Hi guys! A little backstory on the inspiration for this story- I was watching booktok, and I saw one where someone discussed how Smeyer had created all of these extra things and never did anything with them, such as the Volturi and the wolves, and I thought-well, I can do something with those premises. This is sort of a Jane/Alec origin story. Note: I picked a random year to start, idk if it's right or not to fit with the actual books, I haven't read them in a while, and this story will cover multiple years (obviously), but I just thought I'd put this out there, and I hope you like it-please review with any things that you think I'm missing or should add, and I'll try to put those things in there.
-Enjoy:)
Chapter One
London, England: December 31st, 1899
Jane
Jane presses her nose to the glass panes of the window, staring out at the dimly lit street, quiet and patient as the clock counts down to midnight. While it is also the turn of the century, it is her and her brother Alec's eleventh birthday. In two months, their father plans to send them off to a boarding school in France, in Paris.
Both children know French, as they grew up with the best tutors London could provide, and they both know French, German, and Spanish. Jane watches the flakes of snow drift to the ground as Alec climbs onto the window seat beside her, his dark hair framing his face.
"Don't you just love the snow?" she asks, her eyes twinkling in the candlelight that illuminates the house during the night. Their mother says that she thinks the candles look beautiful during the winter, like a painting.
Alec seems to have no opinion on the snow, and traces a circle in the frost coating the window. "It is ten minutes until midnight, Jane," he says.
She turns back to look at him, framed in the candlelight. She has been noticing the little things that make him seem different, older, such as the way he carries himself, although both of them had a rather small stature. The way he talked, like to their father, as though he was his equal rather than a child. He is so eager to grow up, she thinks, and she finds herself dreaming of the days where they would hide out in the attic of their large home and pretend the dusty room was a fantasy world full of fairies and dragons, and Alec's favorite, vampires.
She turns her attention away from the frosted window and to her brother's face. "Happy eleventh birthday," she says, trying to get him to treat her as though she was his equal, and not a younger sister, when in fact she is three minutes older, according to their mother.
He turns to look at her, and then glances back to the parlor, where they can hear their mother's high laugh echo through to the living room. Golden light spills out of the room, and voices, and the clink of glasses, the talk and laughter growing with the drinks and the later hour.
"Yes, happy birthday, Jane," he says, and reaches into his pocket. "And because it is your birthday, our birthday, I've got you a gift." He pulls out a small black box and hands it to her. Never has he given her a gift before.
She takes it from him and opens it, and in the box sits a beautiful necklace, with a silver chain and a blood red ruby embedded in silver. "It's beautiful," she says. "But I haven't gotten you anything."
"That's alright," he says. "You didn't need to. Go on, put it on."
She takes the necklace out, and clasps the silver chain, feeling the cold weight of the ruby settling against her skin. "How does it look?" she asks, and he smiles.
"Wonderful," he says. "Now come along, it's not everyday the century changes," he says, sliding off the window seat.
She follows him towards the laughter. "Alec, why the necklace?" she asks in the threshold.
"Because it is our birthday, and we are going away soon," he says simply. "I wanted you to have a gift."
She ponders this for a moment, but before she can say anything, their mother throws open the parlor doors, bathing them in golden light, beaming. "Jane, Alec, there you are, dears," she says, her eyes twinkling from the champagne and candlelight, and just a touch of excitement. "Come inside, it's almost midnight."
They find seats amongst their mother's many friends, all laughing and holding perfect glasses of wine or champagne, something Jane has only tried on rare occasions.
She watches the ornate grandfather clock by the roaring fireplace, longing for her frost covered window, and the peace and quiet of the winter night. Later, she will look back on this night, and wish for the simplicity of it all, and a part of her will fall away, the part that seems so cruel and wicked, and she will wish to be the young girl that counted down to the century of her doom.
A chorus of 'Happy New Year!' rings out at midnight, and glasses are lifted and brought together in a toast to whatever the year 1900 has to bring.
Jane leans over and kisses her brother on the cheek. "Happy New Year, Alec. Thank you for the necklace."
"You're very welcome," he says, just as their mother comes over to usher them out of the room and up to bed.
Henrietta, the maid they've had since they were young, is waiting at the bottom of the large staircase for the two newly eleven-year-olds to usher them up the stairs.
"Why she lets you stay up so late for simply time passing, I don't know," Henrietta mumbles as they make their way down the quiet hallway.
"It's exciting, though, isn't it, Henrietta?" she asks. "A brand new century, no more eighteen hundred."
"It doesn't sound very promising to me," she says, opening the door to their bedroom.
That night, Jane lays in her bed, listening to Alec's soft breathing, fingering the ruby at her throat, a token she hopes to never lose.
Paris, France: March 1st, 1900
Jane
The girls dormitory of the boarding school is a confusing flash of color and laughter, and Jane sits at the window, the snow still melting in the streets, her nightgown too thin for the drafts that come through the walls, her small bed with its thin sheets nothing like her bed at home.
Her classes start the next day, and the girls already make fun of her for her broken and accented French, a language she is having to reach into the back of her memory to remember, and none of the girls speak her language, which leaves her feeling more alone than ever.
"What is your name?" asks one of the girls from behind her, in French, of course.
She turns to see a girl about her age, eleven or twelve, with dark chestnut hair and eyes the color of sweet melted chocolate. She has a gathering of freckles that run across her face, and thick eyelashes framing her eyes.
"My name is Jane," she says. "What is yours?"
She takes a seat on the window seat next to Jane. "My name is Anabel," she says, and Jane gets a rare smile, something she hasn't received since Alec's reassuring smile before they were split up into their dormitories earlier that day.
"Hello, Anabel," she says, returning the smile.
"Where are you from?" she asks, her French perfect while Jane stutters and stops, marking her as different and foreign.
"London," she says, and Anabel's eyes brighten.
"My sister lives there. She sends letters every month, describing its beauty and grandeur. I would love to go there someday, very much."
Jane had always thought Paris was much more beautiful than London, but maybe there was beauty in everything, even if she couldn't always see it.
"It is indeed very beautiful," she says, saying the curving French slowly so as the words were correct.
Anabel sits with her at breakfast the next morning in a wide dining hall, where they are still separated from the boys, so she doesn't see Alec. They eat scrambled eggs, and Parisian pastries, and sausages, as many they want to eat. Jane has eaten large meals, but none of them have been breakfast.
Their lessons begin after lunch, and she sits next to Anabel in the classroom, working on reading, writing, and arithmetic, all in French, except for when the girls do lessons to learn English and German. It is here that the language barriers fall away, and she is finally allowed to speak her language, and the words flow easily over her tongue, while the others struggle with the language.
After lessons, they are permitted to go out into the lawn, where the sunlight washes over her skin, although the March air is rather cold. This is the only time they are allowed to be in the same area as the boys, and she quickly finds Alec, a fresh bruise blossoming on his cheek.
"What happened?" she asks, running her fingers along the purple smudge. He catches her hand and shoves it away.
"Leave it be, it's alright," he says. "I made a mistake, and I paid for it."
"What mistake?" she asks, observing the other boys, all much bigger than Alec and capable of doing serious damage to him.
"It's none of your business, Jane," he says, and the look in his dark blue eyes says to not pry any further.
"I don't like it here," she says, taking a seat under a large shade tree, staring at the other children running around the lawn, laughing and talking in French, a puzzle she still has to figure out.
He sits next to her, sighing. "I don't much like it here, either," he says. "But father expects to learn so that we can grow up and be educated," he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Jane tips her head onto his shoulder. "What if we just ran away to a world where we didn't have to do things like this, where we could live forever and not worry about anything. Why can't we do that?"
He turns to her and cups her chin in one hand. "Because it isn't real, Jane," he says simply, and gets up, walking back towards the building. How very wrong he would turn out to be.
That evening is just the same as the first. The dormitory is full of talk and laughter in floating French, most of not the formal French that she learned, so she hardly understands a word. It is interesting to her how the language consists of the same letters as her own, but the arranging makes them impossible to understand. Anabel joins her again at the windowsill. Many years later, she will meet a girl that reminds her of Anabel, with chestnut hair and chocolate eyes, and a stubborn defiance to have whatever she wants, no matter what that might mean.
"Would you like to see something?" Anabel whispers to her, her eyes bright.
"What is it?" Jane asks, brushing a stray blonde curl from her face.
"Come," is all she says, lifting up the window to reveal a small metal ladder, leading up and down the stone wall of the school. The ladder if there is a fire.
Hesitant, Jane follows her out into the ladder, clinging to the ice cold metal, and begins following Anabel up the ladder. Eventually, they reach the roof of the school, and the sight is one she will never forget, even when the memory goes fuzzy and dim.
Lights spill out across the expansive city, the product of years and years of existence, like one of her mother's beautiful paintings that she has all over the household.
"Look up, Jane," says Anabel. "The real beauty is in the sky."
Jane looks up, and sees stars like no other sight. Throughout her long life, she will see better stars, but the first time one sees the stars completely unobscured is something they will always remember, and even though her fingers are going numb and her breath is coming out in slow puffs, Jane cannot draw attention from the beautiful lights.
The real beauty is truly in the sky.