JК
Breaking Dawn :: Meyer Stephenie
Страница: 19 из 429Tanya’s mother’s story was one among many, a cautionarytale illustrating just one of the rules I would need to be aware of when I joined the immortal world. Only one rule, actually—one law that broke down into a thousand different facets: Keep the secret .
Keeping the secret meant a lot of things—living inconspicuously like the Cullens, moving on before humans could suspect they weren’t aging. Or keeping clear of humans altogether—except at mealtime—the way nomads like James and Victoria had lived; the way Jasper’s friends, Peter and Charlotte, still lived. It meant keeping control of whatever new vampires you created, like Jasper had done when he’d lived with Maria. Like Victoria had failed to do with her newborns.
And it meant not creating some things in the first place, because some creations were uncontrollable.
“I don’t know Tanya’s mother’s name,” Carlisle had admitted, his golden eyes, almost the exact shade of his fair hair, sad with remembering Tanya’s pain. “They never speak of her if they can avoid it, never think of her willingly.
“The woman who created Tanya, Kate, and Irina—who loved them, I believe—lived many years before I was born, during a time of plague in our world, the plague of the immortal children.
“What they were thinking, those ancient ones, I can’t begin to understand. They created vampires out of humans who were barely more than infants.”
I’d had to swallow back the bile that rose in my throat as I’d pictured what he was describing.
“They were very beautiful,” Carlisle had explained quickly, seeing my reaction. “So endearing, so enchanting, you can’t imagine. You had but to be near them to love them; it was an automatic thing.
“However, they could not be taught. They were frozen at whatever level of development they’d achieved before being bitten. Adorable two-year-olds with dimples and lisps that could destroy half a village in one of their tantrums. If they hungered, they fed, and no words of warning could restrain them. Humans saw them, stories circulated, fear spread like fire in dry brush. . . .
“Tanya’s mother created such a child. As with the other ancients, I cannot fathom her reasons.” He’d taken a deep, steadying breath. “The Volturi became involved, of course.”
I’d flinched as I always did at that name, but of course the legion of Italian vampires—royalty in their own estimation—was central to this story. There couldn’t be a law if there was no punishment; there couldn’t be a punishment if there was no one to deliver it.
Keeping the secret meant a lot of things—living inconspicuously like the Cullens, moving on before humans could suspect they weren’t aging. Or keeping clear of humans altogether—except at mealtime—the way nomads like James and Victoria had lived; the way Jasper’s friends, Peter and Charlotte, still lived. It meant keeping control of whatever new vampires you created, like Jasper had done when he’d lived with Maria. Like Victoria had failed to do with her newborns.
And it meant not creating some things in the first place, because some creations were uncontrollable.
“I don’t know Tanya’s mother’s name,” Carlisle had admitted, his golden eyes, almost the exact shade of his fair hair, sad with remembering Tanya’s pain. “They never speak of her if they can avoid it, never think of her willingly.
“The woman who created Tanya, Kate, and Irina—who loved them, I believe—lived many years before I was born, during a time of plague in our world, the plague of the immortal children.
“What they were thinking, those ancient ones, I can’t begin to understand. They created vampires out of humans who were barely more than infants.”
I’d had to swallow back the bile that rose in my throat as I’d pictured what he was describing.
“They were very beautiful,” Carlisle had explained quickly, seeing my reaction. “So endearing, so enchanting, you can’t imagine. You had but to be near them to love them; it was an automatic thing.
“However, they could not be taught. They were frozen at whatever level of development they’d achieved before being bitten. Adorable two-year-olds with dimples and lisps that could destroy half a village in one of their tantrums. If they hungered, they fed, and no words of warning could restrain them. Humans saw them, stories circulated, fear spread like fire in dry brush. . . .
“Tanya’s mother created such a child. As with the other ancients, I cannot fathom her reasons.” He’d taken a deep, steadying breath. “The Volturi became involved, of course.”
I’d flinched as I always did at that name, but of course the legion of Italian vampires—royalty in their own estimation—was central to this story. There couldn’t be a law if there was no punishment; there couldn’t be a punishment if there was no one to deliver it.