Chapter Eight
Bella's POV
I was having that dream again. The one where I was in a sunlit meadow. Someone sits next to me, just like always. There appear to be diamonds coming off of his skin. I feel this crazy draw to this person, even though I don't know them. I do know, however, that his name is Edward. He turns to look at me, and I'm always about to see his face, when I wake up. I sat straight up in bed, and Chris grumbles something next to me and rolls over. I hear tiny feet in the doorway. Brandon's little head sticks into our room.
"Mommy? I had a bad dream," he says. I get up and cross the room to him. I pick him up and give him a hug. Brandon was still kind of a surprise. A great surprise, of course, but Chris and I had only been married for a few months before I got pregnant. I wouldn't have chosen the name Brandon, but Chris had had a twin brother by that name that died when they were children. So we chose Brandon Edward. That was because of the dream. A little strange, but Chris had agreed. I wanted something from my mysterious past in my present. I carried him down to the kitchen and set him in a chair. We had bad dreams a lot, and we would come downstairs and have a glass of warm milk.
"I had a bad dream, too, sweetie," I said, even though it wasn't really bad. I wasn't sure what to make of it on terms of it being good or bad. I missed him, though, when I woke up. Edward. That made me think of the guy and his sister who had shown up today. Up until this point, no one from my past life had ever come to contact me. And now here was the mysterious Edward. He had only been around seventeen, but he had seemed so much older. I wasn't sure what to make of him. I set the pot of milk on the stove and sat down across from my son. His big brown eyes blended with the darkness of the kitchen. Then there was the girl. She had my eyes almost exactly and our faces looked really similar, too. But she did have the same hair as the boy. I supposed it was just a coincidence. They had looked similar enough to be siblings. But the eyes were what was weirding me out the most. "What was your dream about?" I asked.
"It was about a robot with laser eyes and he was killing all the dinosaurs, and I had to protect the dinosaurs, and then Count dracula showed up and I woke up and I was scared. Vampires are scary, mommy." Suddenly, a new memory flashed to the front of my brain. It was of a car, and it was dark. The car was speeding down the highway. I heard my own voice. "He was telling me legends. About vampires." The car stopped, and so did the memory. I glanced down at my son.
"What did you say?" I asked, startled. He frowned.
"I said vampires are scary, mommy. Do you think vampires are scary, too, mommy? Did you dream about vampires, too?"
"Something like that," I said, and began to pour him a glass of milk.
The next day, after Chris had gone to work, I called up a girl who I knew lived down the street to watch Brandon, and got in the car. I began to drive out of town, not sure exactly where I was going. My instincts told me to keep driving. Finally, I stopped at a drive that for some reason I knew I had to turn in to. I began to drive down it, slowly, until a house came into view. A beautiful three story house with a glass wall in the back. I parked and got out. I just stood there for a moment, taking it in, and then turned to get back in my car. I felt like it wasn't the time to be here. That this wasn't supposed to happen, for some reason. Suddenly, I could feel eyes on me. I turned around to look back at the house.
A short girl with short, kind of spiky black hair was standing on the porch, just staring at me. I frowned, and then I waved, slowly. She started across the lawn towards me, a little to fast for it to be a normal walk. She stopped about twenty yards from me. I took her in. She had the same weird golden eyes and extra pale skin as my visitor from yesterday. "Did you dream about vampires, too?" echoed in my head, even though they were the words of a three-year-old. "Hi," I said.
She was grinning, and it looked almost like she might have been crying, too. "Bella," she said. I racked my brain, but didn't recognize her. Although she felt familiar, warm, a comfort. She walked up and threw her arms around me then, and in the distance, just through the window, I saw several more pairs of gold eyes, all staring at me and the girl. I let go of her.
"I'm sorry, I should be going," I said, and turned to leave.
"Alice," she said. "My name is Alice, in case you were wondering." I nodded.
"It's nice to meet you, Alice," I said, and got into my car. I was just at the end of the drive when another memory flashed into my brain. It was a wedding. My wedding. I was dancing with somebody. Whoever it was, I loved them dearly. Then a name. Edward. I slammed the brakes when I saw the car coming down the road, but it was too late. Whoever this Bella of the past was, she was dying with me.