I already know that this one took over a month, which is way longer than I expected. I've made it up to you by making this the longest one yet. You can all put down your pitchforks and other assorted farming equipment and enjoy.

By the way, for those who asked, I got the idea for Hell House from my Great Uncle's house in Jamaica. I honestly did almost fall out of a door on the second floor of the house. The only thing I didn't mention was his psychotic guard dog, Sheba, who I've had nightmares about ever since.

And a special thanks to Zodiacgirl14, who sent me endless messages and pretty much guilted me into hurrying this one up.

Oh, and if you don't know what a "bleeding heart" is, there's a joke in here that you won't get. That's what dictionaries are for.

(P.S. To all of you who want me to beta read for you...I really have no idea how you're supposed to send your work to me, but when you figure it out, send it on over, with a brief explanation of who you are and what you want me to do.)

11:18am

I wonder how devastated the rest of the family would be if we just left her to her own devices…

I'm sure she'd come back when she got hungry.

Either that or she'd massacre the nearby village.

I'm imagining the carnage now. She'd blow through that town with all the destructive force of an army tank.

Well, hell. I guess I'll have to keep looking for her after all.

Besides, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd sure miss my duck if he were gone. Hopefully I'll find him before he swallows anything lethal.

And Annie…well, I'm not so sure I'd miss her, but if anyone asks, I'll deny I said that…


11:19am

I'd better get down to business. This shouldn't take long at all.

How hard can finding one little girl be?


11:41am

The little demon planned this, I swear she did. Her scent is everywhere, all over the house. We've been following it around in circles for an hour and finding everything but her. I'm starting to worry about Paddy. What if she got hungry? What if she gets hungry?

Emmett made the mistake of insisting Paddy was already lunch, and I may have let my anxiety get the better of me.

Just a little.

But he deserved it. And besides, I highly doubt all that screaming on his part was necessary. It's not like he was going to be reproducing any time soon anyway, so that kick couldn't have done all that much damage…

Alice has volunteered me to go out with her to look around the woods and town.

Anyone else here confused about why they'd send the newbie who lost the kid in the first place out to hunt her down?

Maybe I'm just destined to be out of the loop for the rest of eternity.

Okay, this is not what I signed up for.


12:45pm

She's nowhere. NOWHERE. I've lost her! I've killed her!

"I'm a horrible person!" I cried, throwing myself onto my bed after an hour of fruitless searching and burying my head under my pillows. The pillows were actually the only things on the bad, since we hadn't unpacked all the bed linens yet. It just shows how distraught I was that I didn't even notice how heavenly soft they were.

"She's probably fallen through a frozen lake and drowned or drifted off on an ice float or been eaten my a leopard seal or—"

"We're in southern Alaska, not Antarctica," Alice interrupted, sounding unfazed. She sat down next to me on the bed, crossing her legs neatly beneath her. "Bella."

I scratched my neck and refused to look up at her. She sighed. "Bella, she hasn't fallen down a ravine or gotten eaten by a penguin or any of the other ridiculous scenarios you've been torturing yourself with. First of all, no penguin in its right mind would eat her, even if there were penguins anywhere around here, which there aren't. And second, she's dead. I think that pretty much covers all the other bases, don't you?"

I peeked up at her with one eye and glared. "Why can't you just let me be miserable?" I asked, my voice muffled by the thick, soft mattress that had been bought specially for me, even though I didn't exactly need one anymore. The entire room had been done in deep reds with lots of mahogany, comfy chairs with tons of pillows, a fire place over on one wall, and soft lighting. With the curtains drawn against the bright sunlight, as they were now, it seemed even more comfy. The whole place was very spacious, but still very…cozy.

I didn't deserve cozy.

I deserved a cell, with barred windows, cement floors, and a funny smell that I'd never be able to pinpoint the location of.

"Because," Alice answered, leaning back on her elbows, "Miserable Bella is no fun and all this doom and gloom is making me queasy." She dropped her head to the side to look at me. "We'll find her, okay? And if we're lucky, we'll even be able to do it before she gets hungry and decides to head down to Pukulria and make good on their name."

I moaned again, and slammed my pillow back over my head.


12:56pm

Good. Alice has finally given up and left.

I'm free to wallow in my guilt and self-pity in peace.


1:23pm

She didn't give up. She sent in Edward.

The girl fights dirty.

"This is the third time today that I've had to stop your dramatics," Edward murmured conversationally, lying on the bed beside me. I peeked out from under the pillow and saw him stretched out on his back, staring at the ceiling, his hair fanning out into a reddish-gold halo around his head. "And the second time I've had to do it through your hair." He sighed, playing with a lock that was spilling out from under the pillow. "I should get paid for this."

I sat up suddenly, the pillow falling onto the floor with a soft 'whump.' I ran a hand over my face and through my hair, realizing how I must look to him. "I'm sorry. God, you're right. I've been acting so bipolar lately, haven't I?"

Edward was polite enough not to say anything. But then, he didn't have to.

I sighed, scratching an itch on my neck. "I guess I just feel like nothing's changed."

Edward's eyebrows rose in surprise. He held up his hand and started ticking things off on his fingers. "We got married. We moved to Alaska. We own a duck and a five-year-old undead Child of the Corn. And you're dead." He nodded. "You're right. Nothing's changed at all. How dull."

I glared. "Have you ever been kicked in the kidneys? I'm told it's quite painful."

He smiled lazily. "I apologize. Please continue."

When I was sure he wasn't going to be making anymore smart remarks, I said, "I don't mean that nothing in our lives has changed. That's a given. Everything's changed." I glanced at him, where he was lying on his side, leaning on one elbow with his head resting on his hand and a half smile on his lips. I felt some odd stirrings that meant the bits of my body that had gone to sleep after my fun little romp in the closet earlier were waking up and getting themselves some coffee to see if they couldn't work up some energy for a bit more, er…fun.

"Okay," I said, smiling like a moron. "Maybe not everything has changed."

Edward's eyes sparked with interest but I shook my head and scooted back on the bed to make sure he didn't distract me. The moments when I actually knew what was going on in my own head were rare, and I wanted to get this all out while I was still thinking lucidly.

"I just feel like, even though I'm actually part of the family now..." I frowned, trying to find a way to phrase it properly. "I'm just so…the same. I don't feel different at all. Besides the fact that I can't feel cold, I constantly get side-tracked by things like carpet, and at least seven doorknobs in this house are permanently molded into the shape of my palm because of that whole extreme strength issue, what's changed? Nothing. Did you know I even tripped over that stupid, stupid, evil coffee table again this morning? I can't believe you brought that thing with you! I thought I'd seen the last of it, but no! It's followed me, and it sits down there in the living room plotting evil plots and finding new ways to trip me up when I'm having a good day! I swear, I can hear it laughing at me every time I—!"

"Bella," Edward said slowly. "Are you listening to yourself?"

I stopped in the middle of my tirade. "Oh. Right. I had a point, didn't I?" It took me a moment to remember what it was I'd been talking about. "Right. Change. Um…." I sighed. "Forget it. I can't remember what I was upset about." I dropped back on the bed, exhausted.

From the corner of my eye I could see Edward contemplating me, his eyes thoughtful. After a few minutes, he sat up and pushed himself off the bed. He held out his hand, pale palm looking even paler in the gray light leaking in from the tall windows on the other side of the room. "Come with me."

When I reached out to put my hand in his I was surprised at how well they matched. Like identical Greek statues, cut in pale stone.

How strange.

I shook that random bit of deliberation off and followed him into the bathroom. The light from the bedroom barely reached inside the small space, but what little did bounced off the shining surfaces and lit the area with a dim glow. Before I knew what he was doing, he'd turned me around to face the mirror.

I looked different. The same, but…different. My thoughts of Greek statues came back and I realized that, when I held this still, I looked just like one, frozen in time, carved into an eternal pose that I could never alter. I lifted my arm to my head, partly because I needed to verify that those shiny wisps of dark hair were actually mine, and also to make sure I still could. I brushed my hand through it and then rubbed away an itch beneath my ear. My skin felt just as different as it looked.

So here was the change I'd been looking for. It had always been here, right on the other side of the mirror. It was satisfying somehow, seeing it there: undeniable proof that I was changed.

"You've changed a lot, Bella," Edward said, quietly, staring over my shoulder at my reflection. "You just couldn't see it."

My eyebrows knit together as I examined his face next to mine. "Something here doesn't match," I remarked, comparing our expressions. "You see, my face is shouting 'My life is forever altered for the better' while yours clearly says 'My pet cat just got run over by a bike'. What's the problem here?"

He smiled sadly. "I've already told you that sometimes I miss the parts of you that are gone now. You're not so…familiar anymore." Seeing that my face was fast changing from 'ecstatic' to 'crestfallen' he hastened to add, "I'm not saying that I don't like this new you! I do. All of those traits I saw in you before are emphasized, and I love that. But try and imagine if I were to change all of a sudden. How would you feel about it?"

I thought about that. "Well, if by changed you mean you somehow managed to get more attractive, I'd probably feel dead. We've talked about this before, I think."

Edward rolled his eyes. But as I thought about what he'd said I realized that I wouldn't be half as accepting as Edward. If his face changed at all, I wouldn't like it. Period.

It was his face. Even if it weren't so stunningly beautiful, I wouldn't want it to change. It was something you took for granted, that the person you loved would always be attached to the same face, so you grew to love that part too. Having it suddenly alter would be like having a stranger where my Edward used to be, and the thought did not make me happy, let me tell you.

"Oh," I said in a small voice, suddenly finding the bathroom floor tiles fascinating.

Behind me, Edward sighed. "I've upset you. That wasn't what I was trying to—" He sighed again. "I'm not saying that I can't or don't love the way you look. It's just…I'm a vampire, Bella. Things don't change very often for us. I'm not really adept at dealing with changes this big." He pressed against my back and buried his face in the space between my neck and my shoulder. "I'll get used to it, I promise."

Alright, so I'd had about enough of this sad, serious business. I wasn't blaming him for not instantly loving this new face of mine. I mean, I've had it all my life, and now that it's changed, well, even I kind of miss it. And I'm not the one constantly gazing at it in adoration.

"So," I said thoughtfully, "it would be like your beloved pet cat of ten years suddenly getting a big white spot on its back where there used to be none, right?"

Edward looked up, horrified. "Your face is not a cat, Bella."

"I'm just trying to understand," I said, enjoying his appalled expression. I thought some more. "If that doesn't work, then…maybe it's like your couch suddenly going from ugly vomit green vinyl to black leather. Or your shoes becoming high heels instead of plain old flats."

Edward's eyes suddenly gleamed with comprehension. He smiled. "Flats are nice shoes. I've seen you in them and they look very nice on your feet—"

I snorted. "You think my hangnails are pretty."

He ignored me. "—and you don't look like you're going to collapse and take down the person next to you when you're in flats." He nipped at my ear. "I have nothing good to say about ugly green vinyl couches, but trust me, you were never one of those."

I smiled. "This is a very strange conversation, and I should probably feel at least a little ashamed that I was so obviously fishing for compliments…but, I don't." I turned around and flung my arms around his neck. "Alright, Casanova, let's go find our little menace."


1:50pm

She was in a far corner of the basement.

Behind some unpacked boxes.

Playing with Esme's kitchen knives.

And humming to herself.

It was like something out of a horror movie.

I'm amazed she didn't make her head spin around or vomit split pea soup.


1:51pm

Maybe this is how Lizzie Borden started out. Sweet and innocent with a strange affinity for sharp objects.


1:56pm

Turns out Paddy has taken a shine to her, though. He was plopped down next to her, watching the flash of knives in fascination, completely unaware that those knives were probably going to wind up separating his tiny ducky head from his tiny ducky body if he didn't make like a rug and beat it.

"I don't think I have the fortitude for this," Rosalie mumbled, watching from the doorway as Jasper and Emmett tried to creep up and pry the knives out of Annie's hands.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted the kid," I said, scraping vigorously at the right side of my neck, which itched like crazy. "You just forgot to specify whether or not you wanted one that wasn't possessed by demonic forces." I shrugged. "It's an easy mistake to make."

Rosalie did not look amused.

"Why do we even have knives in the house?" I asked. "No one's doing any cooking."

"We have to keep up appearances," Alice said. "You never know when a friendly neighbor might drop by."

"Right," I said. "Some friendly neighbor, who just happened to be snow-shoeing past out in the middle of nowhere, might come in, notice we have no kitchen knives and immediately know that the house contains nine vampires and a duck. I see the problem."

I really don't think it was necessary for Alice to elbow me as hard as she did.


2:17pm

The knives are safely back in their boxes and Annie's in the living room with Emmett, Rosalie, Paddy, and Alice, watching a movie to keep her preoccupied.

I was headed up the basement steps after them when Jasper stopped me.

I blinked at him. "What's—?"

"How long have you been scratching like that?" His eyes fell to my hand where it was digging at another itch around my neck.

I hadn't even realized I was doing it. "I don't know." I shrugged. "A few hours. Can vampires be allergic to things? Because I think I might be."

Edward, standing beside me on the steps, pushed my hand away and bent down to examine my neck at the same time Jasper did.

"Well, this isn't uncomfortable at all," I said, trying to lean away from them. "Hey, do you two mind?" I scratched my neck again, but before I could really kill the itch, Edward had picked up my hand and flipped it over.

"Look at her fingernails," he murmured to Jasper.

Jasper leaned in to do just that, then nodded. "We should take her out now, before it gets worse."

"What are you two talking about?" I asked, yanking my hand away and holding it to my chest in case they tried to take it back. I lifted it and examined my fingernails too. "What's that?" I asked, spotting clumps of white dust clinging to the underside of my nails. It looked like chalk.

"Skin," said Edward. "So my guess is that you've been scratching for more than a few hours if you've managed to dig up epidermis that's practically welded to your flesh."

"Oh. Ew," I said, eyeing the dust in a new light. "That's disturbing."

"You're not allergic to anything," said Jasper. "You're hungry. Your throat is dry, so it's itching, and you should be able to feel it in your stomach."

I looked down at my midsection. "I don't feel anything down there. It's just my neck that hurts."

"It won't feel like normal hunger," said Jasper. "It'll feel more like a burning."

I coughed, embarrassed. "I'm feeling that," I mumbled, glancing at Edward. "I just didn't think it was bloodlust, so much as…"

I didn't bother to finish, but Jasper's eye-rolling and Edward's sudden stupid grin made me figure that they got it anyway.

"No," Jasper said, "Edward's supposed sexual prowess has nothing to do with this." He looked disgusted by the very thought. He slipped a hand around my upper arm while Edward grabbed the other and together they hoisted me up the stairs.

Was it necessary? Probably not.

Was it annoying? Immensely.

Did they care? Not a whit.

"Where are we going?" I asked. "And would you put me down? My legs work just fine."

"We're taking you out to hunt," Jasper said, dropping my arm as we reached the landing. He was opening his mouth to say something else when Alice appeared beside him, looking eager.

"No," he said, without looking at her.

"Oh, and I suppose you're going to stop me from going?" she chuckled, putting her hands on her hips.

He looked like the thought had never even crossed his mind. I'm sure he's learned by now not to stand between his wife and what she wants if he likes the way his body parts are arranged. He sighed. "It's her first time. I don't want her to feel crowded."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Sorry, I didn't realize I took up so much space. Maybe if I were shorter."

"I don't mind," I hurried to interrupt, before this little spat got any worse. "I'd like having Alice there, actually. Just consider her my life raft, keeping me afloat in a sea of testosterone."

Edward and Jasper both considered me for a moment, and then nodded in unison.

So, we're off for my first hunt. I don't know what we'll be hunting, but Jasper assures me that it won't be penguin.

Or leopard seal.


5:46pm

I've discovered something amazing today:

Hunting is awful. God-awful. Just plain terrible and I've come to the conclusion that I'm never doing it again. I don't care if I go into blood lust, or a coma, or start vacuuming obsessively. NEVER AGAIN.

It started out well enough. We ran into the woods for a few miles and I didn't hit any trees.

Alright, I didn't hit many trees.

Now, I won't go into too much detail about the next few hours, because I'd really rather not relive the memory, but it turns out that deer are not as stupid as they look.

And, unfortunately for me, they're darned cute too.

"I can't do it," I whispered to Edward as we watched the doe through a small line of trees. "I can't. It never did anything to me and now I'm just going to run up and kill it?"

"You eat meat all the time, Bella," Alice reminded me. "Where do you think it comes from? What, you think all the animals that die deserve it? Every time you eat a sandwich, do you think, 'I'd feel bad if this jackass turkey hadn't tried to steal my credit card'?"

"Oh, that's the ultimate crime to you, isn't it?" I asked bitingly.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "You try going seventy years without something to live for and see how you turn out. Everyone needs something." She sniffed stubbornly. "I have shopping."

Jasper looked amused. "It was such an innocent sentence, and yet I suddenly feel like her next door neighbor instead of her chosen mate for LIFE."

Alice sidled up to him and leaned against his shoulder. "You know what I meant."

At which point Edward asked if he was going to have to separate them and, after assuring him that wouldn't be necessary, we got back to the business at hand.

It wasn't long before my mind began to associate the deer with the itch in my throat and I reverted back to my baser instincts which told me one thing: kill the deer and the horrible burning and itching will go away.

It was simple. I found my legs moving on their own, almost disconnected from the part of my mind that was focused solely on the deer and its slow, steady heart beat. The warm pulse of blood in its veins. The flexing of its freckled brown flesh over muscle and bone whenever it shifted its position. Every muscle was taut and ready, and I was feeling as if I were balanced on the edge of a high precipice, poised at the line between balance and the pull of gravity. And then the prey sensed me somehow and took off.

Something inside me snapped.

I think I blacked out or had some kind of episode—you know, the kind Alice has when she sees a really nice sweater from across a crowded department store—because when I came back to consciousness, I was sitting on the ground beside one very dead deer carcass, with a soothed stomach, a deep contentment where the itch in my throat had been, and a sweet tangy flavor lingering on my tongue.

I blinked up into three astonished gazes.

"Well, I'll be damned," Jasper murmured. "She's normal after all."

And that's when I started to cry.


5:52pm

I'm not kidding. CRYING. I bawled like a four-year-old who'd just had her lollipop stolen.

Jasper shook his head and muttered something about it having been a "false alarm."

I'm assuming he was referring to my brief bout of vampire normalcy. I wasn't too disappointed. I've grown used to being defective.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Oh, God. Stay there and let me get you some napkins."

I frowned at her between hiccupy breaths. "I don't have tears, Alice. What am I going to do with napkins?" An unnecessary reminder that I probably looked even stupider, crying tearlessly in the middle of the forest, but at least I didn't have that uncontrollable snot problem you get when you cry too hard, which would have looked oh-so-alluring, I'm sure.

I'll add that to my list of pluses.

"They're not for your tears," she tossed over her shoulder. "They're for your heart. It's bleeding all over my shoes."

Which is apparently supposed to be a highly amusing wuss joke. Greatly appreciated, Alice, thank you.

It was awfully embarrassing. I can't even think about it without wanting to crawl under the bed and never come back out.

Unfortunately, there's a big bitchy dust bunny under the bed too, and unlike the one on the third floor, this one might just be packing heat.

I may have to borrow Esme's dust buster.

Anyway, the gist: Hunting bad. Never again. Death by mortification.

The end.


6:34pm

I don't know how I got suckered into this, but somehow Alice managed to convince me that movie-watching would make me feels loads better.

So far, it hasn't, mostly because, so far all we've done is make an attempt at deciding what to watch. That only took five minutes, actually. But trying to convince Alice that there was no way in hell that I was going to watch Titanic for the hundredth time was taking ages.

"You have seen this movie sixty-two times," I said, each syllable slow and deliberate. I was sitting cross-legged on the plush carpet in the TV room, watching Edward press buttons on a DVD system so high-tech it looked like the motherboard of a spaceship. "How much could you have missed? Two people get on a big boat, they fall in love, have sex in someone else's car, the boat hits a big icy rock, and everyone DIES."

"And then you start crying," Jasper chimed in from the sofa.

"And cursing all men, everywhere," Edward said, fiddling with buttons on the DVD player. "Like somehow it's our fault."

"And then you throw the movie at Jasper's head," Emmett added, wandering by with a box in his hands.

"And I don't get to talk to my wife for a week," Jasper finished. "We are NOT watching Titanic. Edward, burn it." He grabbed the case and tossed it to Edward, who caught flawlessly.

Without looking up from what he was doing.

Show-offy jerk.

Alice jumped up. "No! Edward, give it back!" she demanded in her best, "not to be reckoned with" voice.

Edward didn't. Instead, he tossed it to Emmett, who had abandoned his box on an end table by the door to watch the madness. He laughed raucously and tossed it back to Jasper, who didn't look like he wanted to participate but also refused to put this particular grenade back in Alice's hands. Shaking his head, he tossed it back to Edward, with Alice flitting from person to person, the case just brushing her fingertips before it was pulled out of her grasp and flung to someone else.

I felt like I was back in the third grade.

I was learning new things about the Cullens every day, it seemed, including a few things I'd never wanted to know, like that, after showering, Jasper often goes long periods without wearing anything but socks, when in the privacy of his own bedroom, a nifty fact I stumbled across when I made the mistake of barging in to ask Alice a question without my usual lumbering, human footsteps to warn of my approach.

Needless to say, we were both pretty darned surprised to see each other.

Permanent psychological scarring ensued.

Anyway, Edward, Emmett, and a reluctant Jasper were busy playing keep-away while Alice grew increasingly steamed, and I was watching with absent amusement, when all of a sudden something came hurtling at me. Without thinking, I reached up and plucked it out of the air. Just like that.

It was, of course, the Titanic DVD. They'd really been stupid enough to throw it to me. The moment Alice saw it in my hands, she skidded to a halt and held out hers.

"Bella," she said in a coaxing voice.

"Bella," said Edward in a tone that was, well…not at all coaxing, actually, but still managed to make my insides kind of keel over and turn into soup.

Well, what was I supposed to do now? Just sit there? Maybe if I hold really still, they won't be able to see me anymore, I thought, running on the same reserves of logic that used to make me cover my eyes when I played hide and seek in the first grade and assume that no one could see me because I couldn't see them.

Right.

Luckily, Esme chose that minute to wander through the TV room, her nose in a book. So I threw it to her. She caught it, then looked up to see what was going on.

She glanced at us, bewildered, and then at that DVD in her hand. Her face lit up. "I've been looking for this!" she exclaimed, delighted. "Thank you."

And she left.

Everyone sat, staring after her, completely astounded, except for Emmett, who was gripping the couch, laughing so hard that all that was coming out was a very unpleasant gasping/wheezing sound.

I just couldn't help it. I laughed too.


10:46pm

We didn't watch Titanic (and I profusely thank every god in the cosmos for that reprieve). Rosalie stormed in from the garage in the middle of our heated debate with Annie toddling along beside her, a mangled wrench in her mouth.

"I can't watch her if I'm going to get anything done," Rosalie stated. "She keeps chewing all of my tools." She pushed Annie toward us. "Get her a snack and watch something with her."

It wasn't a request.

So we ended up digging through the Cullens' vast collection of DVD's and managed to find the only one that was in Greek and wasn't some boring documentary on its government or its geography.

No one could remember where they'd gotten it or what it was about, but we popped it into the player anyway and I settled down for a nice boring hour of listening to gibberish and trying to keep Annie from eating anyone's shoes.

We were all thoroughly surprised when Annie started tossing Greek words at the screen as the movie opened, looking thrilled to hear the familiar language.

It was the first time any of us had heard her speak in anything but high-pitched squeals, feral growling sounds, or complete and utter gibberish.

So we left her to it.

It turns out, the movie was about sex. How Alice didn't see that one coming I'll never know, but apparently she was too busy trying to pry her copy of Italian Vogue from between Annie's teeth to notice that the people on the screen weren't exactly playing hopscotch, and Jasper was otherwise occupied, trying to convince her that using the wrench as a weapon was not a good idea.

I'd tuned out the minute the opening credits had started and was wondering about Charlie and Renee and Jacob and not feeling the slightest bit guilty about it, thank you very much.

Edward had smuggled a book from upstairs and was too enthralled to really notice anything was amiss.

And Emmett…He's EMMETT for Pete's sake. He didn't really feel like mentioning it to any of us.

Jasper finally did notice and jumped up to shut it off, but Annie still ended up learning some new words that I don't think anyone had ever really intended to teach her.

Carlisle and Esme are going to be thrilled.

So we found something in English for her to watch (something without any X-rated scenes in it), which she didn't seem to mind. Meanwhile, Emmett and Alice discovered that Edward had taught me a bit of Greek and decided to contribute to my education. She proceeded to teach me how to say dreamer (oneiropulos), cold (krio), and moon (selini).

"The last two should come in handy, at least," she said, shrugging. "The first is just wishful thinking, I suppose." She stared up at the vast window on the other side of the room, her chin propped on her hands, looking as if she was reminiscing about times when she used to sleep.

Though, on second thought, she was probably trying to imagine what sleep was like at all, since she can't possibly remember the times when she did.

I frowned as I realized that there must be a lot of human things Alice couldn't ever remember experiencing, but Emmett's booming voice cut into my musings as he decided to put in his two cents.

He taught me how to say brother (adelphos), bad (kako), and the translations for various alcoholic beverages.

"Thanks, Emmett," I told him. "That'll come in really handy if I ever get into a booze-drinking contest with a bunch of Greek men."

Which, loosely translated, means, THAT WILL NEVER COME IN HANDY.

And now, I'm lying in bed, sliding my feet around under my new bed sheets, loving their softness. I don't know what this weird new thing I have for bed linens is, but God they're amazing. They almost make up for the fact that I can't actually sleep in them.

Almost.

Edward is sitting beside me on the bed scratching at a piece of paper that looks like new music. There's a mess of boxes and half-unpacked suitcases and dozens of tottering piles of books leaned against the walls and hovering like islands in the middle of the floor.

It's really hard to organize a room when one occupant is going for the pristine, "I spent most of my sad childhood vacuuming my mother's house" look and the other only knows one style of decoration: Mad Genius Chic.

Which is basically a maze of tall bookshelves thrown around the room, blocking your view of everything, endless scraps of paper with bits of music and beautifully scripted notes scribbled in the margins covering every inch of every flat surface, open books strewn haphazardly across the floor, and a lot of dirty underwear anywhere you wouldn't expect dirty underwear to be.

I'm telling you, it's hard.

And it's been a very, very strange day. Tomorrow will probably be a thousand times worse.

Is it weird that I'm looking forward to it?


Tuesday
10:16am

I was halfway down the stairs on my way to the living room this morning, sometime around 2:00, when all of a sudden a long list was shoved so far under my nose I could see the jagged edges of dried ink staining the miniscule crevices in the paper. It was practically inserted into my left nostril.

"Alice!" I cried, batting her hand away. "What's all—?" Then I got a good look at her and nearly choked on an involuntary giggle.

She looked like she'd fallen into a pile of miscellaneous laundry and come out wearing whatever had stuck. A pair of too-large faded jeans were belted tightly around her waist. The legs had been rolled up at least six times. Her hair had been drawn back into two itty-bitty pigtails at the bottom of her head and all the hair that she couldn't get into either scrunchie stuck out chaotically. Up top she had on a white tank top and covering all of this was a dark green sweatshirt so voluminous that it couldn't have belonged to anyone but Emmett.

It reached her knees.

"Oh…my God, did you get into a fight with the dryer?" I asked, one hand clamped over my mouth.

"Esme's doing laundry again," she grumbled. "Her system involves taking all of our clothes at the same time, so I had to find something else to wear. She took your clothes too, but you actually own pajamas, so you don't have to scrounge up old clothes from the backs of everyone's closets." She looked peeved. "I got stuck with the worst stuff since nothing anyone else has fits me.

"But, anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about," she said, waving it off. She shook the piece of paper at me again. "This is a list of all the things we're going to have to go shopping for today—"

"No," I said emphatically.

"—for Annie," she finished.

"Oh," I said, taking the list from her after a moment of suspicious eyeing. I looked it over. It seemed straight forward enough, scrawled in Esme's curly handwriting, with little notes added at the end of each item to prevent Alice from going hog-wild:

1. Clothes (modest)

2. Shoes (sensible)

3. Toys (durable)

4. Holy Water and a Crucifix (to banish the hell from her blackened soul)

Okay, that last one I just made up. But it seemed like something they really should have considered adding.

"I need you to come with me," Alice was saying, "to get it all."

"Why?" I asked, horrified.

She folded her arms as we trekked down the last few stairs and into the living room. "Because it's either go with me to shop or stay here and watch Annie again. And considering all that happened last time you were left to baby-sit, you've been volunteered for the job that doesn't involve any form of responsibility over another life. Rosalie will watch her."

"Why can't you take Emmett or Jasper?" I asked.

Alice blinked at me, then gazed pointedly over at Emmett who was sprawled on his back on the couch, his head hanging over the side, gazing upside down at the TV screen like a man transfixed, his mouth hanging open slightly, as if he'd been there for hours and, in that time, had lost control of his jaw muscles. Then she glanced back at me.

I bit my lip. "Point taken."

"So, we wait for Esme to finish washing a few decent clothes for me and then we can head out. In the mean time…" She stuck her hands in the pockets of her too-large jeans. She stared intently at my head. "Haven't you even wondered just a little what that new hair of yours can do? I bet we could even get it to lie flat for once," she said, staring almost hungrily at my head.

I sighed. "Fine. I give you permission to tweak, tease, curl, fluff, and otherwise torture anything you like—"

Alice looked like she might collapse from joy.

"—after I've had a chance to get what needs doing done," I finished.

She heaved a dramatic sight. "I suppose I can wait," she mumbled forlornly.

I laughed. "Go bug Jasper," I suggested. "I'm pretty sure he's in the attic again."

She thought about that for half a second before smiling broadly. "That never does get old. I think I will. Call me when you're done," she tossed over her shoulder as she turned to leave.

I waited until she had vanished back up the stairs before I trudged through the expansive kitchen and out the back door looking for Edward, who had kissed my head and disappeared to the garden an hour ago, with a very big book and a half-mumble about fresh air and thinking.

It took me a little while to find him. Esme had gotten a pretty good head start on her garden and there were tall plants everywhere, just starting to bloom, as well as thick patches of new flowers with small dirt paths weaving between. I made my way down the criss-crossing paths until I came to a ledge. Two short brick walls, spaced a few feet apart by more new green flowers on the ledge below acted as little steps to get to the bottom of the garden. I hopped down to the ledge, which was only a couple of feet below me—a jump I could have made as a human—but stopped and threw up my arms when a flurry of fireflies exploded from the plants I'd landed in.

When I finally looked up, I spotted Edward, standing in a circle of vegetation bare foot, one arm holding the enormous book he'd left with and the other stuck out and curved down, as if he were holding something else that I couldn't see. His feet were moving in a slow, steady rhythm, leading him around the small circle in graceful half turns.

I knew he knew I was there, but his eyes remained glued to the open pages of the book. I watched him for a moment, trying to figure out what he was doing, then suddenly I realized:

He was dancing.

That empty arm was holding an imaginary partner and he was leading them through the steps of some old fashioned dance I didn't know. I laughed, sitting down on the ledge and watching. His lips twitched, but other than that, he gave no signs that he had heard me.

After a moment of watching, my elbows on my knees, my chin on my hands, I ventured, "Do you always dance by yourself in the middle of the night? Or is this just a recent thing? Had boogie fever, did you?"

He smiled. "I've been doing it for years. It's an unconscious habit, but it helps me concentrate." He glanced up briefly. "Why? Do you find it strange?"

I thought about that. "I don't. Not really. I've pretty much accepted that anyone as perfect as you has to have some neurological drawbacks." I tapped my head and made a sound like a cuckoo clock.

Edward laughed. "Somehow, I'm less than flattered."

"I'm just saying," I continued. "Usually people do this sort of thing with a partner."

His face clouded for a moment, but it vanished so quickly I didn't know what to think. "I've…never had anyone else to dance with," he said lightly, trying to sound nonchalant. But I could hear it in his voice: the memory of almost a hundred years spent dancing by himself made him sad. It made me sad too.

Suddenly, I didn't like that I was sitting there and he was fifteen feet away, dancing by himself. He was married for pity's sake. That automatically guaranteed him someone to dance with, even if that someone danced like a cripple with an inner ear infection.

I hopped down off the ledge and fluidly inserted myself into the space between his arm and his body—then hopped onto his feet.

He chuckled. "You know, you don't have to do that anymore."

"Oh, you have no idea how much I do," I said ominously. "Trust me, I tried dancing not too long ago. It did not turn out well."

He shrugged, the movement looking distinctly elegant on him whereas on me it had always looked like I had some sort of violent twitching problem. I resisted the urge to try it now and see if that had changed.

"Suit yourself," he said, pulling me in closer until we were cold chest to cold chest.

"You're still reading, aren't you?" I asked as I felt the corner of the open book nudge my back.

"Yes," he said, resting his chin on my head. "Why? Is it bothering you?"

I shook my head. "It probably should be, but no one ever said I was normal."

He smiled. "I don't think the thought of you being normal has ever even crossed anyone's mind."

I pinched his side. "I can be plenty normal, so wipe that grin off your face, mister."

He leaned back to stare at me curiously. "How did you know I was smiling?"

I blinked. That was a very good question. His face had definitely been out of my line of sight, but I'd known for a fact that he was smiling. I could easily chalk it up to just knowing him that well, but that wasn't it.

"I….felt it," I said slowly. "Here." I gestured toward the area where my stone-cold heart lay.

Don't even get me started on how completely cheesy it was. I know. But it was really the only way to describe it. I'd felt him smile, not physically, but…some other way, with some other sense I didn't know I had.

"Well," he said evenly. "That's new."

I rested my cheek on his shoulder and closed my eyes, thinking. We stayed like that for…a while. Hours, days, I don't really know. I lost track of time. But when we went inside and trekked through the living room, Emmett was still lying on the couch, his head in Rosalie's lap now. When he saw me he stopped in the middle of whatever it was he'd been saying and sat up.

"Hey, Bella, Edward." He grinned lecherously. "Where've you two been?"

I rolled my eyes and shot back, "Having sex, Emmett. It's all we do. We have sex everywhere, every minute of every day and when we're not having sex, we think about having sex until we can find a place where we can have sex. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

There was a brief pause, in which Emmett looked like his head was going to explode from pure mirth, and then a voice that made my spine ice over said dryly, "I don't know about his, but it sure does satisfy mine."

I glanced, horrified, in the direction the voice had come from and saw the phone lying on the coffee table. "Charlie!" I squeaked.

"He's on speaker," Emmett choked out between convulsions of laughter. "Say hi!"