

He laughed and set me down. I turned to wave goodbye, but the silver car was already 
disappearing around the curve in the road. 

"Nice," I commented, allowing some acid to leak into my voice. 

His eyes widened in false innocence. "What?" 

"He's being pretty dang pleasant about this; you don't need to push your luck." 

He laughed again, louder than before - he found what I'd said very funny indeed. I tried to 
see the joke as he walked around the Rabbit to hold my door open for me. 

"Bella," he finally said - still chuckling - as he shut the door behind me, "you can't push what 
you don't have." 

 

11. LEGENDS 

"ARE YOU GONNA EAT THAT HOT DOG?" PAUL ASKED JAcob, his eyes locked on 
the last remnant of the huge meal the werewolves had consumed. 

Jacob leaned back against my knees and toyed with the hot dog he had spitted on a 
straightened wire hanger; the flames at the edge of the bonfire licked along its blistered skin. 
He heaved a sigh and patted his stomach. It was somehow still flat, though I'd lost count of 
how many hot dogs he'd eaten after his tenth. Not to mention the super-sized bag of chips or 
the two-liter bottle of root beer. 

"I guess," Jake said slowly. "I'm so full I'm about to puke, but Ithink I can force it down. I 
won't enjoy it at all, though." He sighed again sadly. 

Despite the fact that Paul had eaten at least as much as Jacob, he glowered and his hands 
balled up into fists. 

"Sheesh." Jacob laughed. "Kidding, Paul. Here." 

He flipped the homemade skewer across the circle. I expected it to land hot-dog-first in the 
sand, but Paul caught it neatly on the right end without difficulty. 

Hanging out with no one but extremely dexterous people all the time was going to give me a 
complex. 

"Thanks, man," Paul said, already over his brief fit of temper. 

The fire crackled, settling lower toward the sand. Sparks blew up in a sudden puff of brilliant 
orange against the black sky. Funny, I hadn't noticed that the sun had set. For the first time, I 
wondered how late it had gotten. I'd lost track of time completely. 

It was easier being with my Quileute friends than I'd expected. 

While Jacob and I had dropped off my bike at the garage - and he had admitted ruefully that 
the helmet was a good idea that he should have thought of himself - I'd started to worry 
about showing up with him at the bonfire, wondering if the werewolves would consider me a 
traitor now. Would they be angry with Jacob for inviting me? Would I ruin the party? 

But when Jacob had towed me out of the forest to the clifftop meeting place - where the fire 
already roared brighter than the cloud-obscured sun - it had all been very casual and light. 

"Hey, vampire girl!" Embry had greeted me loudly. Quil had jumped up to give me a high 
five and kiss me on the cheek. Emily had squeezed my hand when we'd sat on the cool stone 
ground beside her and Sam. 

Other than a few teasing complaints - mostly by Paul - about keeping the bloodsucker stench 
downwind, I was treated like someone who belonged. 

 

It wasn't just kids in attendance, either. Billy was here, his wheelchair stationed at what 
seemed the natural head of the circle. Beside him on a folding lawn chair, looking quite 
brittle, was Quil's ancient, white-haired grandfather, Old Quil. Sue Clearwater, widow of 
Charlie's friend Harry, had a chair on his other side; her two children, Leah and Seth, were 
also there, sitting on the ground like the rest of us. This surprised me, but all three were 
clearly in on the secret now. From the way Billy and Old Quil spoke to Sue, it sounded to me 
like she'd taken Harry's place on the council. Did that make her children automatic members 
of La Push's most secret society? 

I wondered how horrible it was for Leah to sit across the circle from Sam and Emily. Her 
lovely face betrayed no emotion, but she never looked away from the flames. Looking at the 
perfection of Leah's features, I couldn't help but compare them to Emily's ruined face. What 
did Leah think of Emily's scars, now that she knew the truth behind them? Did it seem like 
justice in her eyes? 

Little Seth Clearwater wasn't so little anymore. With his huge, happy grin and his long, 
gangly build, he reminded me very much of a younger Jacob. The resemblance made me 
smile, and then sigh. Was Seth doomed to have his life change as drastically as the rest of 
these boys? Was that future why he and his family were allowed to be here? 

The whole pack was there: Sam with his Emily, Paul, Embry, Quil, and Jared with Kim, the 
girl he'd imprinted upon. 

My first impression of Kim was that she was a nice girl, a little shy, and a little plain. She had 
a wide face, mostly cheekbones, with eyes too small to balance them out. Her nose and 
mouth were both too broad for traditional beauty. Her flat black hair was thin and wispy in 
the wind that never seemed to let up atop the cliff. 

That was my first impression. But after a few hours of watching Jared watch Kim, I could no 
longer find anything plain about the girl. 

The way he stared at her! It was like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. Like a 
collector finding an undiscovered Da Vinci, like a mother looking into the face of her 
newborn child. 

His wondering eyes made me see new things about her - how her skin looked like 
russet-colored silk in the firelight, how the shape of her lips was a perfect double curve, how 
white her teeth were against them, how long her eyelashes were, brushing her cheek when 
she looked down. 

Kim's skin sometimes darkened when she met Jared's awed gaze, and her eyes would drop as 
if in embarrassment, but she had a hard time keeping her eyes away from his for any length of 
time. 

Watching them, I felt like I better understood what Jacob had told me about imprinting 

 

before -it's hard to resist that level of commitment and adoration. 

Kim was nodding off now against Jared's chest, his arms around her. I imagined she would 
be very warm there. 

"It's getting late," I murmured to Jacob. 

"Don't startthat yet," Jacob whispered back - though certainly half the group here had hearing 
sensitive enough to hear us anyway. "The best part is coming." 

"What's the best part? You swallowing an entire cow whole?" 

Jacob chuckled his low, throaty laugh. "No. That's the finale. We didn't meet just to eat 
through a week's worth of food. This is technically a council meeting. It's Quil's first time, 
and he hasn't heard the stories yet. Well, he'sheard them, but this will be the first time he 
knows they're true. That tends to make a guy pay closer attention. Kim and Seth and Leah 
are all first-timers, too." 

"Stories?" 

Jacob scooted back beside me, where I rested against a low ridge of rock. He put his arm 
over my shoulder and spoke even lower into my ear. 

"The histories we always thought were legends," he said. "The stories of how we came to be. 
The first is the story of the spirit warriors." 

It was almost as if Jacob's soft whisper was the introduction. The atmosphere changed 
abruptly around the low-burning fire. Paul and Embry sat up straighter. Jared nudged Kim 
and then pulled her gently upright. 

Emily produced a spiral-bound notebook and a pen, looking exactly like a student set for an 
important lecture. Sam twisted just slightly beside her - so that he was facing the same 
direction as Old Quil, who was on his other side - and suddenly I realized that the elders of 
the council here were not three, but four in number. 

Leah Clearwater, her face still a beautiful and emotionless mask, closed her eyes - not like 
she was tired, but as if to help her concentration. Her brother leaned in toward the elders 
eagerly. 

The fire crackled, sending another explosion of sparks glittering up against the night. 

Billy cleared his throat, and, with no more introduction than his son's whisper, began telling 
the story in his rich, deep voice. The words poured out with precision, as if he knew them by 
heart, but also with feeling and a subtle rhythm. Like poetry performed by its author. 

"The Quileutes have been a small people from the beginning," Billy said. "And we are a small 
people still, but we have never disappeared. This is because there has always been magic in 

 

our blood. It wasn't always the magic of shape-shifting - that came later. First, we were spirit 
warriors." 

Never before had I recognized the ring of majesty that was in Billy Black's voice, though I 
realized now that this authority had always been there. 

Emily's pen sprinted across the sheets of paper as she tried to keep up with him. 

"In the beginning, the tribe settled in this harbor and became skilled ship builders and 
fishermen. But the tribe was small, and the harbor was rich in fish. There were others who 
coveted our land, and we were too small to hold it. A larger tribe moved against us, and we 
took to our ships to escape them. 

"Kaheleha was not the first spirit warrior, but we do not remember the stories that came 
before his. We do not remember who was the first to discover this power, or how it had been 
used before this crisis. Kahelehawas the first great Spirit Chief in our history. In this 
emergency, Kaheleha used the magic to defend our land. 

"He and all his warriors left the ship - not their bodies, but their spirits. Their women 
watched over the bodies and the waves, and the men took their spirits back to our harbor. 

"They could not physically touch the enemy tribe, but they had other ways. The stories tell us 
that they could blow fierce winds into their enemy's camps; they could make a great 
screaming in the wind that terrified their foes. The stories also tell us that the animals could 
see the spirit warriors and understand them; the animals wou