Carmen, my new friend, held me tightly, still speaking in a soft language that I didn't understand. I listened to Carmen in one ear, and everyone else's conversation in the other, listening for a topic which interested me more. I thought about Aunt Alice. Would she return in time, or would she return at all? I missed her and Uncle Jasper greatly. I just wished they could be here with us right now.

"Who's Renata? What does she do?" Momma asked Eleazar. I leaned away from Carmen so I could see around Kate, interested in what they were saying.

"Renata is Aro's personal bodyguard," he told her. "A very practical kind of shield, and a very strong one." How was she a shield? She's a person, I assumed, not an object. Was it a mental thing like Momma has?

Eleazar explained how her gift worked; shielding them from harm. So Momma was a shield as well, I guessed.

"I've never heard of Aro's or Jane's gifts being thwarted," he said, shaking his head. Who is Jane, I asked myself, asking Daddy through my thoughts, but he didn't answer. But, that means that Momma could shield herself from their gifts.

"Momma, you're special," I told her, not really surprised, though. I already knew that she was special.

Kate and Momma talked about something called projecting, like projecting her shield, pushing it out and using it offensively instead of defensively. So could she shield us from the danger the Volturi would bring us?

I looked around the room, the conversation still playing in my ears, I just wasn't paying very close attention. I felt a soft tinge of hope, as though the sun was peaking through the clouds on the horizon, through the dark skies looming over us. I looked at everyone, Momma, Daddy, Jacob, and the Denali's. Their faces strained with worry, concern, fear, even. I strongly wished to protect them, to keep my family and our friends safe. They would fight with us, though. So, maybe we have a chance.

We all heard the sound of tires turning onto the driveway to the house. Next was, Peter and Charlotte, and I won them over just as quickly, showing them my story, our story of how I wasn't an immortal child, and they understood. Everyone hunted out of state for us, since only the Denalis were vegetarian like us. Daddy also lent his cars anytime it was necessary without a wince. I could tell Jacob was upset, though. However, with the circumstances of me and everyone else in acute danger, he stayed quiet.

The next family was from Ireland, the three with a thick Irish accent. Siobhan, Liam, and Maggie. Maggie had a gift for knowing if she was being lied to, and once she told Siobhan and Liam that we were telling the truth, they accepted our story before even seeing my view of it. Amun, Benjamin, and Tia were the ones from Egypt, a place I was told was full of sand, something I've never seen personally but something I have seen in pictures, and was a large desert. Benjamin was the most enthusiastic of the family, listening to my story and convincing everyone else to stay. Amun and his mate Kebi refused to touch me. I remembered meeting Benjamin outside.

I showed him my story, and without a word, he had taken my hand from his cheek and held it out, palm-side up, with his hand over it. He had a small bit of dirt on my palm, and he lifted his hand from mine, the small pile of earth swirling slowly, rising from my hand as his hand did, like a small tornado, and finally dispersing into the air and being taken by the wind. I watched with great amusement and adoration for his beautiful gift. It also turned out that he could influence air, water, and fire as well as earth. He had a beautiful gift.

Uncle Emmett and Aunt Rose sent individual nomands. Garrett came first. He was tall with bright ruby eyes and long sandy hair tied back with a strip of leather. Next was Mary and Randall, friend already, though they didn't travel together: all being won over by me showing them my pictures, my proof that I wasn't an immortal child.

Jacob was getting more surly with each new addition to our witnesses. He kept his distance, but when he couldn't, he'd mumble to me how he would need an index if anyone expected him to keep all the new "bloodsuckers'" names straight. I smiled and laughed softly at his joke, but I didn't like the term her used for my family and our friends, and he immediately agreed to not use it around me.

Grandpa Carlisle and Grandma returned a week after they had let, Uncle Em and Aunt Rose just a few days later, all of us feeling better with their return. One other person came with them; Alistair. A misanthropic English vampire, who preferred to wander alone. He, like Amun and Kebi, didn't listen to my story, but took Grandpa Carlisle's word for it.

The next were the Amazons, two very tall cat-like women, wearing nothing but animal skins.

"Zafrina and Senna!" Grandpa greeted them. Zafrina and Senna both listened to my story, being drawn in and joining the group of witnesses just as everyone else did.

It turned out that Zafrina had a gift similar to mine. She could make most people see whatever she wants them to. She had showed Daddy something, and he seemed to see something that nobody else could. I reached out fearlessly toward her. "Can I see?" I asked her.

"What would you like to see?" she asked.

"What you showed Daddy."

She nodded as the woods around us outside turned into a warm, humid place, ful of trees and vines and animals I've never seen before. I smiled at her as the image faded, "more," I said simply.

It was hard to keep me away from Zafrina and her pretty pictures. She kept me entertained as Momma and Daddy had talked about the fight that would possibly come, and they practiced. Momma was horrible, I heard from Uncle Em, which made me giggle slightly, but I thought of when she beat him in an arm wrestle, showing it to him and shutting him up. I smiled and he smiled back.

We were in the meadow, as Momma had called it, the air getting slightly cooler with each passing day. I stayed with Jacob, Senna and Zafrina and watched her pictures as they practiced. We would pause for a few minutes, watching as Momma, Daddy and Kate practiced with Momma's shield. Zafrina was showing me one of her pictures, one of a large waterfall from the Amazon, when I heard Kate say my nickname which Momma hated.

"Nessie, would you like to come help your mother?" she asked, Momma snarling a quick "no."

I wanted to help, and now I would have my chance. We were only a few feet away, and I was in front of Momma in seconds. I reached for as she opened her arms. I curled into her, pressing her head into the hollow beneath her shoulder.

"But Momma, I want to help." I had my hand against her neck, showing me and her together: a team. She told me "No," backing away as Kate followed us, and Momma shifted me onto her back.

"Can you hear anything from Nessie?" Kate asked Daddy a few seconds later, her voice calm and easy.

"No, nothing at all. Now give Bella some space to calm down, Kate. You shouldn't goad her like that. I know she doesn't seem her age, but she's only a few months old," Daddy explained to her. I showed Momma the picture of Kate's attack, showing that no harm was meant, that Daddy was in on it.

We kept practicing that day, Momma stretching her shield over as many people as she could.

We heard new voices eventually, ones nobody seemed to recognize. I was still perched on Momma's back as we walked into the house slowly. She pulled me into her arms as she entered the kitchen door, listening, just as I did.

"Bella?" Daddy called to Momma in a hard voice, "bring Renesmee here, please. Maybe we should test our Romanian visitors' claims."

"Well, well, Carlisle. You have been naughty, haven't you?" the dark-haired one said as we came into view.

"She's not what you think, Stefan."

"And we don't care either way," the blonde one responded. "As we said before."

"Then you're welcome to observe, Vladimir, but it is definitely not our plan to challenge the Volturi, as we said before."

"Then we're just cross our fingers," Stefan began.

"And hope we get lucky," finished Vladimir.

In the end, we had seventeen witnesses.