Okay, so after reading what I had posted of this story and finishing the rest of it up, I made a few changes in the chapters I had posted before. Nothing big, just some editing I had missed.

Also, I really suck at remembering to post chapter after chapter, so I just did the whole thing at once. Please, please review and let me know what you think of the whole thing! And thank you to my two fabulous reviewers and the other people who have been silently reading :)

I think that's about it. Clearly, I don't own Stephenie Meyer's characters, or else I would most likely not be posting stuff online for free, haha... I do own Ellie, my scatterbrain came up with her all on my own. Aided and abetted by my boredom in class and my willingness to procrastinate doing homework. Ahhh, school.

Okay, enjoy! The setting is 1920 in a rural Illinois town outside of Chicago. And now, presenting... drumroll

The First Sister

Years later, Ellie would look back and wonder how very different her life would be if she hadn't decided to go to the clearing—her clearing—that fateful gray August day. But unlike most young women her age, she had neither fear of the threat of rain nor any qualms with starting conversations with strange boys in the middle of the woods. Most of the Sisters, the women who had raised her for as long as she could remember, disapproved of her sometimes outrageous displays of independence, but this was the quality she most admired in herself. Like her beloved Sister Marguerite had instructed her since she was young, God gave us free will to make our own choices.

As Ellie pulled her bicycle over at the end of the wood's trail to continue on foot, she sighed. Sister Marguerite was the one person at the convent she could always depend on to understand and stand up for her. She had more or less taken Ellie under her wing since she was anonymously dropped on the convent's doorstep 20 years ago, and was the closest thing Ellie had to a mother, despite the fact she was more than 60 years her senior. She encouraged Ellie's questioning nature and laughed at the outlandish statements that sometimes flew out of her mouth, whereas the other Sisters would rather reprimand her. Beyond convent life, Ellie and Sister Marguerite shared a special bond—when Sister Marguerite first picked Ellie up off the convent stoop, she learned Ellie's secret, and had since been the only other person in the world that knew it. Ellie was what Sister Marguerite called "blessed." Since she was a baby, she had the unbelievable ability to heal herself. Ellie suspected this was a big reason, if not the reason why her own mother abandoned her 20 years ago. But where others would have turned Ellie over to the circus or an institution, Sister Marguerite saw nothing but a child who needed love and shelter.

As Sister Marguerite got on in her years, her health was beginning to fade. The new doctor in town had prescribed bed rest, but the feisty Sister was having difficulty accepting idleness after years of continuous labor for the Church. Ellie was spending more and more of her time acting as Sister Marguerite's spy within the convent and running non-stop errands at her request. Some chores she loved, like taking over Sister Marguerite's job as the church's Sunday school teacher or children's choir director, but she dreaded having to face the other Sisters without her elderly, tough-as-nails comrade-in-arms beside her. The one thing Ellie truly wanted more than anything else in the world was for Sister Marguerite to be able to see her accept the convent vows and be shown that all the time and love she spent on raising Ellie was well worth it. But between Ellie's constant head-butting with the Mother Superior and Sister Marguerite's rapidly declining health, she seriously doubted whether that was in "God's plan," as Mother Superior would say.

Sister Marguerite was the reason Ellie was spending her lunch today trekking through the woods on foot, not that she minded it. At a young age, Ellie sought refuge from the convent's rigid rules and the townspeople's prying eyes full of pity in this clearing. Her having been dropped at the convent's steps as a baby was an event the town had never really recovered from, even though almost two decades had passed since then. The clearing was where Ellie escaped this reality. Because she was soon to become a full-fledged nun, idleness of this nature should have been something she frowned upon, but the clearing had an irresistible, latent pull on her spirit. She wasn't sure why this was, but something about the way the wild animals approached her without fear, or the way the sun was filtered through the encircling treetops onto the clearing, or the absolute peace that overwhelmed her in this spot made her believe that here, more so than in any roofed church, she was closest to God. This summer, the wildflowers were outdoing themselves in color and brightness, and Ellie wanted to capture some of that vibrancy and bring it into Sister Marguerite's sparse living quarters—or jail cell, as she thought of it.

Her mind was with Sister Marguerite back at the convent as she approached the clearing. As a gentle breeze crossed her path, she was enveloped in a peculiar foreign scent. Were the wildflowers responsible for this? It was as sweet as the convent kitchen after the Sisters made pastries for the local children on Christmas and Easter, and made her mouth water strangely. At the same time, something about its foreignness made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up at attention, as if they were preparing for an attack. Was her body simply responding to a change in the weather? She doubted it.

Cautiously entering the clearing, senses aflame, her eyes spotted a boy she guessed to be her age hunched over on the log she so frequently used as a bench to read and lounge upon. Although nothing about him screamed predator—his back was turned to her—she couldn't quench the uneasy feeling that had suddenly come over her. What was this boy doing in her supposedly secret clearing? In all her 20 years, she had never come across any other human here. That was when she noticed his hair, which was the same peculiar shade of bronze as hers, and took in the absolute stillness of his posture, which was what she imagined must be what hers looked like when she was completely engrossed in a book. Oddly enough, he never looked up from what he was reading. She edged slowly into the clearing, wondering if she should run away, or greet him, or whether it would be rude to interrupt the boy in the first place. Almost everything in her body was telling her to get away, but deep in her gut, there was something about him that drew her closer.

Never one to back away from her gut instinct, Ellie stayed, letting the boy read in peace. She went to work cutting the flowers at the point farthest away from him, trying to be as quiet as possible. She glanced at his back every so often, finding herself increasingly disappointed that he never paid attention to her and increasingly interested in what he was reading. She frowned to herself. Since she turned 17, she had been finding herself able to do more and more strange things, as if healing herself wasn't strange enough. Like surprising people—no one seemed to hear her approach in her adolescence, despite the fact that according to Mother Superior, she had been the loudest walker as a child. And she was becoming amazingly strong. It was as if one day, someone had struck her internal match and instantly all these new abilities had ignited. Maybe hypersensitive smell could be added to the list now. At this rate, she was bound to be discovered by one of the Sisters and shown for the unnatural devil she was quickly becoming and kicked out onto the street. She sighed to herself for the second time that afternoon. She truly was miserable at the convent.

At that sound, the boy jumped up and stared at her in shock. Ellie found herself surprised his eyes weren't the exact same shade of green as hers, when everything else thus far about his appearance was her mirror image. Needless to say, his brilliant topaz eyes threw her for a loop. At the moment, however, they seemed to be glaring at her as if she had three heads.

"Oh… uh, hello. Sorry to have disturbed you," Ellie mumbled, looking down to avoid his intense stare. The boy continued gawking at her as if she was the sideshow freak she so feared she was becoming, and said nothing. This did nothing to assuage her already awkward social skills among people her age. Why was she more comfortable in a room full of ornery old nuns than with one boy her age?

"How did you sneak up on me like that? I didn't even hear you." His voice was surprisingly soft, yet harsh at the same time. It was demanding, Ellie decided, but also betrayed his shock. Ellie had never heard any one voice convey so many things at once.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," she said, venturing to make eye contact. "Although sighing can hardly be considered frightening."

She paused, and waited for his reaction. Maybe he was a timid person, and attacking his reaction was the wrong thing to do. Sister Marguerite always said Ellie's bluntness was both a gift and a curse from God. Although his harsh reaction was hardly appropriate. There was a long pause, and the strange boy finally smiled. Ellie breathed out in relief, and continued.

"And for the record, I didn't sneak up on you; you were just too wrapped up in your book to notice me. I've been right here, cutting flowers for at least a half hour. What are you reading anyway?" She glanced around at his book. "Essays by Emerson? Hmm. I prefer his poetry, myself."

For whatever reason, Ellie's further attempts at further conversation seemed to make the boy shut down and seem uncomfortable. She went to run her hand through her hair, something she did whenever she was uneasy, and then realized she was wearing her habit. As she only recently began her vocation, she was unaccustomed to her habit, and it still surprised her whenever she walked past a mirror or otherwise caught herself wearing it.

"It's the habit, isn't it?" she sighed, taking it off her head and looking at it as she plopped down on a stump closer to the boy. "It still takes me by surprise, too."

"No, no, it's not the habit. You do seem young for vows of chastity, though," he said, smirking. Ellie could tell he was teasing, but meant no harm otherwise. "How old are you? 17?" His voice was as smooth as velvet, yet had an odd tone to it, almost as if he was singing the words. But he's not, Ellie thought. And no normal human would hear that. God, am I getting hypersensitive hearing too?

"I'm 19," she said defensively. "Almost 20. Although I haven't grown at all since I was 17, so you're close, I guess. I feel like sometimes I'm going to be stuck in my 17 year-old body forever, you know? How old are you?"

The stranger chuckled. The noise made her ears ring and the hairs at the back of her neck dance, yet it wasn't entirely unpleasant, either. "I'm 19 also. Stuck for eternity in a 17 year-old body as well."

"Well, at least when we're 80, we'll still look young." Ellie smiled, happy that the conversation was taking such a light turn. The strange boy was laughing, and it resonated deep within her, almost like when the boys' choir sang at mass. But different. Much, much different. He was a stranger, but when he laughed and smiled like that, he seemed like a stranger she should know.

"This may sound odd, but I feel like I know you from somewhere," he said. Like he could read my mind, Ellie thought. "What's your name?"

"Eleanor. Ellie."

"I had a grandmother named Eleanor, I think. I like that name."

"Ugh, I hate it, you can have it. Although I'm sure your grandmother was a lovely woman," Ellie added, in an effort to avoid offending his newfound friendliness. "It's probably because it was always yelled at me when I did something wrong. It's like this study I was just learning about at the library, done by this man in Russia named—"

"Pavlov! I was just reading about that myself. Conditional reflexes, he calls it." The boy finished her sentence, seeming pleasantly surprised that they had that in common.

"Yes! It's an interesting concept, but I guess you can say I've been conditioned to absolutely abhor my first name. What's yours? Please tell me it's something equally horrid, at least to make me feel better."

"Edward," he said, smiling. "Edward Ma-Cullen. Edward Cullen."

"Were you about to say Masen? That's my last name, and it seems to be a perfectly suitable middle name; nothing to be ashamed of, most unfortunately. Edward Masen Cullen."

Edward paused and considered Ellie for a moment. This sudden change from joy to pensive made Ellie stop dead in her tracks. Her smile froze.

"What?" she asked. Did she offend him by saying his name wasn't horrid enough? She really would never understand people her age.

"No, well," he seemed hesitant to continue. "My middle name isn't really Masen. Masen was my father's last name. When Dr. Cullen adopted me, I took his last name."

"Well, what a strange coincidence," she said in an odd voice. "I guess Masen is a more common last name than I had thought."

She adopted his pensive attitude as well, thinking that maybe it wasn't such a coincidence that a boy her age suddenly shows up in her clearing with hair her exact same shade of bronze and the very same family name, with a grandmother who could very easily be her namesake. As she stood, trying to covertly study Edward's face more closely, she found herself pulling out features that resembled hers. Was that because they were already there, or was it because she was putting them there? The way both their lips were pursed in thought right now was almost identical. Their Roman noses, too—but hers was softer, where his could have been carved from stone. Their eye shape was the same, only the color was changed. The part of her that had always ached to learn about the mother and family she could have had, which she guessed lay somewhere in her gut, started burning.

"What are your parents' names?" Edward asked, interrupting her reverie. Ellie realized he too was studying her features with newfound fascination.

"I don't know. I never knew them."

"Of course not," Edward murmured so quietly, she wondered whether he meant for her to hear. She supposed most people he spoke with didn't have super-hearing like she seemed to be developing.

"Yours?" she inquired, debating whether she really wanted to know.

"Edward and Elizabeth." At this, Ellie threw one hand over her mouth and dropped the basket of flowers she had been gathering.

"My middle name is Elizabeth. Eleanor Elizabeth Masen. I was always told I was named after my mother." Her eyes were wide, and she was subconsciously creeping toward him, so strong was the pull she felt. "Please, what's your birthday?" Her hand still covered her mouth, but things were so quiet in the clearing, she had no concern of her words not reaching him. It was eerily silent; the calm before the storm. Ellie's senses were aflame again as they had been upon first entering the clearing. That sweet smell was back, and it was making her dizzy. As Edward opened his mouth, she realized she didn't need him to answer. She already heard his answer in her head. Was that an illusion, or was that really his voice she heard?

"September 20th," she replied for him. "Oh, my Lord."

She didn't so much as use the name in vain as she did call upon it to help her stay standing. Her breath was coming quicker and quicker as the ache that had been buried in her gut for almost 20 years now was ripped open. She wrapped her arms tightly around her torso, not knowing whether she was trying to comfort herself or keep her insides from spilling out. Edward rose and they stood face-to-face. He was only a few inches taller, a hand's width, at most. His piercing brown gaze met its piercing green equivalent, and they had a moment of realization- or was it recognition? – before her body shut down and the world around her went black.