Chapter 1 – A New Old City

EPOV

Due to how cold the night was, the streets of this residential neighborhood were empty. Of course, that could also be due to the fact that it was one o'clock in the morning. These were the hours where the lost and the dammed walked the streets. With Bella in my life I was no longer lost, but I wasn't yet sure on the issue of me being dammed.

I walked alone just because I had to. I had to deal with this on my own. I had to let the memories of this place assail me so I could deal with being here again.

Chicago; this was the city that so long ago witnessed my birth, life, death, and rebirth. This was the city were most of my human family lay as dust in their graves while I still walk around.

Though I had told no one, even my beloved Bella, being back here was painful. When Carlisle had suggested we move here I had said nothing. He had never had a problem going to London, why should I be hesitant to come here? Besides, everyone had seemed so excited. It was someplace new, someplace different from the small towns we usually frequented. I refused to ruin it for everyone else.

I suddenly realized where my musings had taken me. I hadn't even realized where I had been walking, before me stood a two story brick house with a wrap around porch and dark green shutters. It was my house, the home of my youth and humanity.

Against all logic my feet moved down the narrow walkway. I could sense a human couple asleep inside the house. I should leave but my feet kept taking me forward. I told myself I was just curious. A quick peek inside and then I would leave.

Looking around to make sure no one was watching me; I jumped up and landed silently of the roof of the porch. Lucky for me the hallway window on the second story was unlocked. I opened it and slid into the house making sure to not make a sound.

The couple in the house was inside the bedroom to my right, my parents' room. I placed my hand on the door and closed my eyes. If I tried hard enough I could still picture my mother coming out in the morning. Her green eyes still slightly heavy from sleep and her long bronze hair tangled around her beautiful face. She always gave me a smile first thing every morning.

Turning away from the door, I opened the door to my left and entered, shutting the door behind me. This had been my room. Looking around I realized that these people must be using it for a study. A large oak desk occupied the area where my bed once sat. The wallpaper my mother had put up for me had long since been removed and the walls painted a light shade of beige. The only thing that seemed the same were the multitude of cushions on the window seat. I used to sit there and look out the window while either writing, or looking at the photographs I had taken, or just thinking.

Just then I remembered a long forgotten human memory. I had loved to take pictures during my humanity. My mother had saved for months to buy me a camera for my birthday the year I turned 13. I had also received a photo album that year to go with it. She must have given that to me as well. My father had given me a fishing rod that year.

I wondered if the album was still were I had hidden all those years ago. It was possible. I had hidden it when I fell ill, not wanting it to be taken while the house was empty since we had all been in the hospital.

I went over to the window seat and pulled of the cushions, taking note of their exact position so that no one would notice that they had been moved. Opening the top I peered inside. The inside was being used as storage for extra blankets, so I removed these as well. Once it was empty I reached down to the boards on the bottom. I pried up the third one in and set it aside.

There it was, just as I had left it when I first came down with the Spanish Influenza. Its blue binding peeked out begging me to take a journey into the past. It was pure compulsion. My memories of my human years had faded and perhaps this small blue book would help me to remember them a bit better.

I pulled the album out and set it on the desk. As quickly and quietly as I could, I replaced the board, blankets, and cushions. Then I picked up the album and sat in the window seat just as I had in that lifetime.

For a while I just stared at the book, tracing my finger over the silver scroll work on the cover. Finally, I worked up the nerve to open it. There in the front was a note written to me.

Dearest Edward,

Happy Birthday. I know mother has gotten you a camera so I thought I should give you this album to accompany it. I hope you fill it with wonderful memories and when you grow old may it bring you comfort. I love you more than anyone else in this world and I always do whatever I can to keep you safe and happy.

Always,

Your sister,

Abigail

I froze, I had had a sister. How could I have possibly forgotten that? I tried to conjure a picture or memory in my mind but nothing came. Even the memories of my mother were becoming hazy and I could barely get a glimpse of my father. Somehow this sister who apparently loved me dearly had completely been erased from my memory.

I started flipping through the photos looking for her. I had to try to remember. There! I stopped and stared at the black and white photo and for a second nothing clicked. Then I remembered. She had been so beautiful. Tall and well proportioned, she had many admirers in her day. She had been like me though, waiting for that perfect someone. She never did find him.

She had been about 10 years older than me, but she had still been like my best friend. Then, one snowy night when I was 15 a police officer had shown up at our door. My beautiful sister had been found strangled in an alley way downtown. Someone had ended her life at only 25 years old. She had had so many dreams for the both of us. Dreams of love and family, of hope and contentment, but she would never leave me behind to find them on her own.

She used to say that was why she hadn't found the one yet. I was still too young to marry. We had to find our matches at the same time so that our children could be born at the same time and play together. She didn't want her children to be like her and have to wait a whole decade for their best friend. They would be like us, inseparable, except there would be more of them. I had been crushed when she died. Who would I talk to in the middle of the night? Who would listen to me play the piano and give gentle criticism when needed and applaud me when I got it right? Who would be my best friend?

How could I have forgotten? I felt immeasurable guilty. The only thing that I could figure was that the pain of losing her had caused me to block it out.

Tucking the photo album into my jacket, I climbed back out the window and jumped to the ground. I needed to go to where she was buried. I needed to say I was sorry and pray for forgiveness. Not from God but from Abigail.

Walking at a human pace, I finally found myself standing before her grave. Unlike myself and our parents, hers was marked. She hadn't died with the masses during the flu. She had died alone with her attacker, scared and abandoned by those who should have protected her. I looked at the headstone.

Abigail Elizabeth Masen

July 16, 1890 – January 27, 1916

Beloved daughter and sister

You will be remembered.

The last line ripped through me like a chain saw. She hadn't been remembered. She had been forgotten, by me. By the one person who could hold on to her memory for eternity. I knelt down before her grave when my knees refused to hold me up any longer.

"I won't forget you again Abby," I sobbed. I had been the only one aloud to call her that. She hated the nickname just as much as I hated being called Eddy. Of course, she always called me Eddy in retaliation. Neither of us really minded the stupid nicknames as long as we were the only ones using them.

I stayed there for what seemed like eternity. Until the wind started to pick up and I heard soft footsteps behind me. The intoxicating scent of freesia enveloped me. Bella, my salvation.

I felt her stop directly behind me. She had obviously come looking for me after I had been gone so long. I felt bad for being gone for so long and causing her to worry. She waited patiently for me to tell her what was wrong. I took me a few moments to find my voice again.

"I forgot her," I whispered. "I forgot my own sister. I forgot how close we were, how much she was there for me, everything." Then I let the grief have me.

BPOV

I had waited hours for Edward to come home. Reneesme was fast asleep upstairs in her room. She had waited with me for a while, but then she got too tired and went up to Jacob's and hers room. Though she was only twelve she had stopped aging about five years ago at about the physical age of twenty. Two years ago she and Jacob had been married. I still could get a chuckle when I thought of Edward's face the day Jacob had asked for her hand and if he had been able to he would have shed tears the day he gave her away.

I paced the living room waiting for the slightest sound of him approaching the house. He had been gone for a long time and I was starting to worry. I had a feeling that something was off. Edward and I had always had a connection and right now it felt like he needed me.

I should have thought that moving here might have been a bad idea. Chicago for Edward was a city of sickness and blood. Though he never said a word about it I had gut feeling that this would be bad for him. Ever since we arrived a week ago he seemed a bit gloomy. I had brushed it off as he was upset about having to leave Forks. I should have known better.

"Bella?" Alice called from the bottom of the stairs. I turned to face her.

"Edward needs you," she said. "He's in a cemetery."

"Is he hurt?" I knew it. I started to pull on my jacket.

"No, but he still needs you none the less."

Without another word I streaked out of the house and followed Edward's scent trail. If he needed me, then with him was where I shall be. I would always be there for him as he would always be there for me. It was as certain as the sun setting in the west. First the trail led to a house, he had gone in and then left again. While I was curious as to why he went into the house, I decided that I could figure that out later and followed the trail that he left while leaving. A few minutes later, I found the cemetery.

Edward was kneeling in front of a tombstone looking completely heart-broken. Not wanting to surprise him, I slowly made my way over and stood directly behind him. I wanted to ask him what was wrong and why he had been in that house, but it didn't seem like a good idea. He would tell me when he was ready. I just waited.

Finally he spoke. "I forgot her. I forgot my own sister. I forgot how close we were, how much she was there for me, everything."

His voice sounded so broken that I couldn't say anything. I dropped to my knees next to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders to try and comfort him. He seemed to just collapse then and laid his head on my lap as dry sobs wracked his body. As I ran my hand through his bronze hair to try to soothe him, I looked at the marker we were in front of.

Abigail Elizabeth Masen. Edward's sister I presumed. She had died two years before he did at the age of 25. Edward said he had forgotten about her and I wondered what had triggered his memory. I also wondered if it was a good or bad thing that he remembered now, but I would worry about these questions later. For now I just tried to comfort him.

I heard a car pull up behind me, looking back a saw Carlisle in his black Mercedes. "Alice sent me," he said through the open window.

Carlisle got out of the car and came over to us. He took in the state of Edward and the grave of Abigail and his hand came up to cover his mouth in shock. I knew how he felt.

He quickly recovered himself and picked Edward up from my lap and put him in the back seat.

"Did you know Edward had had a human sister?" I asked.

"No, but I do recognize the name Abigail. Edward kept calling for her while he was sick with the influenza as well as during his transformation. He never did say who she was and when he never brought it up, I decided not to ask."

As we drove home Edward seem to come back to himself a bit. He sat up and stared out the window and saying nothing, but still kept a tight hold of my hand on the seat between us.

When we got home I led us to out bedroom and sat down on the side of the bed. Edward went to the window. He had his shoulder against the frame as if he needed the support of the wall to keep standing. When he pinched the bridge of his nose, I rose and leaned against the frame on the opposite side of the window. He was eating himself up inside over this and I refused to let him suffer if there was someway that I could help.

"Edward, please talk to me," I said softly.

He looked up at me with anguish in his topaz eyes. "I'll be all right after a while. I just have to come to terms with this."

"Is it a good thing of a bad thing for you to have remembered her?"

"A good thing."

"Then why are you so upset."

Edward left the window and took up the spot I had just been occupying on the bed. He dropped his head into his hands and spoke while looking down at the floor. "I'm upset that I had to be reminded."

He then told me the story of the house, what he found there, and what he remembered. "It just killed me that I had completely forgotten about her. I feel like I let her down somehow."

I knelt down in front of him and took his face in my hands forcing him to look at me. "Edward, if she was someone worth remembering she would understand why you forgot. The pain that her death caused you had to be excruciating. I can understand why you pushed it away, it hurt. I'm sure she would understand too."

Edward slid off the bed and knelt with me on the floor. He gave me a tentative smile and kissed my forehead. "I think I know why I'm remembering now as opposed to years ago. I have you here to help me through it now, to show me that I deserve to be forgiven."

And so I spent the early morning hours showing him how much he deserved not only to be forgiven, but how much he deserved to be loved.

Please review and if you're new to me be sure to check out my other story Dawn Rising.