“That’s different,” Jacob said, and I watched in surprise as he mock-punched Edward’s shoulder. “Bella’s supposed to be a grown-up. Married and a mom and all that. Shouldn’t there be more dignity?”

Renesmee frowned, and touched Edward’s face.

“What does she want?” I asked.

“Less dignity,” Edward said with a grin. “She was having almost as much fun watching you enjoy yourself as I was.”

“Am I funny?” I asked Renesmee, darting back and reaching for her at the same time that she reached for me. I took her out of Edward’s arms and offered her the shard of rock in my hand. “You want to try?”

She smiled her glittering smile and took the stone in both hands. She squeezed, a little dent forming between her eyebrows as she concentrated.

There was a tiny grinding sound, and a bit of dust. She frowned, and held the chunk up to me.

“I’ll get it,” I said, pinching the stone into sand.

She clapped and laughed; the delicious sound of it made us all join in.

The sun suddenly burst through the clouds, shooting long beams of ruby and gold across the ten of us, and I was immediately lost in the beauty of my skin in the light of the sunset. Dazed by it.

Renesmee stroked the smooth diamond-bright facets, then laid her arm next to mine. Her skin had just a faint luminosity, subtle and mysterious. Nothing that would keep her inside on a sunny day like my glowing sparkle. She touched my face, thinking of the difference and feeling disgruntled.

“You’re the prettiest,” I assured her.

“I’m not sure I can agree to that,” Edward said, and when I turned to answer him, the sunlight on his face stunned me into silence.

Jacob had his hand in front of his face, pretending to shield his eyes from the glare. “Freaky Bella,” he commented.

“What an amazing creature she is,” Edward murmured, almost in agreement, as if Jacob’s comment was meant as a compliment. He was both dazzling and dazzled.

It was a strange feeling—not surprising, I supposed, since everything felt strange now—this being a natural at something. As a human, I’d never been best at anything. I was okay at dealing with Renee, but probably lots of people could have done better; Phil seemed to be holding his own. I was a good student, but never the top of the class. Obviously, I could be counted out of anything athletic. Not artistic or musical, no particular talents to brag of. Nobody ever gave away a trophy for reading books. After eighteen years of mediocrity, I was pretty used to being average. I realized now that I’d long ago given up any aspirations of shining at anything. I just did the best with what I had, never quite fitting into my world.

So this was really different. I was amazing now—to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined.

I took mythology a lot more seriously since I’d become a vampire.

Often, when I looked back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagined how the thread of my life might look in the Fates’ loom—who knew but that it actually existed? I was sure my thread must have changed color; I thought it had probably started out as a nice beige, something supportive and non-confrontational, something that would look good in the background. Now it felt like it must be bright crimson, or maybe glistening gold.

The tapestry of family and friends that wove together around me was a beautiful, glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors.

I was surprised by some of the threads I got to include in my life. The werewolves, with their deep, woodsy colors, were not something I’d expected; Jacob, of course, and Seth, too. But my old friends Quil and Embry became part of the fabric as they joined Jacob’s pack, and even Sam and Emily were cordial. The tensions between our families eased, mostly due to Renesmee. She was easy to love.

Sue and Leah Clearwater were interlaced into our life, too—two more I had not anticipated.

Sue seemed to have taken it on herself to smooth Charlie’s transition into the world of make-believe. She came with him to the Cullens’ most days, though she never seemed truly comfortable here the way her son and most of Jake’s pack did. She did not speak often; she just hovered protectively near Charlie. She was always the first person he looked to when Renesmee did something disturbingly advanced—which was often. In answer, Sue would eye Seth meaningfully as if to say, Yeah, tell me about it.

Leah was even less comfortable than Sue and was the only part of our recently extended family who was openly hostile to the merger. However, she and Jacob had a new camaraderie that kept her close to us all. I asked him about it once—hesitantly; I didn’t want to pry, but the relationship was so different from the way it used to be that it made me curious. He shrugged and told me it was a pack thing. She was his second-in-command now, his “beta,” as I’d called it once long ago.

“I figured as long as I was going to do this Alpha thing for real,” Jacob explained, “I’d better nail down the formalities.”

The new responsibility made Leah feel the need to check in with him often, and since he was always with Renesmee…

Leah was not happy to be near us, but she was the exception. Happiness was the main component in my life now, the dominant pattern in the tapestry. So much so that my relationship with Jasper was now much closer than I’d ever dreamed it would be.

At first I was really annoyed, though.

“Yeesh!” I complained to Edward one night after we’d put Renesmee in her wrought-iron crib. “If I haven’t killed Charlie or Sue yet, it’s probably not going to happen. I wish Jasper would stop hovering all the time!”

“No one doubts you, Bella, not in the slightest,” he assured me. “You know how Jasper is—he can’t resist a good emotional climate. You’re so happy all the time, love, he gravitates toward you without thinking.”

And then Edward hugged me tightly, because nothing pleased him more than my overwhelming ecstasy in this new life.

And I was euphoric the vast majority of the time. The days were not long enough for me to get my fill of adoring my daughter; the nights did not have enough hours to satisfy my need for Edward.

There was a flipside to the joy, though. If you turned the fabric of our lives over, I imagined the design on the backside would be woven in the bleak grays of doubt and fear.

Renesmee spoke her first word when she was exactly one week old. The word was Momma, which would have made my day, except that I was so frightened by her progress I could barely force my frozen face to smile back at her. It didn’t help that she continued from her first word to her first sentence in the same breath. “Momma, where is Grandpa?” she’d asked in a clear, high soprano, only bothering to speak aloud because I was across the room from her. She’d already asked Rosalie, using her normal (or seriously abnormal, from another point of view) means of communication. Rosalie hadn’t known the answer, so Renesmee had turned to me.

When she walked for the first time, fewer than three weeks later, it was similar. She’d simply stared at Alice for a long moment, watching intently as her aunt arranged bouquets in the vases scattered around the room, dancing back and forth across the floor with her arms full of flowers. Renesmee got to her feet, not in the least bit shaky, and crossed the floor almost as gracefully.

Jacob had burst into applause, because that was clearly the response Renesmee wanted. The way he was tied to her made his own reactions secondary; his first reflex was always to give Renesmee whatever she needed. But our eyes met, and I saw all the panic in mine echoed in his. I made my hands clap together, too, trying to hide my fear from her. Edward applauded quietly at my side, and we didn’t need to speak our thoughts to know they were the same.