How It All Goes Down
Long Night
- Edward and Bella cuddle and kiss in her bed the night before their wedding. When Bella brings up Edward's promise to make love to her, he worries again that he'll hurt Bella and would rather make love to her after she has become a vampire. On the other hand, he confesses that he hates taking away her ability to have children and her human life. "I want to give you things, not take them away from you" (2.57). Bella tells him to stop being such a downer.
- Emmett and Jasper interrupt their conversation to take Edward on a bachelor party/hunting trip.
- Drifting off to sleep, Bella reflects on the volatile mix of wedding guests: humans, werewolves, and vampires. The Denali vampire sisters, Tanya and Kate, are expected to attend, but not Irina, who never got over the Cullens siding with the werewolves on killing Laurent.
- Thinking about the Denali sisters, Bella remembers a story that Carlisle told her about their mother and the plague of immortal children.
- A long time ago, vampires created immortal children out of human infants. Although they were beautiful and endearing, they lacked self-control and decimated entire villages in their thirst for blood. Their killing sprees endangered the secrecy of the vampire world, so the Volturi stepped in. A blood bath ensued in which entire vampire covens were destroyed as they tried to protect their immortal children.
- The mother of the Denali clan created such an immortal child. The Volturi came for her and the child, but spared her daughters, because they didn't know of their existence.
- Bella dreams of a beautiful immortal boy, surrounded by a horde of advancing Volturi. The child trembles with fear. She wants to save him, but she realizes the child is sitting on "a pile of human bodies, drained and lifeless" (2.128). She recognizes the faces of her school friends and parents. The child looks back at her with "bright, bloodred eyes."