Open Book Part 1

The night passed quickly. I wanted to add protection to the house but didn't have time to make it down to La Push without anyone with me. And going deep in the forest to find a thicker and stronger Layline was also something that I couldn't do till the weekend. Even then, La Push was an easier option, and I still need a medium to enchant. Then again, I knew that Edward had left and gone to Alaska, so I didn't need to worry about him till next week. I doubt his family would come sniffing about till he was back, or I hoped they would at least wait till then.

I knew that Bella would be more stressed tomorrow and the rest of the week wondering where Edward was and when he would be back. I myself was personally was thinking about Elizabeth. I knew all about the other Cullens, but she was new. Was she just like a female Edward? Or was she different? I hoped she is different; another self-loathing vampire is one too many in my book.

I woke up excited in the hope to get to know Elizabeth. I was hoping she wasn't too insulted about me not talking to her in Biology. She seemed to be focused on Edward, but no doubt didn't miss that I was focused on him as well. Maybe that would catch her attention. I expected her to ask me questions so she could fill in Edward about us, seeing as he couldn't read Bella's mind or mine.

Something that had never happened to him before and I knew threw him off. Did wonder if Elizabeth have a gift? I know gifts are never the same, even if they share things in common, so could she read minds like Aro via touch, or could she talk to people with her mind, or did she have no gift at all.

Walking downstairs, I started to cook breakfast again as everyone seemed to like it yesterday. I could see that Bella had not gotten much sleep, but that could be because it was just a new place, or the rain was keeping her up or worried about today and class with Edward. We got to school, and I was counting the time down till I could get my own car. This abomination was driving me mad.

I didn't pay much attention during the morning classes, which caused some of the teachers to call on me trying to catch me out, which they failed to do and so left me alone to my own thoughts. I noticed that I didn't share any classes with any of the other Cullens other than Biology, which was a little odd. After all, it was a small school.

I was waiting for lunch to see them and see if they had all stuck around and hadn't just vanished into thin air, but I was sure everyone would have heard if they had not come to school. I could see that Bella was even tenser as lunch was approaching, no doubt scared of Edward or dreading the Biology lesson with him at the very least. When I walked into the cafeteria with Bella and my least favourite person, Jessica, I swept my eyes. I saw the five of them sitting at the same table with Edward missing as I expected.

Mike intercepted us and diverted us to his table, which wasn't bad. It was not like I could just go and sit down next to them and grill them about Elizabeth. I could see that Bella was uncomfortable and kept taking glances at the Cullens. I noticed that the Cullens also took a few glances at both Bella and me, some with an angry look; others seemed happy or excited.

Mainly Rosalie, who seemed to be the angriest, no doubt scared for her family and the danger we posed if Edward slipt up and killed Bella. As time passed, I was becoming more and more impatient, and I struggled not to fidget in my seat as I waited for lunch to end. Bella seemed to relax as more time went on, no doubt glad Edward wasn't here. I walked to Biology with Bella, who was walking next to the golden retriever, walking faithfully by her side. I pitied Mike; he didn't even know he was in the friend zone. I saw that Elizabeth was sat at our table. I walked over to it and took a seat.

"Hello, sorry I didn't get to introduce myself. I'm Maya Swan," I greeted her, holding my hand out. I saw a flash of surprise in her eyes, no doubt due to humans being uncomfortable around vampires.

"Elizabeth Cullen," She said, not shaking my hand, not wanting to shock me with her body temperature, I concluded.

"Your brother is not here today?" I asked her to see what she would say.

"No, he's ill; no doubt he will be gone the entire week," She said in what sounded like an annoyed tone. Maybe she was annoyed with Bella for driving her brother away. I wasn't sure where to go from here couldn't really ask about her parents or anything like that without coming off as strange and rude. Something I hated about Edward was his first chat with Bella was rude and demanding.

"You wouldn't happen to know the best places to shop for clothes, would you? We just moved here from Arizona, and we are not equipped for the cold and rain," I asked her.

"Nope, that would be Alice's department. I will have to ask her for you," Elizabeth said back, no taking her eyes off the teacher.

"Well, if you or her ever want to go shopping together, I am always free. My sister doesn't like shopping, so I am left to do it all alone," I told her, pouting. Bella really did hate shopping. I thought it was just because Alice wanted to go shopping and make it last all day, but no even a few hours was too much for her.

Elizabeth gave a nod, "I will let her know", before turning back to the front as the lesson continued.

The rest of the day passed with nothing happening other than Bella nearly killing someone with a Volleyball somehow. I am still not sure how she is so bad at sports. We both rushed back to the changing rooms, and I took a lukewarm shower while everyone else got dressed. After living on the streets, I loved to be clean as much as I can something most people take for granted.

We managed to make it to the truck without the golden retriever catching up to us, which was lucky. All he was after was a quick shag, something that Bella wasn't interested in till next year and even then, only with Edward. As for me, I didn't like boys and only had one girlfriend in both of my lives.

Bella had discovered last night that dad really couldn't cook any food other than breakfast, something I knew already, so I retook charge of the cooking. My memories showed that I did the cooking when I stayed here for the summer. The only difference is that the old me didn't have such a wide range of food tastes. Something my old life had given me. I loved food and tried everything I could, from cheap street food to expensive five-star meals. I was sure if it weren't for magic, I would have no doubt gotten fat.

It was a shame that a small town like this wouldn't let me experiment as much as I would love to. Sure, when I got my laptop, I could use amazon to get some for spices, but other than that, I was stuck with the meats from around here. For tonight it was going to be steak and chips with grilled mushrooms. Thinking about the food, I started to wonder if vampires could eat steak if it were blue, something to ask in the future.

But Bella and I were going food shopping before we got home. We both refused to eat takeout every night. I am sure Bella's reason was due to health. Mine was due to a lack of taste in the take-out; if it were good take-out, I would eat it all day, but it was all bland and oily.

Bella started the abomination, and I tried to ignore everyone looking at this evil thing. She joined the line for us to leave, and we both pretended that the noise was coming from someone else's car. I saw that Bella was looking at the Cullens, the so-called Hale twins getting into a shiny new Volvo. I was so tempted to buy one but wouldn't be able to explain away.

They looked at us as we passed by, no doubt the loud noise being even worse for them. I gave Elizabeth a wave as we drove past. I saw Rosalie was still scowling at us; she could hold a grudge. After all, it's not like Bella asked to smell good to Edward or made him leave; that was all him.

The Thriftway was not far from school and, like almost everything else, was just off the highway. I grabbed a trolley before Bella could get a basket. I planned on getting a lot of food.

"How much are you planning on buying? We only have sixty bucks," Bella asked me.

"I have money. Now let's get some real food." I told her and started to load the trolley up with different meat and fish with Bella looking on. I also got food for lunch as I refused to eat what the so-called school calls a healthy lunch, bland and tasteless pizza, no thanks.

In the end, the shopping ended up costing one hundred and sixteen dollars which compared to what I used to spend a week on food was nothing. When we got home, I unloaded the groceries and put them away as Bella went off to her room. No doubt checking her email, I am sure mum would have sent like ten emails by now.

I started on dinner mum no longer sent me a million emails as I never really replied to them. We have a phone just ring us if you want to talk. There were no smartphones yet, so you can't check email on the go, which I missed. God, I can't wait for 2007 and the iPhone.

I marinated the steaks and placed the potatoes in the oven to roast as dad didn't seem to have a deep fryer which I was sure was the one cooking thing he would have gotten at some point. I then started on making us lunch for tomorrow and lost track of time as I did so when I heard dad open the door.

"Hey dad, welcome home", I greeted him as I started to grill the steaks.

"Thanks," he said, hanging up his gun belt and stepped out of his boots as I continued to cook the food in the kitchen.

"Where is Bella" dad asked me.

"Upstairs, no doubt got lost in a book, I would guess, but dinner won't be ready for another thirteen minutes anyway," I told dad.

"What's for dinner," Dad asked, no doubt glad I was cooking. At least mine was edible, unlike my mum's, but the new me loved cooking, so it should be much better than he was expecting.

"Steak, potatoes and grilled mushrooms", I told him.

I called him and Bella when dinner was ready.

"Smells good, Maya." dad complimented me

"Thanks"

We all ate in silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence as we all liked the quiet. In truth, it made us suited to live together. My memories showed mum constantly had to do something at all times and used to drive me up the wall.

I still wasn't sure what to do about Jasper's power. It would be another day or two before I could use the Layline to spell my pendant to defend against his power. But the other part of me wanted to make something like a toe ring and enchant it with the same magic as the pendant in case someone stole it, and I lost its protection. A backup is always an excellent idea.

I guess I have time to think about what I will do. After all, Jasper's power is strong, but he never really used it to its max potential. After all, he could use it to make people feel emotional pain as bad as Marcus or make them lazy they didn't want to do anything.

Hell, he didn't even link the fact that his power makes it harder for him to resit blood as he feels other people thirst. Maybe I would enchant some jewellery for him and Alice to lower their thirst. I know I will have to make some form of daylight ring, so they didn't sparkle in the sun.

Well, not a ring, but I know they all wear something with the Cullen crest on it. I saw the Elizabeth had a pendant on her bracelet, and Alice had a choker on, so they all have something that I can enchant as long as they add a gemstone or crystal to them.

"So, how did you like school? Have you made any friends?" dad asked, breaking me out of my train of thought.

"Hmm, no, not really, but I have friends on the reservation, so I don't really care," I told him, thinking what I can do about Leah and Sam. She had been my friend ever since I was four years old. I knew I would do everything I could to make sure she got a happy life.

"Well, I have a few classes with a girl named Jessica. I sit with her friends at lunch. And there's this boy, Mike, who's very nice. Everyone seems nice," Bella said, no doubt thinking about Edward being a dick. Though in this situation, I can't blame him. It caught him off guard and scared him, but he is a dick many times after, like leaving over a paper cut or demanding marriage for Bella to be changed by him. Yes, that is romantic. I thought to myself sarcastically if I had a vampire mate and they tried that they best run.

"That must be Mike Newton. Nice kid, nice family. His dad owns the sporting goods store just outside of town. He makes a good living off all the backpackers who come through here." Dad said I know the parents. We went to the store to pick up some fishing stuff the last summer.

"Do you know the Cullen family?" Bella tried to ask casually, but failing seems like being a spy is not part of her future.

"Dr. Cullen's family? Sure. Dr. Cullen's a great man." Charlie said I know how much dad like the Cullens at the moment and dislikes people talking about them, mainly Billy Black, who hates them due to being vampires, not that he can tell Charlie that.

"They… the kids… are a little different. They don't seem to fit in very well at school."

"I don't know. Alice seems nice, and Elizabeth is okay, not a big talker, but other than that, she is nice" I jumped in before dad could start ranting about people in this town but didn't manage to distract him.

"People in this town," he muttered. "Dr. Cullen is a brilliant surgeon who could probably work in any hospital in the world, make ten times the salary he gets here," dad continued, getting louder.

"We're lucky to have him fortunate that his wife wanted to live in a small town. He's an asset to the community, and all of those kids are well behaved and polite. I had my doubts when they first moved in, with all those adopted teenagers. I thought we might have some problems with them. But they're all very mature. I haven't had one speck of trouble from any of them.

That's more than I can say for the children of some folks who have lived in this town for generations. And they stick together the way a family should camping trips every other weekend… Just because they're newcomers, people have to talk." Dad finished.

"Well, if camping trips means a free day from school…." I started but saw my dad give me a playful glare.

"Just an idea that all," I said innocently, but dad didn't buy it, and Bella didn't look like the idea of camping seemed enticing for her. Then again, she falls down on flat surfaces.

"As Maya said, they seemed nice enough to me. I just noticed they kept to themselves. They're all very attractive," Bella added.

Yes, I don't think a vampire can be ugly. I will file that under questions to ask Carlisle. No doubt, when he learns about my magic, he will have hundreds of questions for me about it.

Never mind being reborn into a new world, which was something I would take to my grave and never tell anyone. Bella took the dishes and washed them up, which saved me having to do them, but I would have just used magic to clean them, so either way works.

I had waited till the next day before going back to the Layline. Nothing happened at school, with Elizabeth giving me a list of shops I could check out for clothing and making some small talk and Alice giving me a wave at the end of school. Rosalie still giving us but mainly Bella a glare, not that Bella noticed she seemed to try and avoid looking at the Cullens other than at lunch.

Reaching the Layline, I could feel that It had replenished, which left me with a choice of what to do. I could protect myself from Jasper's gift, do some other magic enchantment or store the magic in the pendant for a later date. The Idea of storing the magic did seem like a good option.
After all, magic can be stored in almost any material. Each holding a different amount before they explode, with gemstones and crystals being the best option as they didn't leek the magic out like metal or wood.

It would be handy if I needed to fight or conjure something I usually couldn't, so I decided to store the magic for later. Then I can come back in two more days on Friday and enchant the pendant against Jasper or make a backup. Then take a trip down to La Push and use the Laylines there to make something to protect the house from vampires.

With my plan set, I poured the magic of the Layline into the pendant and then went back home and, on the way back, I realised that I could store my own magic. At the end of every day, to build up a large pool of magic without needing a Layline, I only needed to be careful not to use too much that I would pass out. Making myself feel stupid that I never thought of doing that before.

The rest of the week went by and was uneventful other than a few more short conversations with Elizabeth in Biology, mainly about the classwork and seeing Alice a few more times. I fell into the routine of regular High school, and everyone in gym class learned not to allow Bella to be near anything or hold and use stuff like bats or rackets.

I saw that Bella would always check the Cullen table to see if Edward was there and would relax when he still wasn't there. I knew he wouldn't be here for the week but starting Monday. He would be back after he stopped mopping. Then again, he had been at it for one hundred years, so he was not likely to stop now, poor Tanya.

I was making my way back to the Layline, having decided to make a backup of the pendant with an anklet. Something most will overlook, and I won't have to worry about snapping with an unbreaking enchantment as my ankle will break first. Well, nothing is perfect, I thought to myself.

Getting back to the Layline only took twenty-five minutes. I had gotten a rough idea of where it was, so I didn't have to stop and feel with my magic to ensure I was going in the right direction every few minutes.

Finding the pentacle, I noted that if anyone saw me doing magic, I had to make it look more well magic with candles and stuff.

What don't judge me? It is magic. It should look cool. I bet I am not the only one who thinks that. Imagine Harry potter with no incantations or spell effects; it would be boring. Not that I planned on showing many people magic, my sister sure and anyone else I trusted like Leah.

The anklet had the same design as the pendant, which most people just thought was Whica. Then again, maybe they are really witches… putting that out of my head, I placed the anklet in the pentacle and channelled magic into it and like last time, the gem glowed, showing the enchantment had worked.

I put the rest of the magic into the gemstones on my pendant in case I needed more magic than my body had available. My magic had grown a small amount in the last week with how often I was now using it. I was still worried that I would never have the same amount that I originally had. After all, I started using magic daily from the age of eight in that life. So I had lost a lot of time.

Standing back up, I placed the anklet back on my ankle and thought that it looked nice. I started walking back to my house, sure that I had plenty of time before anyone woke up. Dad hadn't woken up before six am every morning, and it was only half four in the morning, and Bella woke up even later than that.

Being surrounded by nature was one of my favourite things in the world. I was sure that I could meditate on my magic in this forest for days without noticing that time pass me by. God, I sound like a hippy from the sixties.

I thought today was the best day to go shopping, and on Sunday, I can go to La Push and see Leah and enchant something to protect the house from vampires getting in at night. I wasn't sure I could make it based on their thoughts and didn't want to risk it.

I would have to buy something today with a large gemstone or a big crystal. Something like an Amethyst cluster would be perfect. I was sure I could find one in Port Angeles somewhere. Then the bank, car and laptop.

Getting to Port Angeles was a little more complex than I initially thought. Still, after getting a taxi and paying far too much money, I had managed to get to the city. Dad had offered, but I didn't want him to stay with me all day, or the money would be spending would be hard to explain.

My first stop was to the bank to deposit the money and get it invested. Depositing the money was quick and easy. After telling them, it was from my grandmother, who passed away a little while ago. I told them to invest seventy-five per cent of it into Apple, leaving me twenty-five thousand in my account.

Walking out of the bank, I went to buy a new laptop, and then I can use the Wifi at Starbucks. I mean, I am in the home of Starbucks. Even if I don't like it, free WiFi is free. I could not imagine the cost of a mobile internet dongle in the age of ADSL. I shuddered, thinking about it.

After getting a new laptop that I was still loathed to use with how slow it will be compared to what I usually used, it didn't even have an SSD. Oh God, have mercy on me. I next moved on to getting a car. I spent the next three hours looking for a car but couldn't find anything I wanted. The old cars were well old and slow, and the new cars cost far too much to play off as cheap, and I was sure my dad had some clue about car prices.

Then it came to me a motorbike would be perfect. Dad didn't really know anything about them, so if I said, I got it for seven hundred instead of two thousand, no one would know. In the end, I managed to find the bike I wanted. I really wanted to use magic to make dad not question me about the bike, but I was sure I could just say I bought it with my savings.

Unlike Bella, I had a job back in Phoenix, even if it was only part-time, so I had more money to use. I went to buy the stuff I would need, mainly a helmet, jacket and bag, so I could take all my stuff home after purchasing the bike. It was Suzuki GSX-R 1000, and god, did it look nice. I was sure Jacob would want to try a ride on it. It never got any less funny to see peoples face when you hand them a large amount of cash for things.

The bike ended up costing me eight thousand, and I was sure that dad wouldn't know the cost, and only the Cullens would really know and even then, maybe only Rosalie.

I told them I would pick it up at the end of the day before they closed and set off to find a gemstone or crystal store. I was sold on the idea of an Amethyst cluster, nothing too big to carry. I was thinking something the size of a coconut would be perfect. I realised I wouldn't even have time to go clothes shopping maybe I could go with Alice. I typically just conjured whatever clothes I want, so I never really have gone clothes shopping. It could be something new for both of us.

I had looked all over town and had not had any luck, and the time I had was running out before I would have to go pick up the bike. My last place to check was a shop called R&T Crystals 'n' Beads with an art and crafts store. So I wasn't sure if they had large pieces of Amethyst. It turned out this place was a gold mine with all different types of gemstones and crystals and even tools to shape them. I was sure this was going to be my new favourite store.

Looking through the large crystals they had. There were many options, and some of them were far too big for me to carry and take home today. I picked up a few different ones, with the main option being a large Rose Quartz obelisk with some tools to engrave the quarts. I planned on adding runes to make it more magic looking.

They even had some Quartz rune stones in many different colours that I fell in love with at first sight. I ended up buying their whole stock along with the obelisk and promised them I would be back again.

I placed everything in the backpack I had bought and went off to pick up my new bike. If I were quick, I would be able to get home before seven. I was surprised that I had spent the hours in Port Angeles. I was sure that it would only take maybe five hours to do everything.

Pulling on my riding jacket, I got on the bike and rode back home using magic to keep dry from the drizzle.