Life and Death

Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is a standalone gender-swapped retelling of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (2005), published in 2015 to mark the original novel's tenth anniversary. While it closely follows the structure of Twilight for most of its length, the novel diverges significantly in its final act, offering an alternate ending in which the protagonist becomes a vampire.

Seventeen-year-old Beaufort "Beau" Swan, a quiet, responsible introvert, leaves his mother Renée and her new husband Phil in sunny Phoenix to move to the perpetually rainy town of Forks, Washington. Beau has volunteered for this exile so Renée can travel freely with Phil, a minor-league baseball player. His father, Charlie, the local police chief, has already bought Beau an old red Chevy truck from Bonnie Black, a Quileute woman on the nearby La Push reservation. Beau settles into Charlie's small house and takes over the cooking and household duties.

At the tiny Forks High School, Beau attracts immediate attention as the new student. At lunch, he notices five strikingly beautiful, pale students sitting apart from everyone: Eleanor and Archie Cullen, Jessamine and Royal Hale, and Edythe Cullen, a smaller girl with bronze-colored hair whom Beau finds breathtaking. He learns they are the adopted children of Dr. Carine Cullen and her husband Earnest. In Biology, Beau is assigned to sit beside Edythe, who reacts with sudden, inexplicable hostility, going rigid and glaring at him with coal-black eyes full of revulsion. After class, she tries to switch out of their shared period.

Edythe disappears for nearly a week, then returns with subtly changed features: less pallor, diminished shadows under her eyes, and gold irises instead of black. She is warm and curious now, engaging Beau in conversation and admitting she finds him uniquely difficult to read. The dynamic shifts dramatically on an icy morning when a van skids toward Beau in the parking lot. Edythe appears instantaneously from four cars away, shoves him clear, and stops the van with her bare hands. Beau confronts her about the impossible things he witnessed. She refuses to explain but asks him not to tell anyone.

For the next month, Edythe ignores Beau in class. She breaks her silence only to warn him they should not be friends, then contradicts herself by offering him a ride to Seattle. On a beach trip to La Push, Beau reconnects with Julie "Jules" Black, Bonnie's teenage daughter, who shares the Quileute legends about "the cold ones," vampires who made a treaty with the tribe's wolf shapeshifter ancestors by promising to hunt only animals. Jules reveals the Cullens are the same beings from those stories. Beau researches vampires, takes a long walk in the forest, and admits two things to himself: The Cullens might truly be vampires, and he is too deeply drawn to Edythe to stay away.

Their relationship intensifies. Edythe begins driving Beau to school each morning and asking him exhaustive questions about his life. When Beau faints during a blood-typing lab, she carries him to the nurse's office. She later admits she visits his room at night to watch him sleep. One evening in Port Angeles, Beau stumbles into armed criminals who mistake him for an undercover police officer. Edythe rescues him, and over dinner she confirms she can read every mind except his. She confesses that the first time she saved him was not from the van but from herself: On his first day in Biology, his scent nearly drove her to kill him.

On the drive home, Beau whispers the word "vampire." Edythe confirms the truth, debunking common myths and explaining that her family hunts animals instead of humans, a practice they call being "vegetarian." Beau tells her what she is does not matter. She insists the danger is real but admits she cannot leave. On a sunny Saturday, Edythe takes Beau to a secluded mountain meadow, where her skin blazes with prismatic, diamond-like radiance in direct sunlight. She demonstrates her speed and strength, and they confess their love and share a first kiss. That night, she stays in his room and they discuss the careful boundaries their relationship requires, given her superhuman strength.

Beau visits the Cullen home, where Carine and Earnest welcome him warmly. Edythe plays piano and recounts Carine's origin: Born in 1640s London, Carine was bitten by a vampire, survived her transformation, and spent years trying to destroy herself before discovering she could live on animal blood. She studied medicine for centuries and eventually transformed the dying Edythe during the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic. Edythe reveals she once rebelled against the animal-only diet, hunting human murderers for several years before returning, unable to bear taking life. Meanwhile, Archie foresees nomadic vampires approaching the area.

The family invites Beau to watch them play baseball during a thunderstorm. Mid-game, three nomadic vampires, Lauren, Victor, and Joss, arrive. When a breeze carries Beau's scent to Joss, she drops into a hunting crouch. Edythe shields Beau and snarls. The groups part tensely. Edythe reveals that Joss is a tracker, a vampire whose existence revolves around the obsessive pursuit of prey, and that her protective display has made Beau an irresistible challenge.

The Cullens split up. Beau stages a devastating departure from Charlie's house, delivering cruel words to justify his flight. Archie and Jessamine drive him to Phoenix while the others lead Joss on a chase. In a Phoenix hotel, Archie sketches a vision of Joss in a mirrored room that Beau recognizes as a ballet studio near his mother's house. When Joss calls and plays a recording of Renée's panicked voice, threatening to kill her, Beau escapes his protectors and goes alone to the studio. There, Joss reveals Renée was never captured; she used an old home video to simulate a hostage situation. The entire hunt was a game against Edythe.

Joss tortures Beau and bites his finger. Venom begins spreading through his body. Edythe crashes through the door, and the Cullens destroy Joss. Archie sees only two possible futures: Beau survives as a vampire, or Edythe kills him trying to suck out the venom. Edythe asks Beau to choose. He whispers that he wants to stay with her. She bites his throat to accelerate the transformation.

The burning lasts several days. When Beau opens his vampire eyes, the world is stunningly sharp and bright. He displays unprecedented self-control for a newborn, astonishing the Cullens. From a distant treetop, he watches his own funeral, grieving for Charlie and Renée, whose casket contains a body Archie and Eleanor procured to stage his death. He proposes to Edythe, and she accepts. The Quileute shape-shifters confront the family, believing the Cullens violated the treaty by biting a human. At a meeting with Bonnie Black, the tribe's acting chief, Beau explains that a nomadic tracker bit him and the Cullens could not reverse it. Bonnie grudgingly accepts the treaty is intact and agrees the Cullens may stay another year. Beau asks her to watch over Charlie. He and Edythe run together into the darkness, both vowing forever.