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i. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Everyone knows Forks is near a Coldtown.
Small animals disappear from backyards no matter how many rose bushes the owners plant. The gaunt faces of travelers have their last meals at the diner, dumping wads of blood-splattered cash on the linoleum tables. The local church preaches each Sunday about saving souls from the eternal prison of immortality, sweating over a basin of holy water, and gifting each child a silver cross.
FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS GO COLD, a poster at the high school says. The counselor has pamphlets about colleges in the sunnier parts of the country. The police mandate the curfew, making sure children are locked behind doors.
Forks should be safe, but it's not enough.
Because one night at a sunrise party, Bella hears something scratching at the window.
ii. October Daye
Edward turns away. “Carlisle gave me a choice. By Oberon’s Law, he had to.”
She keeps one hand in her jacket pocket. The iron nail is cold against her palm, even as the shadows move across the forest floor. The trees are dense in this part, bits of mist curled around the branches, the slow drip of water.
It feels like a fairytale, but Bella isn’t sure which one she’s in.
“I was dying, and only…only forsaking my human heritage could save me.” Edward’s auburn hair looks brighter like the saturation has turned up. “He brought me to the Summerlands and showed me how to live in the Courts, how I can use my magic to help…” His voice breaks. He looks back at Bella. “And here you are, with your kirtle green and above your knee.”
iii. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The gym teacher is possessed. Or was possessed.
Bella is almost sure that knocking the man out works as an exorcism.
Even with Slayer strength, she struggles to drag his body into the nearest utilities closet, thinking about the certain horrors of tonight’s math homework paired with patrol. (She would much rather read than spend another night at one of Forks' many cemeteries, but she doesn’t get a say about her destiny.)
“He was the last,” a voice down the hall announces.
Bella locks her gym teacher in the closet. She does not turn around and instead blows a chunk of brown hair out of her eyes. “Why do you always appear after the world-saving fight?”
“Victoria’s army is growing.”
“Yes, you’ve warned me already.”
By the time Bella looks, Edward is already gone.
God, high school really is Hell.
iv. Vampire Academy
“You can’t save him,” Carlisle reminds her gently. “He already thought of himself as damned.”
Bella picks at the cover of her book, this one about the unholy magic the moroi have, their elemental theories tied up with their dead saints – it’s one-half religious treatise and the other half proto-chemistry. “Shouldn’t I try?”
The alchemist library becomes very quiet.
The golden lily inked on Carlisle’s cheek shimmers in the sunlight. He covers his eyes with his hand and whispers a name so softly that Bella strains to hear it.
Esme.
v. Sesame Street
“One human criminal,” the vampire says. “Two human criminals.”
Bella nods. “That’s right. And how do you fight crime?”
The man controlling the puppet sighs. He puts his voice back in character. “I can read minds!”