I drove Bella's truck and followed my sibling as we headed to our house. Alice had called Carlisle that Bella would come why my parents already waited for us on the porch.
Bella looked impressed when she saw our house but kept silence. Jasper told me that she felt nervous and I took her hand and let her toward the house to meet our parents.
"Bella, these are our parents Esme and Carlisle Cullen."
"It's very nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Cullen." Bella said.
"Carlisle." Carlisle said. "We are so happy to meet you."
Esme looked at our hands and grinned internally and stepped forward and gave Bella a careful hug.
"Thank you so much, darling." She told her. "I'm Esme. Please come in!"
Bella seemed a bit stunned but followed her without hesitance.
We went to the living room and everybody settled down on the sofas and loveseats. I still hold Bella's hand and she seemed quite comfortable.
"Please Bella tell us how you know about us and how it comes that you have these wonderful pastilles?" Carlisle started as he was the head of our family.
"Well, were shall I begin… One of my closest friends – Anna – is a vampire. I met her a few years ago, but this is a different story. She calls herself a vegan vampire and was already a vegetarian whilst she was human. She was a great scientist and after her chance she started to experiment with different things to feed herself at the beginning. As she, like I said, already was a vegetarian she never thought about hunting people, but she couldn't cope with hunting animals either. In the end she is feeding from human blood, but donation based. She owns her own blood-bank and pays the humans. It is a nice part time job, especially for students and she really cares about the donators. She lives in Sweden and has a big laboratory and assistances where she develops these pastilles and other supply for vampires. If you are interested I'm happy to give you her number and you can exchange about your lifestyles or whatever."
"Wow, that sounds amazing. I would love to get to know her." "All right, no problem. But there is one condition. If you contact her, you are not allowed to tell her where you or I live. Is that ok for you?"
Everybody nodded in agreement and Bella told Carlisle Anna's number. After that she revealed some small boxes from her bag.
"I've got some more pastilles with different flavors for you. These are strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. I hope you'll like it."
"Of cause we do, honey, thank so much" Esme said "I can't remember the taste of chocolate, but I know I loved it."
"Well, Anna was not only a scientist, but a very good cook, too during her human life. She just refused to lose this and started experimenting. She wanted to be able to taste different flavors besides blood. Eventually she developed her first pastilles. The Volturi support her researches, especially financially. By the way the whole Volturi clan uses them too, so you don't need to worry about side effects or so."
"But if the Volturi know about it, why haven't we heard about this amazing invention." Emmet wanted to know.
"I asked Anna the very same question and she told me that this was another way to solidify their power."
"As you even know so much about the Volturi, please tell us how you are connected with the vampire world." Carlisle wanted to know. "You said you had your vampire friend Anna, how did you met and became friends?"
"Well this is kind of a difficult story… But I think I should tell you… Probably you know already a lot about it… I guess Alice and I have a common… friend - James."
The whole room went silence and everyone started to look confused to Bella and Alice.
Alice had stayed in the back the whole time Bella spoke, but now came closer to her, stunned.
"What do you mean, Bella?" Alice asked.
Now it was Bella's time to look confused as she recognized all our unknown faces.
"Haven't you told them, Alice?" She whispered.
"I thought you were a family, how could you keep this from them?" Bella asked bewildered.
"I don't know what you are talking about." Alice whimpered.
Bella looked at her shocked. "Really?" Alice nodded.
"I'm so sorry for the confusion, in this case you are not the Alice Cullen I mend, please forgive me for being so mean to you, but I thought you were our Alice Cullen. I never met her before, but you looked like her description. But you're completely right, you can't be our Alice." I heard Jasper thinking that Bella was really relieved, but at the same time he felt frustrated because he knew that Alice suffered of her missing past.
"I'm so sorry guys for freaking out!" Bella told us and we started to tell her that we were fine.
"Well, Bella" Alice started "actually I have the feeling that I am your Alice Cullen."
"What!?" Bella started to panic and Jasper sent her waves of calm. "Please don't tell me that Alice, you said that didn't know James."
"Bella – I know nothing about my past. The first thing I remember is waking up in the basement of an empty house as a newborn vampire. The only thing I know from my human life is that my name was Alice. That's all. If I wouldn't have found Jasper and the others I would be a wild creature, completely on my own."
"That sounds reasonable." Bella started talking to herself and began to walk up and down the room.
"That would explain…. And fits to Caro's explanations."
After a few minutes, while Alice became more and more nervous and impatient, Bella stopped and began talking to us.
"But we can't be sure. It could be you, but if not?"
"Maybe you just tell us?" Emmet suggested.
"No, I can't! Maybe if it was you, but no, not if it isn't you, not as long we can't be sure!"
"Isn't there any way to prove it?" Esme asked.
"Yes, maybe you know something we could check?" Carlisle proposed.
Alice started jumping up and down, eager to prove herself. "Please, Bella. Think?" She pouted.
"Alright Alice, I'm thinking. But to be honest: wish that it is not you! Pray to prove wrong!" Bella said seriously. "I'm so determined to only tell you when proven, because it is not a nice story! And I want nobody to believe that this is her or his past if there's the slightest doubt. Understand? I want to protect you!"
"Alright Bella, I understand." Alice said seriously and concerned.
"Ok. What do I know about the Alice Cullen today?" Bella began to think out loud.
"She lives with a coven and they are moving quite often so it's hard to find them. But that is nothing special. Oh! Now I know something! James has a spy who reports all important events continuously. But the spy must be very careful, because in Alice's coven lives a mind reader! Quod erat demonstrandum (Latin for: what was to prove)! That's the ultimate prove – it can't be you!" Bella cheered.
Every member of our family had turned to sculptures.
