Chapter Three:
You're lucky that I couldn't stop writing this otherwise it wouldn't be this lengthy. Thanks so much to my six reviewers who this chapter is dedicated to. I wish that I had gotten more but oh well, maybe this chapter will get people interested and reviewing :)
25th May 2012 Update: Thanks to RaindropSoup and PurplePrincess77 for beta'ing this chapter for me :)
I didn't have time to see him again that night or morning. Charlie kept me chatting attentively while he watched a game on TV, and then I overslept in the morning and had to leave for school in a rush. It pained me that I couldn't see him, but I promised myself that I would after school had ended.
It wasn't until I had nearly arrived at school – in the Chevy Charlie had surprised me with yesterday – that I remembered who gave me the mirror and who was supposed to help me around today. Alice Cullen. She had to have known what she had given me, who she had given me, but what did she expect me to do? Did she expect me to help him? To free him? Why choose me? What compelled her to pass on such an impossible task to me, someone who she had never met? I no longer believed that the gift was merely a coincidence. She had to have given it to me with a purpose, but what? After all the introductions were out of the way, I planned to interrogate her. To demand why on earth she chose me.
I wanted to help him.
I just needed to know why such a thing was placed on my shoulders. I suppose it didn't matter, but maybe she could give me some answers, maybe she could help me.
The second I stepped out of my truck, I was face to face with the very person I was planning to search for. I knew it was her from the way she babbled endlessly, as if we were close confidantes, and I noticed that her appearance matched the one Charlie had described; inky black hair in a pixie cut, pale skin, and… strange golden eyes? That last feature confused me greatly. Besides my mirror boy – the mirror boy – I corrected myself with chagrin – I had never encountered someone with eyes of such a hue. I thought that perhaps the yellow eyes were an effect of being trapped in the mirror for so long, but the girl who was chatting to me excessively by my side proved that that was not the case.
"You're going to love it here," she trilled. "And we'll be such great friends."
It wasn't until we had reached the office and I'd received my class schedule that I cut her off as politely as possible.
"Yeah, I'm sure I will," I replied to her previous statement with a hesitant smile. Her exuberant nature was overwhelming, but it provided me with a feeling of welcome that I hadn't felt at all since I'd arrived.
However, it still didn't deter me from asking the crucial question that could cause her friendly nature to disappear, to see me as crazy, even accusatory if I was wrong. But I had to know.
I tried not to be blatant as I asked, by decoding it in my thankfulness for the gift.
"I forgot to thank you for the mirror. It's really pretty. Thanks. But, would you mind explaining why there is someone in there?" I braced myself for her response, but my preparation was unnecessary.
"So you found him? I knew you'd figure it out." She grinned.
"Wait, so he really is in there?" I exclaimed, ignoring the wary looks people were shooting us.
"Of course." She laughed.
"But, why did you give the mirror to me? And how did you get it in the first place? Were you the one who trapped him?"
"Slow down," she laughed. "First off, of course I didn't trap him. He's my brother."
"Your brother? But he said that he'd been in there for years," I said incredulously.
"Yes, well, his perception of time must be wrong." She smiled a little too innocently.
"How did he get in there? He won't tell me. He believes that it will make me think less of him if I know."
"This is better explained after school. Would you like to talk about it at my house?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't know you very well, and for all I know, you could be a freaky killer," I joked, but I was serious in a way.
"How about yours then?" She suggested.
"Well, I guess that would be okay," I said hesitantly. "You'd have to leave before Charlie comes home though."
"That's okay. I just want to explain everything to you."
"Can you at least tell me why you gave me the mirror?"
"Sorry, but I can't tell you here. It's too public, and besides, I saw that if I told you now that you'd pass out."
"You saw?"
"I'll explain it all later."
"I'll hold you to that."
….
The remainder of my school day passed in a blur until lunch. Alice showed me around everywhere I needed or might need to go, and the school was so small that I had no trouble with memorising the locations.
At lunch, I sat with her and her siblings, who all eyed me suspiciously. Bizarrely, despite being adopted, despite their eyes all had the strange golden tone as my – the mirror boy and similar pallor. These were the only similarities with their range in hair colours and diverse builds, challenging the fact that they were siblings. Alice soon informed me that they were all adopted, but the blonds, Rosalie, and Jasper, who was Alice's boyfriend, were twins, and Emmett – the intimidating, muscly one– was her cousin. I took in the fact that she was dating her adopted sibling rather well by reminding myself that they weren't actually related.
I didn't know what to make of them, for none of them ate any food or even struck up a conversation, not even with each other. It was as if they were afraid to reveal any of their secrets with me there and just wanted me to leave.
Despite my discomfort and Rosalie's piercing glare, I didn't move to another table and just talked to Alice, wanting to know more about her, and hopefully, Edward. The end of the day was dragging on more than I could bear, and I just wanted her to tell me about him before my patience wore out. I had a billion questions, which I believed she owed it to me to answer. However, Edward never popped up in our conversations, and the sharp ring of the bell sounded before I could bring him up again.
In biology, one of the classes that Alice was not in, I was approached by two girls who welcomed me to their school warmly and were very friendly, but it wasn't until they began asking a million questions that I realised the reason for their sociability.
They had come to interrogate me about my association with the Cullens.
"Hi, you must be Isabella." The short one with curly brown hair smiled at me.
"It's just Bella," I told her.
"Hi, Bella. I'm Lauren." The other silvery blonde girl introduced herself, her voice nasally and a little annoying.
"So, we saw you hanging out with the Cullens today. Do you know what you've just achieved?" Jessica asked me nosily.
"Uh, Alice is very nice and invited me to sit with her, so I accepted," I replied, a little perplexed. Why would they care?
"They must want you for something. They never hang out with people who, like, aren't in their family." Lauren sneered.
"Yeah, you're, like, the first person to do that." Jessica said, a little in awe.
"That's great," I muttered lamely.
"You are so lucky. Jasper and Emmett are hot." Lauren licked her tongue across her lips, as if she were having a fantasy in her head.
Gross.
"Yeah, they are totes sexy," Jessica agreed. "I should so ask them out."
"Don't they have girlfriends?" I asked, confused.
Lauren scoffed. "It's not like they're married." Lauren scoffed.
These girls were irritating me more and more by each second. They saw guys as a piece of ass, not a person with feelings and needs. Doesn't anyone believe in finding love anymore? Of finding the right person? These girls obviously didn't know the meaning of love, or even affection.
I didn't want to hang out with people like that and was greatly relieved when the teacher walked in to begin the lesson. I handed my slip to him and sat down at an empty lab table. No one came to join me, but I liked the solitude. It was nice not being fed mindless chatter for once.
That peace was interrupted when a boy with blond hair and blue eyes tapped my shoulder and asked me for a pencil. I passed one to him with an internal roll of the eyes.
"Thanks. I'm Mike." He smiled. "I saw you talking to my friends just before."
Any positive image I had of him was destroyed by the fact that he was friends with those girls.
"Nice to meet you," I mumbled, and then turned back to my work on cellular anatomy.
The only nice person with decent intentions I'd met apart from Alice was a shy girl with glasses, named Angela, who I sat next to in English. She and I had the same taste in books, and the conversation we had was quite pleasant. When the last class ended, I walked as quickly as I could to my truck, eager to have the important conversation with Alice. She was already waiting there for me, ready to leave as soon as I got to her. She refused to start until we got to my house, despite my assurances that whatever she told me, I would stay sane. Then she said this really weird comment about how only she knew what would happen and that I was clueless while tapping her forehead and grinning.
To my relief, it wasn't long before we were sitting on my father's couch and I was offering her refreshments, which she politely refused.
"So are you going to tell me what you're hiding?" I asked bluntly.
"I only can if you promise to hear me out, at least try to take what I'm saying as the truth and don't ask why certain things are so."
I nodded, and then she sighed, before launching into her story.
"The first thing you need to know is that all of our family is immortal. I can't tell you why, just that we are and you will discover why in a few weeks. Now is not the time to know."
"Okay, you are seriously freaking me out. Nobody is immortal. It isn't logical." I spluttered.
"You need to take into consideration that not everything in this world is as sane as you believe."
"But, how can you be immortal?"
"Someone made us immortal."
"Like a witch?"
"No, but someone with the power to make us immortal. I've lived since the twenties."
"Look, I've only known you one day. How am I supposed to believe you?"
"I saw that you wouldn't believe me unless I showed proof, so I decided to bring my birth certificate."
I stared at the authentic-looking certificate with absolute disbelief. Nobody could forge a signature such as the one that was written there, nobody could fake a seal so official looking, and most importantly, nobody could make paper appear that old. I sniffed it suspiciously and my eyes widened with shock when no smell of coffee could be perceived.
The birth certificate was real.
And the date of 1901 seemed to be forever imprinted into my brain. I couldn't comprehend how someone could be around that long and look exactly the same, eternally youthful. It was madness to even imagine such things.
"What … How... What?" My mouth could not form any other words but those, which demanded explanation.
"Do you still want to know more?" she asked me casually.
"Yes," I whispered. "What did you mean about seeing things?"
"I can see the future. I can prove it again if you want."
"I'm fine." I was at the point of believing anything she could have said after that last piece of proof.
"Well, to my story. There are some people," she started, saying the last word carefully. "Who detest us more than any other kind, and one of them managed to catch Edward when he was alone at our house. They have powers of their own but aren't immortal and resent us for being so. They took a mirror from Rosalie's room and cast a spell on it to trap Edward as a punishment for our existence. They weakened him, and therefore, he had no chance when they forced him into the mirror and sealed it. They planned to trap the rest of us, and we barely managed to escape with the mirror. We are in hiding from them at the present, and they have no idea where we are. While they are stronger than us, we cannot win. We've tried numerous ways to get Edward out of the mirror, but none of them have worked. There is an inscription at the back of the mirror in the form of a poem, which I think you should see. It is the only thing which gives us hope."
I got up without a word and showed her to my room. While she sunk onto my bed in waiting, I half-ran over to the mirror, still sitting there innocently, and peered at the back of it. Just as Alice promised, there was a poem. An almost prophetic poem.
If the mirror is carelessly shattered, then the boy will cease to be.
But if the brown-eyed beauty meets him, then one day he'll be free.
"What's this supposed to mean?" I demanded.
"It's you, Bella." She smiled. "You're the brown eyed-beauty who is destined to free Edward."
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