The Circle of Fire
Summary: Bella dies to protect her family. She reincarnates but with no memories of her previous life. She moves to Vancouver and meets the Cullens. What will happen when past reminds of itself? 25 years after Breaking Dawn.
Prologue
My End Is My Beginning
The flames licked my pale, marble body. Fire burned me from outside. The pain was unbearable but I didn't give up. I held him tight in my arms, never let him get out of the grip. He burnt with me screaming in agony. He had to die - he was a threat to my family. I saw his vampire flesh turns into dust and ashes. He didn't exist. Finally. I could leave this world in peace.
The flame licked, burned, tortured, but I was above that. I was out of the body.
I watched ho happened. My marble crust sizzled in the fire. An effigy of stone stood mindlessly in the middle of the bonfire burning like a torch. I was air and the observer. I saw the final death of my body which was dead for a long time. It was the end. My end.
So why I felt so free, light, happy? I floated slowly upward, mixing with air. Pain, temperature, body were long gone. Memory went away leaving me with emptiness in my heart. But this... absence of reminiscence was pleasant. It freed me from the Earth. Nothing kept me here from now on. The Light filled me and I was the Light. I was sending my farewell to the bonfire crossing the Other Side's border when on the distant scene came Someone. Curiosity took over. I retreated slightly.
I saw the horrified Angel. He looked at the dummy on fire. A terrible cry of despair burst from his lips:
"Bella, no! Anything but that! Bella! Bella!"
Something stirred in my soul. I walked away from the Other Side. Bronze-haired Angel rushed toward the flames. I wanted to stop him, but I was only a disembodied mass mixed with air. I couldn't do anything.
Vampire pulled the remains of the puppet out of the fire. He tried to revive something which has long belonged to the death. The stone crumbled in his hands. Angel gave a piercing howl of agony, screamed, sobbed. I felt his terrible pain. I wanted to relieve him saying, "Don't worry, I'm not there in ashes, I - survived. If it is me you miss, then just look up. I'm here. " But I had no voice. I spoke the language of the wind - the language of rustles. The Other Side grew impatient, hurried me up. And I did not want to go yet. I had to comfort the Angel, relieve his pain, soothe his dead heart.
He sobbed. He cried without tears. Between fingers he poured grey ash. He applied handfuls of sand to his face, whispering: "Bella, Bella, Bella" in helpless, despairing tone. He breathed the air, as if he wanted to feel me. Then he suddenly stopped. He looked into the fire with lunatic eyes jumped up then ran into the flames. He wanted to join me.
Small dark-haired vampire caught the Angel the last instant. She pulled him before flames could bite him, lick him. Bronze-haired struggled but on the scene came seven immortals who helped tame him.
Madness and lunacy took over the Angel who kept repeating: "Bella, Bella, Bella." Then crowd of comforters surrounded him. They also had a concealed untold suffering in their hearts. Oh, it was such a sad day. Why? I didn't understand what was happening. The threat had passed. I was alive - although without a body, but still...
Young girl with brown hair and chocolate eyes separated from the group of comforters and walked slowly into the dying fire. She placed the steps very carefully as if afraid to see... ashes? Her eyes widened. She spoke in a thin voice of a helpless child:
"Mom? Mommy?"
All of sudden in her side appeared a tall, tanned man. He embraced her and whispered:
"Nessie ..."
The girl shook her head, trying to deny something.
"No" she muttered. " Mom, where are you? Mommy, come back! I need you ..."
She dropped to her knees in front of the grey sand. She cried with salty tears that came streaming down her small face. Her whole figure shook from sobbing.
"Mommy, do not. Do not leave me! No, please... Mom ..."
A man knelt beside her, hugging her tightly to himself. He also had tears in his eyes.
There was something in this scene. Something that gave me the strength to resist, even for a moment, the Other Side's calls. This girl... I knew her. She was mine. I loved her.
I looked again at the Angel surrounded by comforters, and then at her and at the tanned man. In all of them there was something familiar. And suddenly their names came back. Just for a second memory returned. Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper. Alice. Jacob. My Edward. My Reneesme ... My family.
I could no longer defend myself from the Other Side. The Light penetrated the image. I heard a whisper of Alice, who passed away unnoticed from the rest.
"Don't go away, Bella" she said.
She looked up into the air, straight at me. She reached out as if to touch me.
The next moment, I was united with the Light, eventually passing through. This was not the Land of Death. I already had that behind me. I was entering the Kingdom of Life. Again I felt the freedom, joy and incredible lightness. However, certain shadow still disturbed the peace of my soul - memory of that scene so full of suffering and despair. This should not happen. I should not have seen it. I should have followed the Light in the first place.
Next to me other souls moved forward. They floated in heavenly bliss. I felt unworthy of my new companions because of this small flaw, small shadow. Some unidentified force pulled me away from them and I knew that to the True Kingdom of Life I must get by a different path. I turned to the unknown depths of the Other Side.
Suddenly I felt I was being squeezed through something. Like a narrow tunnel. I lost consciousness...? I didn't know. There was only a darkness.
I opened my eyes and I started screaming, gasping for life-giving oxygen. My first breath. Memory... I lost it again. Both of Bella Swan and of life after death. I was born again and now my name was Jennifer Smith.