Welcome, welcome to all of you wonderful readers that have decided to come on this ride with me. Many thanks to Diane Tant Daniel for recommending TDP and to archy12 for passing the info on to me! And huge hugs to my friend Rita01tx, who was gracious enough to feature The Devil's Plan on her blog, Rob Attack. If you haven't already, I highly recommend you check out her Friday Features. She recs the BEST stuff!

Much love to my team; Sazzledazzled, Edwardsfirskiss and 2brown-eyes for lending their talents and time to this cause.

SM owns Twilight. No copyright infringement is intended.


The Devil's Plan

Chapter 14

Knowledge Gained

Father and daughter remained tightly embraced for several minutes before Charlie shifted them to sit comfortably on the couch. They sat side by side Charlie's arm was wrapped tightly around his daughter as she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Bella, I'm afraid that I haven't always been the best father." Charlie smiled appreciatively at his daughter's head-shaking denial. "Thank you, baby but I'm afraid that I allowed my need to move forward, my need to forget your mother to cloud my judgement. You deserve to know where you come from. Unfortunately, what I know of your mother's history isn't much but I can tell you what I know."

Bella didn't know where to start but in spite of the words that had haunted her all night, she now felt that the beginning was a good place.

"Tell me about her." She whispered.

"You have to understand that there's a lot I don't know. Your mom didn't know a lot of her own history and honestly we were so young when we fell in love there weren't a lot of long conversations." Charlie cringed a bit when he admitted that piece of information. While he and Renee had, in most people's eyes acted recklessly when they had gotten married right after graduation and then had Bella a little over a year later, Charlie had felt there was no point in waiting. He'd known Renee was the one for him and that was it. However, now he understood his parents' concerns and didn't want his daughter to act on impulse as he had. He wanted her to go to college, meet some people have some fun and then settle down.

"What was she like?" Bella asked, avoiding the whole teen parent conversation.

"She was beautiful. Her eyes never stopped moving. It was as if she were afraid to fix on one thing because she'd miss another. She was always seeing something I wasn't. Like a batch of honeysuckle in a meadow full of flowers. She would seek out that tiny patch and pay no attention to the larger, more colorful flora. Your mom could see beauty within beauty." Charlie chuckled at the memory. "She was so graceful. I would watch her walk across a room and feel as if I were watching a ballet. Every move she made had a purpose and a quiet grace. Renee loved music. She couldn't sing a note, but that didn't stop her from trying. She used to sing to you all the time, you never complained." Bella smiled into her father's shirt. Lack of musical ability was something she shared with her mom.

"She was always full of energy, always trying to touch, see, and experience everything. I think the fact that her parents died young made her try to do everything at once. And then when she discovered that so many had shared their fate, she was even worse."

"Wait. I thought it was just her parents that died young?" Bella asked as Charlie's stomach grumbled loudly, reminding them that breakfast needed to happen soon.

"Why don't we move to the kitchen? I could use breakfast." Bella agreed, and they moved into the kitchen.

After a hearty bowl of oatmeal with raisins, complete with coffee for Charlie and a mug of hot cocoa for Bella, their conversation resumed.

"You already know that you grandparents died when your mom was twelve years old." Bella nodded. "Well, they were in their mid- thirties when they died and both of them had lost their parents at a young age too. In fact, it's kind of a curse both families share."

"You mean your family…?"

"Yes." He nodded, solemnly while wiping coffee droplets off his beard.

Bella wracked her brain trying to remember anything her grandparents had revealed about their parents. She could recall bits and pieces but none of them added up to knowing that they had all died young.

"How? How did they all die?" Charlie put his mug down and slowly rubbed his forehead. Bella watched the familiar wrinkles appear on her father's forehead. She recognized them as the ones that routinely showed up when she asked a question that he didn't particularly want to answer. "Dad." She persisted, urging him to continue. She needed him to fill in the gaps. Now more than ever.

"You have to remember that at that time society didn't care as much about safety as it does now. Seat belts, fire alarms, fire exits, even hand rails in public buildings are relatively new in the grand scheme of things. My first car didn't even have air bags. Just remember that and don't read too much in to it." He paused and took a drink of his coffee before continuing. "One set of grandparents died in a plane crash, the other in a train derailment. My great-grandparents Swan were killed in a hotel fire and my great-grandparents White were killed in a home robbery."

Bella absorbed this information for a moment before asking. "Why didn't I know this?"

"Honey, it's not a great history. My parents didn't discuss it. I think they were worried that if they dwelled on it, then they might forget to live their lives and instead constantly worry about what might be around the corner. So, they did what they wanted, and we didn't dwell on it."

"You do that." Bella said, her voice low with concern. Charlie's eyebrows cocked questioningly. "I mean, you're a cop for coconut's sake. If you worried about this curse thing, you'd be a shoe salesmen or something and grandpa was a volunteer fireman. Both of you picked dangerous jobs."

"I can't say that I never thought about the fates of my ancestors, but my mom and dad never let it direct their choices. And I guess neither did I." He looked into the depths of his empty coffee cup, as the memories of his parents invaded his thoughts.

"It stopped with them right? I mean grandpa got sick when he was in his late sixties and grandma was older when she died." Bella's voice held a slight edge of panic.

"If you want to believe that there is some kind of curse then, yeah, my parents were the first to have died of a disease or old age in a really long time. "

Bella's head was swimming with this knowledge. What it all had to do with the horrendous events of last night, she wasn't sure but she felt there was more she needed to know.

Charlie looked at his daughter. Her usual bright and cheerful brown eyes looked dark and sad. He hated the dark circles that marred her beautiful face and the lines that pulled at the corners of her usually smiling face. As a father it hurt him to see her in so much pain. He wished there was something he could say to take all of the hurt away.

"There's more isn't there?" Her father nodded, solemnly. Bella sat still in her seat and tried to recall all that she knew about both families. "Did they all die with only having one child?"

"Yes."

"I guess that explains why I don't have any cousins." Bella had often lamented over her lack of cousins but she hadn't realized the extent of the situation. Even though having children was far, far down on her agenda she still wanted them.

"But grandma and grandpa didn't die young. Why didn't they have more children?"

"Mom was diagnosed with severe endometriosis after I was born. She had a hysterectomy when I was eight years old. She couldn't have more children."

"And mom's mom died before she could have more children?" Charlie's face grew slack and his eyes dipped down to the table top. His moustache twitched nervously as he prepared to answer.

"That's a sad story, and something your mom had only recently discovered before she left. Your grandmother had been pregnant with a son when she died. He would have been the first, second child born to either of our families in a very long time."

"Mom would have had a brother. I would have had an uncle." Bella sat quietly, trying to absorb the information. She found herself wanting to cry tears over the family member she and her mother had lost.

"Yes, when she found out, she was heartbroken." Charlie looked away as his guilt over what he perceived as his part in Renee's leaving spread over his entire being.

"Dad, why did she leave?" Here it was, Charlie thought. This was the question he'd been dreading.

"Baby, that's a question I wish I had a clear answer for. I know pieces of the puzzle but I've never been able to put them all together in order to give you a full answer. But let me promise you, that your mother loved you and whatever it was that drove her to leave, it had nothing to do with you." Bella nodded slowly as tears began to form in her eyes. Charlie reached over and covered her hand with his. "Are you sure you want to know all of this?"

"Daddy, how can I not?" Her voice creaked with emotion as her eyes beseeched him for the truth.

"I think your mother left because of me." Charlie's shoulders slumped, all the air left his lungs as he began his tale. "We'd been fighting. It was stupid. So stupid." Tears began to fall from the strong man's eyes. His pain was as evident as his daughter's.

"What did you fight about?" The last thing Bella wanted to do was see her father hurt. He had given her an amazing life. She grew up knowing she was loved and cherished, but the time had come for her to know the whole story.

"Just dumb and meaningless stuff, if I had known how strongly she felt…Maybe I could have chosen different words or let it go. I don't know." Guilt wracked his body as he began to shake.

"Dad, please. Tell me." Bella's steady hand on his arm broke through his grief.

Charlie wiped his tears, smiling at his amazing daughter. "She'd found a book, I guess most people would consider it a family bible. You know, those books where it lists the births, marriages and deaths of the family members?" Bella nodded quickly. She'd heard of them but had never seen one. "The thing must have been packed away in Theresa's things. You probably don't remember her. She died when you were a baby."

"She's the person who took mom in when her parents died?"

"Yes. She was your grandmother's childhood friend. Everyone referred to her as a cousin, it was just easier to explain. Anyway, when she died, her partner Carrie, shipped your mother a box full of her old belongings. Clothes, records, a couple of books…Renee didn't really mess with them much. Taking care of a very active and inquisitive toddler took up a lot of her time." He smiled to himself, lost in the thought of baby Bella.

"When she finally got around to going through the box, she found it. And she became obsessed. I understood, up to a point. We were both missing pieces of our family history. But her obsession quickly became out of hand and then she started coming up with these ridiculous theories about why everyone had died young and why they only had one child. She began researching the occult and The Devil. Your mom had been brought up Catholic when she lived in Italy but Theresa, for obvious reasons, didn't push her to continue when she moved here. But all of a sudden your mother couldn't get enough information about religion. She started taking you to the local Catholic Church, insisting that you be baptized because she was convinced something was after you. I fought for your right to choose for yourself when you got older but she was sure it was the only way to keep you safe. That's another thing we left unresolved." He added, sadly.

"We'd never been too religious, and after grandma died I didn't even make you go to Sunday school anymore. I've always believed that spirituality came from within, not from a room full of people singing songs. I think I pulled away even more from all of that because of how your mother had acted." He paused and looked earnestly into his daughter's eyes. "I hope I made the right decision." Bella frowned. "I mean, not having you baptized. Was that the right thing for you?

Bella was frustrated for a moment at how off track the conversation had gotten. What did it matter if she were baptized or not? She believed in Christ as her savior but did she need to have water dripped over her head to prove it? "Dad, it's fine. Don't worry." She tried to put him at ease and for a moment, Charlie looked slightly relieved.

"Okay. Your mom, was consumed with keeping you safe from this perceived danger. She researched every religious text the Forks and Port Angeles library had. We fought constantly about it. Every day there was a new theory until…" Charlie paused, lost in his thoughts.

"Until what?" Bella pressed.

"Until right before she left." Charlie sighed heavily before continuing. His dark eyes looking anywhere but the face of his daughter. "She told me she'd figured it out. We fought about it. We were young, and I was a hot headed young man. I wanted my wife's priority to be me and our child. Not some ridiculous theory about the Devil and ancient fates or some nonsense. But she wouldn't let it go, she insisted we pack up and go to Italy. She threatened to take you by herself if I wouldn't go. She wanted to investigate her parent's deaths, the deaths of their parents…She insisted that their deaths weren't accidents. She had a hair brained idea that they had been murdered." Bella gasped. Her hand coming up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened.

"Murdered?" She whispered shakily. Bella was lost. It was one thing to know that your family had a history of dying young in tragic accidents. But it was quite another to think they may not have been accidents.

"Why…What made her think that?"

"She found passages, more like foot notes in that stupid book that she believed pointed to them all dying for a specific reason."

Bella almost didn't want to ask what that reason was. "What was the reason?"

Charlie's shoulders slumped with the weight of what he was about to say. "She believed that they all died so they wouldn't have more children. That some-outside force was acting to make sure that she was the last of that line."

"But you had me. So I'm the last?"

"Yes. You're the last of both the White-Swan and Nero-Cygnus lines." Bella pondered what her father had just said. She knew her mother's maiden name. But had never given it much thought except that she thought it was cool being part Italian, but for some reason she suddenly felt that it was imperative she knew what it meant.

"What does Cygnus mean?"

"It um, it means Swan."

Bella's mouth fell open in surprise. "You mean I'm the progeny of a White-Swan and a Black-Swan?" Bella asked incredulously. While it wasn't entirely unheard of two unrelated people with the same last name to marry. It sure wasn't common and the fact that her family had such a strange history was stating to cause her to wonder at the coincidence and the whole thing was making her feel uneasy.

"Your mother used to say that it was destiny that we found each other." Charlie chuckled darkly, making Bella think that he was definitely not a believer. But like her mother, she felt that the coincidence was just a little too coincidental.

Way too coincidental.

"And you think that she left in search of answers? Once she found or didn't find what she was looking for, why didn't she come back?"

"That's what I've been trying to figure out all these years."

"Did you look in Italy?"

"Bella, believe me. I used every tool available. I searched for her all over America and even though at the time she left, her passport had expired, I still searched in Europe. No one has ever reported seeing any sign of her."

"Then how can you be so sure that what grandma said isn't true? How can you say she isn't dead?!" Bella asked in a high pitched and almost frantic tone. Bella bringing up the absurd thought his dead mother had spoken to her through a game woke Charlie from his depressed stupor.

As a police officer, Charlie had been trained to read a person's body language. His daughter was becoming hysterical. "Stop!" He ordered, grabbing her shaking hands in both of his. They were cold, indicative of someone who was in the throes of an anxiety attack. "You have to calm down." He ordered sternly as her breathing accelerated.

"This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. You have to listen to me." He gently, but firmly took Bella by the shoulders and forced to look at him. He hated the blank look in her big brown eyes.

"She packed a bag and dropped you off at grandma's house. Her car was seen heading south out of town. There's no evidence of an accident or abduction. She ran away. That's it. And when I get my hands on whichever of those little bastards made you believe that grandma was talking to you…Baby, it was a joke. Nothing but a cruel joke. I promise." As Bella absorbed the facts her body began to calm, but her mind still raced with everything she'd learned.

"Dad…" Bella pleaded, before collapsing in her father's arms. Her mind and body were exhausted. She felt like one of Charlie's boats bobbing in the waves. She was untethered and didn't know which direction to turn.

"I know baby. I know." Charlie whispered into her hair, rocking her gently side to side. "It's hard. We're okay. You're okay." He promised, attempting to soothe his frantic child.

Charlie lost track of how long they'd been embracing. He'd only noticed, with relief, that her breathing had normalized and that her loud sobbing had ceased.

"Sweetheart?" He pulled back gently to look into her tear stained face. "Are you alright?"

Bella nodded, wiping the remnants of her latest crying episode from her still wet cheeks. Bella wasn't a crier. But today she felt as though her body had emptied itself of every drop of moisture it contained. Her hands felt dry, and she was getting a killer headache.

"I need a drink." She offered embarrassed by her scratchy voice. Charlie reluctantly let go of her and watched as she stood at the sink drinking glass after glass of water. After slaking her thirst, she brought him a glass and resumed her seat. Charlie thankfully drank the liquid and watched his girl. She'd grown very calm, which was a decidedly better state than before, but the way she looked caused him some concern. The only word that came to mind to describe the way his daughter looked was, hollow.

"Honey, why don't you go upstairs and take a nap?" He didn't know if all of her questions had been answered but he feared for her health if they continued.

"Okay." She agreed in a quiet voice and sad eyes. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and began walking out of the room towards the stairs. Charlie rubbed a hand across his weary face, thinking he might take a nap himself, when she turned back towards him.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"Do you still have that book?"


Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Are you still with me? I hope so. Things are just about to get good!

As always, thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I appreciate your support!

Have a fun and safe week.

ruinedbyrob