In the Highest Tower
This is the companion of Prince Charming, which you in my profile.
Disclaimer: Must we all say this?
I do not own it
I will not own it
I have not owned it.
This is that story from Edward's POV, but only parts, seeing he's not in the entire story. It starts around the middle of October, before the Halloween of PC.
Chapter One
Alice was acting strange today. I had tried repeatedly to enter her thoughts, but it was no use. She kept blocking me. However, everyone else was not as wary.
Jasper was pondering what his Alice could be doing, simply flitting around the house, happy as an elf. He enjoyed her happy, but he wished she would spend more time with him, and not doing dastardly deeds.
Emmett was in usual shallow thought; he was deciding where to schedule his usual Halloween "massacre" this year. We didn't actually kill anyone; he just liked watching imbecilic humans dress up "stupidly" and go around for something as unimportant as sweets. He was deciding between London and Moscow now, as international Halloweens were supposedly better.
Rosalie thoughts were horrible to channel into, but awfully funny. Alice, in her exuberance, had accidentally wrecked some of her favorite clothes, and she was thinking of ways to get revenge, or just a new wardrobe. It was getting quite graphic, but I knew as soon and she saw a mirror, she would forget it all.
Carlisle and Esme were hunting today, they hadn't been able to in a while, and they were overdue. I wondered what Carlisle would think of Alice and all her glory.
Emmett's thoughts broke me from my trance. His thoughts now were revolving around a singular place, Phoenix, Arizona. Why would he want there? It was sunny; we wouldn't be able to leave the house. We DID have a house there, one of our random holdings; we had a house just about everywhere. But why Phoenix?
"Emmett, why?"
"Oh, what?" Emmett looked up surprised, and then realized what I was questioning. "I just thought, for a change in the scene."
"You are a complete idiot. We wouldn't be able to leave the house!"
"Yes we would!!" Alice bounced down the stairs to interrupt the conversation.
I took this opportunity to interrogate her thoughts. She had had a vision of us in Phoenix earlier, and she was just waiting for Emmett to come up with it on his own. But why the excitement?
Rosalie's eyebrows lifted, and she looked at Alice with an expression of sheer confusion and suspicion, "Alice, why are we going to Phoenix?"
"For Halloween, silly!" Alice kept bouncing with joy until Jasper carefully took her down into his lap to cool her down.
"And what aren't you telling us?"
"Nothing!" I hated it when she did that. Blocked her thoughts.
"Jasper, can you come with me?" Why did she even ask, Jasper would do anything for her, he HAD given the greatest sacrifice of human blood for her. "NOBODY disturb us."
Jasper's face instantly lit up and his thoughts were scandalous.
Alice acknowledged this. "Sorry Jazz, not now, maybe later. This is other business."
Jasper's face dropped, and his thoughts mirrored those of complete disappointment. I heard an internal laugh as Emmett watched on at Jasper's being denied. Alice was being less-guarded, and I started to see what she was planning. I was getting bits and pieces of a vision, and thoughts to go along with.
The vision was of a girl with mahogany brown hair falling to the top of her back, and me. We were running through a park, and I was laughing. I hadn't truly laughed like this for a long time.
Edward, are you seeing this?
I looked up at the ceiling. Alice and I were playing our usual game.
She's in Phoenix, Edward. We need to go. I'm going to have Jasper get us some I.D.'s and tickets. We can go for a little bit. Okay?
I shrugged my shoulders as if to scratch my back, a movement and reflex completely unnecessary for me, but to Alice it indicated my agreement.
Jasper, who all this while had started to get annoyed at Alice's silence and her differing intentions, had formulated a plan in his head. He was going to "seduce" Alice and bring her upstairs, using his awfully skillful gift.
Jasper's going to try to mess up my emotions and seduce me again, isn't he?
Another glance to the ceiling.
"Awh, Jasper, you're so cute when you're so predictable." Alice stroked Jasper's chin. "But we have work."
Jasper's face was slightly pouted as she dragged him upstairs.
I then realized that I was alone, Rosalie and Emmett must have gone off to do…something.
Bella Swan, Isabella Swan. Scottsdale, Arizona. Jasper, come on, please find her.
Alice had Jasper on the web, searching. So that was her name, Bella. So fitting, she was beautiful, or by at least what I had seen in Alice's vision. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but this rose was a beauty by the name of a beauty. I was starting to ramble within my head. I never did that.
I then decided to do some research of my own. We had a few computers in our commode; enough to find information and to tickle Emmett's online gaming fancy. He never tired of beating people, amateurs, at games we had all perfected decades ago. I settled on the couch with one of the notebooks, and started the search engine with a simple click of the button.
Isabella Swan, I typed skillfully, my fingers flying over the keys at inhuman speed.
I came up with four results, one of which wasn't her. That angered me, why was there so little? I growled at the computer.
The remaining three were of an English award, a middle school graduation, and a very old article about a junior ballet dance recital.
I read the first, from a newspaper from September:
Isabella Swan, age 16, was awarded Saturday for her analysis of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night's Dream, at the town meeting. Her paper, which won the prize for most in depth essay for the Phoenix Annual Veteran's Writing Contest, delved into the mechanics of how Shakespeare utilized each character to represent a certain value. It will be read at another ceremony on Friday. Mother Renee Dwyer and stepfather Phil Dwyer contributed these words—
The rest of the article was a shamble of opinions, none of which were Isabella's. But I had found crucial information about her form this one simple paragraph. Isabella Swan, of mother Renee and stepfather Phil Dwyer, was an intellectual woman of 16.
The middle school graduation list just consisted of her name in an alphabetical listing. I scanned it for familiarity. No Edward's, which was good. The only similar name to our family was a Rose, but that wouldn't matter. Rosalie would have to cope with it if it came up.
The last piece was amusing. It was from about ten or twelve years ago, and it simply had a picture of twelve to fifteen little dancers in tutu's and leotards, captioned underneath with names. I could see in the back row a little Bella, about 4, wearing a look on her face that expressed her utter distaste for her presence there. Hmmm, I thought about that then dropped the matter.
Alice's impatient thoughts were the first to break once again, my trance.
Edward? You had better be listening. We are all set, we're leaving the 25th, direct flight. Our names are actually regular, and our plane will be at midnight, seeing as to that's no problem for us. Jasper emailed Riley for our I.D.'s and such, and I found a good deal of information about Bella out. Cough downstairs twice if you want me to send it.
I coughed, who was she kidding? Of course I wanted to hear it.
I heard you. Isabella Swan lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, and is 16 years old, birthday September 13th. Her parents are Renee Swan Dwyer and Charlie Swan, who have been divorced since she was a baby. They were married and had her at 19, and divorced soon after. Bella went to Phoenix with Renee, while Charlie lives in Forks, right near us. You actually know him, he's chief of police.
Charlie Swan? Her father? That made a little sense, from what I had seen of Charlie they looked slightly alike.
Alice continued.
She attends Phoenix High, as a sophomore now. She's very smart, but not that social. She loves to read, draw, and write poetry. She's very selfless, she saved a kitten from a tree once, then fell out of the tree. Oh, and she has a tendency to fall.
How did she know all this?
I ran up the stairs, confused by Alice's immense knowledge, and stood in front of Jasper's door, hoping they weren't done searching and onto something "else".
"Edward you can come in." I opened the door to find them sitting at Jasper's computer, Alice naturally in his lap.
"Alice, how did you find all this? I searched downstairs and couldn't find a thing."
You just need to know where to look. Jasper and I heard you growling at the computer. It was pretty funny. Jasper found school records and all.
"Oh."
He even found her email address. I want to email her.
I lowered my lip and growled.
Alice had bought our tickets and after some difficulty with Riley (Jasper's current forging source), we were ready to go.
Emmett was thrilled at our immediate plans, and Carlisle and Esme, once they got home and were explained to about the reasoning behind the plans, were in too.
That night I lay in my couch, going over what had evolved today. Isabella Swan. Hmmm… I had never looked at someone the way I saw myself looking at her in Alice's vision. That was new. I liked it though, I didn't know why, but I liked it.
Alice's visions once again flooded my head, this one new.
A girl, Isabella, sitting on a bed and reading a letter wrapped around a rose. A red rose. Love. She loved something, most likely me. Then the vision flickered to one of her twirling in the rain, in a white nightgown. She looked amazing, almost like a princess. Her hair swirled around her head and she smiled.
I couldn't wait for Halloween.