CHAPTER EIGHT: Encounter

"Bella, you've got a busy day girl, are you awake?" I was just waking up and a little out of it still, but I could clearly hear Renee outside my bedroom door.

"Yeah, I'm getting there, give me five more minutes, okay?" I responded groggily.

"Okay hun, lots of packing to do today though, and I'd like to take you out to lunch, just us girls one last time before you go-maybe go shopping or something?" she suggested hopefully. I really wasn't all that fond of shopping but I figured I would humor her since I was leaving for Forks the next day to stay with Charlie for a while. It was a good idea for everyone, that way Renee could travel around with Phil without having to worry about me, and I could get to know my dad again. It was the right thing to do, even if I wasn't thrilled about leaving Arizona to head to rainy Washington.

"That sounds fine, Mom. I just want to lay here a little longer first," I requested. She would be happy that I agreed to go hang out together for my last day in Arizona. I closed my eyes again for a moment and it felt so relaxing. Five more minutes of sleep will be perfect, I thought to myself and then I could feel myself dozing off.

"Bella, oh Bells? Hey sleepyhead, you've been out all afternoon," I heard the voice and I thought, Oh no! All afternoon?! I've got to get packing and go out to lunch with Renee! I was suddenly in a panic and I responded hastily, "Renee, I'm so sorry! I must have been really tired today!" At that moment I heard gruff chuckling beside me and I opened my eyes to see Jacob with that big toothy grin of his, obviously amused.

"Renee huh? Well you know Bells, I've been mistaken for other people from time to time, but wow, that's a first," and then he burst into laughter.

"Oh Jacob, wow, I must've been dreaming I was in Arizona," I said while shaking my head at my silly confusion. "I've been asleep all afternoon though, really?"

"Yep, I guess I musta worn you out this morning," Jacob replied with a sly smile and then winked at me. I could feel the color rush into my cheeks at that comment as I remembered the events of the morning, after we got back home from the hospital. Well, at least neither of us had to work that day so it was a good time to catch up on some lost sleep. That was a good way to look at it I thought. "Anyway Bells, I'm gonna swing by my dad's place to see what he's up to, I won't be gone long, but that'll give you a chance to wake up a bit more." With that, he leaned down to kiss my forehead and gently stroke the side of my face. He was always so sweet and tender towards me, his friends were always teasing him about it, calling him whipped and silly things like that, but it didn't matter to him. Once again I couldn't help but think how lucky I am to have him in my life.

"Okay Jake, say hi to Billy for me and take your time if you want, it feels nice to just lay here and relax. I still don't feel very well rested, all these crazy dreams I've been having lately have made it hard to get a really good night's sleep," I told him, still being careful not to mention too many details about the beautiful vampire, Edward, from my dreams.

"Alright Bells, I'll see you later then honey," Jacob said and then headed out to go over to Billy's house.

I laid there in bed for some time longer, just relaxing with my eyes closed although I couldn't fall back to sleep completely. After a while I got this intense feeling of someone watching me, as if I could feel their eyes burning a hole into me so I quickly opened my eyes and looked around the room, but I saw nothing. I must have been imagining things again. The lack of sleep was starting to get to me I thought, but no matter, I'd get caught up on lost sleep eventually. You know what they say, there'll be plenty of time for sleeping when you're dead. After being startled by the feeling of someone staring at me, I was too wide awake to continue laying there in bed so I got up, threw some random clothes on and decided it was a good idea to go take a walk to clear my mind. I wrote a quick note for Jacob in case he got back before me and wondered where I was and then I put on some tennis shoes and headed out the front door.

Outside, the fresh clean air felt invigorating as it flowed into my lungs with each breath I took. I could feel the blood pumping through my veins as I walked briskly down the road and headed for the beginning of the hiker's trail that runs between La Push and Forks. When I made my way onto the trail I went in the direction of Forks, with no absolute plan of where I would go, just that direction in general. Before long I was leaving tribal lands and off the reservation, I knew this because Jacob and I liked to go for walks from time to time and he had pointed this spot out to me before, mentioning that this is where the reservation ended and the pale face or non-tribal land begins. He always had amusement in his voice when he would tell me about old tribal legends and references to common folk locals such as pale face. They had some interesting stories too, most of them didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I still enjoyed hearing the tales.

As I walked along the path through the trees I could have sworn I heard something not too far behind me. I cautiously turned to look around, there was nothing there but a bunch of trees though, so I turned back around and continued walking in the same direction I had been. I strolled along for a while and then I noticed a baby bunny running across the path and into the trees. I followed the small creature with my eyes as it made it's way into the woods and then it was gone. I brought my focus back to the trail ahead of me and up ahead in the distance, I saw a cloaked figure standing perfectly still in the middle of the path. It was as if they were waiting for me to come along. I knew I should turn around right then and go back home as fast as my legs would carry me, but a burning curiousity gnawed at my brain and all but forced me to continue in the direction I was headed, so I moved myself ahead, closer and closer to the cloaked being in the center of the pathway.

I stopped when I was about a mere five feet in front of the cloaked man. He had the palest skin I had ever seen, it was almost translucent. Even more startling was the fact that his eyes were blood red and wild looking. He made no motion to approach me, but in a voice thick with an ancient Italian accent, he spoke slowly, "Isabella Swan," not as though he was asking my name, but stating that it was my name. "I have heard a great many enchanting stories about you my dear. It is my pleasure to finally meet your acquaintance."

Only then, he seemed not to step forward towards me, but rather it was as if he floated towards me. I wasn't sure if that's just because the long cloak covered his feet and the illusion of not being able to see him taking steps made it seem as though he hadn't, or if he actually did in fact float in my direction. Either way, he stopped directly in front of me and held out his pale hand in what I suspected was an offer to greet me with a handshake, "Do not be afraid Bella, I do not aim to harm you in any way. I am Aro and I just wanted to meet you in the flesh to examine your mind if you would not object. Please Bella, take my hand if you would be so kind."

He still had his hand extended towards me, so in light of what he had just said, although the warning signals were still going off in my mind telling me to turn around and run as fast and as far as I could, I absolutely could not force myself to do so. Instead I slowly held out my hand towards his and when I did, he held my hand between both of his and closed his eyes. I couldn't help but jump a little when I felt his cold hands around mine. They were unnaturally icy, but then again, nothing about him looked to be what I would call natural.

He kept his eyes closed with my hand between his for what seemed like an eternity and his face looked to be deep in thought and concentration. When he finally opened them again, he stared at me with a look of wonder on his face and the corners of his mouth turned up into a slight smile, "Well, well, well my dear, this is very compelling indeed. I had heard the stories before but I would not have ever believed unless I had seen it for myself. Though now that I think of it, more accurately, it was what I did not see that truly surprises me." I had no idea what he could possibly be talking about and he must have noticed the dumbfounded look on my face because he supplemented, "Do you realize Isabella that you are a very special person?" I simply shook my head in response, I did not know what he was going on about, so he continued on, "Well you certainly are special. I realize that you have no idea who I am, where I am from, why I am here and probably what I am for that matter. I am from Italy, you may have deciphered that by my accent, and I am the leader of a very important society back in my homeland. Several members of my society, myself included, have been blessed with certain gifts, and the very power of our society lies in these gifts we posess. Is this making any sense to you so far?"

"Sorta-not really," I responded, obviously perplexed by what he was saying to me.

Nevertheless, he continued on yet again, "Well, now that I have explained the who, where and the what, I will explain the why. By that I am meaning why I am here, of course," he then paused to make sure I was following carefully and when he was satisfied that I was paying close attention, he spoke very intently. "I mentioned before that I am the holder of one of these gifts. The way my gift works is that when I touch someone, I am able to see all of their thoughts. Past, present and future included. It works as a very effective lie detector of sorts, so you see, in general there is noone who is able to keep anything from me that I could possibly want to know. For instance, I could ask someone if they intend to do something in the future and if they tell me they do but do not truly intend to do so with no reservations, I will know. Are you following so far?"

I nodded in response since I was basically getting what he was saying about himself, although it seemed fairly odd to me that anyone could possess this ability. Again though, Aro was a very odd and mysterious person altogether from what I had gathered so far. "Good," he continued. "Now I have described my gift, how it works and surely you can see how this would be a valuable thing. The fact of the matter is that there are other people who posess these gifts, the gifts are all slightly different from one another, some extremely different from one another. Many who have gifts like these are people who are not members of my society. I aim to collect these gifted people and initiate them to become members if they so choose." Once again he paused and was completely still while I went over everything in my mind that he had told me. After a few moments, he then asked, "What do you think of this my child?"

I wasn't sure exactly what he was asking me or what any of this had anything to do with me, but I responded "It's all very-captivating I guess, but I'm just confused by how this could possibly relate to me in any way, shape or form. I'm sure you wouldn't be telling me this just to pass the time, so how do I fit in here?"

"You are exceptional Bella," he explained. "And you do not even seem to know it yet. So I am going to tell you what makes you so special. It had come to my attention Isabella, that you carry one of these gifts. A very rare and exceptional gift indeed. It is highly uncommon for anyone to posess the power that you do. I told you how I can, just by touching someone, a handshake for instance, be able to know all of their thoughts. Well, this ability of mine has worked on every other person I have ever met in my very long lifetime. Everyone except for you. Your thoughts remain a mystery!" he said with delight in his ancient voice. Then he went on "I have only ever heard of one other person having a similar gift to yours and they are six feet underground somewhere. I never had the pleasure of meeting their acquaintance while they were still among us."

At this I tried to see how this ability of mine, if you wanted to call it that, could really be considered a gift at all. So he couldn't read my thoughts, that didn't seem too exciting to me. "So are you sure this doesn't just mean there's something wrong with me, maybe something wrong with my mind?" I asked him.

He began to laugh at my query and said, "Oh no my child, there is certainly nothing wrong with you or your mind. On the contrary there is something very right with your mind. You posess the ability to keep others from being able to read your thoughts at will. That is the one basic fact that is known about your ability right this very moment. Of course it could go much deeper and there may be a lot more to it than we know about right now. It may be something that you just need to work on to find out your full potential, we do not know for sure just yet. However, in and of itself, your being able to block gifted ones like myself from being able to know your thoughts is a valuable enough quality to us that I, and my other fellow members of our sacred society, would like to invite you to join us. Please say that you will join us my child, or at least will consider it? I assure you that your initiation would not go unrewarded. In fact, great rewards do go to those who join. What do you say Bella?"

This was certainly quite the shock to me and I didn't know what to say. How do you respond to something like this? I wasn't even sure what the deal was with this sacred society as he called it, so how do you accept an offer without really knowing all the details? I could see that Aro was obviously someone of great respect and was therefore use to being treated as such, so as politely as I could manage, I told him, "You know Aro, this sounds like it is a great honor to be asked to join your society since it seems to have such restricted membership and perhaps a veil of secrecy shrouding it, but I just don't know that I'm right for it either. Certainly I think you're giving me alot more credit than I deserve for this ability of mine. It doesn't seem so special to me, but what do I know about all that stuff anyway? Besides all that, I don't know how I would handle moving so far away from all my friends and family. Italy is a long ways away from Washington, you know?"

Aro nodded in recognition of my response and said, "I can surely understand your hesitation to jump right in with both feet, however, I do hope you would be so kind as to consider it at the very least. Perhaps take a while to contemplate it, put some serious thought into it and then I could meet up with you again when you have decided for sure. What say you my dear?"

I thought about this for a moment and decided that although I had no desire to go away to Italy to join some secret society, that it might be in my best interest to humor him at least and just agree to consider it, "Okay Aro, I can do that, give me a little bit of time though, it's an awful big decision and I should be clear with you that right at the moment I don't think it's entirely likely that I will accept the offer, as great as the offer may be, but I will show you the courtesy of considering all aspects of it." I wanted to seem compromising but at the same time I felt the need to be honest about the fact that I wasn't thinking I was going to be likely to accept. He seemed to be satisfied with my answer anyway. He nodded, held out his hand once again, this time it really was just to shake my hand since he now knew he could not see my thoughts, so I politely shook his hand and thanked him for the offer, "Well Aro, it was interesting meeting you to say the least and I thank you for your gracious offer."

He cordially responded, "It was my pleasure finally meeting you Isabella, one thing I would like to warn you of though before I go, be sure not to mention the details of this encounter to anyone. The repercussions could be drastic and I would hate to see anything happen to someone with talent such as yours so I do hope you will heed my warning," he then shot a very intense look at me so that I would understand the urgency of his warning. "Until we meet again, be well."

Just then I heard a noise behind me that startled me. I craned my neck to look around but yet again nothing was there, so I turned back to ask Aro when and where we should meet up again, but once I had turned to look again, he had vanished, as if into thin air. He disappeared just as mysteriously as he had first appeared on the path. It had seemed like only minutes that I had spent speaking with Aro on the trail in the woods between Forks and La Push, but somehow it was already beginning to get dark. I decided it was a good time to head back home where Jacob was probably waiting by now.

***I hope you are enjoying the story so far, feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank you!!!***