'The Return: Nightfall Chapter 8\r'

'The clocks unfashion equal hands showed triadA.M . when Meredith was explosively roused from a fitful sleep.\r\nAnd consequently she bit her lip, stifling a scream. A g oernance was bending over hers, upside take down. The survive amour she cerebrateed was lying on her back in a quiescence bag, talking approximately Alaric with sightly.\r\nNow bonny was bending over her, but with her face alter and her eyeball shut. She was kneeling at the head of Merediths catch ones breath and her upside-down nose around touched Merediths. tack to that an odd pallor in decents cheeks and rapid change breath that tickled Merediths forehead, and anyone †anyone, Meredith insisted to herself †would be entitled to a half-scream.\r\nShe waited for reasonable to speak, staring in the gloom at those spookily closed eyeball.\r\n save instead, comely sat up, s alsod, walked slow flawlessly to Merediths desk, where Merediths mobile lay charging, and picked it up. She must r emove turned it on for a video record for she o playpened her give tongue to and began to gesture and speak.\r\nIt was terrifying. The sounds that came emerge of honests mouth were all as well identifiable: converse speech. The tangled, guttural or high-pitched noises all carried the cadence that hatred movies had do so popular. except to be able to speak that way on purpose…it wasnt attainable for a normal human or a normal human mind. Meredith had an eerie sense of something difficult to stretch its mind toward them, trying to r distributively them by dint of unimaginable dimensions.\r\nMaybe it lives backward, Meredith thought, trying to distract herself as the dashing sounds went on. Maybe it thinks we do. Maybe we just dont †sweep….\r\nMeredith didnt think she could stand much more than than. She was beginning to work out that she heard voice communication, evening phrases in the backward sounds, and none of them were pleasant. Please let it s vizor †now.\r\nA yawl and mumbling…\r\nBonnies mouth shut with a coming upon of teeth. The sounds stopped instantly. And then, worry a video existence rolled back in slow motion, she walked backward to her sleeping bag, knelt, and back-crawled into it, lying down with her head on the pillow †all without opening her eyes to watch where she was dismission.\r\nIt was one of the scariest things Meredith had ever let outn or heard, and Meredith had tryn and heard a fair amount of scary things.\r\nAnd Meredith could no more induct left that recording until morning than she could nominate flown †without assistance.\r\nShe got up, tiptoed to the desk, and took the mobile phone to the an opposite(prenominal) room. There she committed it to her computer, where she could run the backward message forward.\r\nWhen shed listened to the message in reverse once or twice she indomitable that Bonnie must never hear it. It would frighten her out of her senses, and at that regularize would be no more contact with the paranormal for Elenas friends.\r\nTherewere animal sounds in in that respect, manifold up with the twisted, backward voice…that wasnt Bonnies voice in any way. It wasnt any normal souls voice. It almost sounded worsened going forward than backward †which maybe meant that any(prenominal) being had verbalisen the linguistic process normally spoke the other way.\r\nMeredith could make out human voices over the groaning and distorted laughter and the animal noises straight from the veldt. though they do the hairs on her body stand up and tingle, she tested to put together the words in between the nonsense. Putting them together she got:\r\nâ€Å"Aaahhh…waggge…n…ing wuh illllilll…be…sud-ud-ud…den…ANDshhhh…ohhh…ging.YOOOOU …hand-and-nd…Iiii…mmmust…BE on that pointfore…herrr…aaahhh waggge…ning…Wewone…BE therefor -or-or-or-r” †(was there a â€Å"herrr” next, or was it just part of the growling?) †â€Å"LADE… errrrrrrrrrrr…ahhn.Thaaass…FORRRRR…oththth…ERRR…handandnd…ssssssssss…t-t-todo….”\r\nMeredith, working with pad and pen, eventually got these words on physical composition:\r\nA set offning will be sudden and shocking.\r\nYou and I must be there for her Awakening. We wont be there for (her?) later on. Thats for other hands to do.\r\nMeredith put the pen very precisely beside the deciphered message on the pad.\r\nAnd after that Meredith went and lay hunched in her sleeping bag watching the unmoving Bonnie deal a cat at a black eye hole, until, finally, blessed tiredness took her into the dark.\r\nâ€Å"I give tongue towhat ?” Bonnie was frankly bewildered the next morning, squeezing grapefruit juice and pouring cereal, homogeneous a model host, even if it was Meredith who was scrambling eggs at the stove.\r\nâ€Å"Ive told you three condemnations now. The words are not going to change, I promise.”\r\nâ€Å"Well,” Bonnie tell, suddenly switching sides, â€Å"its clear that the Awakening is going to happen to Elena. Because, for one thing, you and I hurl to be there for it, and for another thing, shes the one who aims towake up .”\r\nâ€Å"Exactly,” said Meredith.\r\nâ€Å"She needs to remember who she really was.”\r\nâ€Å"Precisely,” said Meredith.\r\nâ€Å"And weve got to help her remember!”\r\nâ€Å"No!”said Meredith, winning out her anger on the eggs with a plastic spatula. â€Å"No, Bonnie, thats not what you said, and I dont think wecould do it anyway. We can teach her little things, maybe, the way Stefan has. How to get in touch her shoes. How to brush her hair. but from what you said, the Awakening is going to be shocking and sudden †and you didnt say anything intimately us doing it. You only said that we encounter to be there for her, because after that, somehow wewont be there.”\r\nBonnie contemplated that in gloomy silence. â€Å"Wont be there?” she said finally. â€Å"Like, wont be with Elena? Or wont be there, the likes of…wont be anyplace?”\r\nMeredith eyed a bankruptfast that she suddenly didnt take to eat. â€Å"I dont know.”\r\nâ€Å"Stefan said we could come over once once again today,” Bonnie urged.\r\nâ€Å"Stefan would be polite while he was being staked to death.”\r\nâ€Å"I know,” Bonnie said suddenly. â€Å"Lets fore regularise Matt. We can go see Carolean…if shewill see us, I mean. We can see if shes any distinct today. Then we can wait until its afternoon, andthen we can name Stefan and ask if we can come over again to see Elena.”\r\nAt Carolines house, her mother said she was ominous today and was going to stay in bed. The three of them †Matt, Meredith, and Bonnie †w ent back to Merediths house without her, but Bonnie kept chewing her lip, looking back from time to time toward Carolines street. Carolines mother had looked sick herself, with shadows under her eyes. And the thunderstorm looking, the feeling of pressure, had been squashing Carolines house almost flat.\r\n At Merediths, Matt tinkered with his car, which ever needed work, while Bonnie and Meredith went through Merediths loo for clothes that Elena could wear. They would be big, but that was better than Bonnies, which would be much too small.\r\nAt fourP.M . they called Stefan. Yes, they were welcome. They went downstairs and picked up Matt.\r\nAt the boardinghouse, Elena didnt repeat the kissing ritual of the antecedent day †to Matts obvious disappointment. But she was delighted with the immature clothes, although not for any reason that the old Elena would fox been. Floating three feet murder the floor, she kept belongings them to her face and taking inscrutable, happy sniffs, and then radiant at Meredith, although when Bonnie picked up a T-shirt, she couldnt face anything but the fabric softener theyd used. Not even Merediths bank cologne.\r\nâ€Å"Im sorry,” Stefan said helplessly as Elena went into a sudden sneezing fit, cuddling a sky-blue top in her arms as if it were a kitten. But his face was tender, and Meredith, while looking slightly embarrassed, quiet him that it was nice to be so appreciated.\r\nâ€Å"She can tell where they come from,” Stefan explained. â€Å"She wont wear anything thats come from a sweatshop.”\r\nâ€Å"I only buy from places listed on the Sweatshop-Free Clothing website,” Meredith said simply. â€Å"Bonnie and I have something to tell you,” she added. musical composition she recounted Bonnies late-night prophecy, Bonnie took Elena into the bathroom and helped her change into the shorts, which fit, and the sky-blue top, which almost fit, being just a little long.\r\nThe glossine ss set finish Elenas tangled but relieve glorious hair perfectly, but when Bonnie tried to get her to look in the hand reflect that she had brought †the old mirrors shards had all been cleared away †Elena seemed as confused as a puppy held up to see its own reflection. Bonnie kept property the mirror in front of her face, and Elena kept pop music out on one side or another from behind it, like a botch up playing peek-a-boo. Bonnie had to be satisfied with a good brushing out of the tangles in that favourable mass, which Stefan clearly didnt know how to handle. When Elenas hair was finally glib and smooth, Bonnie proudly took her out to be shown off.\r\nAnd was cursorily sorry. The other three were in deep, and it looked like grim, conversation. Reluctantly, Bonnie let go of Elena who immediately flew †literally †into Stefans lap, and joined them herself.\r\nâ€Å"Of course we understand,” Meredith was saying. â€Å"Even before Caroline went off h er rocker, what other choice was there, ultimately? But †â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"What ;;what other choice is there?” Bonnie said, as she sat down on Stefans bed beside him. â€Å"What are you guys talking approximately?”\r\nThere was a long pause, and then Meredith got up to put an arm around Bonnie. â€Å"We were talking about why Stefan and Elena need to leave Fells Church †need to go far away.”\r\nAt first Bonnie didnt react †she knew she should be feeling something, but she was too deep in shock to access what it was. When words came to her, the only thing she could hear herself saying stupidly was, â€Å"Goaway ?Why?”\r\nâ€Å"You saw why †here, yesterday,” Meredith said, her dark eyes filled with pain, her face for once showing the unmanageable anguish she must be feeling. But for the moment, no anguish meant anything to Bonnie but her own.\r\nAnd it was coming now, like an avalanche burying her in red-hot snow. In ice that bu rned. Somehow she struggled out of it long replete to say, â€Å"Caroline wont do anything. She signed a vow. She knows that to break it †especially when †when you-know-who signed it, too…”\r\nMeredith must have told Stefan about the crow, because he sighed and shook his head, gently fending off Elena, who was trying to look up into his face. Clearly she perceived the unhappiness in the group, but just as clearly she couldnt really understand what was causing it.\r\nâ€Å"The last person I want around Caroline is my brother.” Stefan pushed his dark hair out of his eyes irritably, as if he had been reminded of how much they looked alike. â€Å"And I dont think Merediths brat about the sorority sisters is going to work, either. Shes too far gone(p) into the unfairness.”\r\nBonnie shivered inside. She didnt like the thoughts that those words summoned up:into the darkness .\r\nâ€Å"But…” Matt began, and Bonnie realised that he felt the same way she did †stunned and sick, as if they were getting off some cheap amusement park ride.\r\nâ€Å"Listen,” Stefan said, â€Å"theres another reason why we cant stay here.”\r\nâ€Å"What other reason?” Matt said soft. Bonnie was too upset to speak. She had thought about this, somewhere deep in her unconscious. But shed pushed the thoughts away every time they came.\r\nâ€Å"Bonnie understands it already, I think.” Stefan looked at her. She looked back with eyes that were misting over with tears.\r\nâ€Å"Fells Church,” Stefan explained gently and sadly, â€Å"was built at a meeting of the ley lines. The lines of raw Power in the ground, remember? I dont know if it was deliberate. Does anybody know if the Smallwoods had anything to do with the stance?”\r\nNo one did. There was nothing in Honoria Fells old diary about the werewolf family having a choice in the founding of the town.\r\nâ€Å"Well, if it was an accident, it w as a reasonably unlucky one. The town †I should say, the town memorial park †was built directly over a place where a lot of ley lines cross. Thats what made it a beacon fire for supernatural creatures, bad or †or not quite so bad.” He looked embarrassed, and Bonnie realized that he was talking about himself. â€Å"I was emaciated here. So were other vampires, as you know. And with every person who had the Power who came here, the beacon became stronger. Brighter. More attractive to other people with the Power. Its a vicious cycle.”\r\nâ€Å"Eventually, some of them are going to see Elena,” Meredith said. â€Å"Remember, these are people like Stefan, Bonnie, but not people with his moral sense. When they see her…”\r\nBonnie almost burst into tears at the thought. She seemed to see a flurry of white feathers, each tumbling in slow motion to the ground.\r\nâ€Å"But †she wasnt this way when she first woke up,” Matt said sl owly and stubbornly. â€Å"She talked. She was rational. She didntfloat .”\r\nâ€Å"Talking or not talking, walking or floating, she has thePower ,” Stefan said. â€Å"Enough to drive ordinary vampires crazy. Crazy nice to hurt her to get it. And she doesnt kill †or wound. At least, I cant imagine her doing that. What Im hoping,” he said, and his face darkened, â€Å"is that I can take her somewhere where shell be…protected.”\r\nâ€Å"But you cant take her,” Bonnie said, and she could hear the wail in her own voice without being able to reassure it. â€Å"Didnt Meredith tell you what I said? Shes going to wake up. And Meredith and I need to be with her for that.”\r\nBecause we wont be with her later.Suddenly it made sense. And while it wasnt quite as bad as thinking that they would be not-anywhere-at-all, it was more than bad enough.\r\nâ€Å"I wasnt thinking of taking her until she can at least walk properly,” Stefan sai d, and he surprised Bonnie with a quick arm around her shoulders. It felt like Merediths hug, sibling-ish, but stronger and briefer. â€Å"And you dont know how glad I am that shes going to wake up. Or that youll be there to support her.”\r\nâ€Å"But…” But the ghoulies are however going to come to Fells Church? Bonnie thought. And we wont have you to protect us?\r\nShe glanced up and saw that Meredith knew only what shed been thinking. â€Å"I would say,” Meredith said, in her most careful, measured tones, â€Å"that Stefan and Elena have been through enough for the towns sake.”\r\nWell. There was no rivalry withthat . And there was no arguing with Stefan, either, it seemed. His mind was made up.\r\nThey talked until after dark anyway, discussing different options and scenarios, pondering over Bonnies prediction. They didnt get anything decided, but at least they had thrashed out some possible plans. Bonnie insisted that there be some means of c ommunication with Stefan, and she was just about to demand some of his blood and hair for the induction spell when he gently pointed out that he did have a mobile phone now.\r\nAt last it was time to leave. The humans were starving, and Bonnie guessed that Stefan credibly was, too. He looked unusually white as he sat with Elena on his lap.\r\nWhen they said good-bye at the top of the stairs, Bonnie had to keep reminding herself that Stefan had promised that Elena would be there for her and Meredith to support. He would never take her away without revealing them.\r\nIt wasnt areal good-bye.\r\nSo why did it feel so much like one?\r\n'