Chapter One

Charlie

There was something very wrong here in Forks, I'd lived here all my life but it had never really registered before. I guess when you're brought up somewhere you just assume that's the way things are but I'd been away at the Police Academy and now I was back, a rookie cop in my home town. At first I thought the hairs standing up on the back of my neck were just caused by new job nerves but it was more than that. Before I could start to investigate what it was that gave me the cold feeling I met Renee Higginbotham and fell in love. She came with friends to a music concert in Seattle and Joe Newton, Keith Webber, Andrew Biers, and I went along too. She and I fell in love and she followed me back to Forks, camping out in the woods outside town at first until she got a job at the local grocery store and then she rented a room over it.

My mother wasn't particularly impressed, especially once she found out that Renee had run away from home but of course I didn't care and we got engaged soon after. Then a house became available and my grandmother died leaving me some money so I bought it and we got married.

Renee got pregnant almost immediately and we were both really excited at the prospect of becoming parents but as the birth drew closer Renee spent more and more time on the res with Billy's wife and Sue Clearwater and my mother, suspicious to the end tried to tell me something was wrong but I loved my wife and when our daughter Isabella was born I felt my life was complete.

How wrong I was! Renee continued to spend a lot of time on the res with Bella and then one day while I was at work she just packed up and left taking our daughter with her. I was devastated when I read her note left in an envelope with her door key and wedding ring on the kitchen table.

Charlie,

Sorry to leave like this but I had no choice. Forks is a strange place and dangerous for some. There are many things in town that threaten, things you aren't aware of and things I cannot reveal. I'm taking Bella to keep her safe and I beg you not to look for us. I will look after her and perhaps in time, if the situation changes, we may return. I love you Charlie so please believe me when I say I do this for your sake too.

All my love Renee.

Of course I hunted for her, my Chief helped out by contacting friends in other jurisdictions and I travelled whenever I had the opportunity but it was as if Renee and Bella had ceased to exist. Her social security number was never used again nor her passport or drivers licence and Bella was never enrolled in a state school or at a doctors. It seemed they had driven out of Forks and into another dimension. My mother became sick soon after and although her greatest wish was to see her granddaughter one more time she died with that wish unfulfilled.

I traced her mother Marie to a psychiatric hospital in San Diego and with the help of the San Diego Police Department found that Renee had visited her mother once after she left me but she had never been back and Marie was living in a world of her own, unable to communicate with anyone but her imaginary friends so I couldn't get any leads there. I had lost my wife, my daughter, and my life in one fell swoop.

The only friends Renee had in Forks apart from the Quileutes were Keith and Joan Webber and he was now a Lutheran minister. I questioned them hoping Renee might have said something to help me trace her but Joan said Renee had never spoken to her about leaving and she had been shocked when she heard the news. I got the impression that Keith knew more but he wouldn't talk, at least not in front of his wife and young daughter Angela. I caught up with him outside church a couple of weeks after visiting the house and I could see he was uneasy but he finally agreed to talk to me over a beer.

We sat in a booth at the back of the bar which was more private but he still looked uncomfortable.

"You know something Keith don't you? Do you know where Renee and Bella are? Why they left? Come on, you're my friend help me out here."

He sat back and sighed deeply,

"I can't tell you much Charlie but Renee did visit the church to speak with me. She was very troubled by things she thought were going on in Forks."

"Things? Like what?"

"Renee was an unusual person, she saw many things, only some of which I believe were real."

"You think she was mad? Like her mother?"

"No, I think Renee was very sensitive, she felt undercurrents and the way she interpreted them was somewhat strange".

"Come on Keith stop talking in riddles please. Give me something."

"This is very difficult for me Charlie because Renee spoke to me in confidence most of the time. I think she was scared by something in Forks, something she believed lived here."

"A person? Was she being threatened by someone? Who was it? Why didn't she tell me?"

"Not exactly, no. Renee was convinced that Forks was a centre of some ancient evil, an evil she was scared might reach out to her daughter. I believe that's possibly why she fled."

"Did she tell you who this evil person was?"

"It wasn't a person as such Charlie. More an entity I suppose. I tried to explain to her that Forks had no history of evil deeds or demons but I couldn't convince her. She told me that was true of various places and they were in fact the very places evil hid in plain sight. She spoke in riddles half the time but I don't think she was mad, just very troubled. I wanted to speak to you Charlie but she forbade it and I couldn't go against her wishes."

"Did you understand her? Why didn't you tell me anyway? I could have got her some help."

"From whom Charlie? Who do you get to help convince someone that evil doesn't exist when we all know it does, its all around us or you wouldn't have a job and neither would I."

I got no more from him and that night I lay awake thinking about the conversation, a centre of ancient evil? What the hell was that supposed to mean? I got the impression that Keith believed her, at least to a degree but I didn't understand. I'd asked Billy and Harry about Renee but they didn't know anything, she had spent her time with Sue Clearwater and Sarah Black. I couldn't speak to Sarah because she was in hospital sick and the doctors didn't know what was wrong yet, but I would try Sue again now I had some idea what they might have discussed. The thing that hurt the most was that although scared by something in town Renee had never discussed it with me. Did she think I would laugh at her fears? Was it preferable to flee from here and leave me with only questions? Would I ever see my daughter again or had she, like her mother, vanished from the face of the earth for ever?"