DISCLAIMER: Several characters within this story and the universe they interact in are the intellectual property of Stephenie Meyer.

CRESCENT MOON

Written by

Horatio Zedekiah Jaxx

CHAPTER 9: TEARING AT THE SEAMS

The delivery of Phil Dwyer Junior was routine. Renee and son were out the front door of the hospital on the afternoon of the next day. Charlie was there to pick her and her son up and take them to his home, as prearranged by Bella the day before. Charlie took silent objection to being conscripted into conveying Renee back to the house, on a work day, when Bella had no perceivable restrictions from doing so in his stead. Nonetheless, he chose to continue playing the, don't ask don't tell, game.

Bella did not want to spend any time away from the Cullen family that she did not have too. The rest of the Cullens agreed with this thinking, and routinely encouraged her to delegate as much of her mother's care as she could to her father. Despite this absence, Bella did have plans for her mother, and new brother, this day.

When Charlie and Renee came to within a block of the house, they could not help but notice half a dozen cars parked within proximity of the home. Charlie's parking space was unoccupied, as usual, and he easily settled his car there. Outside of the home, dozens of helium filled balloons decorated the yard and lined the walkway. Above the door to the house, a large banner read, "Welcome Home, Renee and Phillip." Before they could get out of the car, Bella, Alice, and Esme were out the front door and standing on the porch with large smiles on their faces. Renee gently carried Li'l Phil up the walkway towards the front stairs to the house.

"Hi, Mom. Welcome home," Bella cried out as Renee began her ascent of the stairs.

Alice and Esme echoed Bella's sentiment with even greater enthusiasm. As soon as she reached the landing, the trio began to gush at the sight of Li'l Phil in the infant carrier that Renee was holding. No one was inclined to give Renee a hug while she was so burdened. Instead, they gently ushered her inside. Charlie followed behind shortly, after retrieving Renee's overnight bag, along with an assortment of newborn paraphernalia.

Renee was uncomfortable seeing the Cullens there. Her growing concerns about this family made her feel uneasy about their proximity to her son. Bella's cheerful demeanor around them, and their familiar association with her, was enough to check her insecurities. She smiled and responded politely to their congratulations as she showed off Li'l Phil.

Inside the house, Renee found the rest of the Cullen family. Waiting with them were Jacob and Billy Black, along with Sue Clearwater. Their presence provided some peace of mind to Renee about the event. She did not feel as uncomfortable around Charlie's Quileute friends, despite the fact that she knew them to be harboring a secret about the Cullens. The fact that they held this secret, and still chose to associate with them, gave her reason to expect that whatever it was, it was not as terrible as her imagination was making it. Unbeknownst to her, the Cullens made a special appeal for Billy's and Sue's presence there for just this reason. Normally, their association with the Cullens did not include fraternization.

A mound of baby gifts sat on or about the coffee table in the living room. The interior of the room was lavishly decorated with streamers and balloons. Bella and Alice ushered Renee and Li'l Phil over to the sofa behind this display of gifts, and immediately began to urge her to unwrap the ones with concealed contents. Renee obediently did so, as Li'l Phil slept in the infant carrier next to her.

Charlie entered the house nearly a minute after Renee, dropped off the overnight bag in the spare bedroom, and left. It took him no longer than two minutes to do this. He had no desire to compete for anyone's attention there. He suspected that the guests within the house would be too attentive to Renee and Li'l Phil for him to learn anything new about the Cullens. He also had work to do, from which this event was keeping him. Charlie quickly left in a huff. He suspected that he did so without the notice of anyone there. He was wrong. The Cullens had all but counted his steps from the moment he entered the house until he left.

For a little more than an hour, Renee feigned a happy demeanor as she opened more than a dozen gift packages and marveled at their contents. As she did this, the assembled group of welcomers intermittently gushed over the sight of Li'l Phil as he wandered in and out of sleep in the carrier. Normally, Renee would have paid little attention to this, but this was the Cullens, and everything they did interested her. Over the course of this visit, she began to notice a distinct pattern. The Cullens, minus Renesme, were surprisingly standoffish when it came to Li'l Phil. Not once during this visit did any of the Cullens put a hand in the carrier. What she found equally as strange was that when Sue, Billy, and Jacob removed Li'l Phil from it, not one of them thought to pass him to any of the Cullens, Bella included.

It took Renee another thirty minutes to exhaust her supply of astounded acknowledgements and anecdotal birthing stories. She coyly ended the festivities, with the suggestion that Phil Junior probably needed some quiet time. This attempt at an artful maneuver worked too well, she thought. It seemed to her that the Cullens began to disburse in unison, as if on cue. Billy and Jacob made their goodbyes in turn, as if they were following the Cullen's lead. Sue insisted on staying behind so that she could clean up the aftermath of this gathering. Bella was the only one among the group that Renee requested stay behind.

"What's happening here, Bella?" Renee questioned in a serious tone of voice.

Sue had already discretely removed herself from this conversation, with the pretext of starting her cleanup with the front yard. The rest of the welcomers were on their way to their homes, with the exception of Edward, who was waiting outside by his car.

"I'm welcoming you home, Mom," Bella responded with surprise. "What else would I be doing?"

"This is not my home, Bella," Renee countered heatedly.

"You know what I mean, Mom," Bella insisted politely.

"No, I don't, Bella. Most of the time when we speak nowadays, I don't know what you mean at all."

"Mom, please," Bella exclaimed.

"I'm not staying here, Bella," Renee interrupted with defiance.

"Mom, you shouldn't run off right now," Bella sharply retorted. "You've just had a baby. You don't have a job. Let us take care of you for a while, until you get back on your feet."

"But you're not taking care of me now," Renee challenged back. "I'm leaving this house, Bella. This is not my home."

Bella's demeanor suddenly became much more serious.

"Mother, I need you to stay here in this house and in Forks for now. Later, you can run off to Jacksonville or Phoenix or wherever you want. I'll help you get situated wherever you want. But for now, I need you to stay here."

"Why, Bella? Why? Why must I stay here in this house?"

Bella turned away, infuriated that she could not provide the answer she desperately wanted to give.

"Honey, what's happened to you?" Renee pleaded.

"Nothing's wrong with me, Mom. I just need you to do this for me."

"Don't tell me there's nothing wrong. I'm your mother. I've known you all your life, and ever since you've gotten involved with those Cullens, you've been acting strange. At first, I tried not to notice, because I thought you were happy. But now, you look like you're scared."

"I not scared for me, Mom," Bella rifled back. "I'm scared for you and Li'l Phil."

Renee became immediately alarmed by this statement.

"How is my son in danger?" Renee demanded in a near hysterical tone of voice.

"I can't explain it. Mom, I just need you to trust me."

"Does this have something to do Phil's disappearance?" Renee continued to push in an insistent voice.

Bella was hesitant to respond to this. Her natural aversion to lying to her parents suddenly clashed with her need to provide a convincing reason why Renee should not leave. A stunned Renee watched as Bella formulated an answer that was neither a lie, nor a confession of the truth.

"Maybe..."

An infuriated Renee could do nothing but stare at her daughter for nearly a half a minute.

"You knew that Phil was in danger, and you didn't call the police?" Renee questioned in disbelief.

"We didn't know until it was too late," Bella confessed somberly.

"We," Renee questioned hysterically. "We didn't know? What have these people done to you?"

Bella quickly calculated that she needed to assert herself and change the subject.

"This is not about the Cullens."

"You called me, Bella," Renee all but shouted. "You called me and convinced me to get on a plane in the middle of the night. Why didn't you call the police?"

Bella could think of no cleverly deceptive answer for this question in short order. She backed away, frustrated by the constraints that guided her every word, and as the seconds ticked away, Renee became all the more angry by the silence.

"I'm leaving here," Renee declared in a defiant tone of voice. "I'm leaving this house. I'm leaving Forks, and I'm leaving you."

Bella's concern for her mother's safety suddenly superseded any regard for her feelings. Instantly, she knew that there was only one tack that would hold Renee in check, and she did not hesitate to use it. Calmly and deliberately, a now erect and rigid Bella moved to within a foot from her mother. Renee was immediately taken aback by the grim seriousness displayed upon her face.

"If you leave Forks, Mother, you and Li'l Phil will disappear, too."

Bella left Renee inside Charlie's house without explaining the last remark she'd made. She knew that there was nothing further she could say without explaining everything. She was also convinced that Renee was not going anywhere, not if it meant risking the safety of Li'l Phil. She also suspected that she had set into a motion a confrontation between her parents and her coven.

line break

"What did you do?" Alice yelled out the instant Bella and Edward walked into the house.

The rest of the family had already been apprised by Alice of her vision of the near future. It was now Edward and Bella's turn.

"I had to do something," Bella defended. "My mother was threatening to leave Forks."

"She wouldn't have left," Alice complained. "Charlie would have convinced her to stay. Now, both Charlie and Renee will be coming here, and they're going to want answers."

Edward quickly spoke up for his bewildered wife. "She didn't know, Alice. Give it a rest."

line break

Renee's mind began racing through all of her worst fears about the Cullens the moment Bella left. She spent the rest of the afternoon nervously fidgeting about the house, when she was not querying Sue with direct questions on what she knew about the Cullens. Frustrated by Renee's pestering inquiries, Sue flatly told her after a time to "talk to the Cullens about the Cullens." From that moment on, Sue refused to speak until she said her good nights while passing by Charlie at the front doorway.

"What's wrong with her?" Charlie questioned Renee shortly after Sue raced out the door.

"We have to talk," Renee insisted in an agitated tone of voice, while entirely ignoring Charlie's question.

"Okay," Charlie responded as he closed the door. He then followed Renee into the living room.

Charlie noted Renee's distress, and quickly queried her about it.

"What's wrong?"

"Bella told me that if my son and I were to leave Forks, we would both disappear, just like Phil."

"When did she say this?" Charlie queried urgently.

"Today, this afternoon," Renee blurted back at him. "There has to be something criminally wrong with those people. Can't you do something, or call someone to have those people investigated?"

"We might endanger Bella if we do something like that," Charlie countered flatly.

"Bella just got through telling me that my son is in danger," Renee rifled back hysterically. "Don't talk to me about the best thing I can do for Bella. Those people need to be arrested."

"I doubt arresting the Cullens is going to solve this problem," Charlie soberly spoke back.

"What the hell does that mean, Charlie?" Renee yelled back. "My husband is gone, presumably killed, and those people are involved somehow. How can you not want to arrest them?"

"Because," Charlie began speaking slowly and carefully as he searched for the words, "I suspect that this situation is beyond the reach of conventional police work."

"Don't do this, Charlie," a still agitated Renee responded. "Don't talk to me in riddles and half answers. Not now. Not while my daughter is telling me that my son's life is in danger. I'm not going to sit here and listen to this crap."

"Okay, okay," Charlie placated with palms faced out. "I'll tell you everything, but I need you to sit down first. Please!"

Renee took a seat on the sofa and began to relax under Charlie's urging. After a minute of deep breathing, Renee coaxed Charlie along with a soft, but insistent, "Well?"

"You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you," Charlie began to explain, after taking a couple of deep breathes of his own.

"Just tell me, Charlie," Renee prodded in a soft voice.

"There's something supernatural going on out there," Charlie explained softly. "This much I know."

"Supernatural?" Renee queried with a hint of incredulity.

"I don't know how the Cullens fit into this yet, but I'm convinced that they're not what they represent themselves to be, or they're more than what they represent themselves to be. I haven't figured that out yet."

"And you know this how?" Renee asked with disbelief.

"Jacob Black," Charlie whispered out reluctantly. "I saw him turn into a wolf right in front of me."

Renee took a moment to shake her head in disbelief before responding.

"You can't actually believe that, Charlie."

"I told you that you weren't going to believe me."

"I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that you might actually believe that," Renee countered with amazement.

"It's not just Jacob," Charlie continued with a hint of urgency. "I think there are two, three, four, or maybe it's everyone in the Quileute community who can do this."

Renee went back to shaking her head briefly in disbelief before speaking again.

"I don't believe this, Charlie. I don't believe any of it."

Renee suddenly stood up in defiance.

"I'm not going to sit around and do nothing based on some campfire ghost story."

"Fine," Charlie answered back as he rose to full stance. "You need proof. You want answers. Let's go get it, before you do something we all might regret."

"You're serious?" Renee questioned Charlie with a surprised expression. "You want to go out to the Cullens or wherever, and ask them to do something supernatural."

"Yeah," Charlie responded softly.

"This is crazy," Renee yelled out with exaggerated gestures. "You're the Chief of Police, Charlie. What happened to you?"

Unfazed by this rebuke, Charlie stepped in closer and responded to this in a calm, gentle voice.

"I hope you're right, Renee. I hope I'm just as loony as you think I am. But if Bella is right, and you and Li'l Phil are in some kind of danger, then it doesn't matter, we need to know from whom, or from what."