Chapter One: The Announcement

I hummed to the radio as I ran from room to room cleaning. The song was approximately three minutes long. My record cleaning time was ten minutes, but I wanted to try and get as close as I could to finishing within the time limit of the song.

"So close," I whined as the song ended. That wasn't entirely true. I still had more than half of the cleaning left.

"Keep telling yourself that," someone laughed from the doorway.

I spun around. "Aunt Rosalie!" I exclaimed. Then I winced. "Uh, there isn't any of grandpa's doctor friends around is there?"

Aunt Rosalie shook her head. "Nah. Carlisle doesn't really have people over these days anyway."

True enough. Everytime the five or six year mark approached, we had to stop being as friendly and inviting in order to prevent people from discovering the glaring fact that we haven't aged a day since we moved here. For me, I could keep changing my hairstyle since my hair does actually grow back. My family isn't as lucky.

My name is Renesmee Carlie Cullen. I am half human and half vampire. I'm dating a werewolf. My family are vampires. My life is pretty complicated. Vampires have this tendency to sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight. We can't exactly go out in the sunlight, so we keep to the overcast areas. Not aging kinda helps. We have to keep moving so no one finds out about us when they notice we haven't aged.

"We're moving soon anyway," Aunt Rosalie said, gauging my reaction.

I raised my eyebrows. "Moving? I just graduated last month. We haven't even been here for five years."

Aunt Rosalie shrugged. "Alice saw a vision. Edward's slightly ticked off, but he won't say anything. All I know is if we stay, someone will figure it out." She glanced down at her phone and began playing with the case. "Esme says it'll be nice to go home."

I dropped the book I was about to shelve with a loud bang. "Home?"

"Yeah," Rosalie said carefully. "Forks, that is. She misses the house. Your mom wants to visit Charlie anyway. It's been seventy years almost."

"I can't go back yet," I said firmly. "It's too soon. Besides, the last time I was in Forks, Grandpa died."

The unspoken words of And you almost did too was quite visible in Aunt Rosalie's eyes as she looked up at a judging angle. Her eyes flicked toward my left hand.

I covered the scar that went full circle around my wrist where my hand had been completely severed for a full minute.

"That won't happen again," I said truthfully. "It hurt like hell. And the blood was everywhere. The smell almost made me pass out."

Aunt Rosalie sighed. "We're going back, Nessie. As a family this time. It won't be like last time. In your defense, I warned your parents that letting you galavant around with humans would hurt you in the end. Hurt us. Look what happened when your dad started to hang around your mom. She almost died hundreds of times." Aunt Rosalie let a few locks of golden hair fall across her shoulders and she began playing with her hair.

I blew a chunk of brown hair out of my eyes. My newest hairstyle involved growing out my bangs from the previous one. "Why did they let me then? They practically forced it on me."

"Edward always insisted on your mom having the best human experiences," Aunt Rosalie explained. "At the time it seemed silly to her, but when you look back on life, especially a life as long as ours, those human years were some of the most important memories. Homecoming, prom, first kiss, first date, first phone, first car, the driving test. Such insignificant things at the time, but to someone who's lived it, there's nothing you won't forget about those experiences."

I swallowed, thinking about my school career at Forks High School. "Right. I guess I kinda understand now."


I took a deep breath and stepped out of my car. I hadn't wanted a flashy car, so my mom suggested I get a truck. At least to drive to school. Whatever, it wasn't like I could drive yet, so it was Jacob that was dropping me off.

"Ready?" Jacob asked as he rejoined me. The plan was to park the car elsewhere and have Jake meet up with me as soon as he did that, so we could both pose as freshmen.

"You ask me this everyday," I said rolling my eyes. "But yes. Anyway, did you hear that there's a new girl? Her first day is today."

"Why move to Forks?" Jake asked, grinning down at me. "Seems like a silly decision."

"Her grandmother is ill," I informed him. "She's in a delicate state. Carlisle told me. They would have brought her to live with them if they didn't live in Florida. She would be at risk of death if they tried to bring her that far." I opened my locker and took out my binders for my first three hours. I shoved them in my backpack and slammed the locker shut. "It pays to pay attention."

"Ix nay on the Arlisle cay," Jake hissed. " No one is suppose to know you're related."

"And the rich reservation kid gig isn't obvious," I said rolling my eyes. "It's fine. No one pays attention to us anyway." I sat down next to Jake in our English seats.

"Excuse me?" a small voice asked.

I looked behind me. "Uh, hi," I said with a half hearted smile.

The voice belonged to a girl with glossy brown hair and stylish black glasses. All her clothes were from fashion design labels (thank you for that useless knowledge, Alice). I hadn't seen her before.

"Do you know where the World History classroom is?" she asked. "That's my next hour and I don't know how to get there."

"Second floor," Jake said glancing at the room number on the girl's schedule. "Hey, you've got Spanish and Health with Nessie."

"Nessie?"

"Me," I volunteered. "I'm Renesmee Clearwater."

"Jacob Black," Jake added, sticking out a hand.

The girl took it and shook. "Er, Carly Newton. I just moved here. I'm a freshman."

"So are we," I said brightly. "Tell you what, I'll meet you before third hour. Just wait outside your classroom, I'll be there two minutes tops."

Jake elbowed me sharply. "Ness…"

I touched his arm. My parents want me to have a human experience, I told him.


I picked up an old hat box and gently shook it. I could hear the old letters sliding around and hitting the walls.

"Hey, sweetheart," my mom said poking her head in. My mom is one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. Inside and out. We have the same dark brown hair, but she has paler skin than I do and her eyes are a soft gold. Mine are brown instead since I'm part human.

"Hi, mom," I sighed. "Do we have to leave?"

My mom sat next to me on my bed. "Well, Edward says people are getting a little suspicious about Carlisle. I think someone saw the records from the last time we were here. We must have missed something."

Every time we move to a new place, my dad and Uncle Jasper remove the files of the last time we were in town. Sometimes they replace things too, like the graduating class photos.

"I meant do we have to leave for that place?" I clarified. "You know, starting the cycle over again."

"The cycle?" Mom asked in amusement. "What is this cycle?"

"Start at Forks and go through all the different places before returning again to Forks after eighty or so years," I told her. "The Cullen Cycle."

"Renesmee, we're due to go back next anyway," she said quietly. "I don't think she's even still living there."

I frowned. "You told me how it felt when Dad left you. How you wouldn't want to leave because that would make everything seem less real. Why would this be any different?" I opened the box and took out the letter on top.

Renesmee Carlie Cullen

123 Maple St.

Augusta, ME

The letter had no return address. I hadn't bothered to open the envelope when I receive the letter, but I knew who it was from. Even ten years later, the scent of her blasted perfume hung onto the paper.

"I'll let you finish packing," Mom said quietly before leaving my room.

I held my breath as I slid my fingers under the flap to open the envelope. I reached inside to pull out a card.

Happy Birthday! It read. On the inside in neat handwriting was a short message. I'm still sending these. It's been about seventy years, Ness. Are you guys coming back? I want you to meet my granddaughter Andrea. She reminds me of you. Anyway, have a happy birthday, Nessie! I'd add the years, but it's impolite to remind a lady of her age. Love, Carly

I swallowed. I was caught in a debate of whether or not to write back even if it was too late. Too late. Mom would be going to the cemetery to find Charlie, Jake and I could see if Carly was there.

Was it wrong of me to hope that one of those gravestones would bear the name Carly Newton?


A/N: Okay, my first Twilight fanfic! I've had this little idea playing around in my head for a while. It started out as a story set to a sound track of songs I heard on the radio. This chapter has no specific song, but coming up I will have songs like Home by Daughtry, I Lived It by Blake Shelton, and much more referenced throughout the chapters. In case you are confused, this story is in Renesmee's PoV and flips between the present and the past.