A/N: I wrote this for an Iron Pen challenge in 2012 - The Iron Pen Challenge is a 60 minute writing contest. Challengers base their entry off of a secret ingredient given at the beginning of the hour. For this secret ingredient was a supernatural ability which our hero recently developed. Bella's was Animation - Ability to bring something back to life or to free an individual from petrification.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


All my life, I blamed myself for my mother's death. My dad kept telling me it was not my fault, but if I wasn't born, she would still be alive.

"Honey, you have to stop blaming yourself. Your mother would not want you to dwell on the unfortunate incident at your birth. She would have willing given her life for you. The same way I would."

I knew I wasn't normal, but I had no way to tell how different I was from other kids because my father insisted on home schooling me. I tried to talk him into sending me to school so I could interact with other kids my age but he was very adamant in this, so we continued with our lives until I turned fifteen.

That's when I realized how different I was. I've always been able to make things grow and I was very good with animals. My father always bragged that I had a green thumb. Living on a farm, that was not unusual, but when I turned fifteen, things changed. My favorite horse, Aladdin died. I sat there in the stall curled up against him and cried for hours, until I passed out. The next day, my dad was acting very strange. I didn't know why until I looked out the window and saw my horse running around the coral.

"Dad, am I dreaming?" I asked in wonder.

"No, sweetheart. The vet came over and he doesn't know what happened. All we know is that the horse is as healthy as he ever was. Maybe we misdiagnosed him and when we thought he was dead, he really wasn't."

This didn't make any sense to me. I knew the horse had died., he knew the horse had died and if Dr. Cullen was here yesterday, he would have known that too. There was no use talking to my dad about this.

I was jubilant. I had a superpower, like the comic book heroes. I knew I should be scared, but somehow, this made me feel special. Then I wondered if this was something that I could use at any time. How does it work? I knew I wished the horse would come back to life, but was it that simple? I decided to do some secret experiments.

I went into the woods in the back of the barn, and walked around searching for any little dead creature. I didn't want to kill anything myself, so I just wandered around, looking under the trees and in the bushes until I found a dead squirrel. I picked it up, brushed the leaves and dirt from its fur, held in to my chest and made my wish just like I had done with the horse.

The squirrel jumped out of my hands and ran into the bushes. I started to laugh. I spun around laughing like a crazy person. This was an amazing power, but I knew I had to keep silent about it. I knew I was unusual, but I didn't want anyone to know the extent of this.

I felt drained, so I went back to the house, ate lunch and went to take a nap. Then I remembered that yesterday, I didn't even know when my dad had picked me up from the stable and brought me to my bed and I slept all night. Is this how the power worked? Did I transfer my energy into the dead horse and squirrel? This is something I would have to investigate further. I would have to do an internet search to see if this has ever happened before. Am I a healer? I was too tired to think about it anymore, so I curled up under my comforter and let the darkness pull me under.

The next morning, I had a plan. I would become a vet so I could save lots of animals, and if I was a vet and kept most of my patients alive, who would think it was strange? It would be the perfect cover.

"Dad, I want to become a vet. If I was trained, we would have known that horse was sick, and we could have done something about it." I decided to leave out the part where I reanimated the horse out. Let him stay in him oblivious state. I didn't want him to have to deal with this anymore that he had to.

"That's a great idea Isabella. I'll speak to Dr. Cullen to see what school he would recommend. In fact, his son Edward is away at school now."

The Cullens were the closest to neighbors we had. Dr. Cullen, his wife Esme and their children all live at the ranch. Most of the year, the kids were away at school, but I see them a few time during school breaks.

A vet. A healer. A witch? Is that why my mother died? Did I take her life force when I was born? How did it suddenly manifest itself? If I wished for my mother to come back, would that happen? The thought was very tempting, but there would be too many complications with that. I felt very sad. Now I had this great superpower and I couldn't use it to bring back my mother. I almost wished I didn't discover it, then I thought of all the good I could do. All the animals I could heal. All the pets I could save, then other children wouldn't have to go through the anguish I felt when my beloved horse had died. I dried the tears from my face, put on a smile and went to ride my horse. Riding clears my head. I would make all my plans while we were galloping through the woods.

For the first time in my life, I gave myself permission to stop lamenting the past. I couldn't save my mother. Maybe this is the way it was meant to be. What matters from now on, would be what I decide to do with this gift.