DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS FROM TWILIGHT. THEY ALL BELONG TO STEPHENIE MEYER. I JUST ENJOY MESSING WITH THEM IS ALL.
Bide within the law ye must, in perfect Love and perfect Trust
Live you must, and let to live, fairly take and fairly give.
Edward
Sitting on the large seat underneath one of the bay windows in my bedroom I could see the house that had been vacant for the last two years.
I still couldn't come to terms with the fact that they no longer lived there.
I looked down at the scars that laced my palms, evidence that we were all bound together. I ran the index finger of my right hand over the now white scar that stretched from the bottom of my index finger, diagonally across my palm, ending at the heel of my hand on the opposite side. It seemed like a dream, standing there in that clearing.
That was the first time I told her I loved her. She had professed her love for me at the exact same moment and I had felt my heart soar. Now all my heart did when I thought of her was thump painfully as my chest constricted, leaving me with the illusion that I couldn't breathe.
I wonder if she felt the same way I did when thinking of me.
If she thought of me at all.
It had been four years since that day in the clearing. Almost to the day.
I looked up at the smoky quartz pendulum that hung down in the centre of the window, throwing the refracted coloured light across my room, sending rainbow patches all around, littering the golden carpet and walls.
The pendulum had been a gift from her. And I had hung it there after she left, with it a wish that it would tell me if and when she was near. Send me some sort of sign. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I knew it would be something significant. It moving in some way. It hadn't moved at all in the two years since I had put it up. Not even when the window was opened or someone nudged it. It would always remain still and silent as though made out of the toughest steel strip, rather than a simple chain and crystal. It seemed that my enchantment on the crystal was still holding strong.
I just wished that it would move.
That would mean that she was near.
I gazed back down at my palm, noting the white gold band that was wrapped around my middle finger. Turning my hand over, the sun caught on the large sapphire that rested neatly on my middle finger. She had the same stone, only it was on a pendant rather than a ring. A pendant seemed more fitting for the girls, whereas us guys had rings.
Isabella Marie Swan.
She and her brother, Emmett, had left two years ago, being taken away from the tiny island by their parents because their father had received another, higher paying, job. I guess that traditions that spanned centuries didn't mean that much to him anymore. I guess, what with us still being in high school, we had more time to study and act upon the ancient traditions.
Which we still did, though they didn't have the same impact as they would if Bella and Emmett were here. It was always more powerful magic with the six of them working together.
"Edward?" A small voice called me, and I turned around to see my twin sister, Alice standing in my doorway, a small smile on her face. "You okay?" She asked and I sighed, nodding gently.
Are you sure? She asked me with her mind. I nodded again, turning to look back out the window.
Another thing about me. I can read minds. I can only hear those of mine and the other magical families clearly. The rest of the time, it's just a hum in the back of my head. Something I can usually block out. If I really want to know what someone is thinking, then I can find out by concentrating on that person but most of the time, the innermost thoughts of the town of Forks is not all that interesting.
At the moment though, Alice was singing Poker Face by Lady Gaga in her head, which meant that she had seen something she didn't want me to know.
"What are you hiding from me, Ali?" I asked, turning to face her and narrowing my eyes in her direction.
She smiled innocently. Too innocently if you ask me and shook her head. "Nothing."
"Then why are you singing in your mind?" I asked her and she shrugged and turned to walk out the door.
"You'll see." She answered cryptically. Sometimes I hated that little pixie and her visions. She was the only one that knew how to block my mind reading effectively and if she had a vision of the future that she didn't want me to see, then she'd hide it from me. No one else had the skill to do that. Why is it my twin is the only one that can block me?
That's not technically true. I thought sadly. Bella had been able to keep me out completely. I couldn't hear anything from her. Not a whisper. But then again her shielding abilities might have come in handy with that one.
Tanya will be here in two minutes. Alice informed me and I groaned audibly. Hey, she's your girlfriend.
"Don't remind me." I grumbled and I heard her laughing.
She appeared in my doorway again, grinning widely. "Well, if you're not happy with her, why don't you just dump her?" She asked as though it was the easiest thing in the world.
"I've tried, remember?" I asked, throwing a paper ball at her. She giggled as she dodged it, walking into the room and sitting down on the edge of my bed.
I turned to look at her, and found her gazing at the pendulum I had been watching a few moments ago. The sun had started shining, something that was very rare for Forks, and it had cast rainbow patches all around the room. Watching Alice gazing at it, I was reminded of a child trying to move a pencil with their mind. Of course, unless you were one of us, that was impossible, but who am I to talk? I could do it.
I looked at my sister and couldn't help the smile that spread across my face. As much as my twin bugged me sometimes, she was also one my best friends. Small and petite, with her pale skin, short black spiky hair and forest green eyes, she was every embodiment of a pixie. She had the energy for it as well. Constantly hyper, we'd found that the only one who could calm her down, even minutely was her boyfriend, Jasper Hale. I guess it was convenient that he lived next door. I looked at her and saw her pendant glinting in the sun. It was the same as the one Bella had hanging around her neck. If she still wore it that is. The only difference was that Alice's was an emerald rather than Bella's sapphire. Jasper, like me, had a ring to match Alice's pendant. Jasper's twin, Rosalie, also wore a pendant, but hers was a ruby. Bella's brother, Emmett, had the ring that matched Rosalie's pendant. These gems had been passed down from the original coven in Salem and they were just another way that the six of us where interlinked.
"What are you doing?" I asked her and her face relaxed as she smiled at me.
"Trying to get through your little enchantment." She replied, looking at me slyly. This was something she tried every now and again. Just to make sure that the enchantment I had cast on the pendulum two years ago was still holding strong. It would tell us if Bella was near and it was the only thing we had to tell us. Other than the possibility of moving trucks at the third house on the street.
"Still holding strong, huh?" I asked, rolling my eyes and looking back out of the window, gazing down at the ocean that was spread down behind the houses.
"Yup." She popped the "p" at the end. "You did a really good job on that one, little brother." She stood up and patted the top of my head. I swiped her hand away and she giggled. She was two minutes older than me, and she never let me forget that face. The fact that I was around a foot and a half taller than her didn't matter. I was still the younger twin and apparently that was all that mattered. Not that I really cared. It didn't matter to me who was older. All that mattered was she was my sister and I would be there for her no matter what. Even if she did keep rubbing in the birth time differences. Meh, I'll just throw some sand at her later. I thought and she stopped mid-tracks. I couldn't help the smirk that spread across my face as she turned to face me, horror on her face.
"You will not!" She almost shrieked and I shrugged, not looking at her. I saw Tanya's dark blue Mercedes approaching down the road and groaned again. She would be here in around twenty seconds and I had no escape. She would have seen me sitting in the window as she drove down the road. "Why don't you just break up with her. We can all see how much you want to."
"I don't know." I sighed, shaking my head and running my hand through my thick bronze hair.
Looking at the two of us, you wouldn't think that Alice and I were twins. You could tell that we were brother and sister due to our looks, but twins? Nobody would ever guess. If Alice didn't dye her hair black, then the two of us would look more alike. Her hair was naturally the same as mine, only mine had a little more red in it than hers did, making it more pronounced. As soon as she was old enough, she had started dying her hair black, saying that she preferred darker hair to the natural bronze locks that graced the both of our heads.
"You're not happy, Jingles." She sighed and I snorted a laugh. She hadn't called me that in I don't know how long. It was a nickname I'd had since I was small. It came from the fact that when I had first started learning to play the piano at age four, "Jingle Bells" was the first tune I had learned to play and would play it constantly. In the end, people just started calling me "Jingles" because of it, even years after I had learned to play much more advanced music. It was something that tied me to when I was tiny.
I wasn't the only one with a nickname. Around the same time as I had been on my "Jingle Bells" kick, she had discovered a deep obsession with Tinkerbell. I had started calling her "Sparkles" because of it. My reasoning back then was that Tinkerbell was a fairy and fairies sparkled, thus the nickname "Sparkles" was born. Like Jingles for me, Sparkles for Alice had stuck with her. The only ones who used it were our families. The Hales and Swans, were considered our family so they were the only ones allowed to use it.
They hadn't in recent months. Not quite sure why.
A knock on the door alerted the two of us to the fact that Tanya was here.
I knew that it wasn't Rose, Jasper or either one of their parents because none of us bothered knocking anymore. Grow up together and formalities like that kind of fly out the window. Tanya was the only one that knocked.
"Can someone get the door?" I heard my mom call from downstairs.
"I'll get it." Alice offered, getting up off of the bed and I smiled at her, resuming my gaze out the window, watching the waves before they disappeared behind the cliff to break on the shore.
I heard Alice bound lightly down the stairs and open the door for Tanya. I heard them greet each other briefly before I was aware of Tanya's heels clicking on the flagstone floor that led to the stairs. Tanya could never understand why all the floors in the house, other than in the bedrooms, were either wooden or made of flagstone. I guess it didn't really register with her that these houses were over three centuries old.
I sighed and closed my eyes, bracing myself for Tanya's entrance.
Ask me why I was with her and I honestly couldn't tell you. But I had been with her for almost two years. She had been a rebound. I knew that and I hadn't meant for it to go on as long as it had. After Bella had left, I had been so empty and voice of any emotion whatsoever, and then Tanya moved to Forks two months later. I asked her out, for a reason that was unknown even to me. She didn't compare to Bella. But then again, nobody ever would.
I noticed that people behaved differently at school with Tanya compared to when I had been with Bella.
When Bella had been my girlfriend, nobody approached us at all, not even wanting to try to ask me out. Or her for that matter. But with Tanya, it seemed that I was fair game. She tried to make it clear that she was my girlfriend, but it seemed that the other girls didn't take notice of her like they had of Bella.
But that might have something to do with the fact that Bella was from this particular street. Those of us living on Crowhaven Road had a bit of a reputation. People were intimidated by us and to them we radiated power. They just didn't know why. They didn't know that our power came from the earth and its magics. It might have been that power, radiating off of Bella that told the other girls around her that I was hers. And I was happy to be. Tanya didn't have that power. No matter how hard she tried, she didn't hold a candle to Bella, even with the others in school. She was part of the "popular" group, as we were, but she didn't really fit. She wasn't in sync like the rest of us were. Well, other than Rose's boyfriend, Royce, that is.
"Hey, Eddie." I cringed slightly at the use of the nickname I hated. She knew that I hated it, and yet she still insisted on using it. I knew that someday soon, Rose was going to snap at her for using it. She hated it as much as I did. I think that stemmed from the fact that when Bella and Emmett left, she and I had gotten closer as friends, helping each other through the process of saying goodbye to them and I think her hatred of the nickname came from my own.
"How many times? Don't call me Eddie." I muttered, still looking out the window.
She didn't acknowledge that I had dismissed the nickname and her greeting. I looked at my watch and saw that we had to leave for school in fifteen minutes. Why she insisted on driving to my house just so that she could ride to school with me was beyond me. But then again, I didn't really understand what went through her blonde head.
"We need to go soon, babe." Her tone was clipped and cold. I knew that she didn't like my house. She didn't understand anything that went on in it that's why. She didn't understand the old mixing instruments in the kitchen, or the beams that lined the walls and ceilings. She didn't understand the large herb patch in the garden or the plaque above the front door. She didn't understand the crystals that lined the mantel above the large stone fireplace in the living room or the symbols that spread throughout the house. She didn't understand anything.
And of course, she didn't know that everyone that lived on this street was in fact a witch. That was not something we broadcast around. People through history have had their suspicions, but nothing had ever come of it.
She didn't like the fact that these things spread out into my room as well. She thought it was all stupid and had tried more than once to get me to clear it all out. Lets just say that argument didn't last long. This was my lineage, my ancestry that she wanted me to throw away and there was no way that that was happening.
She was a modern girl and moving from modern, up to date, always changing New York to this quaint, little island town where change comes slowly, if it comes at all. And the fact that her boyfriend happened to come from one of the three oldest families in the town, where nothing in the traditions has changed in three hundred years, was not something that worked for her. She wanted me to be more "up to date" in the décor in my room. I was happy with it as it was.
It was mine.
I turned to face her and my eyes widened to see her standing at the main desk in my room flipping through my tarot cards!!
"Tanya!" I practically shouted and she looked up at me lazily. "How many times have I told you not to touch those?!"
"Okay, calm down." Her tone was icy as she put them back on the table that was littered with crystals and runes, herbs and candles. How she hadn't clicked what it was for was beyond me. I think anyone with more than one brain cell could have worked it out. But nope, not Tanya. "They're just cards." She scoffed, sitting down on the bed.
"No." I shook my head, standing up and grabbing my bag off of the floor. "They're not just cards. Come on." Great! I thought bitterly. Now I have to cleanse them. Again! I'd had to cleanse them so many times I'd lost count, all because Tanya didn't grasp the concept that no one else is supposed to touch them. Why am I still with her again? I asked myself, shaking my head.
She walked out of the room in front of me, and if I hadn't been so wrapped up in my own thoughts and pissed at Tanya for now causing me to lose two hours of my day, I might have noticed the pendulum hanging in the window starting to move in slow wide circles as I left the room.
I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, where my mother was grinding herbs softly, with one of the many mortar and pestles she had littered around the kitchen.
"What are you doing?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder to see Tanya standing at the bottom of the stairs, jaw clenched, obviously furiously trying to get some signal for her phone.
"Good luck charm." She said softly, smiling at me. "You four have your Calculus tests today and Alice has her audition for the play. I thought you could use a little luck. Not that you need it." She grinned at me, emptying the last of the herbs into four tiny red drawstring bags and handing one to me. I should have known it was for luck. Red is always the colour that my mother used for luck.
I held it to my nose and sniffed it briefly. Good luck charms normally stank, so I wanted to see how pungent this one was, so I would know whether to put it in my bag or in my pocket. I was mildly surprised to find the scent of lavender drifting up my nose.
"This smells…" I trailed off, looking at it sceptically.
"Lavender?" She smiled and I nodded. "Well, I know how smelly good luck charms are, so I figured, add a little lavender, make it smell nice and voila!" She grinned at me, proud of herself and I smiled back as Alice came into the room and picked up a bag, obviously having foreseen what they were for. She too smelt hers, a soft smile gracing her lips.
"These smell nice." She giggled and my mother stood there beaming at the two of us.
"You know what, mom." She turned to face me as I sniffed the little bag again. "You keep this up and you could be the first witch in the world to cast all spells and charms with minty freshness."
She laughed and I glanced over my shoulder again, seeing that Tanya was still preoccupied with her phone, not paying attention to anything around her.
The door opened and Jasper, Rose and Royce walked in. Tanya looked up and walked over to them as they made their way into the kitchen, Jasper wrapping his arm around Alice.
"Smell." She picked up another little bag and thrust it under Jasper's nose, causing me to laugh.
"Lavender." He grinned and Alice nodded, her head flicking towards my mother. I saw Alice mouth 'for luck' at him and he mouthed "Thank you." To my mother. This whole exchange went unnoticed by Tanya and Royce, but Rose did the same as Jasper, picking up the fourth and final bag that was on the counter.
I looked at my mother and I found her gaze flicking between her two actual children and the two that she had considered children their entire lives. What got me the most was the fact that she was thinking of all the herbs she knew and translating their names into the Latin, German, French and whatever other language she could think of.
Her gaze didn't linger on Tanya or Royce at all. She didn't consider either of them as part of the family, even though they had both been in our lives for around two years. Rose had met Royce around the same time I had met Tanya. Technically speaking, they were outsiders, that would never be accepted into our way of life. We couldn't be natural around them.
I narrowed my eyes at her and she blinked at me a few times. "You kids should get going, you're going to be late otherwise." She turned around, still reciting herbs in her mind and the others started to move.
"Eddie, are you coming?" Tanya asked in her sweet, too sweet, voice.
"Yeah, I'll be out in a minute." I kept my eyes on my mother, who had now turned around and was flicking through labels she had written up, putting the leftover good luck mixture into a small vial, so she could store it should she need it later. I heard Tanya's heels clicking towards the door. "What are you hiding?" I asked her and she looked up at me, a look that was too innocent on her face.
"What do you mean?" She asked turning back to the vial and labelling it.
"Don't play dumb, Mom." I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Both you and Alice are hiding something from me. She's singing annoying pop songs in her head and there's no way that you're translating all the herbs you know into foreign languages at the exact same time by chance. Now, what are the two of you hiding from me?"
"It's nothing, sweetie." She smiled at me and I rolled my eyes again. "You'll find out later."
"What is with the cryptic today?!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air for emphasis.
My mother smirked and shook her head at me. "Don't worry about it. You'll find out when you get home. Now." She moved around the island that stood in the middle of the kitchen and pushed me towards the door. "Get to school."
"Alright, alright." I moaned, rolling my eyes and giving my mother a quick kiss on the cheek. "See you later. Love you." I called making my way out of the house.
"I love you, too, my boy." I heard her call behind me.
I made my way out of the house and towards my silver Volvo that Tanya was now leaning against, inspecting her meticulous, fake nails. I hated those things. They were unnecessary and a waste of money. She looked up as I unlocked the car and she climbed in, not saying a word to me. I rolled my eyes again and climbed in the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition.
As I started the car, the radio started up and the gentle melodies of Clair de Lune filled the car, earning a scoff from Tanya.
"Why do you listen to this crap, Eddie?" She asked me and I could picture the disgusted look on her face. I knew she was itching to turn the station over but she also knew that no one fucked with my radio. Not even my family were allowed to touch my radio.
"It's only crap to you, Tanya." I sighed, turning off of the road that so many people in this town found intimidating. Well, it wasn't really the road they found intimidating, just its residents. "And don't call me, Eddie."
"I like calling you Eddie." She shot back, trying to make her voice all sweet and innocent.
"Well, I don't like the name." I retorted, speeding up as I made my way down the streets that led us to school. There was little traffic, so I was able to get up to a decent speed. That was one thing Tanya hated more than anything. My need for speed. Everyone on Crowhaven Road was a speed freak.
We arrived at school finding Alice, Jasper, Rose and Royce waiting for us outside. Alice and Rose were talking as Jasper wrapped his arms around Alice, resting his head on her shoulder and closing their eyes. I remembered feeling like the two of them did. In contrast, Royce was holding Rose's hand and glaring at every male in the immediate vicinity. He even went out of his way to glare at Jasper and I on occasion, which was stupid of him, because Rose was his sister, his twin sister and she was practically my sister anyway. I mean, she and Jasper were born four days before Alice and I were, so it's safe to say, I don't see Rose in that way.
"Hey." She called waving at me slightly as Tanya and I walked up to them. Royce took it upon himself to glare at me, as was normal, so I decided to play on it, walking up to her and wrapping my arm around her, giving her a hug. Royce is glaring again, isn't he? She giggled and I nodded as I pulled away from her. She rolled her eyes and I chuckled.
I felt Tanya grab my hand and I saw her glaring at Rose as I looked down at her.
"What was that about?" She snarled as we started walking into school.
"Rose is my friend and I wanted to give her a hug." I shrugged.
"Right." She agreed, sarcasm dripping in her tone. "I don't like how close you are with her, and you know that, Edward."
Great. She was pissed, now. "Well, like I've told you, it's something you're going to have to deal with. I've known her my whole life and she's like a sister to me. I'm not going to stop seeing her just because you don't like it."
"Don't you care how I feel, Eddie?" She whined and I closed my eyes as we reached my locker. "Because it seems like you don't."
"Of course I do, Tanya." I opened my locker and put the books that I wouldn't need in before closing it again and resuming walking to English which was my first class of the day. "It's just, Rose is like my sister. I've known her my whole life. Since we were born its been the six of us and that's not going to change anytime soon."
"Six?" She asked, stopping and I cursed silently. I had included Bella and Emmett into the equation, the fact that they had moved away two years ago slipping my mind. Yet again. "Who are the other two."
"Just some people that used to live on the street." I shrugged, resuming walking.
"If they moved away, why did you include them in your little group?" She wasn't letting up at all and I knew that this was something that could go on for days.
"Because we still consider them family." I answered bluntly. "And we always will, so can we drop it now please?" It was a rhetorical question, but I had a feeling that Tanya didn't know that that actually meant don't answer.
"For now." She replied calmly and coolly. I hated it when she used that tone. "We're going to talk about it later though."
"There's nothing to talk about." I sighed, stopping outside my English room.
"Not to you, maybe." She glanced around, probably making sure that people were watching as she pressed her glossed lips to mine. Her watermelon lipgloss was sickly and sweet and it made me want to hurl. I walked into my English class, and wiped the sticky substance off of my lips as I sat down.
"Hey, Edward." A female voice cooed as a shadow fell across my desk. I looked up to see Jessica Stanley standing in front of me, a flirtatious smile on her face. "How was your weekend?"
"Fine, Jess." I replied. The girl might not have much in the way of brains and be overbearing but there was essentially nothing harmful about her. Unless you were something or someone to gossip about. And the Cullens' and Hales were always people to gossip about. She was always so far off the mark that we didn't pay any attention to it. "How was yours?" I asked, not really caring but just being polite.
"It was great." She beamed at me. "On Saturday, me and Mike-" Thankfully she was cut off as the teacher walked into the room and called the class to order. She winked at me and sat down. I shuddered internally, blocking out the thoughts behind that wink.
All my classes droned on in the same way that they always did, other than the test that the four of us had for Calculus, an advanced class that we had all been placed in and I found myself praying for lunch. As soon as the bell rang for lunch I launched myself out of my seat in Spanish, Jasper following closely behind me.
"Oh my god!" He moaned leaning his head back as we walked and I couldn't help but chuckle at him. "That was so-o boring!"
"Isn't it always?" I replied, smirking at him and he looked up at where he was going.
"Too true." He smirked back as we entered the cafeteria, attracting the stares that we always did as we made our way over to stand in the food line. We had grown used to the stares so they didn't bother us anymore.
We quickly grabbed some food to eat and made our way over to the table that ad been ours since the first day of freshman year. Even then we had "ruled the school" as some people put it. We had been the most respected group in Forks High since our first day, knocking the current popular group off their pedestal as soon as we walked through the doors.
We didn't ask for the attention. It was just given to us. When talking to our parents they had told us that they had been treated in the same way when they were at school and that they were still treated as such at their current workplaces. So I guess its something we can look forward to for the rest of our lives. It's easy to ignore, so we're not too bothered.
Tanya revelled in the attention that being with our group brought her. Whereas the rest of us just got on with our lives, Tanya craved attention. It was another thing that separated her from the rest of the group.
Sitting down, we joined Rose and Alice who were sitting there talking about what had transpired in their Spanish class. Apparently Mike Newton, an annoying boy in our year, that I could only describe as a golden retriever type person, had thrown a first because he couldn't get a handle on some verbs. Apparently it was quite amusing to see.
I heard two chairs scrape and I knew that Royce and Tanya had sat down, Tanya's hand moving to grip my knee underneath the table. I turned to look at her and she smiled at me, starting to eat her salad as the rest of us dug into our pizza.
Alice was still singing songs in her head, keeping me out for whatever reason. Now she had moved on to annoying one hit wonders from the nineties.
"Alice, what-"
"Nope." She cut me off, smiling.
"But, I-"
"Nothin' doin'!" She glared at me and I scowled back. She smiled and shrugged at me, turning back to her food. Hating that pixie right now. And she knew it. She knew that the best way to wind me up was for her to block me out on purpose. When she did that I knew that there was something about to happen that I would really rather some form of warning to.
"Do you two have to do that?" I heard Royce snipe. He hated the fact that the four of us could hold a four way conversation and not once of us ever get more than two words into a sentence.
"Yes." Alice and I replied in sync. That was purely a twin thing. Another thing that annoyed Royce and we both smirked at each other.
"Would rather you didn't." He retorted, his voice smug. Like that'll happen. I thought smirking to myself and I could hear Alice, Rose and Jasper thinking the same thing.
"Don't always get what you want." Alice told him in a singsong voice and Jasper, Rose and I tried to keep from laughing.
Lunch was pretty uneventful and soon after the bell rang, signalling that I had to go to Biology.
Tanya walked next to me, jabbering on about how she wanted to know all about the family that used to live in the house slightly down the road from mine. I wouldn't tell her everything, probably just repeat what I've told her time and time again. She knew that I wasn't comfortable talking about Bella and Emmett and yet she paid no attention to my discomfort. If she cared about me wouldn't she be able to sense that I didn't want to talk about it. Bella had always been able to. She knew that if there was something I didn't want to talk about, not to push it, or push just enough to get me to open up without being forceful. She was always attune to my emotions, whereas it seemed Tanya just didn't give a stuff. Again, I questioned why I was with her.
I walked into Biology and sat down at my lab table. I didn't have a partner as it seemed people were too intimidated by me to want to work with me. It suited me fine. I knew that if I had a partner, there was little chance I would get half the work done that I did. I was quite content to work by myself without the distraction of a partner. As it turned out, I was the fastest at labs and never wrong. Maybe it came from my extensive knowledge about different plants, their usage and most aspects of nature. Another perk that came with my ancestry.
As I walked into History, my last class of the day, I wished for the time to pass quickly so that I could get home.
"Right." The teacher, Mr. Browne, called the class to attention and I rested my head on my hand as Tanya sat down next to me. This was the only class of the day that I had with her. "Starting today and for the next month or so, depending on how quickly we get the work done, we will be studying the arts and opinions of magic throughout history." I held back a snort and rolled my eyes at him. "Now, we're going to start with the Shamans, work our way through history all the way up to nineteen-fifties Gardnerian Wicca."
I sighed and settled myself in for a long hour. I detached myself from the whole class, knowing that whatever the teacher was spouting off, it was going to be the farthest thing from the truth. Unfortunately, I couldn't say anything to contradict him because a) it would expose what I knew and b) I hadn't been paying attention so I had no idea what he was talking about.
When the bell rang, it couldn't have been soon enough. I gathered up my things and walked out of the class, Tanya grasping my hand as we walked. She leaned into my side and I knew that she was telling the other girls around us to back off. That I was hers. Whatever. I thought, glumly as we approached the Volvo.
You get the "Magic Throughout History" lecture today? Alice asked me in her mind and I nodded slightly as I walked. Load of bullshit, don't you think? I shrugged as I opened the drivers' door to the Volvo, disguising it as shrugging my bag off of my shoulder as I threw it into the backseat.
I climbed into the drivers' seat and pulled out of the lot quickly, smirking to myself as I saw Tanya gripping the seats either side of her as I drove. She really should be used to my driving by now. It has been almost two years after all.
As I pulled up onto my street, I noticed that there was an Audi R8, a BMW M3, much like Rosalie's, an Aston Martin Vantage and the largest Jeep I had ever seen parked outside the Swans' old house. I narrowed my eyes at them as I pulled into my driveway and climbed out of the car. There was no movement that I could see from inside the house, but that didn't necessarily mean that there was no one home. It was quite easy for a whole family or two to be home in these houses and for no one to know about it. I made a mental note to check it out later.
I walked into the house, Tanya following me closely as I took off my shoes and made my way through to the large kitchen.
"Hey, Mom." I called and she appeared, a huge smile on her face. She seemed happier than normal, and I knew that it had something to do with whatever she had been keeping from me this morning.
"Hello, Esme." Tanya smiled politely. Like everyone else, she found the parents of our two families intimidating, even though my mother was the gentlest person I know.
"Hey kids." She grinned, not looking at Tanya. No one in either of our families really liked Tanya, but that was due to who she was versus who we were. Nothing really to do with her at all. It was the same with Royce. It was purely because with the two of them around, we couldn't be ourselves as we normally would. "How was school?" I want to talk to you kids about the solstice celebration. She added mentally.
"Fine." I answered both of her questions with that one word.
The door opened and Alice, Jasper, Rose and Royce walked into the house. I could tell that Royce, like Tanya, wasn't too comfortable here. Maybe it was due to the fact that all of us were especially close.
"Hi, Mom." Alice called, perching herself on one of the stools that surrounded the island in the middle of the kitchen.
"Hey Ma." Rose and Jasper chorused. It was a thing between us kids to call our actual mother and father "Mom" and "Dad", but when it came to the others parents we called them "Ma" or "Pa". Something we've always done.
"Hello, Mrs. Cullen." Royce greeted, not even informal enough to call my mother Esme, as she had requested almost every time she saw him. She had given up trying to convince him a while ago, seeing that it would never happen.
"Hi, kids." My mother greeted the others.
"I've got homework, so I'm gonna go up to my room." I told them, picking up my bag and walking upstairs, Tanya following me.
"I still want to talk, Eddie." She said sweetly, stopping in front of my door. I had to force myself not to groan or roll my eyes at her as she walked into my bedroom.
"What about?" I asked, feigning ignorance and walking in behind her.
"About the people that used to live in that house. It seems new people have finally moved in…" I didn't hear the rest of what she said because my attention was fixed on something else.
The pendulum in the window. Where it had remained still and unmoving for the last two years, it was now travelling in small so circles so quickly it looked as though it was spinning on the spot.
She's home! I thought, a grin spreading across my face. "Alice!" I shouted and I heard her running from the kitchen.
"What? What?!" She cried, stopping in my doorway and I turned to face her, pointing at the pendulum. A huge grin spread across her face and she nodded, answering my silent question of "is it true?"
"Come on!" I shouted, grabbing her and running down the stairs.
"Whoa! Where's the fire?" Jasper cried, hearing the two of us thundering down the stairs.
"Swans!" I shouted, not stopping to explain. "Back!"
I heard Rose squeal from the kitchen as I tore out of the door, not bothering to put any shoes on, running down the street. I knew that Rose, Alice and Jasper were following me as I turned to run up the small path that led to the house that had been vacant for the past two years.
I stopped on the porch, the other three stopping behind me, and knocked on the door. I heard movement on the other side and the door opened to reveal a woman in her late thirties with dark hair and equally dark eyes. As soon as she saw us, a grin that rivalled my own spread across her face.
"Renee!" The four of us chorused as I threw my arms around her.
"Kids!" She cried back, squeezing me tightly. As I let her go, I heard Alice squealing and bouncing up and down.
"Was wondering when you four were going to show up." I heard a masculine chuckle come from inside the house. Stepping round Renee slightly, I saw Charlie standing there grinning at us all. "Well, come here then." He walked towards me, arms outstretched and I threw my arms around him as well, not caring about the "guys don't hug" thing. All that crap went out the window on this street.
After everyone had hugged and, in the girls case, squealed a lot, we all looked around, wanting to see the other two members of the Swan family.
"Now, tell me, were you four always this hyperactive?" Renee asked, looking completely out of breath.
"Yes." I answered shortly, bouncing on the balls of my feet, seemingly channelling Alice's hyperactivity. "Where are they?" I asked the question we all wanted to know the answer to.
"Who dear?" Renee asked, her expression too innocent. I mocked scowled at her and growled playfully and she grinned at me again. "Oh, them! They're on the beach."
"Thank you!" The four of us cried simultaneously as we ran out of the house.
"Edward!" Alice shouted as we ran towards one of the many paths that would lead us to the beach situated just below our houses.
"Yeah." I asked, glancing at her as I ran. She was keeping up with me, an enormous shit-eating grin, that probably rivalled my own, spread across her face.
"You do realise that you just left Tanya standing there in your room, right?" She asked and I could hear the amusement in her tone.
"Meh." I shrugged, not slowing my pace as we ran down the path. "She'll get over it." I pushed ahead, reaching the sand before the others, running down the beach.
"You think so?" Alice asked, catching up to me.
"Nope." I popped the "p" as I turned to face her, side-stepping as I moved. "But I really don't care." I turned to face the direction I was running again, as Jasper and Rosalie caught up to us. "Hey Rose!" She nodded at me to show me that she'd heard. "What about Royce?"
"He'll live." She looked at me grinning. I could tell that she was as happy as I was at the prospect of the Swans being back in Forks. "Edward!" She held out her hand to me and I grabbed it, the two of us pressing ever faster along the beach.
"I see them!" I shouted.
And I could. I could see two figures, one much smaller than the other, standing there in the surf, both of them with their faces turned up towards the sky, seeming to enjoy the sea air.
"BELLA!" I shouted, as Rose and I broke apart and ran even faster, Alice and Jasper on our heels.
"EMMETT!" Rosalie cried at the same time, her tone as happy as mine.
The two figures turned to face us, and I could see the smiles on their faces as they watched us approach. The two of them looked at each other and began running full pelt towards us.
I didn't slow my pace as we met them, instead grabbing Bella around the waist and swinging her around in circles. I wasn't oblivious to the electric current that began pulsing through my veins at the contact as I swung her around in circles, earning myself a beautiful round of laughter from her.
God how I'd missed that sound.
Eventually, I stopped spinning her and the momentum caused the both of us to fall to the ground, laughing like idiots. I lifted my head to see that Emmett and Rose had also ended up in a heap on the sand, giggling and laughing at themselves, while Alice and Jasper had sat down and were laughing at the four of us.
"Miss me?" Bella asked softly and I turned to face her.
She hadn't changed at all. Well, her face hadn't. I couldn't tell about the rest of her. She still had that beautiful heart-shape to her face, gorgeous strong cheekbones, covered with smooth alabaster skin. Her lips were pink and slightly pouted, just as they'd always been, with her top lip, slightly oversized and slightly out of balance with the lower one. It made her even more beautiful. And her eyes. Those eyes that had been my undoing more times than I could remember throughout our childhood were still that entrancing shade of brown. Chocolate and deep. Other people's brown eyes were flat and lifeless, devoid of anything, but Bella's… Bella's held depth and substance. They were the window to her soul and they also had the power to see into my very being, bringing me to my knees every time I looked into them.
"More than you can imagine." I admitted and she giggled, wrapping her arms around me in a huge hug as we sat up. I could see that Alice and Jasper really wanted to wrench her away from my grasp, but they also knew what her return meant to me. This was so much more than a friend returning home.
"Well," She sighed gently, resting her head on my shoulder. "I'm back."
"No." I shook my head and she looked up at me confused. "You're home."
And she was home. And she wasn't leaving again.
