The Whispering Woods

Chapter Eight

Bella closed the kitchen's back door as soft as possible. She tiptoed across the cheap linoleum and looked in the fridge for a drink. There was a desperate need to quench her thirst and to feed the gnawing in her stomach. She hadn't eaten in hours, apparently. Her phone was toast; it wouldn't even charge in her car. Her car was another issue altogether. She had left it at home, yet, she woke up in it at trail's entrance. That had never happened before, ever. Who drove and left it there at the exact time she needed it?

She checked the microwave clock and frowned. What it said made no sense. When she checked her phone earlier in the forest when she heard the voice call out to her, she swore it had been almost ten at night. Yet, the display on the clock said it was only a little bit past eight o'clock.

Did she lose time yet gained some of it back? What the hell happened out there?

She checked her father's schedule posted on the fridge; he wouldn't be home for another hour. Enough time for her to clean up and make something easy for them to eat.

Then she'd ask about her beloved aunt Esme, whom she was made to believe wanted nothing to do with her.

When had she adopted a child? Bella remembered very little about the woman other than not being able to have children of her own, but she did know her mom had a falling out with her aunt and Esme left without a goodbye and on Bella's birthday, too.

Every time she had asked about her, her mom would freeze up and refused to discuss her big sister. After her mom disappeared, her aunt had returned long enough to accuse her father of murder and didn't bother to see Bella, at all.

She had to stay away from that boy, even if the whispering woods echoed his name in her ear. Ignoring the whispers wasn't easy, but she had done so for years, since before the woods had taken her mother from her.

She'd been three years old when the whispers started.

.

.

.

"Where have you been?" Esme said from the kitchen the second Edward walked into the house. "You said you'd only be an hour. It's been two."

Only two? Edward had been sure it had much more than that.

"Drove around for a while, got a lay of the land." He grabbed a drink from the fridge; thirst burned his throat since he left Bella behind.

"Oh." Concern pinched Esme's features. "Well, your dinner is cold, but I can warm it up for you." Her caramel hair looked slightly unkempt and Edward had to wonder just how worried she'd been. She was usually all polish and shine, every hair in place.

"Yeah, please." He sat at the kitchen island, feeling out of place for some reason. Though, he often felt that way since Esme and Carlisle had taken him in. He still struggled to call her mom, even to himself, despite being in their care for years. "Can I help?"

Esme waved a dainty hand at him and shook her head. "Meet anybody while you were out?"

He wanted answers. If Esme really believed Charlie had killed her sister, what the fuck were they doing at the source of that pain?

"Yeah, a girl." He smirked, remembering the kiss Bella had blown at him after she left him in the dust on the road. The memory of the shock on her face when he left her in those creepy woods made him grimace. He fucking left her, after losing time.

Fuck, he had to check on her, pass by her house. Make sure her car was in the driveway...What the fuck?

"Where do you think you're going?" Esme stormed toward him, grabbing his dangling keys from his hand. "You just got back, eat." She pushed him back in the chair. "Now, tell me about this girl." She slipped his keys into the pocket of her apron, patting them. "Well?"

Anger coursed through him; he hated when she did shit like that. "Her name is Bella. You probably know her, considering she's the niece you abandoned."

AN: Thanks to MC. Edward doesn't like to be told what to do. Esme has her reasons to be so protective, it'll be a while before those answers come up. See you on Tuesday. For anyone willing to buy me a coffee so I can write more often at a local cafe, I'll be posting links to Venmo, and Ko-fi on my Twitter profile and can be found on my Facebook page in the About section, or you can send or Starbucks e-gift to my email ericastwilight at gmail dot com. THANK YOU!