I Write Sins, Not Tragedies [An Emmett Cullen Love Story]

Chapter Thirteen

Other ideas where that what this Mary had grown in her garden were instruments of torture The silver bells and cockle shells referred to in the Nursery Rhyme were colloquialisms for instruments of torture. The 'silver bells' were thumbscrews which crushed the thumb between two hard surfaces by the tightening of a screw. The 'cockleshells' were believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to the genitals.  

And the final eerie idea was that the 'pretty maids all in a row' were actually execution devices. The 'maids' were a device to behead people called the Maiden. Beheading a victim was fraught with problems. It could take up to 11 blows to actually sever the head; the victim often resisted and had to be chased around the scaffold. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury did not go willingly to her death and had to be chased and hacked at by the Executioner. These problems led to the invention of a mechanical instrument (now known as the guillotine) called the Maiden - shortened to Maids in Mary's Nursery Rhyme. The Maiden had long been in use in England before Lord Morton, regent of Scotland during the minority of James VI, had a copy constructed from the Maiden which had been used in Halifax in Yorkshire. Ironically, Lord Morton fell from favor and was the first to experience the Maiden in Scotland.  

For what I had come to know after studying all of this was that sadly, my mother had named me souly after this rhyme. Sometimes I believe that is why I am so brutal and hard to deal with most of the time. Hey, if she named me after 'Bloody Mary' could you expect any different? 

With each word he stung to me, his voice grew closer, and I could hear his steps grow in confidence. By the latter part, he had hoisted me back into his grasp by my bloody black locked, shooting another stab of his knife into my back, twisting it around. 

My body tried to muster a scream from the pain, but the knife wound to my back had taken the wind out of me. Before I knew it, Ben's now bloody hands were enclosed on my wind pipe and there was a deadly cold to his expression. I wasn't going to make it out of this alive; he was going to ensure that. I was ready now, ready to welcome deaths warm embrace. 

The voice that spoke next was positively terrifying, though it wasn't Ben's. "Get. The. Hell. Off. Of. Her." Each word was deadly and leaked threat. When Ben turned his head to look at the source his expression looked like he had dropped a load of timber in his pants. Apparently, though, he didn't move away from me fast enough. 

Before I could even blink, there was a blurring of light and the sound of two boulders crashing together, and all the weight was lifted off of me. I took in a deep, welcome breath of air that was stopped short by the searing pain of my stab wounds. There was blood all around me, and I knew that I had already lost too much. 

From the opposite direction of all the new commotion, two sets of cold hands were fussing over me. From the blur of my vision I could see the shape of two men, one copper-haired and the other blonde. I tried to turn my head the other direction to see what was going on, but Edward's voice pulled my attention away, his voice was solemn as if confirming my theories about Ben's new tortured screams that were echoing off of everywhere. "Don't watch that, Mary." I shut my eyes tight against themselves, both from the fear and the pain. Their cold hands were the only soothing my pain racked body. 

"She's lost too much blood." I recognized Carlisle's voice almost instantly. "If we don't do something.." I had guessed what he was about to suggest, and just as I was about to open my mouth and protest, Edward spoke the words for me. 

"She already said she didn't want that, Carlisle. We can't do this to her, not if she doesn't want it." From Edward's voice I could tell a part of him agreed with me, but another part felt a desperation and a wishing, a hoping that I would change my mind. In the few moments we both knew I had left. We both knew I wasn't going to. This was my end. 

A new voice spoke up, and there was something in the words that was both desperate and beyond reason. The screams of Ben had disappeared completely, and I could guess as to why. "I don't care what she wants and what she doesn't, Edward. She's dying." 

Edward stood up now, I could tell by the shifting of weight. An argument was about to ensue, "You can't just decide this for her. She's had the time to think it over and she doesn't want this. And I can't say I blame her either." 

"If you don't like it," Emmett threatened darkly. "Then leave." 

I could her Edwards teeth grind and his jaw clench, he was clearly weighing out his brother's thoughts and didn't like them; he didn't argue it anymore, but he didn't leave either. Instead, they had both kneeled down at my side. I felt Emmett's cold, broad hand take mine; and the tortured blur of his face came into my range of vision. 

It took a lot of energy for me to speak up in protest as to what he was about to do. "Emmett...don't...please don't..." I could feel the tears eating at my eyes and one escaped the brim, sliding down my cheeks and into the moist dirt below. 

His voice was filled with struggle and apology. "I'm sorry, Mary. I'm so so sorry."