The Whispering Woods
Chapter Four
Edward drove past the girl's house twice, noticing her car in the driveway. On the second pass, a neighbor came out the front door of his house and glared from the porch. The man had to be over seventy, with wispy white hair, and a permanent scowl on his face.
He decided not to stop because something told him the girl wasn't there anyway. A part of him also told him he shouldn't go out of his way to meet this girl if her father really did kill her mother.
Esme Cullen had been his mother's best friend and had taken Edward in when he had no relatives to claim him ten years earlier. Grateful wasn't enough to express how he felt about Esme and Carlisle Cullen.
He needed answers.
He couldn't ignore his dreams.
He couldn't ignore the whispers coming from the woods.
.
.
.
Bella panted and had to come to a stop at the edge of a cliff. She almost had gone over, would've plunged down to the river below if it hadn't been for her backpack getting caught in a tree root. She swore the marked trail she'd been on changed right in front of her. One second, several yards lay ahead, then they disappeared, the ground under her feet with it.
There was a twinge of pain again on her side. She'd been lucky, but she hadn't been able to stop from going down the steep incline. She grabbed a carabiner from her harness and hooked it and the attached rope around the base of a good-sized tree.
She sat her ass down on the dark soil that surrounded her. For such rich looking earth, not much grew in the area. Her throat ached, only soothed after a few mouthfuls of cool water from one of her bottles.
Her lucky pack wasn't any worse for wear; she, on the other hand, would not walk away without a few scratches or a hundred. Once she got back home, she'd have to check some of the deeper ones.
If she got back home.
She looked toward where she'd been standing before the earth moved and figured it was almost four hundred feet. She'd somehow managed to stay on her feet and not break an ankle, almost if she had floated down.
How the hell was she going to get back up there? A quick test indicated she'd keep slipping down; there weren't a lot of places to latch rope to either. A trickle of fear danced down her spine, spidery fingers lingering on her neck, her head lolling to the side.
Darkness closing in on the fringes of her vision, whispering calling her into the dark.
.
.
.
"Bella!"
She startled at the unexpected sound then stilled, wondering when the hell the woods decided to yell at her. In the past, they only whispered, sometimes sang haunting laments, but never a terror-filled scream of her name.
The voice was definitely male. Had her father found her? She didn't think so.
How long had she been out there? She left around eight in the morning. It was tough to see how dark it was out, due to the thick canopy overhead. She pulled out her watch and groaned.
It was almost ten at night. She lost time again.
"I'm down here! Watch your st—"
Another scream tore through the air, she watched with growing horror as someone tumbled down the hill.
Right. Toward. Her.
"Fucking hell," she screamed. She jumped onto the moving body as it passed her rolling toward the edge.
Taking her with him.
AN: Thanks to MC. This was supposed two different chapters, but I thought a cliffhanger would be perfect here. *cackles evilly* See you all Tuesday.