The Haunting of Bella Swan
Chapter Thirty-One
"How are you alive?" Bella seethed at the imposing figure that stood in the center of the room. The same man who had taken her in after being dropped off carelessly in a trash bin stood before her, alive and well, and after believing he died years before. She stomped toward him, not getting too close and glared at him. Then suddenly, she stepped back when she realized the truth had always been there. "Oh God, you're an Immortal, too."
She started to sway, but Edward reached her before she could fall. His eyes met Jasper's concerned gaze. "We need to get something to eat before we continue."
"Sit, I'll bring you two something." Jasper turned to Charlie. "You talk and do not speak in fucking riddles as per usual."
Charlie cocked an eyebrow, his eyes a dark onyx turning cold, power emanating from his six-four frame. "You dare speak to your mentor in such a way?"
"I've seen too much and felt their pain too clearly to continue hiding the truth from them. Tell them the truth, sir."
Edward ignored the byplay between Jasper and the man Bella claimed was her adopted father in this life. It appeared he was much more than that. From what Bella told him, Charlie had died of a heart attack and remained with her as a ghost while she was sent from foster home to foster home, eventually living in an orphanage before that system came to an end. It wasn't until Charlie tried to possess a human that Bella finally forced him to crossover to the other side of the veil.
Somehow a dead man stood in Bella's living room, years later, a figure emanating a power that demanded one's attention. The gray suit he wore was tailored to perfection and likely cost more than what Edward made in a year. His dark hair matched the color of Bella's, but his eyes were a cold, bottomless black.
"Talk." The gruffness of Edward's voice was an indication of how close to the edge he was. "How are you still here?"
"He's a fucking immortal like Jasper. He can be stabbed, shot, and beaten to death, but he'll always come back and just heal." Bella crossed her arms over her chest. "That was quite a show you put on for me, Dad. How did you manage to phase if your kind supposedly doesn't have that type of power?"
Charlie cleared his throat, then looked up as if asking for guidance. "With so much age and wisdom…"
"Oh, that's rich."
Edward grabbed Bella's hand and pulled her against his side. "You are rightfully angry, baby, but we need to hear what he has to say. Time is of the essence."
Bella pursed her lips remembering they have something more important to do, unable to stop glaring at her father. "Start from the beginning."
"I had to fake the heart attack and become a ghost…"
Bella shook her head. "No, start from who and what you are. And why I'm being punished? How did Edward become a part of all this?"
"Understood, sweetheart." Charlie turned away, taking a few steps. He seemed to need a few moments to gather himself. For such a formidable-looking man, Edward was surprised by how easily he gave into Bella's demands. "As you are aware, I am an immortal like you two."
"Not like us." Edward shook his head. "You're nothing like us."
"I have an immortal body, while you two have immortal souls, which everyone does in essence, actually. The difference between the two of you and the others is that you're plagued with the inability to have a full life and are never given the choice if you want to rest eternally or reincarnate."
"People can choose?" Edward lifted his hands up when Charlie seemed willing to answer his question. "Ignore that. It's not important right now. We need the answers Bella seeks, not ones about reincarnation and the afterlife."
"All right. I suppose I should explain what it means to be an Immortal. There are always seven of us on this plane of existence. We are all members of a council that governs magical and supernatural beings. We help keep the balance between good and evil."
"But how are you Jasper's mentor, if he's also an immortal?"
Jasper entered with a tray full of food, nothing too heavy but also full of protein which Edward and Bella needed to quicken their recovery. "An immortal can choose to ascend to another plane and a human is magically chosen to become an immortal."
"You chose to be like this?" Bella looked as if she couldn't comprehend why anyone would want such a thing. After dying so many times, often horribly, Edward understood the need for peace of some kind.
Jasper snorted. "I was randomly chosen, likely for my demeanor, my family's supernatural emphatic abilities, and how I was often seen as a moderator."
"An immortal has to remain impartial, neutral. All his qualities made him the perfect candidate, but it's the magic of this world that chose him, not the council."
Bella quirked an eyebrow, her lips thinning. "In other words, he had no choice."
"No, I didn't." Jasper pushed the tray across the coffee table in front of Bella and Edward, encouraging them to eat.
"May I continue?" Charlie looked at his watch, his jaw twitching slightly. "I have little time before they find me."
"They?" Bella seemed more curious than concerned. Considering how the man was alive, did she really have anything to worry about?
"The remaining members of the council." Charlie exhaled sharply. "After an incident that we still do not understand, it was decreed that we would no longer bear children. A law enforced by magic. Yet, when I met my wife, your mother, she somehow became pregnant."
"She was human?" Bella and Edward asked at the same time, each eating, feeling ravenous after the purge.
"She believed it, I believed it, as did the council. More than a millennium had passed since the last immortal child had been born, so it shouldn't have been possible. It wasn't until the council started to threaten the life of the child that your mother's latent powers emerged, as did her lost memories. She predated even the eldest of the immortals, and what's more, the planet itself. We still don't know what she is, only that she wasn't like anything we'd ever encountered."
"The council feared what the child would become." Jasper shook his head, having not known the details surrounding Bella's birth mother. "Though I understand their reasoning, to curse an innocent child is wrong. They couldn't touch your mother with magic. And as the eldest Immortal at the time, they could do nothing to your father."
Charlie's hands tightened into fists, every frame on the wall rattled with barely contained anger. "It was the most insidious thing the council and the magic that sustains us has ever done.
"It was decreed that they'd bound your powers, force you into an endless cycle of life and death. Some council members couldn't live with the guilt and chose to ascend. Others tried to hold on for decades, but after witnessing how her soul broke more and more with every life, they couldn't handle the burden any longer and moved—"
"Where is my mother?" Bella asked suddenly, sitting up and staring at her father with an unwavering gaze. "You said 'what she is' not 'what she was."
Charlie swallowed hard. "Though watching you suffer was the greatest punishment the council could give me, they also forced your mother from this dimension."
"She's still alive?"
Bella burst into tears when her father nodded. Edward pulled her onto his lap and asked for a few moments alone with her.
The moment a reluctant Charlie and Jasper left, Edward tried his best to soothe her. "Tell me what I can do." Every wretched sob tore him apart.
She looked up at him with watery brown eyes, her bottom lip trembling as the shivers from her crying continued. "I was left in the trash can, Edward, by my birth parents in this life. What happened to them? I want to believe they probably had no choice, but for so long, I thought that it meant I wasn't wanted. I'm afraid to ask him. Make no mistake, I will one day ask what happened to them, but right now, I'm so damn angry, Edward. They chose to punish me, and for some reason, you. And for something that they had no control over."
They still didn't know how he became involved in the endless cycle, but somehow, he knew it was his choice.
Her hands bunched up his shirt, pulling him closer. Anger and determination set her features in hard angles that would scare most people away. "I'm going to find my mother and then I'll to make them pay for what they've done to us."
Edward understood why she felt that way and would follow her lead through the trying times ahead. "I will stand by your side and help you do all that, but that requires answers. We can't forget we have a son, Bella."
The hard look in her eyes softened as she repeated what he said. "We have a son."
Edward pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. "We need to see him."
Bella squeezed his waist and nodded her head against his chest. "He's a part of us."
"Let's hear what else your father has to say and then we're going to go find our son." Edward kissed her forehead. "Then we'll find a way to see this council. If a curse is given, maybe it can be taken away."
AN: You have some answers, not all of them. We'll get to those soon. Thanks to Kyla713 for your help with the chapter. Any questions or confusion, let me know, I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
