Luckily today is finally Friday (after Thursday felt like a pretty good imitation) so we can stay up late tonight and sleep in late tomorrow. Plus it's a bonus weekend; Bank Holiday!
But anyway, let's get on with the next chapter of New Moon. This week it's Chapter 16: Paris.
Bella doesn't drown after all. Jacob rescues her. Someone dies. It isn't Bella. It isn't Jacob either. Bella spends a lot of time thinking about Romeo and Juliet (and I spend some time waffling about a dream I had last night) and then it looks as though someone from Bella's past might have come back.
Thoughts as I read:
This chapter being called 'Paris' is kind of funny because while I was waiting for my laptop to start up (a considerably shorter wait than my old laptop, it must be said) I was reading a discussion online about whether or not Paris is a male or female name. It'll be interesting if Paris is a character's name, though I don't remember hearing anyone mentioning it in relation to a character in Twilight. My guess is it's something boring, like where Edward's been hanging out all this time.
When we left Bella last she was in the middle of drowning. She's still kind of doing that here, but she's actually made it back to the surface and a voice is still yelling at her to breathe. Except it's not Edward's any more. Nope, it's Jacob. How convenient.
Also, how traumatic for him?! He's probably just witnessed the girl he kind of likes throwing herself off a cliff into the water and is now trying to save her from drowning. Guy deserves a medal for putting up with her, I tell you.
Jacob's not alone. As Bella slowly comes back to herself she recognises the other voice as Sam. Jake's relieved when she finally manages to croak out his name. I'm probably a very bad person because my immediate response wouldn't really have been one of relief. I think Bella's already part vampire because she's nigh on indestructible!
The water licked and writhed up the sand after us as Jacob carried me away, like it was angry that I'd escaped. As I stared wearily, a spark of color caught my unfocused eyes - a small flash of fire was dancing on the black water, far out in the bay. The image made no sense, and I wondered how conscious I really was. My head swirled with the memory of the black, churning water - of being so lost that I couldn't find up or down. So lost... but somehow Jacob...
Okay, I don't care what's up with Bella, but I do want to know about the fire on the water. What's the deal with that?
Jacob's pretty angry at Bella after all, which I'm pleased about. Do you think impressionable youngsters would do something like this? As in, 'if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?' 'Well, Bella did and she got a cuddle from Jacob'.
Bella changes the subject from how stupid she'd been to whether or not Jacob had successfully found Victoria. He hasn't. Is this going to get dragged out into the next book because I'm not sure I can stand that?
Victoria took off into the water but they lost her. Okay then.
Oh and Harry Clearwater is in the hospital after having had a heart attack. Charlie and Billy are both with him at the hospital and for once Bella feels a bit of shame about the way that she behaved. Good. She's realised that everyone else has enough to worry about without her throwing herself off of cliffs in an effort to hear her ex-boyfriend's voice.
They wind up at Jacob's house where he roots out some dry clothes for her to wear but before she can get changed they both end up taking a nap.
And I'm wondering if this is where Paris will come into the chapter because we're nowhere near France at the moment.
Bella has a random dream about Romeo and Juliet, with Juliet leaning on a balcony on a stage. It's clear that Bella really studied this text because she knows the names of the other characters, like Rosaline and and Paris. Ah, there we go! She ponders what would've happened if she and Romeo hadn't split up? Is she Romeo in this scenario? Edward is Rosaline and Jacob is Juliet? Am I reading this right?
Oh wait, no Bella's not that nuanced. In this scenario she's Juliet and Jacob is Paris. And all I can think of is that I would much rather be reading Romeo and Juliet than this waffle about it. Seriously! It goes on for about two pages! All this because of one random little dream snippet.
I kind of get the impression that Meyer had this idea for this brilliant comparison of Edward and Bella as Romeo and Juliet and then needed to shoehorn it in there somehow. And so that's why we got the random dream snippet.
Speaking of random dream snippets, I'm going to introduce a brief interlude so I can tell you all about the incredibly random dream I had last night.
I came downstairs into my living room to find Mr Click was there, surrounded by a Moses basket, bouncy chair and a mat/blanket with a little baby girl on it. She was dressed all in a pink frilly dress and when I picked her up her head did that little baby lolling thing and I momentarily panicked that I wasn't holding her right. Then she smiled at me so I figured I hadn't hurt her.
In that weird dream way I knew that she was some small percent Chinese and I don't even know why that was relevant. She had the most beautiful eyes.
Naturally I asked Mr Click where the baby had come from and he told me that 'the doctor had made some arrangements'. There was something in there about her real parents travelling across Scotland to bring the baby to the doctor who had then passed her on to us. Actually, now I'm typing this out I'm wondering if perhaps the doctor shouldn't really be the Doctor. Perhaps I should've checked out the window for a blue box.
But I was distracted by the random baby that had suddenly appeared in my house and wondering how I was going to explain her to the neighbours. At this point Mr Click informed me that her name was Shay, to which I replied 'do you think we can make that her second middle name? Because I don't really like it' before trying to turn the subject back to how we'd acquired her.
And he was about to tell me when I woke up.
I really wonder what that was all about. Whatever it's supposed to mean, I think it's a hell of a lot more interesting than what Bella dreams.
Anyway, back to the book.
Bella's moved on to wondering about the flames on the water. If the vampire disappeared into the water to escape from the werewolves, could the flame somehow have been her? Some vampires sparkle, do others look like flames?
Before Bella can spend too long wondering about this Billy arrives home. Harry didn't make it. It's very sad.
Then Jake goes to get Bella's truck to take her home and then he plans to do a little more vampire hunting. Meanwhile Bella is trying to work out whether she feels like Jacob is her brother or if she wants more from him.
I could stake a claim. I had that much within my power.
I'm not even sure what this means but I find the reference to staking anything kind of ironic in a book about a girl who has a relationship with a vampire.
As I read on it becomes apparent that she's thinking about getting into a relationship with him. The main reasons for this seem to be a) because he makes her feel safe, and b) he wouldn't say no. Two very good reasons for hooking up with someone.
Oh and we get a c) as well; Edward wants Bella to be happy and being with Jacob would probably make her happy.
Wouldn't Edward, indifferent as he might be, want me to be as happy as was possible under the circumstance? Wouldn't enough friendly emotion linger for him to want that much for me? I thought he would. He wouldn't begrudge me this: giving just a small bit of the love he didn't want to my friend Jacob. After all, it wasn't the same love at all.
Uh, yeah.
And then Bella hears Edward's voice telling her to 'be happy' while she considers all this. I guess Edward would just be thrilled that she would want to obsess over someone else instead of him. He's probably itching for her to move on so he can get on with life... er... death as quickly as possible.
But the moment is ruined because at that very moment Jacob smells a vampire and orders Bella out of the truck. Except the vampire he's smelling isn't Victoria. Carlisle Cullen's car is parked across from Bella's house and this is the vampire he's smelling. Jacob is still weary in case this is some sort of trick, or y'know, agreement with Edward to get rid of Bella once and for all.
Clearly he can smell vampire, but he can't tell the difference between male and female or one vampire and another completely different vampire. That's a bit crap. The female Cullens had better watch out if they're thinking of coming back.
It also throws a spanner in the works of the werewolves plan because it means that they can't go into vampire territory and that means Victoria has a bunch of safe places to hideout. Surely it also means that Bella's going to be largely without protection a lot of the time now. That might have its upside then.
Bella admittedly does feel a little guilty right now. This quickly gives way to a sense of something else, something a little more panic-flavoured as she realises that what she was seeing on the sea wasn't flame but Victoria's hair blowing in the wind. That means Bella very nearly met a sticky end.
Which may still happen because there's someone waiting in the house for her...
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