Chapter-by-Chapter: New Moon, Chapter 12

Friday means time for another chapter of Stephenie Meyer's New Moon. Last week's Chapter 11 ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, with Bella being woken to a scary scratching sound on her window. This week's is number 12, Intruder, where presumably we find out who her visitor is.

What Happens?

Jacob stops by Bella's room to try and help her figure out just what he is, because he can't tell her but it's okay if she works it out on her own. When he leaves, Bella has a dream and works out exactly what he is. But when she plans to tell Jacob what she's figured out, she learns that another tourist has been abducted and now it looks like Jacob's pack might be in on the disappearances.

Thoughts as I read:

Considering this chapter is called 'Intruder' I'm guessing that someone is paying Bella a visit. It's been a while since a strange boy came to hang out in her bedroom. I wonder if it will be Jacob come to explain to her just what's going on, without Sam Uley to influence him, or perhaps someone else has decided to come hangout in Bella's bedroom.

Upon waking to the strange scratching sound, Bella's pretty certain that it's Victoria come to kill her. But why would Victoria need to scratch on the window when Edward was about to just super speed his way in there whenever he felt like it. My money is on it not being Victoria.

And I'm right; it is Jacob come to visit. The noise has been coming from the tree that he decided to climb in order to gain entry. Nicely done, Jake. He manages to make it in through the open window but he's still not quite the old Jacob and this upsets Bella. She's understandably upset at being woken up in the middle of the night, frightened half to death and all by someone who has spent the better part of the last fortnight avoiding her.

Jacob is rather shocked when she tells him to get out, especially as he was planning to come here to apologise, but also probably because Bella's way of rejecting his apology seems to be to try pushing him back out the window he just came in through. That's it Bella, kill him.

We're reminded of the fact that Jacob is hot, not hot hot, but actually physically warm to the touch. And he's huge, massive actually. The thought of all this hits Bella and she kind of collapses which worries Jacob. The following conversation reminds me of the conversations between Bella and Edward from the last book. For the amount of sense that they make when they talk to each other here, they practically could be Bella and Edward!

Jacob, it would appear, has come to apologise but he still can't actually explain what's going on. So why even bother coming then, Jacob? He does tell her that he has a massive secret that he can't tell anyone and that he hopes Bella might understand what that sort of thing feels like. She does, except these things being massive secrets, she can't say anything back.

"Can you understand that I might have the same kind of… situation?" He was struggling again, seeming to fight for the right words. "Sometimes, loyalty gets in the way of what you want to do. Sometimes, it's not your secret to tell."

And then Jacob gets kind of annoyed because Bella apparently already knows the secret because Jacob already told her, or something. Basically he can't tell her, but if she figures it out all by herself then it allows her to know but keeps him safe because he won't have told her.

So they start retracing some of their first conversations together, going right back to the Quileute legends that Jacob told her about. But Bella can't quite tease out the memory of whatever it was that he told her way back then. Jacob's rather peeved that the one story which stuck in Bella's mind was about the vampires; this is supposed to be about him now and she's still just thinking of Edward, even now!

Bella then goes to begging Jacob to run away with her so they can escape from whatever he's now a part of. Obviously, it's not as easy as all that though. He needs to leave Bella to figure this all out by herself and get back to the guys; they're incredibly cool apparently. Also it's not safe for Bella to hang out with Jacob any more; where've we heard that before?

Then it's time for Jacob to go, he tells Bella to come see him when she figures it out, and then adds cryptically 'if you want to'. This is clearly significant. He prepares to head out the window but stops and gives Bella a massive hug before he goes. He's really desperate for her to figure out his secret. You'd think he'd come up with some other way of helping her along. Like perhaps writing it out in code, or leaving a picture of a werewolf in her room or something.

Once he's gone, Bella falls asleep and wanders into a new dream. There's the forest again but it feels different and Jacob is there telling Bella to run. It's the dream she had after Jacob's story first confirmed that Edward was a vampire. But instead of an obviously vampiric Edward showing up, Jacob turns into a red-brown coloured wolf. Funnily enough, it's the same wolf that helped rescue Bella from the vampire in the forest the other day. I wonder if this is a clue.

Right before she wakes up, screaming again, she registered that the eyes of the wolf are exactly the same as Jacob Black's eyes. Coincidence?

And now she remembers and we get nearly a page of text rehashing their conversation on the beach back when they first met. The Quileute legend that said they were descended from wolves. Jacob's a werewolf.

Then Bella says what we're all thinking:

What kind of a place was this? Could a world really exist where ancient legends went wandering around the borders of tiny, insignificant towns, facing down mythical monsters? Did this mean every impossible fairy tale was grounded somewhere in absolute truth? Was there anything sane or normal at all, or was everything just magic and ghost stories?

Bella does kind of wonder why she's so baffled by this revelation when she long ago accepted the existence of vampires. I'm confused too. Learning that her friend is a werewolf is apparently a huge shock to her.

And she figures out that Jacob's not in a cult, oh no, he's in a pack! And she has to go see Jacob right now to make sure her suspicions are correct. She's on her way out the door when Charlie catches her and gives her some bad news. A wolf was apparently spotted shortly after a tourist went missing. Now a group of people are getting together to go shoot the wolves. I'm sure Bella wouldn't mind if they shot Sam Uley but she's a little worried in case Jacob gets caught in the firing line.

Charlie's heading out to go shoot him some wolf too and Bella decides that maybe she doesn't want to go out after all. Maybe going out and, I don't know, warning your friend, might be a good idea. But she's torn, after all, it looks as though the vampires might have been the good guys, at least the ones she was friends with weren't going out eating tourists, unlike her new best friend.

Bella is confused.