Here the next chapter in my story about the turning of Alice. It's a bit longer than the last. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: You know, right?
Chapter 2
There was a short silence as they all thought of Alice and what Aro wanted. Then Edward spoke.
"Who are you? And why should we trust what you have to say?" he asked rudely. "This could be another trap by Aro."
"Trust…" she mummer softly also amused. "I assure you Aro does not know about this."
"How can you be sure?" Emmett asked
"Do you see Felix?" she answered back amused. She seemed to be taking it lightly; she seemed to imply that if Felix was here that would be because he was here to stop her by any means necessary, even if it meant her death.
"You were with the guard yesterday and now today you're here to warn us about Aro?" Carlisle spoke softly. "Please forgive us if we are a little over cautious."
"Yeah, besides I think we have been warned effectively about what Aro wants." Emmett added.
"Yes, I believe you have, but I'm not here to tell you what you already know but what you do not." she told them.
"And what do you know about me and Aro that we don't already know?" Alice asked as she ran into the clearing with Jasper at her side. All but Edward turn to her surprised but not shocked to see her. There really were no secrets in the Cullen household.
"Why don't we go back to the house so that she can tell us the story all together?" Carlisle suggested but there was a long pause before anyone moved. "Come…" he paused waiting for her to fill in her name.
"Sarah" she told him softly.
"Come, Sarah." Carlisle repeated. "I think the whole family needs to hear what you have to say and they should hear it from you." He gestured with his hand asking her silently to walk with him. She paused as if doubtful they would want hear it from her.
"Yes." She finally agreed and began walking beside him. Before they left the clearing for the woods they were running. Those left behind looked at each other then at Alice, agreeing silently to do whatever it took to protect her from harm whether it be physical or not. They turned as one and race after Carlisle and the vampire Sarah.
~xx~ ~xx~ ~xx~
Carlisle and Sarah exited the trees behind the house, jumped over the creek and walked quickly to the back terrace. There Carlisle turned back to watch for his children. Sarah turned also but she watched the sky.
As Edward and the others arrived as the sun was beginning to set, Sarah was still watching the sky. She mummer "Twilight" sadly and saw Edward glance sharply at her. She didn't explain what she meant, he already knew.
Carlisle lead the way into the living room where Esme was sitting thumbing through a fashion magazine while she waited for them. She must have been deeply worried Carlisle thought because she didn't seem to hear them arrive and she was looking at a fashion magazine, something he didn't think he had even seen her do before. She looked up in surprise not expecting her husband back so soon and with company. She looked into his eyes for a moment before standing to meet their guest. Before Carlisle could introduce her, he heard Renesmee's excited cry.
"Jacob!" she cried as she bounded down the stairs followed by Rosalie. "Nessie!" Jacob called back just as excited but he looked to Edward 'Should I take her out?' before catching her when she jumped into his arms. Rosalie walked to Emmett's side giving him a questioning look, which he answered with a wry shrug before pulling her into his arms.
Edward answered Jacob quiet question and asked one his own to Alice. "I don't know. Do you want the rest of us to leave you alone…?"
Alice gave a panic puzzled look, asking him if he was crazy. She didn't want to be alone … with her.
"I meant with Jasper and Carlisle too." He explained further.
"No." she answered "I want – I'll need my family with me for this." Then she whispered. "All of them, if that's O.K.?" looking at Renesmee.
"Yes." Edward told her. "She seems to understand more than we think." He looked toward her and saw she had her hand on Jacob face asking what was going on.
"I really don't know," he whispered "but I'm sure we are about to find out something very interesting about your Aunt Alice."
"I suggest we all sit and at least look like we are comfortable." Carlisle said as he showed Sarah to a chair on one side of the fire place, a focal point. Everyone else sat and with their mates. Edward and Bella sat in the chair that was opposite of Sarah's on the other side of the fire place. Jacob sat on the floor beside that chair with Nessie in his lap. Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett sat on the sofa and Jasper sat in another chair with Alice in his lap even through there was room side him.
It was quiet for a moment then the vampire took a deep breath and began to speak. "My name is Sarah Morgan." She paused "My twin brother and I were born a few years after this country won its independence but it would be many years before I would ever step foot in the United States. My mother was a whore and my father was a petty con man who was a loyal patriot or subject depending who he was talking to."
"Was he from England then?" Carlisle asked curious.
"I really do not know." She answered. "He could do any accent he heard and I never did find out where he was from… he lied a lot." She shook her head and shrugged. "He used whatever – whoever he could to make a dollar. Of course I do not remember many details but our mother passed on when we were ten or so and we spend the next five years with our da roaming the south and western part of the country, looking for the next mark. Usually some rich miner's widow. That is until one of his widows was not a widow after all and her husband came home from the mine sooner than expected. After that my brother and I wandered." She took another deep breath seemly lost in thought. "My brother was just as good looking as my father but he had brains. Don't know who he got them from but he was too clever by far. He had a clever tongue. Could spin a tale that all would believe. We continue on but with my brother pulling the cons life became easier. We had traveled on to a small town in the mid west where I found something else worth doing. Taking care of my Clara, Albert and Leo had become my life."
"Were they your children?" Esme asked.
"They were my Horace's." she answered then smiled. "It was Clara that stole my heart right out from under me. Then she gave it to Horace and I was truly lost. To my great surprise he loved me too. Even after… " She stopped, smiled again and shook her head in wonder. Those gathered around her saw that these were human memories and were still quite strong for her. Maybe she reminded herself after she was just turned so she would remember. But Esme didn't think so there was no way she would have forgotten her son. "I asked my brother not to do what he would usually do and to leave us be. And to my everlasting gratitude he did. He left soon after I married Horace with nothing more in his pockets than he arrived with. I never saw him again until…"
She looked down into her lap with a sad smile. Edward quietly watch one memory after another pass though her mind as she also quietly decide where to go on with her story. He heard her desire to share those happy times but she knew that was not what she was here to empark. With another deep breath she looked up with a sad smile. "After spending near to sixty years happily with Horace, he passed on in his sleep. I spend the next few months on the front pouch watching the grand children and great-grandchildren and waiting to join him. One day my brother arrived not looking a day older than the last time I saw him. He told me of his life and how great he thought it was. I was horrified; he wanted me to join him. He told me waited until Horace had gone but now I owed him for leaving us alone and for waiting until he was gone. And how I should be with him again. Even though I wanted to stay with my children until I saw Horace again, I believed him. I should be with him. See… that was the gift he gained. No matter outrageous the lie, you would believe him. Even though you knew it was a lie, you still believed him. So I went willingly enough with him thinking it would be only a short time until I was gone for good anyways but I didn't realize his plan. His plan to turn me into – to make me like him."
Even though the proof was in front of them, they couldn't believe he would be so cruel, so selfish to turn his elderly sister.
"You must have been in your late eighties." Rosalie said having counted up the years.
"Give or take." She answered with a shrug.
"You were turned around the same time I was." Jasper spoke for the first time "during the war between the states."
"Yes." Sarah told him. "We waited in the west for the war to be over before traveling to Italy. My brother, Calvin," finally saying his name, "had heard of a vampire empire there that was interested in vampires with gifts and he wanted to see what they would think of ours."
"And what is your gift?" Jasper asked, always know your enemy.
"I can see greatly." She answered then explained further. "I can see many miles, tiny things and see things that most don't want observed."
"Where were you yesterday?" Edward asked in spite of himself. "I could feel you staring at me."
"Yes, that does seem to be an effect if I stare at a being for a while." Sarah said matter of fact. "I wasn't that far, on the ridge on that mount, pass the trees."
"That's almost ten miles away" Edward exclaimed "there's no way I should have heard you…"
"That's traveling along the ground but it is less than a mile as the crow flies." Sarah told him. "Maybe my thoughts followed my sight?"
"So what happen when you met Aro." Carlisle asked to get the story back on track.
"Ah, Aro." Sarah whispered. "He found us very interesting. And soon found a great many things for us to do. But not too many together, to my brother's dissatisfaction, after all he turn me for his use not Aro's."
"Who have you watched?" Emmett asked.
"The Romanian brothers for the most part. Spend many boring years watching those two plot then never do anything." Sarah told him amused. "He had me watching many covens but strangely enough never you, Dr. Cullen. Oh, he knew where you were most of the time but he never once had any one 'visit' you. He knew where you were but never really what you were doing. The rumor was he was greatly surprise by the size of your coven. He had heard tales of you turning a son and a wife but he lost touch of you. He had suffered a great loss around that time and it took him many years to get over it."
"What do you mean a great loss?" Jasper asked angrily but he had a feeling, Alice. But he didn't know what had happen.
Sarah sighed. She knew this was going to be painful for them. Especially for the boy, he loved her so much. Sarah could see that and she didn't need her special vision to do so. She just hoped she finished before the boy killed her. She turned from him to see Edward looking ready to question why she thought Jasper would want to kill her. She began to speak before he could.
"I had been the Volturi for about forty years when an incident came to the notice of Aro. Seems there had been an awful murder of an old man where his wife barely escaped the same fate. The murder was done by a red-eyed monster that looked like a beautiful angel. It happen in a small town in a southern state of the united states but the papers there and across the state were running stories about this red-eyed monster angel, about his looks and how he was still at large and still stalking the old woman, waiting to finish the job."
With these words Jasper sat up straighter, startling Alice.
"What?" she question softly.
"I remember this." He explained. "We, Maria and I, were in the next county. – We quickly left and laid low, not wanting the Volturi to think it could be us."
"Where were you?" Alice asked needlessly.
"Mississippi." Jasper whispered. So close. There was a gasp around the room even though everyone knew that's where it must have been.
"Yes," Sarah continued, "Mississippi. Aro sent a convoy to quickly dispatch the matter."
"Who did he send?" Bella asked.
"Felix and Jane." Was the answer and she nodded thinking those two would be the one to enjoy it the most. "Of course it was a simple matter," Sarah began again, "just find the vampire that caused all the fuss and fit it. Do away with the witness and shut up the reporter. It wasn't too difficult because the newspapers had stated the monster angel was still in town. He was trying to clean-up his own mess but his victims always seem to be one step ahead of him. He was easily found. In the hopes of saving his own existence he told them of a special little girl that seem to know of his every move."
Everyone listening gasped, many said her name and Jasper tighten his hold on her, while Alice stared at her hands in her lap.
"He told how he had planned to take the old couple while they were taking their nightly walk around the neighborhood but somehow they knew what was happening the moment he appeared. He told how they both screamed and yelled for help the very second they saw his face. He told how they began to run to the nearest house, calling for help. How at the last second before catching the old woman the old man jumped between them giving the old woman the time needed to be seen by the people of the house leaving him no choice but to drop the old man that he had killed the instant he jumped in from of him. He told them how he discovered who the old lady was and how the old couple knew about him." Sarah paused because she knew her next statement was going to cause much suffering.
"He told them that the reason the couple knew what he was the moment they saw him was because,' she took a deep breath before continuing; "their granddaughter had had a vision of it happening."
"Oh, God." Alice moaned.
"What?" several voices shouted.
"You mean to tell me," a cold angry voice overrode all the other voices, "that Aro knew who my daughter was and didn't tell me?" There was total silence after the question was asked. No one had ever heard Carlisle voice so cold, so angry, so deadly. Edward knew that any chance the friendship between Aro and Carlisle had of surviving was forever gone. He didn't need his gift to know this.
"Yes," Sarah answered, her voice was no longer soft. "He knew that she didn't remember and that he could tell her much, but he chose not to. He couldn't tell you how he knew and of course why he knew. He knew that he would lose her forever if he did."
"Well, that was a mistake." Carlisle told her softly. An unforgivable mistake.
"The vampire failed in his attempt to save his life. Felix quickly dispatched him, but they were not so lucky with the old lady, the grandmother, or with the reporter. They both seem to have disappeared off the face of the planet. With some worry they return to Italy to report their failure. To their surprise, Aro was overjoyed. This must mean that the child was a powerful seer if she could hide two people from them. Why – when she was grown and turned she would be a powerful asset for the Volturi."
"My grandmother…" Alice spoke barely in a whisper but all noise stopped even Jacob and Renesmee stop breathing so not to make a sound.
"She was brought home to rest beside your grandfather a little more than three years later, from where I do not know but I do know she died peacefully in her sleep. She was very old for a human you know."
Alice let go a sigh of relief. "What about the reporter?"
"I do not know when or how he died but it wasn't by Volturi hands of this, I am sure."
"Thank-you." Alice whispered. Even though she asked of her grandmother her eyes had not left her hands.
"Well, yes," Sarah sighed. "Aro made many plans but threw away all of them. He knew that he needed to know more about this wonderful child. So he sent someone to watch her."
"You!" Edward growled. "You watched Alice. You helped Aro! You…" he could not go on. Bella had to hold him back when Sarah calmly answered yes. Jasper, Edward, Emmett and Jacob were of one mind – hurt her! But all stopped with a quiet question from Esme. "What did you see?"
Sarah turned to look at Alice who still had not raised her eyes from her hands that she now was twisting together. Jasper laid his hand on top of hers but did not try to calm her because he was already calm, too calm. She had too much control over her emotion right then and he was afraid she was going to break soon. The twisting of her hands was the only sigh of any emotions. He heard Sarah's voice begin.
"I saw a much beloved daughter." Alice's head snapped up and she stared back at Sarah. "I saw a happy cubby little girl who made her mother laugh and smile with joy. I saw a little girl that was the apple of her daddy's eye. I saw parents, friends and neighbors that protected a little girl. I saw a little girl that had vision of things to come and she was believed.
