Chapter One

I recognized those brown eyes even in the darkness of the night. Her lashes were thick and dark, framing the face that seemed even more beautiful every time I dreamt of her. She smiled at me, her eyes glowing with affection as she spotted me looking in shyly. In these dreams, she was always somewhere different, but now in the summer house, she happened to be here, in the millpond. The croaking frogs of summer around her as her bare feet brushed the cool water, creating tinkling noises. She seemed to be expecting me as she held her hand open and let my fingers brush hers, locking them into mine. She patted the spot next to her with her other hand and let me sit down on the grass, sliding through my fingers.

"Hello, sweetheart," she said, smiling kindly as she locked her fingers through mine and looked at me, eyes filled with adoration.

"Hello, Momma," I whispered back, letting my head fall on her shoulder and savoring the warmth of her fingers sliding across my hair, even if it wasn't nearly as pretty as her thick mahogany locks which were filled with daffodils that bloomed along the millpond.

I let my head rest there, savoring the sheer warmth of her and the noises around us. Mostly just hearing her breathe next to me was calming, which was exactly what I needed at the moment.

"I don't like Tanya," I stated petulantly after a second.

"Of course you don't, darling," she smiled knowingly.

The wonderful thing about my mother was how easily things flowed around her, particularly when I knew it was a dream, and I could tell her anything in them.

"She's going to replace me," I pouted, irked by her easygoing, joyful mood.

"Of course she's not going to replace you, love," she disagreed, smiling at me as she kissed the crown of my head. "Daddy loves you more than anything else. You know that."

"I do," I elaborated. "It's just, she really, really doesn't love him. It's like that woman he was engaged to when I was smaller, the nasty, piggy-looking one Aunt Alice disliked so. And he doesn't love her either. He's not any happier when he's around her than he usually is.

She smiled sadly, her eyes filled with tears that she couldn't shed in these dreams. "Is he ever happy, then?"

I buried my head in her hair to hide my embarrassment.

"Is that all?" she encouraged. No. It wasn't. Tanya was replacing her, the woman I was with right now , and I wasn't happy with that. She was replacing everything, without even soothing my father's agony on any level.

"No, Mummy, it's not," I growled and she seemed to grin like Daddy always did, whenever I acted this way "She's replacing you!" Tears burst forth and her cool fingers brushed them away, while she hummed a song similar to my

"That's not a bad thing," she disagreed gently, tilting my head up with her fingers to kiss my cheek. "Daddy deserves to have another woman in his life."

I was almost indignant now. "I'm a woman, too, you know, mother."

"No, love, I mean, he needs a wife. Hasn't grandmamma explained this to you?"

I blushed crimson. "Of course she has. But we shouldn't talk about these things."

"That wasn't my point, love. What I mean is that, despite the fact that he constantly points out your all he will ever need and that nothing else is as good as you are," constantly tells you that you're all he'll ever need, and that no one else is as good as you her cool fingertip touched my nose playfully, "which is true, you can't fill a number of roles, as badly as he may want you to. Does that make sense, Nessie?"

I nodded grudgingly. At times I was jealous of the fact that he called me Bella by accident.

"Want to take a walk?" she asked after a second, smiling playfully as she pulled me up to my feet.

We went everywhere. She even led me into the mill, pointing out that unless I wanted to give Daddy a heart attack I shouldn't go there. Then she took me into the more beautiful looking orchards that edged on the woods. Suddenly, she dropped my wrist.

Her brown hair was soaked with moonlight as she disappeared into the tickets of trees. Suddenly her brown eyes glittered mischievously while fading into the bushels, her fingers disappeared—I wasn't a sixteen year old girl anymore, just a child. I was faintly confused as I stumbled after her into the small forest, following her voice.

Just like everything about my mother, her voice in my dreams had a soothing, musical quality to it that seemed to calm everything down. I had just been holding her hand, my small chubby fingers locked onto her pale, tiny wrist,but she had suddenly disappeared.

Where was she? Her voice kept on calling on to me, a soft musical hum that seemed to have been sung rather than spoken, but I couldn't find her.

"Nessie." Her voice was an appealing peal of laughter spoken to me from the dark. "Find me, love. Find me, Renesmee…"

My choked wails of alarm rang higher and higher as I stumbled around in the bushels, until the rosebuds became the thorns of winter. Her voice kept calling out to me like a song, and I stumbled after her, my pink silky frock torn by the thick thorns all around me". I could imagine my nanny's cries of outrage when she found me, but didn't care. Where was my mother? Her hair kept on fluttering in the dark, completely unscathed by the brittle that had been flourishing oaks only moments before. The white lace of her wedding dress was just as unscathed as her perfect brown hair.

"Find me,…" Her laugh tinkled through the forest.

My wails were more desperate now , as I looked around. The green grass underneath my small satin ballerina flats had become a scorched ground filled with dirt, struck by drought just like the brittle branches above me. The stream of the pearly moonlight lighting everything was turning a frightening haze of yellow. I collapsed, the ground opening up below me as the thorns sprouted and wrapped around the trees like snakes. Where was Daddy? Daddy should be here, saving me like he had promised to…I wasn't only calling out for the angel I'd been looking for, but for my knight in shining armor to come rescue me. I wanted Momma to come play with me like she had in the pond before, biding me to play hide and seek inside the forest…

My wails became desperate as fright overtook me. Her voice, where was it? She wasn't calling out to me anymore, and I wanted her to.

"Renesmee!"

This voice was fraught with anxiety, deeper and masculine, so much more than my mother's tinkling, musical voice, but just as soothing, and also agonized. Something shook me violently. I wished for my mother's angelic voice, but this was also something I could welcome.

"Renesmee, love?"

My eyelids fluttered open. My father's face was blur in spite of the candlelight at my bedside. His bright emerald green eyes were filled with anxiety as he shook me, so gently now it was hardly shaking, like I was made of priceless porcelain. He cuddled me to his chest tightly.

He was kneeling on my bedside and though a candle dripping with wax lay on my night table, his face was mostly lit by the strange moonlight falling through the window. His tousled bronze hair was looking even messier, thick circles under his eyes.

Those deep, lavender circles under my father's beautiful eyes weren't an oddity, neither was the iciness of his touch. I was used to the deep, lavender circles under his strange haze of green eyes, and I lifted my hand to touch them.

"Are you alright?" he whispered, his melodic voice soothing, even calming the sobs rippling free without any restraint. O managed a croaked yes—my voice was hoarser with sleep than I thought.

"I should've woken you earlier, darling, but you looked so peaceful. I'm such a terrible father," he murmured guiltily, his eyes glazed with pain. "You look so much like your mother when you sleep, sweetheart."

All his smiles were for me, all his love and all his money. My father was the richest lawyer in Chicago, and as such the most eligible bachelor but he had never even looked at another woman that wasn't my mother after she died. He never smiled, his lips a tight line unless when speaking to me, when he became ridiculously softer.

I looked at him sternly, thinking about all this, because he saw through me better than anybody else possibly could – almost as if he could read my thoughts.

"You're an angel, you know that?" he murmured, pressing his lips to my forehead, and then lifting me from his lap reluctantly. He tucked me under a heavy quilt and waited for my eyelids to close.

He blew out the candle and then fell back to the old rocking chair in front of the window seat, his face lit by the gas lamp as he watched me intently. He didn't say anything, and I didn't either. I just kept my hands buried under the pillow, my head sunken and my eyes opened.

"Sleep, love," he said after a second, pinching the bridge of his nose, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"You're not sleeping," I pointed out.

His answering smile was grim.

I shook my head in disapproval, actually pained. He only slept under heavy dosages of whisky in his study, but as far as he should be concerned, I had never been there. I had found it as a little girl, when looking for pictures of my mother. I snuck there often just to look at the picture of her wedding day, the only picture I had found, kept under the loose board of the drawer of his desk. One time, he had forgotten to lock the whisky cabinet, a cabinet stuffed with several heavy alcoholic beverages, and as an eager little girl I had opened it. I brought the housekeeper, but she just muttered something in shock and led me out of the study to scold me.

She had been severally scolded for scolding me later, and something about grief and bad handling had been tossed around by the housekeeper, who inexplicably remained employed.

The only time I had seen him drunk had been after I had had a nightmare. He had rushed to me straight away as he heard my screaming, and he had smelled of something strong and pungent. I had asked, but he had shrugged it off gently and tucked me to bed. He left, and I had peeked from the banister. He slammed the door of his study so hard it shook with anger his anger tossed a bottle so hard I heard it crash against the wall and then watched his angry, fanatical shadow as he took another swig off the bottle.

All my nightmares and dreams had been about my mother. I had a feeling his dreams were too—after all, I heard people whisper. I heard what they said. The only reason he hadn't followed my mother after she died was that she left him with a tiny daughter to care for.

_________________________________________________________________________

Author's Note: This is my first fanfic. Thanks to the wonderful Irish Froggy for betaing this story and for her support. Please review..I accept Anonymous Reviews and try to reply to all the signed reviews.