AN: Hi guys, apologies for the lack of upload last week. Unfortunately, I reached the end of what I had pre-written a few weeks ago and with going back to work I just didn't have this chapter ready. Uploads may be more sporadic from now on, but I'm always plugging away and I have no desire or plans to abandon this story.

Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Scary Stories

I sat in my room, trying to concentrate on the third act of Macbeth and not succeeding. The series of bizarre conversations – the morning, lunch and in the car – kept circling in my head and distracting me from the plight of medieval Scottish royalty. Eventually, I heard the truck roar into the driveway, the sound clear even through the pounding rain, then the slam of the door and my brother's heavy footsteps thumping up the stairs. He opened my door without knocking, a frantic look in his eyes.

"Rude!" I chastised, throwing my pillow at him. It thumped him in the face and hit the floor by his feet.

He bent to pick it up and looked calmer when he straightened. "You sure you're sick? You seem fine to me."

"I am fine," I assured him. "Mr Banner was blood typing today."

He knew exactly what I was talking about. "Ah, I see. You had a neurally mediated syncope due to your weak vasovagal system."

I rolled my eyes at him. "No, I smelled blood and I got dizzy. Big words only make people panic, you know."

"Big words get me out of those classes without a doctor's note," he pointed out, flopping onto my mattress heavily. "But really, you're okay? Edward was a little stingy on the details."

"I'm really fine," I reassured him. "I wanted to wait for you at school, but he insisted."

"He does that a lot with you," Beau mused. "And you keep giving in. What happened to running him over?"

I shrugged theatrically. "Oh, I'm still considering it. I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster with him, one minute homicidal, the next totally helpless."

"What did he want at lunch?" he probed.

"No clue, he never really got to the point. Something about not wanting to stay away from me anymore and taking whatever consequences came from it." I shook my head. "I swear, he makes less sense every day. Is he always like this?"

"Not usually," he admitted. "He's never sat with anyone besides his family though. Honestly, I think Edythe would still sit over there if I would go with her."

I'd wondered about that; as much as he cares about his friends, I'd gotten the distinct impression that Edythe trumped all of them. "Why don't you?"

He cringed. "They're… a lot, all at once. Don't get me wrong, I like them. But they don't all like me."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's not a big thing," he insisted, hurrying to backtrack and clearly feeling he'd said too much. "Eleanor and Alice are really nice. Edward's standoffish, but he's that way with everyone. Jasper avoids me a bit and Rosalie… just really doesn't like me for some reason. Edythe says there's nothing I can do about it and she'll come around eventually." He didn't look convinced.

I wrapped an arm around his shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. "Her loss. You're awesome."

"Hey now," he protested. "If you're not careful, people will start thinking we actually like each other."

I turned my hug into a shove. "Shut up, dork, you love me."

He rocked back into me, pushing me over a little. "I really do. I'm glad you're okay, sis."

I smiled. "Thanks. And I love you too."

The rest of the evening passed calmly. I'd been afraid that Charlie would somehow hear about my fainting spell, but he never mentioned it and neither did Beau.

Friday was no fun at all. Word of my fainting fit had got around at school, and everyone was still talking about my lunch with Edward. McKayla had a million questions, none of which I answered to her satisfaction. Worse still, she and Tyler both had free rein to pester me all through lunch, as I didn't have the buffer of Edythe to deter them. She was sat on the other side of the cafeteria with her sisters, deep in a very intense-looking conversation. Beau didn't look terribly happy about that either, but gallantly did his best to distract everyone with talk of the next day's beach trip. It worked, at least partly; McKayla got very excited talking about the weather report that was promising sun and temperatures as high as sixty degrees. I still wasn't convinced that that would materialise, but it was already feeling warmer.

Logan was looking sour again and he kept glaring at me. He was one of Beau's newer friends, although of course they'd known each other since kindergarten. I'd never really spent a lot of time with him, and I was struggling to understand why he didn't like me. My only clue was that he always seemed to get annoyed when Tyler paid me a lot of attention. I could only conclude that he had feelings for the other boy and was keeping them hidden for some reason. Then I remembered the way McKayla had talked about Eleanor and Rosalie, the way I'd heard a lot more people talk about them since I'd been here, and I thought perhaps Logan's secrecy wasn't so incomprehensible. I felt a pang of sympathy for him and redoubled my efforts to ignore Tyler.

Meanwhile, Edward's absence was almost palpable. I found myself glancing around the cafeteria as if he would suddenly materialise out of thin air, gesturing me over to an empty table again. I even half expected him to be waiting in Biology, but of course he wasn't. The hour seemed to drag even more without him.

Over dinner, Beau and I realised that neither of us had actually relayed our weekend plans to Charlie. Thankfully he wasn't mad, as he'd picked up another extra shift and had been feeling guilty about leaving us on our own again. He was as excited as any of the kids, though he did ask for all their names and offered a silent nod of approval when he heard them. I wondered idly if he would have approved of Edward in the mix, or our trip to Seattle. He didn't seem to dislike the Cullens, but I only really heard him talk about Carine's work most of the time. Nonetheless, I decided that Beau knowing who my ride was going to be was enough familial involvement in that particular endeavour.

I had planned to sleep in on Saturday, as I often did now that I didn't have quite so many household responsibilities on my plate. But that plan was scuppered by two factors.

The first was an almost foreign brightness worming its way through my eyelids. When I opened them, warm yellow sunlight beamed down through my window. I went to look, and sure enough, there was the sun. it wasn't the perfect cloudless blue of an average day in Phoenix, but there was a solid clear patch that promised a definitively sunny day. I stood there, soaking it in, practically feeling the vitamin D surging into my skin.

The second disturbance was my brother, hammering loudly on my door.

"Rise and shine, little sister," he yelled obnoxiously, though obviously excited. "When McKayla says ten, she really means 9:30."

"Two minutes," I hollered back, and wriggled the window open to get a feel for the temperature outside. It was a little stiff, but I managed to crack it enough to judge that a sweater might be a good idea, despite the sunshine. I dressed quickly, just in case Beau took my standard retort as a time check for getting ready.

When I got downstairs, my brother had already poured cereal for both of us, although he had been kind enough not to put milk on mine so it didn't get soggy. He was already eating, an enthusiasm about him that I had thought was reserved for Edythe.

"You're really looking forward to today, aren't you?" I said, an amused smile pulling at my lips.

He shrugged and swallowed his food. "I enjoy a sunny day as much as the next guy. And with Edythe busy, it's nice to have something else to do today."

"Did you ask her if she wanted to come?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "McKayla seemed happy for Edward to come along, and he's not even part of the group."

That surprised him, and I realised I hadn't told him that on Thursday. "I mean, I would have, but I knew she was busy. They always put family first."

I hummed noncommittally as I started to eat.

Newton's Olympic Outfitters was on the edge of town. I'd seen it before, and I had a vague memory of going in once with Charlie to get fishing supplies. The Newtons had moved from California when McKayla was nine, so they were a little newer to town than some other families.

This morning, their parking lot was crowded with teenagers. McKayla waved as we pulled in and I spotted Jeremy hovering near her. There was a cluster of girls, including Angela and Erica, and I could see Tyler just getting out of his Sentra. Logan was stood with a few other boys who I couldn't name off the top of my head. When we got out of the truck, Logan made a nasty face and muttered something to them. They laughed and high-fived him. Beau either didn't notice this or didn't care, because he just approached McKayla with a bright smile.

"We're just waiting on Sammie and Lee," she told us, fairly floating with excitement at having organised such a popular trip. "He's bringing his mom's minivan so there should be plenty of seats. You guys wanna ride in my car?"

"Sure," Beau agreed breezily

Jeremy came up and somewhat nervously put his arm around McKayla. "But I get shotgun, right?"

She rolled her eyes and smiled at him. "Duh."

That made him happy.

In the end, Lee brought two extra people and suddenly every seat was needed to accommodate our group of seventeen. Rather than overcrowd McKayla's Suburban, Beau and I opted to take the truck, turning the planned carpool into a full-on caravan. As we drove the fifteen miles to the coast, I watched the scenery with interest. I had always thought of Forks as being just a shade too green, like something from another planet, and I didn't particularly care for it. Now, with sun shining down through the canopy and casting odd green shadows across the road and the occasional glimpse of the river, it was no less alien, but I thought I could see what the appeal might be for my dad.

We wrestled the windows down and Beau turned on the old radio, tuning to an oldies station and singing along with gusto. He saw my arched eyebrow and correctly interpreted the question.

"Edythe likes old music," he said with a shrug. "I guess I picked up a few things."

We didn't talk much on the drive, content just to sit together. As we passed the first small houses of the reservation, Beau began pointing out where various people lived, saying names as if I should know who they were, but I didn't recognise any of them.

Finally, the familiar curve of First Beach came into view. Beau parked up in the small gravelly lot on the edge of the road and I quickly chambered out. It was as beautiful as I remembered from years of summer day-trips. The multi-hued stones stretched out for several hundred yards, making up most of the beach, before a thin strip of dark washed sand at the water's edge, constantly covered and uncovered by the grey and white wash of the waves. Salt-bleached trees littered the tide line, driftwood on a scale unmatched on any other beach I had ever been to.

Our group made a beeline for a cluster of logs a few hundred yards down the beach. There was a circle of stones there with evidence of past fires, and I thought perhaps it was a spot that at least some of them had visited before. Several kids immediately set about collecting smaller pieces of wood and building the beginnings of a new fire in the ashes. McKayla took charge, and my brother and I made the simultaneous decision to stay out of her way, sitting down on a log bench with Angela.

"Do we need a fire?" I wondered out loud. It was a little chilly with the wind coming off the ocean, and the clouds were threatening, but we were in a solid patch of sunshine and it was fairly warm.

"We always burn driftwood when we come to the beach," Angela said in her soft, gentle voice. "It's tradition."

Beau nodded. "Absolutely. Did we ever do fires when we came here as kids? I don't remember."

"I don't think so," I said.

He grinned. "You'll like this then."

The pyramid of wood was built, and Jeremy ceremoniously produced a lighter to get it burning. As the small flames licked up the wood and began to catch, they flickered blue and green instead of the standard red-orange.

"Wow," I breathed. "It's so pretty!"

"The salt makes the flames change colour," Beau explained. "Cool, right?"

"Very."

We sat and chatted amongst ourselves for a while, trading stories back and forth. I mainly listened, not having anything I particularly wanted to share, occasionally chipping in to one of Beau's tales. After a while, a few boys wanted to hike over to the tide pools. I wanted to join, but Edward's request that I not end up in the water echoed in my head. In the end, Logan made up my mind for me; he hadn't dressed for a hike and he wanted to stay put. As much as I thought I understood his sourness, that didn't mean I had to expose myself to it if I had another option. I stood up quietly to join the hiking group, and my brother came with me.

Reaching the pools meant a short walk through the forest, away from the beach. We lost a lot of the sun in the dense tree cover, and I was glad of my sweater. Beau seemed to be faring fine in just a short sleeved Mariners t-shirt, but I guessed that he was well accustomed to every shade of Forks temperatures by now. I went carefully, mindful of tripping over hidden roots or patches of uneven ground and fell a little behind, but my brother kept pace with me; solidarity or his own caution, I couldn't tell. At one point, the rest of the group got so far ahead that we couldn't see them anymore. I was about to suggest speeding up, but Beau spoke first.

"So... Edward."

I stiffened slightly but tried to sound uninterested when I replied. "What about him?"

Beau gave me a 'really?' look. "Come on, sis, don't play dumb. There's something going on between you two."

"No there isn't," I scoffed, while silently panicking. "Our siblings are dating, it makes sense that we should be friends. If anything, he's been making things more complicated for some unknown reason. Maybe he just finally realised what an ass he was being."

He hummed in agreement and I hoped he would drop it. But no such luck.

"You're not exactly consistent either, though. One minute you're planning homicide, the next he's driving you to Seattle, you're eating lunch alone with him, inviting him to come on this trip-"

I cut him off. "McKayla invited him."

He wasn't swayed. "But I bet you wouldn't have minded if he'd said yes."

I wanted to deny it, but the look on his face told me it would be a waste of time – he had me all figured out.

"Okay, so maybe he isn't as awful as his first impression might have suggested," I allowed. Beau looked oddly pleased by that admission, but I ploughed ahead before he could start crowing. "But that doesn't mean I know how I feel about him, alright? I'm still working on it. So I'd appreciate you keeping any rampant speculation to yourself."

He put a hand to his chest and looked affronted. "You wound me, sister. Of course, I shall keep your budding romance in the strictest confidence."

I was still laughing at that when we broke the tree line and found the tide pools, and our friends.

It was a beautiful little spot. The waves lapped at the edge of the rocks about ten yards away, the tide low and not threatening us. The pools it had left exposed were teeming with life: colourful corals, wafting anemones, flashes of small darting fish and the rainbow glimmer of shellfish in the sun. I picked my way across the rocks carefully, mindful of the slick surface and Edward's warnings. Though I was in no danger of toppling into the ocean, I had fallen in these pools enough as a child to be keeping my distance; it wasn't nearly warm enough for me to stand getting wet. Beau was more adventurous, jumping over pools with the other boys and narrowly avoiding a splash at least twice.

Eventually, enough people complained of being hungry that we decided to head back for lunch. I kept up with the group on the hike back, deliberately walking beside McKayla and letting her inane chatter wash over me. I wasn't in the mood to continue my conversation with Beau; it had made me think far too much about what truth there might be in his obvious implications. I genuinely wasn't sure how I really felt about Edward. After all, he did annoy me more often than not. However, I also couldn't deny that part of me was intrigued by him, desperate to figure out what exactly was up with him, and more than a little attracted to his sudden interest in me. But I also had to accept an irrefutable certainty – any thought of romance was out of the question. Whatever he was, it was so much more than me, so much more than I could ever hope to be. He was incredible, and I was painfully ordinary. Boys like him didn't chose girls like me.

Then again, girls like Edythe didn't chose boys like Beau either, so maybe anything was possible.

I was no more decided on how to proceed with the Cullen Problem by the time we got back to the beach. When we got there, the group had multiplied. Several other teenagers with coppery skin and black hair were clustered around the fire, making conversation with the remains of our group. We said our hellos and there was a round of introductions, but I didn't manage to fix a single name in my memory. Beau seemed to know several of them but was uncharacteristically cool, giving three burly boys at the back of the group a sharp nod. He was more himself when greeting a younger girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, who he hugged tightly.

"Bells, you remember Jules, right? She's Bonnie Black's youngest."

I made an apologetic face. "Sorry, no. Although... Bonnie, maybe. Didn't she have the truck before us?"

The girl, Jules, nodded. "Yeah, the beast was ours. And you can thank yours truly for the engine refit." She grinned cheekily.

"Wow, really? Charlie said it was practically rebuilt from scratch."

Jules shrugged. "Yeah, it's a hobby of mine. I'm just glad your dad took it off our hands, Mom wouldn't let me work on my car while we still had a working vehicle."

Beau laughed. "Jules, you don't even have your permit yet."

"Says who?" she shot back. Their back and forth was comfortable, teasing and light-hearted, much the same as Beau and I. They were clearly close friends, like siblings, and I felt a weird pang of jealousy. With as close as Charlie and Bonnie were, they had probably spent a lot of time together growing up. She would have been like his little sister, doing a lot of the things that we should have done together. I could almost picture it in my mind, and my brain connected to a long lost memory of an afternoon at this very beach: Beau and I racing clumsily across the pebbles after two taller girls with long black braids, watched by a kind-eyed, copper-skinned man, a chubby toddler circling him as she collected interesting rocks. I abruptly recalled that Bonnie's husbands name was Saul; he'd passed away when we were about seven in a car accident. She also had two older daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, identical twins just two years older than us. As a chunk of the group took orders and set off for the little general store to buy lunch, I sat beside Jules on a log and asked after her sisters. To my surprise, Rebecca was married and living in Hawaii with a small child of her own, and Rachel was away at college and already on track to graduate early.

Food arrived and was rapidly consumed, as is often the way when teenage boys are involved. The conversation turned, as it so often did, to stories of exploits past, with the La Push kids offering some much needed new material. Someone had brought a little battery-powered stereo and started playing music. All in all, it was shaping up to be a very pleasant afternoon.

As the food ran out and people started to drift, splitting into smaller conversations or getting up to try skipping stones or collect more firewood, I saw Logan eyeing me. It gave me a distinct sinking sensation, and sure enough, a moment later he called to me across the fire.

"Hey Bella, Jordan and I were just saying what a shame it is that none of the Cullens could come along today. Didn't anyone think to invite them?"

Before I could say anything, one of the Quileute boys chimed in. "Do you mean Dr Carine Cullen's family?"

Logan looked annoyed at being thwarted, clearly wanting to get a reaction out of me, but turned with a falsely pleasant face. "Yes, do you know them?"

"The Cullens don't come here." The boy replied. His tone was so strange; not like they weren't inclined to come, or had no reason, but like they weren't allowed.

Jules fidgeted uncomfortably next to me, and when I glanced sideways I saw that she had a look on her face somewhere between embarrassment and shame. Weirdly, Beau also looked out of sorts, though he was more annoyed. We locked eyes over Jules; I raised an eyebrow in question, but he just shook his head. Then Jeremy proposed another trip to the tide pools and Beau got up quickly to join, like he was trying to escape the moment. I let him go. Something was going on here, and I had a feeling I was going to have an easier time unravelling it if I stayed put. I contemplated how to get what I needed, and as the hiking group set off once more with a few newcomers, inspiration struck.

I turned to Jules. "Want to come check in on the truck? I've got no idea what Beau's been doing with it for the last few months."

She nodded eagerly. "That sounds awesome, let's go."

I led her up to the parking lot and popped the hood on the truck. She went to work straight away, studying the various elements of the engine block with a clearly practised ease. She pulled a rag out of her back pocket to protect her hands as she poked about, but a streak of oil still found its way to her forearm. I waited for what I thought was the opportune moment, when she was happily distracted checking the oil level.

"So," I said, trying to sound casual and probably failing, as usual. "What was that about the Cullens?"

Jules froze minutely as she pulled out the dip stick, but kept going after a second. "You caught that, huh?"

I shrugged.

She shook her head. "Sam can be kind of... intense. Honestly, a lot of people around here are weird about that family, and my mom is leading the charge." She sighed. "She and Charlie had a massive fight about it when they moved here, because Mom was telling everyone on the res not to go to the hospital anymore. Kicked off again when your brother started dating one of them, I think Mom was trying to make Charlie stop them seeing each other."

That made me frown. "Why would she do all that? Does she think they're a bad influence or something?"

Jules' russet cheeks turned a shade darker. "It's really stupid, old superstitious stuff. And we're not really supposed to talk about it."

I leaned on the side of the truck, careful to avoid the oily engine and hoping I seemed extra interested. "Why not? If it's just superstition..."

She laughed without much amusement. "That depends on who you ask. My mom believes in it all absolutely."

"You can tell me," I insisted. "I won't rat you out to anyone."

She pursed her lips as she slammed down the hood, then she was smiling conspiratorially. "Okay, but you have to promise."

She held out her pinkie finger and I wrapped mine around it, grinning. "Promise."

"Okay," she started, hopping up on the hood and holding out a hand to help me up beside her. "First off, do you know any of our legends about where we came from? As in, our tribe?"

I shook my head.

"Well, there's an old story that says we are actually descended from wolves." She said the last word with weight, and I could tell she was a natural-born storyteller. "Legend has it, some of our ancestors had the ability to turn themselves into wolves in order to protect the tribe. I suppose you pale faces would call them werewolves." The cheeky grin reappeared; it was clear she didn't believe the stories herself.

I, on the other hand, was enthralled. "Who were they protecting against?"

"The werewolf's only natural enemy, of course. The demons who stalk the night, hungry for the blood of the innocent. We call them the Cold Ones, but you would say vampires."

There was such gravitas in her voice that I shivered. Then I pressed the key point.

"So, how does this tie to the Cullens?"

"That's the part that hits a little closer to home," Jules admitted, looking slightly uncomfortable again. "According to the stories, my great-grandfather Emphraim inherited the shape changing abilities of our ancestors, along with a few others. They met a group of Cold Ones, but they were very different from the ones that were in the old tales. Their leader spoke calmly to the wolves as if they faced her as men, and one of her followers seemed to understand their thoughts and relay them to her. These Cold Ones claimed that they weren't dangerous, that they didn't hunt people but fed on the blood of animals instead. Though their manner seemed to support their claims, Emphraim wasn't completely convinced. He chanced turning human to properly parley with them, and they agreed on a treaty to keep them off our land. They never broke the pact, and eventually they moved on."

I was starting to see the connections. "So your mom thinks the Cullens are like these Cold Ones from before."

"Not quite," Jules said, back in full flow and enjoying herself again as she wove her spooky story. "She believes they are the same ones. There are more of them now, but the leader and her mate, the mind reader and the three other females, they are the exact same group who first crossed paths with my great-grandfather over seventy years ago."

This final pronouncement hung in the air as I processed what Jules was telling me. It wasn't a theory that had ever crossed my mind, but once I started thinking about it, it certainly seemed like a possibility.

Jules laughed, breaking the spell. "Geez, look at your face. It's just a story, Bella."

I tried to smile back, but it felt weak. "Right. Just a story. Of course."

Before I could ask any more questions, Beau came jogging up. "There you are. I thought you'd left me stranded."

I popped him lightly on the head; sitting on the truck, I was actually slightly taller than him. "You know I wouldn't do that, dummy. Jules and I were just catching up."

"Well, the others are packing up. We can stay a bit longer if you want, we're not tied down by the car pool."

Jules scratched the back of her head and made a face. "I actually have to go. I'm supposed to be working on my homework and if I haven't at least made a start by the time Mom gets back from the Clearwater's then I'm going to be in big trouble."

I climbed down carefully. "Then we'd better not take up any more of your time. I'm good to go if you are, Beau."

He nodded. "Want a ride home, Jules? We could drop you off on the way past."

Jules accepted that offer happily, and after we'd said our goodbyes to the rest of the group, we all piled into the truck. I drove and Beau sat in the centre so Jules could hop out more easily. I didn't really engage in their conversation; there was too much whirling through my head to pay attention. After we dropped her off at a low red single storey house on the edge of the reservation, Beau slid fully into the passenger seat and cranked up the radio, apparently not in the mood to chat either. Despite the quiet, I found I couldn't focus on what I had learned today, and I made no progress working out whether I believed it or not. The best that I could do at that moment was to not think about anything at all.