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In retrospect, navigating through the forest with only the full moon to light her way was the wrong decision, but Bella didn’t bring a flashlight. While she could theoretically break out one of the candles, she was not prepared to add “set a forest fire” to her resume.
She had spent the last hour tripping over rocks, grabbing onto trees, and — on one miserable occasion — stumbling into a stream. Now, she had walked into the only other human being in the woods that night, fallen backward, and landed on her ass.
“...Bella?” a familiar voice called down to her.
There was one person Bella really, really did not want to see right now, and she had just crashed right into him. “Hi Jacob.”
“What are you doing out here? It’s like 4 a.m.” Jacob offered her a hand.
Bella grabbed it and let him haul her to her feet. “Long story. What are you up to?”
“Pack stuff,” Jacob immediately answered. “Sam wants us to patrol.”
“Makes sense,” Bella said. “Uh, anyway, I guess I should get going.”
Jacob snorted. “Dude, I’m not gonna leave you alone in the woods.”
“It’s fine! I know where I am. After last time, Dad got me a watch with a compass.” She gestured vaguely toward her wristwatch.
“Does it work?” Jacob said.
Bella shrugged.
“Yeah, I’m gonna walk you,” Jacob said. “You headed home?”
“I guess,” Bella said.
They walked side-by-side for a couple of minutes, Jacob repeatedly steadying her and warning her about obstacles he saw with his ridiculous, superhuman wolf eyes. Just when she had started to relax, Jacob said, “Seriously, why are you out here?”
“Can we just…not? I already feel like a moron. I don’t need you to get all judgemental.”
“I wouldn’t,” Jacob said. “It’s not a vampire thing again, is it?”
“No.”
Bella could hear the smile in Jacob’s voice as he said, “Cool.”
“...I was trying to summon a demon.”
“Jesus Christ, Bella!”
“You said you wouldn’t judge,” she muttered.
“I didn’t think it was gonna be that bad. Did Edward get you into the occult, too?”
“Not everything is about Edward,” Bella snapped. “This is something I’m doing for me. On my own. I’m embracing being single.”
“By summoning a demon,” Jacob replied flatly.
“Yes! I don’t need Edward. I don’t need the Cullens. I don’t need fucking vampires. But if vampires are real? If you and your pack of werewolves are real? Then maybe witches and ghosts and goblins and demons are a thing, too. And if they are, then maybe I don’t need the bite. Maybe I can get immortality all on my own.”
“What are you gonna do? Sell your soul?”
“If that’s what it takes.” Bella’s haughty tone was immediately betrayed by the little squeak that escaped when her left sneaker snagged on a tree root.
Jacob threw an arm around her to keep her on her feet. “So…how’d it go?”
“Total failure.”
Jacob laughed and then declared, “Good.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she mumbled. “I’m kind of disappointed.”
Bella couldn’t see Jacob’s eye roll in the darkness, but she could hear it in his voice. “Of course you are.”
Bella pouted. “I was feeling really good about that last ritual.”
“Where do you even find stuff like that?”
“Google.”
“You Googled how to summon a demon?”
Bella really didn’t appreciate his tone, grumbling, “The local library didn’t have the necronomicon in stock, so yeah. I went to a lot of websites. Most of the information was conflicting—”
“Shocking,” Jacob interjected.
“—so I decided to try out a bunch of different rituals and see if anything happened. I burned incense. I lit candles. I drew circles, triangles, and pentagrams in chalk and salt. I broke a mirror. That wasn’t part of the ritual; I just dropped it.”
“Of course you did,” Jacob said fondly.
Bella continued, her voice rising as the frustration set in. “I baked a cake. I stole wine from Charlie’s kitchen. I’m gonna have no voice tomorrow after all the chanting. I pricked my finger and dropped blood in the flame. I cut my palm and used more blood to write a sigil.”
“Ouch,” he muttered.
“I reached out to six different demons. Buer. Sitri. Beelzebub. Asmodeus. Paimon. Andromalius. Lucifer. Nobody answered.”
“If I was your sixth choice, I wouldn’t pick up the phone, either.”
Bella sniffled. “I killed a chicken, Jacob.”
“Uh, sorry? If it makes you feel better, I killed a squirrel the first time I turned into a wolf.”
“It doesn’t,” Bella said, “but thanks.”
“So, uh, what are you gonna do now?”
Bella shrugged. “Try again?”