For fans who never wanted forever to end…Twilight Afterglow; The Next Decade

The Shape of Shadows

I can never walk past a missing persons poster without noticing. I always wonder if the absent individual has been lost to the shadows of our world. The secret realm of monsters. As Bella Swan, human, I would have stopped, lingered, and gawped at the poster, oblivious to passers-by and my own transparent empathy. Yet as Bella Cullen, a swift glance was enough to absorb the reward information, the date a girl had gone missing, and her carefree smile from another time. There isn't much I don't notice in a split second.

I very rarely linger in cities either, anymore. Especially if there was a chance of the sun shining.

Carrying a truckload of gifts that felt little more than featherweight, I navigated the busy streets, deftly side-stepping Christmas shoppers. And in the back of my mind, I hoped the young girl depicted in the poster had simply made the choice to vanish down a different path; one that, though enigmatic and no doubt traumatizing to her loved ones, included the missing female somewhere very much alive and breathing.

I knew better than anyone the range of emotions, from vague concern, to gut-wrenching aguish, that disappearing from somebody's life could bring.

And so a trip to Forks, to my dad, was imperative.

Which would probably prove somewhat chilled, after visiting my mother before the onslaught of Christmas. At least my dad, Charlie, knew of my mysteries. He knew that a significant life-change had occurred within me with me a decade ago. Sometimes I even suspected that he suspected I wasn't actually alive, for that matter. But Renee was a different story. And equally suspicious in proportion to the taller tales I told my mom with every passing year. Each year that I ceased to change in appearance or age.

Anaphylaxis by Solar Urticarail. It was truly a thing, just not of mine. Rather inventive of me, I thought. I'd actually kept a straight face when I told my mom I'd developed a severe allergy to the sun; one where I'd first break out in welts, then go into anaphylactic shock if UV rays so much as touched my skin. Many people truly are treated for it every year, and a number do die. Which was also the reason why I spent so much time researching in the arctic, I said, and so very rarely made it to sunny Florida. She assumed I had a science degree to research with, after all. There'd been no actual need for me to attend university. I'd read and absorbed, the entire three year science-program textbooks in 10 days.

And to Renee's credit, she likewise kept a straight face as I fed her fiction. My mom's expression didn't change, despite her eyes narrowing at my alabaster skin, ethereal features and teenage beauty; when I should be nearing thirty.

Nor had she ever met her grandchild, or known of her existence. There was plenty I could explain away, regardless of how flimsy I might sound. But a child with the appearance of a twenty-five year old, born only a decade ago, was beyond even my capabilities.

When I let myself dwell on the fact too much, I was beset with a fiery, nauseous rush of guilt. Shame that my mom would never melt into the serene, angelic embrace of my daughter. Never feel pride and awe at her exceptional genius. Never know Renesmee's namesake was entangled with my mother's in her honour.

Yet it was all for the good of Renee. Protective ambiguity. For the Volturi had few laws, but one commandment was upheld with sacred threat. Those self-proclaimed royals of the vampire world had been active in controlling a small degree of the lives of immortals for countless centuries, and able to do so with a guard of vampire beings with such unparallel and terrifying powers, that abiding by their rule was the safest option. Not forgetting the fact that my family, and allies in the shape of werewolves, had once challenged the royal clan. And come out on top. A slight we understood would never be forgiven, and avenged one day. Sometimes I shuddered at the thought, and other times my smouldering resentment made me long for a chance to unleash on them.

It was the Volturi who ordained our kind had to say goodbye to our human families, under the shield of forged human death.

Deep down, I suspected it was partly my own form of smug rebellion that I were still in contact with mine. What they didn't know couldn't hurt me. That, and the overwhelming human love I held for my mom and dad. I'd decided straight after my transformation that I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my mother. Whoever is? There were times I argued with myself that I should have. In the decades to come, my parody of dying early would be an inevitable given. But right now, I owned what very few, vampire or human, had the foresight to cherish; that each moment with my mom was instantly stored as a beloved memory. And I simply could not bring myself to inflict the shards of agony my passing would inflict on her just yet.

Lately though, a whisper of rumour had reached us in the furthest four corners; the Volturi were losing their grasp of power. Whether this tentacle of hearsay were true or not, it was imperative I shielded Renee from the truth of what I was. The sacred Volturi law demanded that humans remain unaware of vampires. When it came to my somewhat erratic mom, I agreed with them for once.

Renee could likewise be a little dramatic. Knowing I ripped out the jugular of most mammals for substance would cause a piercing shriek from her that would set my very sharp teeth grinding. Better that she remain ignorant, and I with a calm incisors.

Nor did I doubt that the Volturi's tyranny – declining or not – was still something to be wary of. It was one of the reasons why we Cullen's had journeyed the planet frequently like gypsies for the past decade. Mostly nestled among the clouds, the wind and the rain. Never staying for long, and avoiding the sunshine to mask our very obvious differences. Humans became suspicious of a family who didn't appear to age, and they went into outright shock when faced with a surface of skin that gleamed pearlescent in sunlight. The tell-tale sign of a vampire; the flesh of diamonds.

Over the years, I'd grown used to the eclipse of overcast destinations. This was the existence I'd craved as a teenager, thought I would literally die if denied the life of the undead. I was born to be a vampire. And the day I did die, my rebirth had bloomed with exhilaration. Shadows, twilight, dusk and gloom were not dulled to the vivid hues of nature. My eyes, with magnified and expanded vision, took in each haven with supernatural awe. The rolling valleys and mountainous peaks of New Zealand shone like emeralds set against an indigo backdrop for the past two years. Even through sheets of constant drizzle. And for the five years before, the jade jungles of Columbia were jewels among a crown of cascading waterfalls that glistened like my skin.

Even the sleet of Seattle held an array of what would be limited as grey to the human eye. But mine roamed over a palette of mauves, lilacs, rich-bruise purples in the winter cast. Then, much quicker than any human eye could likewise see, I spotted a flash of hot pink headed my way.

Alice.

My sister-in-law whisked through unaware crowds invisible, and came barrelling in like a meth-addicted tsunami.

'Could you at least pretend to be human in public?' I snapped while rolling my eyes. Which, I might add, were rapidly losing their false brown shade. The chocolate coloured contacts I wore were being eaten by the venomous acid in my body. Soon, I'd sport a pair of golden orbs to rival a Bahamian sunset. And probably cause a few children to cry.

Normally, I couldn't bring myself to snap at the vivacious and loving Alice. But the imminent journey to Forks had my teeth clenched, if not actually grinding yet. It didn't help that my sister-in-law sustained more haulage than I did. Half a department store was hoisted on her tiny form. With her elfin frame, it looked as though she were achieving an impossible feat. Which of course she was, by normal standards.

Alice looked, in every way, like Celtic mythology itself had taken a pixie and manifested it into human size, albeit still a diminutive one.

'I'm sorry,' Alice shrugged. 'I hate the crowds at Christmas.'

'But not the shopping,' I observed.

She giggled with the guilty pleasure of an addicted consumer, before she turned serious.

'Are you worried about Renesmee?'

I shrugged, perturbed. My strange, gifted daughter was just one of the things niggling at my brain. I never thought I'd be separated from Renesmee again for more than a week, let alone six months. She'd left, deaf to my arguments, unable to be apart from Jacob for a moment longer. Jacob had gone on earlier than her, after roaming for the most part of ten years with us, also loathe to be separated from Renesmee. The sprawling valleys and peaking alps of New Zealand had enabled Jacob to spirit across the land in werewolf form, unbound to a human shape.

But sometimes the guilt of duty weighs heavier than the pleasure of the heart, and Jacob had no choice to venture back to Forks when his dad, Billy Black, had grown deathly ill. Billy, also a friend of my own father's, was still hanging in there, and Renesmee wanted to be by both their sides.

My daughter's communication from Forks was spasmodic, to say the least. And I hadn't caved and followed, not just because I didn't want to return, but because I had to respect her wish to spend time alone with her soulmate and the man who, if he lived, was predestined as her father-in-law.

Then there was Charlie. Despite the love that beamed from his eyes in my direction, each year at Christmas, his stare also grew more veiled with despair. His aging emphasized my frozen youth. He knew we were different, but never asked how or why. He would never know which question to begin with anyway. My dad simply understood answers would not only place him in danger, but result in the need for me to disappear from his life forever.

I'd flown my dad out to whatever country I'd been in for the last ten years during the festive season.

This would be my first trip home in a decade.

Forks held the best of memories and the worst of lingering nightmares. We'd left not long after my change, and our confrontation with the Volturi. My appearance had altered greatly after the transformation, from a prettily plain brunette, to a sleek feline creature. This was not narcissism in any form, but a vampire weapon of allurement. My new siblings had served their full term at Forks high-school, and my new father-in-law, Carlisle, was on his fifth year as Chief Surgeon at the hospital – all of them without aging a day. Leaving Forks was the obvious option to avoid town-folk suspicion. It also occurred to me, deep in my subconscious, that we were forcing the memory of the Volturi to fade by placing a physical divide between us and them.

And I'd been eager to sample all the places and attractions I'd dreamed about with my new extraordinary senses.

So why would I return after all this time to the home of my birth, the place of my death, the town where I began life as an immortal? It wasn't just because I'd began to feel shame that I'd forced Charlie to travel so far each Christmas, ignoring his advancing years over my apprehension to go back. I could no longer coerce him halfway around the world in good conscience. It twanged at my own guilt, highlighted by Jacob's dutiful return to his dad.

But more mysterious and demanding; the area was calling to us. To me, to my brothers and sisters, Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett Hale, to my mother and father-in-law, Esme and Carlisle and to Edward…my husband, my light, my life. We all felt the pull, almost as strong as an animal's heart beating with the song of blood. And not even certain members of my family, with their strange, prophetic talents, could decipher its siren meaning. Not Alice, with her glimpses of the future, not my father-in-law Carlisle, with his otherworldly lateral thinking, not Edward, the most paranormally insightful of us all.

Sometimes, going by past experience, a bloodline of young male descendants from the Quileute tribe turned into werewolves overnight, when the threat of a vampire coven ventured too close to Forks. Like some kind of preternatural gene-pool mutation. All we could guess was that our family were undergoing something similar. A mental sonar aimed at creatures of our kind. I fervently hoped it was just us Cullens and Hales that heard, and answered. I prayed we wouldn't find a mardi gras of blood-feeding immortals congregating in my tiny Olympic Penninsula town. Unlike us, there were very few vampires who chose to drink the blood of animals over taking human life. And an even greater number did so to mortals without remorse.

If I'd still been able to bleed, I would have had a crimson trail down my chin where I'd bitten my lip at the thought. As it was, I'd punctured a hole straight through it. Which healed in less than a second.

Alice was gazing at me with empathy. 'It'll be fine. You'll see what I already know,' said my sister, the psychic vampire.

If only her visions weren't subjective to change.

If only I'd left my ability to fret back in my human life.

'Shall we go home?' she urged.

My eyeball camouflage was melting, and the two of us were standing around showing off superhuman strength under five tons of gift wrapping.

I joined her as we disappeared in a flash, as though we were never there.