A/N:

Finally another chapter for you guys!

I am not going to make excuses. This story is somewhat difficult for me to write. Maybe it's because I love it so much myself and I really want it to come out good, or maybe it's something else. I don't know.

Anyway, if you are the sort of person who hates waiting for updates, I do recommend that you only put this story on alert, but wait until it's finished to read. As much as I love getting feedback from you in real time, I am also realistic enough to know that I can't keep roping you in with promises of more regular updates when I know that's not true.

This story won't ever have a regular updating schedule, but as I have stated in my profile, I always, ALWAYS, finish my stories. It might take time, but I never abandon a story, so don't you worry about that ;-)

Title: The Undecided

Author: MarieCarro

Beta Reader: SarcasticBimbo

Genre: Supernatural/Drama

Pairing: Bella/Edward

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Bella thought she knew what her life looked like. It was normal teenage angst and high school boredom. However, one night proves her very wrong and she realizes everyone has been lying through their teeth. Bella isn't normal. Bella is a Witch. And she has a very important choice to make. B/E, Mature Content, AU/A(H)

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter Word Count: 3, 583

{Chapter 20}

I sealed the lock of the wooden case where I would be keeping a few prepared potions and ingredients Edward and I might need while we traveled, and also attached the sheath of one of my daggers to my belt.

Both of us wanted to travel as light as possible, so I only had two of the most necessary spell-books in my backpack, and one change of clothes. Since we'd move around mostly rural areas, we would also have to sleep out in the open, an aspect I wasn't looking forward to, but it couldn't be helped.

I had known it wouldn't be possible to live in five-star-hotels either because there was no way of knowing how long we'd be gone for. At least it was better I had Edward with me than being on my own. We'd be able to keep each other warm as December was approaching.

The door to my bedroom opened and Edward came inside. He was dressed like a backpacker in jeans and with sturdy boots on his feet. It was somewhat strange to see him in such gear because he always looked dressed up, no matter what he wore. This was the first time he truly looked casual for as long as I had known him.

"Are you ready?" he asked me and eyed my backpack. His own was slung over one shoulder.

I nodded. "Just about." I placed my dagger in the sheath. "I can't help but be nervous."

Edward dropped his backpack and came up to me. "We've talked about this, Angel. It's okay to be nervous. We are heading out to the unknown." He put his arms around me and I relaxed in his embrace. "I will be with you the entire time, but I don't want you to feel too safe because of that. You perform your greatest magic under pressure, so try to trust your abilities and instincts."

I let out a small, incredulous laugh. "It's easy to tell you I will while we're here, but out there, I can't make any guarantees." I turned my head his way. "What if you get hurt because I freeze up?"

"You know I can take care of myself," he said with an amused smile. "And besides, it's a risk I'm willing to take." He softly kissed my lips. "You're fulfilling your prophecy. You're meant to do this. Never forget that."

"As if I ever could," I mumbled to myself. "I know I've already said it, but thank you for coming with me."

He smiled at me. "I wouldn't even dream of staying behind."

We remained in our embrace, but then I saw a glint reflecting off Edward's hand and I shifted to see what had caused it. It turned out to be a golden ring with intricate carvings on it in an ancient language I knew was extinct today.

"What's that?" I asked and brought his hand up to get a better look at the ring.

"It's a Peregrinatio ring," Edward answered, and as I was now quite well-versed in Latin, I immediately knew what the name was translated to, but I still didn't know what exactly it was.

"What's a travel ring? I've never heard of it before." I traced the ring with my index finger.

"They're not used much anymore. This one belonged to my great-grandfather, Anthony Masen. It works sort of like a compass. It senses the desire of the bearer and directs them toward their goal. Since we have no idea where these rouges are, I thought it could aid us."

I was in awe of the object. "Yeah, it will definitely be handy." I removed my eyes from the ring and entwined our hands instead so we could go downstairs together.

In the hall, we were met with Renee who was holding a plastic tube with a shoulder harness on it. "I have faith in you, Bella," she said earnestly. "I know you'll be fine on this journey, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared for everything that might happen." She handed me the tube and unscrewed the top. "Some of those you'll meet out there put a lot of weight on your ancestral line, and they might ask questions to verify you as you." She pulled out a large scroll of paper which she unrolled.

I inhaled sharply at the sight of my family tree, branched out from both my mom and dad and dated back all the way to the early 18th century. "Whoa. How come I haven't seen this before?"

"I always intended to show it to you, but with everything happening around the prophecies, it slipped my mind," Renee explained and then pointed at a name at the very top. "Isabella Amos-Ewing is the ancestor you're named after, and the last half-mortal Witch in your mother's bloodline."

I took a closer look at the dates underneath her name. "She was very young when she died," I stated in whispered words, but the other two still heard me.

"Yes." Renee nodded with a solemn expression. "Unfortunately, Isabella was burned at the stake before her daughter turned five. Her husband, Cyrus Ewing, never re-married."

"What does Absconsus mean?" I asked while pointing at the word underneath Sarah Ewing's name; Isabella's daughter.

"It means unknown," Edward answered instead of Renee. "It's often written out on family trees when a person, in this case, the father of Sarah's daughter, wasn't ever mentioned in any documents. According to this, Sarah was fourteen when her daughter was born, and even though having children at an early age wasn't uncommon back then, my guess is either Sarah had an illicit affair with an already married man, or Elizabeth was conceived under much more sinister circumstances."

"Such as?"

"Rape," Edward replied brashly. "It wouldn't be particularly surprising if that's the case. After Isabella was burned, the Ewing family was dishonored, and no one would have wanted to take Sarah as a bride. For men back then, that made her fair game."

I narrowed my eyes in anger. "Barbarians." After taking an even closer look at the dates beneath my ancestors' names caused me to frown. While my father's side looked as normal as I would expect, my mother's side confused me. "How come every man on my mother's side always died one year before their wives?"

Both Edward and Renee appeared confused for a moment as they checked to see if what I'd said was true, and when also they noticed the peculiar pattern, they exchanged a speculative look.

"This looks like—"

"Yeah, it does."

"What?" I asked. "What does it look like?"

Renee hesitated to tell me as she always did when it was something particularly bad, but Edward did no such thing.

"A blood curse," he said. "Passed down from generation to generation, and it appears to have started with Sarah or Elizabeth." He made a small incredulous sound. "I'm surprised I didn't know this before. Dad must have known since he intended to marry Marie."

I stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. "What are you saying? I'm carrying a curse in my blood? Are you going to die just because you're with me?" My voice rose an octave with every panicked question, and I had already half-way convinced myself to break up with Edward just to keep him safe when he grabbed my shoulders.

"Calm down, Angel," he said with a reassuring smile. "We don't know for certain it's a blood curse. We're only guessing. And even if it is, your father didn't die a year before your mother so it might be broken already. Don't just assume anything before you have answers."

"Then how am I supposed to get answers?" His words hadn't calmed me down a whole lot and I was still freaking out. "I would never be able to live with myself if you die just because you're with me."

He sighed. "You know that is already a possibility, even without the curse. Your position in the community guarantees that."

"What?" I blinked, not really comprehending what he was telling me.

He shrugged as if it was nothing. "Being the partner of a leader isn't risk-free. Other Witches might try to harm me just to get to you. I was aware of that when I chose you over my dad."

I suddenly felt as if I was being swallowed whole by a bottomless pit. How could I have overlooked that detail? How could I have missed that I was endangering the love of my life? And why didn't I care enough about that to leave him?

There was no doubt in my mind that I loved him more than anything else, and I didn't want bad stuff to happen to him, but a huge part of me still wanted to stick by his side despite it all. If it put him in danger, I'd still have him with me until that moment.

"I know what you're thinking," he said in a very collected tone, and I met his gaze with uncertainty. "You want to protect me, but your desire to stay with me is too strong." I gaped at him, amazed he'd gotten it so right. "Am I wrong?"

"No." I shook my head. "How did you know?"

"Because I've felt the same ever since I realized I was falling in love with you," he replied and forced me to release my family tree with one hand so he could hold on to it. "From that moment, I fought with myself because I knew I was only following my dad's orders. Yet I was too selfish to let you go and stop trying to sway your choice in our favor. Being with you felt too right, and I wanted to keep you with me for my own sake more than my coven's. So I continued with the charade even though it was anything but by then."

"You've never told me this," I said, somewhat in awe of him.

"I thought it was a given that was the reason," he said. "But that's how I know what you're thinking, and I hope I only have to tell you this once; if you're afraid of being selfish by being with me, go ahead and be the most selfish person in the world. I don't care if that puts me in danger because it's worth it, and I'm afraid neither of one us have a choice either."

"What do you mean?"

Without another word, he rolled out my family tree again and directed my eyes toward the end of it where my own name was written, and underneath that, his was also adorning the document. Branching out from him, even some of his own ancestral line was present next to my own.

"What—"

"Every magical family tree writes itself, and with every addition to a family, it grows longer." His voice was softer than I'd it heard in a long time, and it caused warm tingles in my body, all the way out to my fingertips. "The fact that my name has been added to yours even though we're not married means you and I were predestined. I'm afraid you're stuck with me."

The bottomless pit disappeared from underneath my feet, and the ground had never been more solid. The fact that I finally had a truly stable foundation to stand on, knowing that Edward and I were simply meant to be gave me a sense of clarity I hadn't had before. I had to get closer to him and I promptly gave back my family tree to Renee so that I could wound my arm around his waist, and he pressed me as tightly against his chest as I was holding on to him.

"How fortunate I don't mind that at all, then," I said into the fabric of his shirt.

We held each other for a moment, and then when we parted, Renee stepped back into the conversation. "There is someone you could seek out to gain the answers about this supposed blood curse if you still want to."

I turned to her and was just about to ask who when Edward protested.

"I'd rather not. I've dealt with him before. He's not to be trusted."

"I agree with you," Renee said. "But he's the only one still alive."

It was frustrating that the two continued to speak about things I didn't understand. I felt left out, and I didn't enjoy having to ask them to clarify over and over again. "Could you stop doing that?" I asked. "I'd appreciate being included in conversations where I should have a say in the matter." Edward sighed and then threw his hands out in frustration, but this time, I wasn't having it. "Stop that. You need to accept that you can't protect me all the time, just I like I can't protect you. I need to know what you know to make an informed decision, don't I?"

He refused to say anything, and Renee took over.

"As you know from your studies, there is a certain kind of Witch who has control over the dead."

I nodded. "Yeah, Necromancers. But as I understood, there aren't many of them left."

"There aren't, but one remains here in America."

"Okay." I didn't really know why she was bringing the whereabouts of this Necromancer up because I couldn't understand how he could help me get answers about my ancestors' supposed blood curse. "How is he supposed to help?"

Edward stroke my upper arms with his knuckles. "Necromancers can do so much more than to create glorified zombies of dead people," he said, but it was clear he still didn't like this idea. "They can tap into the minds and memories of people long gone through their direct bloodline. In this case, he could find the origin of the blood curse, if there is one, through you."

"And I'm guessing from your tone that you don't want me to do that."

"Only because I know what it takes. You'd be effectively unconscious, vulnerable and defenseless. He'd be able to hurt you before I could intervene."

I thought about it for a moment, and while I didn't like to go against Edward's wishes in this since I knew it would cause him stress, I couldn't come up with an alternative. Still, I turned to Renee first. "Is there another way for me to find answers?"

"Could be, but a much more time-consuming one, and it still wouldn't guarantee answers like this one."

"What does it entitle?"

"Going through every book and document where your family is mentioned. The difficult part is we don't know if the origin is from the descendants of Isabella or from one of those married into the family. It would, essentially, take a lifetime to find answers that way."

I rubbed my forehead with the tips of my fingers. "Meaning: it takes time we don't have." I turned back to Edward and his back was stiff, but still resigned. He knew what I was going to say. "I need these answers before we can start searching for the rogues, and you know I do. I wish there was another way, but evidently, there are none. We have to go to the Necromancer first."

He clenched his jaw, very clearly displeased with the situation. "I know you're right, but it doesn't mean I like it."

"I don't either, but we don't have a choice." I rolled up my family tree and placed it back into the tube it was in, and then put it on so that the harness was diagonal across my chest. Then I glanced at the ring on Edward's hand. "Do you think that ring can take us to the Necromancer?"

"I know it can," he said with a strained voice. "As I said, I've dealt with him before. I hope our last encounter is fresh enough in his mind to keep him on his toes." He held out his hand for me to hold. "Hold on tight, and don't let go."

I did as he said, and almost immediately, the room around us started to melt away. It was as if the walls and interior, and even Renee, had been liquified, and the way it swayed and moved around us made me feel somewhat nauseous. A part of me wanted to let go of Edward's hand to place it over my mouth in case I would vomit, but almost as if he'd read my mind, he tightened his hold on my fingers and pulled me even closer to his side.

"We're almost there," he whispered in my ear, and I held on to that promise and hoping with everything in me that I would be able to keep my breakfast down.

Then, as if we suddenly landed on our feet after stepping off a cliff, everything around us solidified again. Gravel crunched under my shoes, and I looked down to see that we were standing on a rough stone floor. The walls around us were also of stone, smooth, but not polished.

There was no external light, but I was glad that it didn't feel particularly cave-like either. In fact, it felt more like a bunker.

We had obviously arrived, but Edward held on to my hand as we started forward. As we walked around a corner, we entered a chamber where a man was seemingly meditating in the middle of a candle-lit circle.

The man didn't look like I had expected. As one of the few living Necromancers left, I'd assumed he would be old, but he didn't look much older than Edward. He appeared tall and statuesque where he sat cross-legged with an impossibly straight back, and he had dark blond hair reaching below his shoulder blades gathered in a ponytail.

Edward made the move to approach him, but I held him back with the use of our still-connected hands.

"Do you really think we should interrupt him?" I asked, but before Edward could answer, the man in front of us did.

"Don't worry yourself, Isabella Alistair, descendant of Isabella Amos. Few things in this world have the ability to interrupt me." His voice was warm and soothing, but I was still suspicious.

"How did you know it was me and who I descend from?" I asked as harshly as I could.

"Apart from the fact that you and you're family history is very well-known, I make it my business to know such things," he answered before he stood up to face us with impressive grace. The eyes meeting mine were of a dark hazel-green color, and it felt as if he was looking right into my soul.

"Take it easy, there," Edward warned him when our eye-contact had lasted longer than was normal with a stranger.

"Ah, Edward Masen. Long time, no see," the man said with a somewhat sarcastic smile.

"Exactly the way I prefer it," Edward replied with a sneer, and I really started to wonder what kind of history the two men had with each other. I'd have to ask Edward about it after we were done here.

"So you said last time." The man turned away from Edward as if he couldn't be bothered with him anymore and gave all his attention back to me. "So, Isabella, tell me what I can do for our young leader today." He held out his hands in a welcoming manner, and even though I didn't feel intimidated by the man before us even in the slightest, Edward's posture told me I needed to be cautious.

I mustered up all my courage and took a determined step forward. "I need answers I can only find in my family's past. I hear you can help me with that."

There was an excited glint lighting up the man's eyes, and his entire being suddenly showed a lot more interest than it had the second before. "How delightful. I always enjoy diving into new families. What exactly is it you want to know and how far back do I have to take you?"

"I need to know if there's a blood curse in my family line, and I don't know the exact date except that it most likely started in-between 1745 and 1820."

The man hummed. "That's a large a time-span to search through. Lucky for you, I know which two people in your ancestry who were alive at that time. Sarah Ewing and her daughter Elizabeth, correct?"

I was shocked he just knew that without even having to think. "How did you know that?"

He smirked. "As I said, I make it my business to know. However, before I help with this, I need to know that you are prepared for what you might find. The descendants of Isabella Amos didn't always live happy lives."

"I already guessed as much," I told him. "I wouldn't have become who I am unless that was the case. But I still need answers."

With a gesture of his hand, he showed me a stone slab in a nook of the chamber, and with a nod of his head, he prompted me to approach it and lay down.

A/N:

I had a certain Twilight character in mind when I described the Necromancer. Can you guess which one? ;-) I have a feeling many of you will actually get it wrong ;'D

And how excited are you over the next chapter when you'll get to read some of Bella's family history?

I also wanted to share the news with you that this story went through to Round 2 in TFFA's category Favorite Undiscovered Gem! I feel so much love from you guys, and I hope you'll want to continue to vote for this despite the slow updates.

Love you guys so much!

Until next time,

Stay Awesome!