A quick update, because a preface isn't a satisfying first chapter, now is it? ;) I hope you enjoy!
.:Chapter 1 - Surreal:.
Something was off.
Many things were off, actually.
My eyes were closed, for one, and I felt...odd. Groggy, perhaps? I was not sure if that was the adjective I was looking for. This tiredness wasn't something a vampire felt often, if at all.
The second problem was my eyes were not opening. I was willing them to, but it was taking too long.
Thirdly, I was on the ground, on my back. I twitched my fingers, trying to grasp my position, my surroundings, anything to help me as I waited for my eyes to obey and open. Why was nothing instantaneous?
And the last strange thing was... I took a moment to understand what I was feeling. Every breath I took lacked something as much as it held a significant payoff. For a moment I stopped breathing, trying to mute the sound of my lungs being filled with silence so I could concentrate.
Wait.
I gasped, bolting upright, my eyes flying open. Panting, I inhaled all the oxygen I could to relieve the emptiness in my lungs. They were craving it. I was suddenly very aware that I needed air. I needed to breathe.
What the hell was going on?
My eyes darted around me but the world was too bright, too blurry, and definitely not green enough. Hadn't I just been in the forest? Yes, I was hunting. I had needed some time to myself. Everyone had been home. I had spent the whole night holding Renesmee in my arms, with that werewolf Jacob Black blabbering his flea-infested head off the whole time rather than sleeping like he usually did - probably just to irritate me, no doubt. In any case, I had escaped the crowded house around sunrise, simply needing a moment of peace.
I tried to recall what happened after that, but my eyes were finally adjusting to my new surroundings. It was frustrating that I could not adjust and recall memories at the same time. It was like the space in my mind that held my thoughts was suddenly one hundred times smaller in size. Like I had lost the ability to multitask like an immortal. Like I was...
No.
No, it couldn't be.
As my eyesight cleared I took in the world around me. I was not outside at all; rather, I was in a room with a nostalgic twentieth-century mix of pastels and gold and wood architecture. Rose-pink paper taped over plaster walls. A pale white vanity against the northern most wall, decorated in vintage make-up and old perfume bottles of various shapes and colors. A round, garnished ottoman rested beside a gold encrusted wardrobe and a large window that appeared to be made of flimsy glass and oak wood, with sheer white curtains swooping on either side of it. On the southernmost wall sat a rod-iron framed bed with floral, extravagant sheets and frilled pillows to match, and a three-tiered nightstand beside it, littered with old trinkets that somehow felt familiar to me. Above me hung a pretty chandelier with droplets of crystal hanging from pink-frosted glass flowers. The floor was cold and grainy - wood, I realized. Old wood. Not planked or polished or waxed or stained. I suddenly realized that old-fashioned materials were used throughout this whole room. Nothing was modern.
My heart rate increased, making my breathing come out heavier.
And that's when it hit me, one-hundred percent.
My hand flew to my chest. The beats of my pulse pounded against the palm of my hand. I gasped. That could only mean I was...
I was human!
A mix of feelings shot through me too quickly to fully comprehend. Was this what hyperventilating felt like? I'd taken many medical classes, but I did not recall ever experiencing a panic attack in my human days. Except, now I was back in my human days!
Okay. That thought was not helping. I just needed to breathe calmly. I shouldn't have to think about it. Like hunting for a vampire, humans were equipped to handle breathing quite easily.
Once my heartbeat relaxed - not completely, but I had to take what I could get in this situation, whatever this situation was - I observed my surroundings again. The longer I gazed at it, the more I realized I recognized this bedroom. It was mine. It was mine from the 1930's. Memories came flooding back to me, like they were never lost. I suddenly remembered everything - my childhood, my adolescence. I had just turned eighteen last week...
Slowly, carefully, I pushed myself up off the ground. I was in an itchy dress, too tight around the waist and too loose around the shoulders. Across the room, I stared at my reflection in the vanity's mirror. Without my permission, tears began to fill my eyes. I tried blinking them away but it only made them fall. The Rosalie staring back at me had her hair parted at the side, gold bangs waved and clipped up in a traditional early 1930's design, the rest of her hair pulled neatly at the back of her head and slightly to the side in a perfect, studious way. A feathered piece was clipped just above it. And although her complexion was not as shimmering, not as porcelain pale, she was still beautiful. A human kind of beautiful. Warm and soft, with rose-tinted cheeks and red lips.
What caught my attention the most was my eyes - deep blue, almost violet. Definitely violet in the right light, I realized, tilting my head a bit to face the window. A light eye-shadow was applied, but my lashes were naturally long and dark.
Carefully, afraid this was all a cruel illusion, I lifted my hand to my cheek.
How could this be happening?
I slipped back to my seat on the floor. My mind backtracked. I had to rewind my thoughts. I had to remember.
What happened when I went hunting?
oOoOoOo
It was just past dawn, tiny slivers of sunlight peered through the trees from the east. The forest behind our Vermont home was relatively quiet. Quiet was perfect. It was what I needed after a full night of hearing every godforsaken blonde joke on this planet. The mutt only got away with it while Nessie was asleep, or away. According to Edward, I had irritated the mutt more than usual yesterday and he wanted to return the favor, so he stayed up all night with us, running his mouth. The moron. I was quite ready to strangle him had Esme not returned from her own evening of hunting with Carlisle.
"Why don't you take a moment for yourself, Rose," she had said when catching whatever expression I was aiming at Jacob. "The trees are very peaceful today."
She was right. Everything was green, glossy with early-morning dew, and there was no wind to ruffle the leaves. All the animals were still sleeping. It was very still.
I was sat at a cliffside - one I had discovered and often ventured to to be alone - when the stillness ended.
A twig snapped, just behind me. Hissing, I spun around and onto my feet in the same movement. I hadn't sensed anything coming. My eyes widened, landing on the figure who appeared at the first line of trees. A young woman, almost as tall as I was. She was dressed in casual hiking attire that was clearly not cheap by the look of the fabric and design. Her hair was black, wild at the top in a messy bun sticking every which way, and gradually straightening and smoothing out as it stretched below her shoulders, stopping cuttingly at her waist. Massive golden hoops hung from her ears to match the jewelry around her neck and her septum piercing. And, although nowhere near my degree, she was lovely to look at. She appeared human - dark-skinned with no pale-dusted complexion of the immortal - and hazel eyes.
However, her smell was off. It was like nothing I'd ever encountered - sweet and bitter at the same time. I didn't know how to feel about it; my instincts had nothing to offer. It was almost as if the scent of vampires and werewolves mated and produced this concoction. There was no denying it was supernatural.
The strange-scented woman smiled at me. Her lips were thin, chapped, and there was a gap between her otherwise straight front teeth. There was something strangely wicked about her.
"Hello, there," she said, still smiling.
For a second, I didn't move. I didn't dare. This could be a trap. She could be an enemy - of my kind, of my family. Anything was a possibility after all I had seen. My family's history hadn't given me much freedom to trust. And, to be quite honest, I hadn't been keen to trust anyone much regardless.
Finally, I responded. "How did you get here?"
She ignored my question. "No introductions?" she asked. Her voice had an elegant, almost old-fashioned, tenure. What century was she from? It very well couldn't be this one.
I decided to play her game. "Fine, then. Who are you?"
She smiled at me again. "Does it matter?"
"You wanted introductions."
"I wanted yours," she corrected. "Although, you may deny the request if you so choose. I was simply being polite, Rosalie."
Again, my muscles tensed. How did she-
"I know more than I let on," she simply stated, as if answering my thoughts. My mind immediately went to Edward, and I wondered if this woman could also read minds. I tried to grasp every faucet of knowledge I possessed on the supernatural. This woman clearly was not human; yet, she wasn't a vampire, either. I searched for an explanation in my decades of information, but to no avail. There was no match.
She had to have heard of me from somewhere then. From somebody. My family was a popular subject of gossip across the vampire grape vine since our encounter with the Volturi last year.
"You must be confused, of course, but I do not mean you any harm." The woman folded her hands behind her back. Trying to placate me? Trying to seem innocent? If she thought I was going to let my guard down, she didn't know me was well as she might have thought. However, she continued to speak reassuringly to me. "There is only one reason I am here, and it is because I was drawn to you. I cannot help these things. It is a curse, really." She laughed once. "Beckoned by those who desire what they cannot have."
I straightened my defensive stance, but did not relax. "If you think you are making any sense at all-"
"Oh, I know I'm not." She sighed, seeming genuinely disappointed by that fact. "Look, dear, I hate to be cryptic-" She could have fooled me. "-so let me just say it. I can grant you exactly what you want."
Her words stirred uneasily in my stomach. What ridiculousness was she claiming? The things I wanted could not be granted. Not ever. And to plant any hope of that... Well, it was just rude!
Suddenly, I was angry.
"I don't know what game you are playing," I told her, fierce, "but I want no part of it."
"On the contrary, I believe you want every part of it."
I growled. She didn't move. If she was smarter, she would have started running now.
Before I could make any move, she asked, "Do you not wonder what I am? What I can do?" When I didn't respond, she continued, "I hardly chose this life, Rosalie Hale, any more than you chose yours."
My eyes narrowed dangerously at her. What did she know about my life? I supposed it was strange - she was strange. Her questions were legitimate, at least. I had no idea what in the hell she was. She had appeared out of nowhere. I didn't sense her coming, did not catch her scent; yet, she had a heartbeat, a pulse... It was slower than Renesmee's hummingbird thrumming, however, so she couldn't be half-immortal, half-human either.
A part of me was wondering if Alice was seeing this.
"I belong to a very different family," the girl said, reading something in my curious expression that must have encouraged her. "Still similar to a clan, however. Same beliefs; same abilities...to an extent."
"Cut the crap," I said. Impatience was wearing me thin. "How do you know me?"
"My power rests with detection of desire," she answered. She was smiling again. "I was merely passing through when I detected you, out here, alone. I sensed you craved something deeply. I only came to see if I could help. And I only know you, because I sensed you, and the information came to me, weaving pieces together to make sense of you - it is a strange science I would rather not get into. I know very little about how it works myself. It's just...well, I feel your passion, Rosalie. You feel things on a great level - whether that be love...or loss. And you have lost something, have you not? Something you want desperately back? I know you do. And I can help you."
"Nobody can help me," I murmured. Then more clearly I said, "What makes you so sure you can?"
"I have been healing holes in creatures' lives for over a century. I have great power, and great practice wielding it."
"Power?" I questioned.
"Spells, dear one."
Spells.
"Are you trying to tell me that you are some sort of witch?"
"Witch. Mage. Sorceress. The title does not matter."
I scoffed. "You are joking."
"Why is that so difficult to believe, vampire?" She was not amused, simply factual. I stared at her for a good long while, neither of us speaking. Hadn't I just thought that anything was possible, after what my family had seen?
The witch-mage-sorceress tilted her head at me. "Your resolve is wavering."
"Tsk," I hissed. "You have me curious, I will admit. But you have not proven that you can help me. In fact, I know you can't. Magic or no magic, you can't alter physics, you can't change the past, and you can't grant me what I wish like some genie."
"'Magic' is just science without the knowledge of an explanation, dear. You are right, though - history and physics cannot be reshaped. What you seek, however, does not require that they do." She gazed at the ground briefly, one hand rising to her temple, pressing against it in a way Alice sometimes did when she grew a headache. "I see... I see what it is you're after, young Rosalie. And you are correct again - I can't give that to you."
I arched a perfect eyebrow at her, in a way to say 'I told you so'. Yet, somewhere deep inside me I must have been grasping for that little bit of faith in this strange woman's words, because it let go of that faith immediately and sank back into the depths of my soul.
I didn't expect anything - how could I possibly be disappointed?!
"However," the witch continued, "what I can do is give you a chance to give it to yourself."
"What are you talking about?" My voice was nothing more than a whisper. Solid and still fierce, but quiet, cautious.
"There are certain spells we witches-" she smiled at the name "-have conjured up over the billions of years we have existed. Breaking through the walls of time is difficult, and, for the most part, forbidden, but it is not impossible." Before I had a chance to interrupt with incredulous snark, she hastily continued. "I inherited such spells from my mother. She was a rebel and a lover of the darker arts, bless her heart. I can recite such a spell for you, if you wish for the opportunity to change whatever went wrong...when you were human."
I wasn't even aware I hadn't been breathing until I inhaled sharply at her words.
"You said the past was out of your control," I reminded her, not willing to hope, not wanting to believe.
"The past in this timeline is set," she agreed. "You are well-coursed in the sciences and arithmetic, surely you have given thought to alternate universes."
It felt redundant, but I just knew she had to be kidding me. Parallel universes were things of fiction.
Of course, in the human world, so were vampires...
"Rosalie, I have the ability to guide you to where you can go and start over. But that is all I can offer. A universe where you do not exist - not until I place you there, with all of this universe's history."
"That," I started, but cut off. My brain could not wrap around this.
"The only question is how much are you willing to give up for your dream?"
"Anything!" I didn't even think - I just answered. It was the truth, anyway. For an opportunity to be human again, to have a family... How could I say no? It was all I ever wanted for as long as I could remember.
"Anything?" the witch wondered pressingly. "You're willing to give up everything in this life for this chance?"
Everything?
All I had was my family. Carlisle and Esme, my brothers and sisters, my niece...
Emmett...
I already had thought about this. Thought about this more times than I would ever care to admit. The thought of losing any of them was hard. Oh, it certainly hurt to think about. But so did the alternative. Years upon years, decade after decade I had wondered what my life would have been like if I had continued life as a human. Yes, I had imagined losing my family - the ones I would do anything for. And, of course, I had pictured my life without Emmett - my mate, the one person in this whole expanse of universe who truly understood me, and loved me, no matter what mistakes I made. Hell, I had even talked about this very scenario with him once. It had just come up in our conversation, casual and curious.
What would you do, Rose? Would you let me go to have a baby, to raise it and grow old with your husband?
I had thought hard about it. I always told him the truth, and I owed it to him to not make rash decisions, fictional scenarios or not. I loved him, and I always would. Nothing could ever change that. But he had to have known that, in the end, this hole in my heart had to be filled. I thought he would hate me when I told him that, despite how I felt about him, I would leave him.
I remembered the perfect smile he gave me after I'd answered him. It had surprised me.
Good, he had said. I'd want you to.
Even after all this time, he still amazed me. I wasn't used to being treated the way Emmett treated me. No matter what, all he wanted was for me to be the happiest I could possibly be.
Maybe now I could be.
oOoOoOo
"Rosalie?" a woman called, bringing me back to the present.
Or the past.
Or wherever the hell I was.
An alternate past, I guessed. The witch had been telling the truth. I remembered now, agreeing to give up my life for this one. My choice was made. The deed was done.
Wasn't it?
I peered down at my hands again, flexing my fingers, feeling the lack of senses I was used to having at my disposal. I could feel my heart beating against the inside of my chest.
"Rosalie?" My name was called again. The voice was close but the sound was distant. It was a sound from a memory, too far back to clearly remember. But I was sure I had heard it before.
Before I could contemplate further, the woman the voice belonged to appeared in the doorway. Everything about her was light. Soft, yellow waves of hair swooped into a low bun at the back of her head, much like mine. Soft, pale skin wrinkled slightly around her caramel brown eyes and her frowning full lips. Again like me, she wore clothes not fit for the twenty-first century.
Oh my God...
"Mother?" I whispered, not believing it. She was right there. No more than five feet away from me. My human mother. From so, so long ago.
She stared down at me, a hint of confusion building on her face. A perfectly arched eyebrow lifted up. "Why are you sitting on the floor?" she asked.
Without another moment of thought, I scrambled to my feet and threw myself at this woman who seemed so much a stranger to me now, yet who I still felt love for. And, just as they had before, the memories began to come back to me until she was no longer such a stranger.
Eleanor Hale. My birth mother.
She hugged me back, awkwardly. Patting my shoulders slightly, she pulled away just enough to get a look at my face. I studied hers as she glanced over mine. To me, she was new; to her, I guessed, it was all just an ordinary day in Rochester, New York.
Finally, it was all starting to sink in. To make sense. So much so that I could finally get a grip on it.
"Are you feeling alright, darling?" my mother asked me.
"I am perfect," I answered. As I said them, I knew my words were true. My heart still raced, but it was excitement now, rather than anxiety.
My mother studied me for a moment longer. Appeased once I straightened myself and flattened out the crinkles I had made in my dress, she smiled at me - my smile.
"I've been calling you," she said. "The Braxton's are here - Loretta and your Vera. They've brought little Henry with them. Isn't that darling? Come on, now. They are waiting." She was already walking back down the hall. "I'm having Sonya put out some of the Chocolate Poundcake we baked this morning. Your father might be put out with us when he gets home tonight, but you know how I love my sweets in the afternoon, and besides - there's company!" Her trill was so familiar now. Hearing her laughter tread down the hall brought back an onslaught of lost memories.
Yes, my mother had a habit of snacking on desserts meant for after dinner.
Yes, my father will definitely say something about it, but he could never hold it against my mother for long.
Vera - my very best friend Vera - and her mother were visiting. Their last name was Braxton; but no, Vera had married a carpenter whose surname was Cole. Mother never remembered. She refused to remember, I thought, for she did not agree with a carpenter for a husband. But she had been friends with Loretta Braxton longer than I had been friends with Vera.
Then I remembered... They had brought Henry. Vera's little boy, one of the only clear faces I held onto for all this time.
Wiping away the pools of tears that had formed at the corner of my eyes, I hurried back to the mirror in my bedroom. I glanced over my reflection again, quickly, admiring the details that hadn't been present in the quality of immortal skin and straightening the accessories I wanted to call "vintage" but knew were completely modern in this time. Once I established that I was remarkably presentable, I dashed for the stairs, eager to see the baby I had adored.
It was so surreal.
I was back in the 1930's. I was back to my old home. Like nothing had ever happened. Like it was all a dream.
But I knew it wasn't.
Even as I hurried down the carpeted steps of my old family, Rochester home, nostalgia and excitement coursing through my veins alongside actual human blood, I was quite aware of the favorable circumstance I had stumbled upon. The furor of my emotions was shadowing the things I didn't want to think about - the things I gave up. At the same time, I knew I had a reason for giving them up, and I let the elation consume me.
For the first time in too long, there was hope.
As impossible as it seemed, I had a second chance. At life. At love. At happiness.
This time, nobody was going to screw it up.