Twilight 2

New Moon
By
Stephenie Meyer


Summary When the Cullens, including her beloved Edward, leave Forks rather than risk revealing that they are
vampires, it is almost too much for eighteen-year-old Bella to bear, but she finds solace in her friend Jacob until
he is drawn into a cult and changes in terrible ways


For my dad, Stephen Morgan—
No one has ever been given more loving and unconditional
support than I have been given by you.
I love you, too.


These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.
Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene VI

PREFACE

I FELT LIKE I WAS TRAPPED IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIFYING nightmares, the
one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body mo ve
fast enough. My legs seemed to move slower and slower as I fought my way through the
callous crowd, but the hands on the huge clock tower didn't slow. With relentless,
uncaring force, they turned inexorably toward the end—the end of everything.
But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was
racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant litt le to me today.

Alice had said there was a good chance we would both die here. Perhaps the outcome
would be different if she weren't trapped by the brilliant sunlight; only I was free to run
across this bright, crowded square.
And I couldn't run fast enough.
So it didn't matter to me that we were surrounded by our extraordinarily dangerous
enemies. As the clock began to toll out the hour, vibrating under the soles of my sluggish
feet, I knew I was too late—and I was glad so mething bloodthirst y waited in the wings.
For in failing at this, I forfeited any desire to live.
The clock tolled again, and the sun beat down from the exact center point of the sky.

1. PARTY


I WAS NINETY-NINE POINT NINE PERCENT SURE I WAS dreaming.
The reasons I was so certain were that, first, I was standing in a bright shaft of sunlight—
the kind o f blinding clear sun that never shone on my drizzly new ho metown in Forks,
Washington—and second, I was looking at my Grandma Marie. Gran had been dead for
six years now, so that was solid evidence toward the dream theory.
Gran hadn't changed much; her face looked just the same as I remembered it. The skin
was soft and withered, bent into a thousand tiny creases that clung gently to the bone
underneath. Like a dried apricot, but with a puff of thick white hair standing out in a
cloud around it.
Our mouths—hers a wizened picker—spread into the same surprised half-smile at just the
same time. Apparently, she hadn't been expecting to see me, either.
I was about to ask her a question; I had so many—What was she doing here in my cream?
What had she been up to in the past six years? Was Pop okay, and had they found each
other, wherever they were?—but she opened her mouth when I did, so I stopped to let her
go first. She paused, too, and then we Goth smiled at the little awkwardness.
"Bella!"
It wasn't Gran who called my name, and we both turned to see the addition to our small
reunion. I didn't have to look to know who it was; this was a voice I would know
anywhere—know, and respond to, whether I was awake or asleep… or even dead, I'd bet.
The voice I'd walk through fire for—or, less dramatically, slosh every day through the
cold and endless rain for.
Edward.

Even though I was always thrilled to see him—conscious or otherwise—and even though
I was almost positive that I was dreaming, I panicked as Edward walked toward us
through the glaring sunlight.
I panicked because Gran didn't know that I was in love with a vampire—nobody knew
that—so how was I supposed to explain the fact that the brilliant sunbeams were
shattering off his skin into a thousand rainbow shards like he was made of crystal or
diamond?
Well, Gran, yon might have noticed that my boyfriend glitters. It's just something he does
in the sun. Don't worry about it…
What was he doing? The whole reason he lived in Forks, the rainiest place in the world,
was so that he could be outside in the daytime without exposing his family's secret. Yet
here he was, strolling gracefully toward me—with the most beautiful smile on his angel's
face—as if I were the only one here.
In that second, I wished that I was