.
"No it's not."
"There's nothing to do here," Brian sulked angrily. "My mother said you only have two movie theaters here."
"So?"
"So, we have lots of movie theaters," Brian argued back. "If we were in San Diego, there'd be lots of stuff to do."
"We do stuff here," Phillip retaliated defensively
"We have everything you have and more," Brian insisted snidely.
"Do you have werewolves?" Phillip quickly challenged.
Brian gave Phillip an incredulous look in response to this inquiry.
"We do," Phillip declared a second later.
"No you don't. There's no such thing as werewolves."
"Yes there is," Phillip sternly contradicted. "There in the forest. I've seen them."
"You're lying," Brian challenged.
"No I'm not, they're my friends," Phillip insisted excitedly.
"You're crazy."
Brian had no reason to take his cousin's claim seriously. He suspected that he was making up this fanciful story to make his home community seem more interesting. The fact that he was doing this, by his estimation, made him feel all the more superior to Phillip. For Brian this was a pleasing development. This little cousin that he had never met before had grown, within his mind, to be a nemesis of sorts. As the eldest child and the only son of his parents, Brian enjoyed the adoration of both his mother and father. The special sentimental importance that the name Phillip Jr. had with his mother over the past several years made him resentful of his cousin without ever having seen him.
Brian could tell just from the way his mother spoke about Phillip that she had special feelings for him. The idea of sharing his mother's love with an unseen rival had been a growing vexation for him. It was bad enough that he had to share her affections with Julia. With her, however, his mother's affinity was barely visible most of the time. Julia was not spoken of with intense longing every time her name was mentioned. Her constant presence made repetitive emotional displays too redundant for her mother to even consider doing. To the opposite of this, whenever Sharon spoke of Phillip she did so with pining affection. In Brian's mind, Phillip was a competitor for his mother's love and it felt to him as if he was losing the game.
"It's true," Phillip insisted desperately. "There's a whole bunch of them in the forest."
"You're weird," Brian exclaimed with disgust.
Phillip looked at him with a mixture of dread and anger. He knew he could say or
do nothing more to convince him that he was telling the truth. In Phillip's mind, the shape-shifters were the coolest people anywhere. Brian's incessant belittling of him and his community made him eager to share what he knew with him.
His acquaintance with Nessie and Jacob is how Phillip came to know about the shape-shifters. His connection with the Cullen family in general was too close for them to hide their many secrets. Phillip knew from past instructions that he should never speak of vampires or werewolves to anyone outside of the family. He subconsciously construed this to mean any adult outside of the family. He had spoken of this, by accident, on several occasions to kids his age. In each instance the talk was shortly dismissed as whimsy and forgotten in favor of a new activity. Children were a different entity from adults in his mind. The reasoning his family gave him for not talking about what he knew seemed only to be applicable to someone much older than he. This impression was reinforced after each telling to a child that produced no bad result, not that he knew what this would look like. All that anyone had ever told him was that bad things would happen. In Phillip's mind, children seemed incapable of making bad things happen. So from time to time, Phillip innocently allowed a remark here or a story there to slip out.
Phillip's casual comments about vampires and werewolves were motivated by a desire to tell everyone he knew about them. With each passing day as he grew older and wiser, he became increasingly aware of how much more he was aware of by comparison to everyone else, outside of his family. The realization, that he was living a life that was spectacularly more amazing than his friends and acquaintances, often had him near to the point of bursting with confessions and stories about all that he knew. As his intellect began to mature, his longing for the envy of others grew as well. Because he was just at the beginning of understanding the ramifications that came with telling others all that he knew, slips of the tongue were not uncommon events. When this happened around adults it was simply dismissed as flights of fantasy.
"Can I see the wolves?" Julia emoted with an intrigued expression.
"They don't show themselves to anyone but me," Phillip confessed solemnly.
"See, I told you. He's lying," Brian insisted snidely.
"I'm not," Phillip pleaded. "I've seen them."
"Yeah, then why can't we see them?"
"They don't want anyone to see them," Phillip responded plaintively.
"I don't believe you," Brian countered derisively.
"Why not," Julia whined with an inflection of curiosity?
"Shut up!" Brian loudly ordered his sister. "You're both stupid."
Julia took no great offense from her brother's command. She was used to being ignored and ordered about by him. She had yet to develop the competitive temperament necessary to retaliate against his treatment of her. Instead she pouted and said nothing in response. Julia had no ill feelings towards anyone, during most occasions. Invariably, she was eager to please everyone within close proximity to her. She reveled in the smiles and affections of others and encouraged them whenever possible.
Julia seldom held on to the topic of conversation between Phillip and her brother. Subsequently, she limited her input to displays of innocent smiles and a cheery disposition. Normally, the gist of their conversations was of little interest to her. She was, however, genuinely intrigued by the mention of werewolves in the forest. Fanciful ideas and whimsical stories were a constant fascination for her in this time of her life. In her home, in San Diego, she regularly entreated her father to read to her about Princesses and witches, dragons and heroes. There was never enough whimsy in her daily life to fulfill her want for it. This talk from her new cousin, Phillip, suddenly made him the most exciting person she knew. Talk of magical wolves in the forest was all she needed to hear to catch and hold her full attention.
"I don't care if you don't believe me," Phillip declared resolutely. "It's true. There are werewolves in the forest."
"And they're your friends?" Brian asked contemptuously.
"Yes, we play in the forest together."
"Werewolves don't play with kids," Brian mocked sternly. "Werewolves eat kids."
"Not these werewolves," Phillip quickly contradicted. "They're my friends."
"Then who are they?" Brian questioned with an air of self-confidence.
Phillip had no immediate response for this. He was reluctant to give his cousin the names of the werewolves that he played with. He instinctively knew that this above all else, was a secret that he must never give out to anyone. Dumbfounded by the question, he cast his eyes towards the ground and shuffled his feet for a second.
"I don't know," Phillip lied.
"Then how do you know that they're werewolves?" Brian triumphantly challenged.
"I just do," Phillip responded in an anguished tone of voice.
Brian was convinced that he had cornered his cousin in a lie. He could see that Phillip was unsettled by the question and his instinct told him to pressure Phillip for the truth, not that he was hoping to hear it. What he really wanted was to see Phillip cry. He inched towards his cousin and leaned forward before speaking again.
"You can't know that if you didn't see them change, can you?" Brian hollered at his smaller cousin.
"Yes I can," Phillip meekly answered back.
"You're a liar, aren't you?" Brian hollered back an instant behind Phillip's answer, inching still closer towards his cousin.
"No I'm not," Phillip fumed behind clinched teeth. Tears began to well up in his eyes.
"Yes you are," Brian pummeled again, loudly. "You're a stupid liar and you don't know what you're talking about."
"I do know what I'm talking about," Phillip insisted as a tear rolled down his cheek.
Phillip's stance was rigid and defiant despite the tears. Brian reveled in his accomplishment and inched in still closer as he towered a head taller than his cousin.
"You don't know, nothing," Brian spat at Phillip from a distance of less than a foot. "You're just a liar and I don't believe anything you say."
With his face frowned with anger, more tears continued to roll down Phillip's cheeks. His hands were clinched into fists at the end of rigid arms that extended down both sides of his person. Phillip desperately wanted to hit his bigger, taller, cousin. He wanted to hurt him, to make him cry like he was doing to him. However, he knew that he did not have the size or strength to beat him and he glowered all the more furiously at his cousin for it.
"I'm going inside to watch television," Brian announced derisively as he turned and started to walk away. "You girls can stay out and play catch," Brian concluded with haughty disdain.
Phillip watched him walk away. His stance rigid, his feet firmly fixed in their tracks, he continued to glare at his cousin from behind a tear streaked face. Several seconds later, after Brian had entered the house, Julia walked over to her cousin's side. She could see his pain and his sadness and she empathized, as was her nature. Phillip looked to his right to note her staring at him. Just as soon as he had done this, his little cousin offered the only words she could think of to comfort him.
"I believe you."
16- Sinister Designs
The large living-room was warm and bright. Solid wood, dark cherry finished, coffee and end tables, console table, keepsake cabinet and TV console, dominated the décor with their antique European flavor. An oriental patterned area rug complemented the red, brown and gold hues in the fabric that covered the sofa and sofa chair cushions. A sheer white lace inner curtain softly filtered the mid day's light into the room. Reddish brown, ornately detailed, outer draperies, drawn wide open, accented the room's décor. Tan colored walls were modestly adorned with Baroque, Georgian and Victorian period paintings, each bordered in expensive, intricately carved, wood frames. An oval wall mirror, over the console table, shared the same pattern of flowery framing. Two rows, three apiece, of six inch round, gold trimmed, recessed lighting was situated in the ceiling, all in the off mode. Two, brass, ornate antique looking, five foot hi
gh, floor lamps stood sentinel at either end of the seven foot long sofa, and at the far side of each end table.
The matron of the house, Charlotte Walsh, led her guest into this room with stately decorum. Standing five-feet eight-inches tall, the forty-seven year old blond was slender and handsome. She wore a knee length flower patterned white and blue dress, a pair of nickel size silver loop earrings, a white pearl necklace and one and one-quarter inch heel, stone gray, pumps.
"Please, make yourself at home," Charlotte offered politely. "Joe will be right down."
"Thank you," Sharon responded softly.
"I'm sorry, I'm in the middle of preparing dinner," Charlotte began as she pointed towards the exit at the back end of the room.
"Oh no, that's alright," Sharon quickly cut in.
Charlotte gave Sharon her thanks with a smile and then left the room by way of the exit that she indicated to. Sharon chose to remain standing as she watched Charlotte walk away. Thirty seconds into her wait, a six-foot six-inch tall, fifty-seven year old man casually descended the stairs, from the second floor, into the foyer of the house. Bald along the top of his head, he maintained a short and well groomed covering of silver-white hair along the sides and back. His thin, well-toned physique was attired in an olive green polo shirt, creased khaki colored pants and tan leather deck shoes. Without missing a step, he strode into the living-room and stopped directly in front of Sharon.
"Sharon Cunningham I presume," Joseph Walsh stated blandly.
There was no look of jest in his demeanor. His stare was direct and his bearing was authoritative.
The Malevolent Vampire Page 13
