Previously: Edward didn’t die.
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Marines: Bella ends up in an “unremarkable” room, which she then remarks on for a paragraph. (K: THANK YOU. That annoyed me so much.) Edward is glowering at the hallway as Jane leads them to an elevator. Once inside, the Volturi Vamps relax and take off their cloaks so Bella can comment on their olive complexion which looks “odd” combined with their chalky pallor. Only the palest, truest white for Bella Swan.
Kirsti: She also talks about their eyes, saying that, “their irises were deep crimson around the edges, darkening until they were black around the pupils.” ….black around the pupils. Which are also black. HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU TELL WHERE THEIR IRISES ENDED AND THEIR PUPILS STARTED?!
Annie: Because Bella has super-eye sight! Now, besides Bella’s racism obsession with having to talk about skin colour, how exactly do these vampires have both an olive complexion and are also chalky white? HOW.
Mari: MAGIC.
The elevator ride is short and they get to another floor so that Bella can continue to describe the boring office furniture. There is a female receptionist and Bella is shocked because she’s human. I’m shocked because, through Bella’s narration, I just realized that Edward is still shirtless. What’s your excuse if you aren’t even in danger of wolf-sploding, Edward Cullen?
Anyway, we finally get to where we’re going: Jane’s got a brother named Alec. He’s happy that he sent Jane out for “one” and she came back with “two and a half.” I know Alec is referring to Bella not being a vampire, but I’d like to think that he knows about Bella’s hole.
Catherine: Everyone knows about Bella’s hole. She talks about it constantly.
K: *shudder*
Annie: I’d like to not know about it, please. Can we undo that?
Mari: Just as soon as one of these authors starts paying for our therapy!
Jane laughs at the compliment and Bella says it sounds like a baby cooing. I mention this mostly because I remember a lovely commenter describing Jane as some kind of demented baby. So it begins.
Alec says that Edward seems to be in a better mood. Eddie agrees that he is and even Bella is like, “damn, his mood gets worse than this?” Alec sizes Bella up and asks if she’s the cause of all this trouble. I don’t get it either, Alec. From somewhere behind him, some other Volturi Vamp calls dibs on Bella and it makes Edward all growly because he’s got dibs, shotgun and bagsy. Alice calms Edward down, mostly with her thoughts. Bella is sad she can’t hear them.
Alec and Jane hold hands (…Bella said they looked like twins so I assumed brother…) (C: They are definitely brother and sister. I did not remember them holding hands in this. I guess Meyer is going for a creepy ‘The Shining’ style twins thing?) and lead the gang to Aro. Bella wants to groan because they go into another stone room, and it’s cold. This is what’s upsetting her and not that one time, five minutes ago, when vampires were calling dibs on her.
K: This whole thing is supposed to be building tension, but it’s just so damned boring that I basically fell asleep reading it.
Mari: Yeah, that’s what happens if you spend 4-5 pages describing boring office furniture. #writingtips
In this next room, there is a vampire gathering of some kind going on. Some dude in a black hood is happy to see Jane:
“Jane, dear one, you’ve returned!” he cried in evident delight. His voice was just a soft sighing.”
Okay, everyone. You know what time it is! Try crying something out in evident delight… but your voice can only be a soft sighing. Good luck. God speed.
Bella gawks at Robe Vamp because he moves so gracefully. Like, more gracefully than Edward. No, more gracefully than Alice. Stop, this is the most graceful graceful, so Bella stands there with her mouth literally hanging open. Bella can’t decide if Robe Vamp is beautiful or not. I mean, his features are perfect, but he’s got some see-through onion skin, so probably not “perfect.” Anyway, Robe greets Jane some more and her smile makes her look like “an angelic child.” Robe Vamp (okay. Aro.) is super happy he’s got guests and sends for his brothers to join them.
Annie: What the actual fuck. We waste a whole page to who’s the most graceful, who’s perfect, who’s the prettiest, while people like Emily were described as ruined and pretty until you see her face? Pale-faced white murders? PERFECT. GRACEFUL. Native American werewolves? Wild. Dogs. Ruined. Exotic. NO. Please just stop this.
Mari: Shhhh. It’s almost over.
Aro says he’s so happy Edward got his happy ending (K: TWSS), but he wants to hear about how it happened. How was Alice wrong? Alice smiles and says she makes mistakes all the time, unless of course, she’s getting super important visions about what Bella is getting for her birthday. Aro says she’s being modest because he knows all about her. See, Aro can read thoughts too, but he has to have physical contact to do it. If he does, he can “hear” every single thought a mind has ever had, as opposed to Edward’s ability to hear what someone is thinking at that moment.
Just then, Felix comes back with Aro’s Robed Brothers. Aro is super enthusiatic about his guests but his brothers Marcus and Caius are #overit.
K: Actual quote: “The dark-haired man seemed utterly bored.” JUST LIKE THE SNARK LADIES.
Mari: Aro wants to get the whole Bella-isn’t-dead story no, but first Marcus touches Aro to transfer some thoughts. Edward snort laughs and then explains to Alice and Bella that Marcus can see relationships (what kind of crap…) and he’s surprised by the intensity of Edward and Bella’s.
Catherine: Shittiest superpower ever. Why is he even there? How is that valuable? Can’t we all do that? Oh my god, this never comes up again. This means that Meyer created this character specifically to tell her paper dolls how TRUE their love is. Ooooh my god.
K: I love (read: hate) how we’ve gone from “Only the Cullen/Hales have super special superpowers” to “ALL VAMPIRES EVER HAVE SUPERPOWERS” and it’s only taken her like three pages to run out of vampire superpowers to the point where “he senses relationships” is plausible. Reeeeeally scraping the bottom of the barrel there, Steph.
Annie: But if it weren’t for Marcus and his bullshit super power, how would we know if Bella and Eddie were in looooove? How would we know that it’s an intense, beautiful love that should be envied by all? It’s not like that’s been the whole fucking subject of these damn books or anything.
Mari: Aro doesn’t get how can Eddie stand so close to Bella without murdering her? Aro goes on and on about how happy he is for Carlisle for only being an animal killer and what self-control Edward has in the face of Bella’s smelly blood. What restraint!
K: The whole vampire superpowers things gets weirder because Aro says “If I hadn’t smelled her through your memories, I wouldn’t have believed the call of anyone’s blood could be so strong.” SMELLED HER THROUGH YOUR MEMORIES. What the shit even is that?! Like, Edward can read thoughts. Cool. Aro apparently gets virtual reality recreations??? IDEK, you guys.
Mari: Speaking of not even knowing, I’ll mention now that this whole plan of Edward’s was really stupid and I get that his true love was gone so he didn’t care to die, but it’s a really dick move for him to come here and expose all of his family’s secrets and dealings through smell-o-vision before dying, leaving them to deal with the consequences. YOU SUCK, EDWARD CULLEN.
So, because Edward Cullen sucks, Aro knows that Bella is the one exception to Edward’s mind reading ability and he’s curious if he’ll be able to read her mind. Edward tells him to ask Bella if that’s okay and Aro does. AND BELLA LOOKS UP AT EDWARD FOR PERMISSION. Of course.
Aro floats over to touch Bella’s hand, but nothing happens. He wonders if Bella is immune to all their gifts and calls Jane over. Edward has an outburst. Alice tries to calm him down, but as Jane makes her way over to Bella, he launches himself at Jane. But Jane has mind-torture powers. Like a mental Crucio, but dumber, because obviously. Edward writhes around in pain, Bella screams, Alice holds her back and Jane smiles like a psycho. Aro calls Jane and once she stops looking at Edward, the cruci-ugh stops. Edward jumps up and it’s at this point that Bella notices that Jane has been giving her death glares, but nothing is happening. Aro finds this amusing.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Aro chortled again.”
Wuuuh. Why would Meyer spell out ha, ha, ha for us unless…
K: I just…I have no words for how stupid that is. Especially seeing as a few sentences earlier, we get “Aro started to laugh. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ he chuckled.” Like, you’ve already told us THREE TIMES IN TWO SENTENCES that he’s laughing. Why did your editor not fix this shit?!
Annie: Say ‘ha ha ha’ or say your character laughed. You do not need both. I haaaaaaaaate this so much. Nearly as much as I hate Stephenie’s editor.
Mari: Show and tell time is over now, I guess, and Aro asks Edward and Alice if maybe they’d like to join Camp Volturi. They both say no. Aro asks Bella and Caius is like, “ew, what?” Aro says that Bella’s ability to zap the life out of things (pretty much, right?) is super useful. (C: More useful than SEEING RELATIONSHIPS.) Bella declines the offer and Aro says that’s too bad. Edward thinks this means that they are going to all be killed but Aro says no. This vampire gathering wasn’t called for shirtless Edward and his smelly posse. They just happened to be gathering, as one does.
Caius has other feelings. He says Bella knows too much and probably Edward won’t be able to murder her if she every becomes a liability. Bella’s life is forfeit, basically because her big hair is full of secrets. It’s fake-tense for approximately one second before Aro is like, “UNLESS you pinky-promise to turn Bella into a vampire. Then you can go home and none of this will matter again, probably until the end of the next book when we need an instant plot again!” Something like that.
Catherine: Basically yes.
Annie: 
K: You’re so good at seeing the future, Mari. Even better than Alice.
Mari: Take THAT Marcus and your “seeing relationships.”
Bella begs Edward to pinky promise to turn her into a vampire so she won’t have to die, but he just broods and emotes and stuff. Alice steps forward and offers her hand to Aro so he can read her thoughts. They stand that way for a while but finally Aro sees something that pleases him.
“Ha, ha, ha,” he laughed, his head still bent forward.”
Aro is convinced that Bella will indeed become a vampire because of Alice’s vision. Bella thinks this is dumb since Alice’s visions can change and it’s clear that Edward doesn’t want her as an “immortal annoyance.” Because even when a magical vampire stands there and says, “WOWZA, YOUR LOVE IS SUPER LEGIT,” these are the types of thoughts you have when you have low self-esteem, I guess. Anyway, they are free to go, though Caius promises to visit them to make sure that Bella does get turned.
Felix starts getting impatient for something and Aro assures him that Heidi will be there soon. Edward says that’s their cue to go. Aro asks them to wait until dark to leave, of course, and tosses Edward a robe so that everyone can stopped being forced to look at his pasty chest. Edward hears something that puts him on edge and tries to rush out of the room, lead by a vampire named Dimitri .
As they are leaving, they hear the noises of the other guests. It’s a bunch of humans that have arrived to be murdered. Bella is horrified.
Catherine: Gee, why?
K: How did she not realise this was going to happen like twenty pages earlier when she spotted the drain in the middle of the floor? It’s not a vampire escape route, honey. It’s for easy clean up.
Mari: Outside, this Heidi we’ve heard about a few times is there. Bella says that’s she’s beautiful like Rosalie is beautiful which is how all vampires are beautiful because that word has lost its meaning in this story. Dimitri compliments Heidi on her “fishing” and Bella understands that Heidi led all those innocent people to be slaughtered.
We end the chapter with screams.
Ha, ha, ha.
Next time on New Moon: Bella flies home with Edward in Chapter 22.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.