Chapter 5

I woke up in the morning feeling refreshed, weirdly. Yesterday had been such a shit show of a day, I felt like this day could only go up.

That is, I felt like it could only go up until I glanced at the wall clock and saw that it was 10:35am and normally I would be in Trig right now, and the realization that I was most likely legally dead by this point and probably couldn't go back to school came rushing back.

I fought the urge to pull the covers up over my head and spend the whole day crying, and got up. Stumbling over the clothes I'd dropped on the floor the night before, I made my way over to Bella's desk and stared at my reflection in the mirror. It was the first time I'd looked at myself since I'd died, and I wasn't sure what to expect. After all, the first time I died (and what a fucking trip that I'd died twice in two weeks) my reflection had been a shock - tan and blonde haired and grey eyed turning to pale skin with deep brown hair and eyes. But this time I looked exactly the same as I'd looked since waking up as Bella, and I definitely didn't look like I'd been in a deadly car crash just a day ago.

I dressed quickly in a black tank top and jeans and pulled my hair into a ponytail before wandering out into the hallway. I could hear puttering sounds in the kitchen, and figured that Charlie must be taking the day off from work, which definitely made sense given that everyone thought his daughter had died yesterday.

I slunk down the stairs and headed into the kitchen, trying to get ready to face the day.

"Bella!" Charlie said, whirling around when I entered the kitchen. He was holding a spatula, standing over something on the stove that was smoking suspiciously.

"There's coffee on the table, and I was trying to make eggs…" he trailed off ruefully, glancing back at the smoky mess behind him.

I smiled, feeling touched that he would do this for me even as I knew that of course he would try and do something nice for his recently risen from the dead daughter.

"Thanks," I said, sitting down at the table and pouring a cup of coffee. "But would you maybe want to do something else for breakfast?"

Charlie sank into a chair of his own, seeming thankful to be relieved of breakfast duty. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, but before I could respond he continued. "There aren't really any places we can go in town. Everyone still thinks you're dead."

I had thought about that a little, and maybe I watched too many cop shows, but I thought I had a way around that. "Well," I started, "I was thinking about that, and I was thinking that maybe you and Dr. Cullen could do a little cover-up? Maybe?"

As loath as I was to accept any help from the Cullens after the shit Edward had pulled last night, I was definitely not ready to be a dead girl, and the best way I could think of was to have the Chief of Police and the Chief of the Hospital get together to say that surprise! She wasn't actually dead!

Charlie frowned.

"He probably has some experience with covering up suspicious circumstances, what with the whole vampire thing!"

Charlie's frown deepened and I shut my mouth.

"We're not moving on from you knowing about vampires and not saying anything to me, but I suppose you're right," he hedged. "The Cullens have never done anything to me, or you, apparently, and Carlisle may have some more ideas than I do about how to explain your mysterious recovery."

He took a sip from his coffee mug and added "Now Bels, I don't want to freak you out, but vampires aren't the only supernatural creatures that exist."

Oh, so this was the werewolf conversation. Actually, now that I thought about it, it does make sense that Charlie would know about vampires and werewolves. Not only was he best friends with Billy Black, but I think at this point the Quileute boys were starting to turn because of the Cullens, and there might even have been "animal attacks" in the area that were actually vampires by this point, but to be honest, I couldn't really remember everything from the books and when it happened. Basically, my point is, of course Billy told Charlie about vampires and werewolves.

"So, not sure if you noticed, but I did die and come back to life yesterday, so I don't think werewolves are really the freaking out point for me right now," I said ruefully, trying to go for humor because the alternative was wide-eyed disbelief in werewolves and honestly I am not that good of an actor.

"Bella, please, don't joke about that," Charlie said sharply, his eyes going haunted, and I immediately felt guilty, because of course he wouldn't want me to joke about dying. He recovered quickly though, because his eyes narrowed and he said "Wait where did you hear about werewolves? Did the Cullens tell you?"

"Uh… yes," I said, definitely not convincingly, but what was I going to do, bring up the whole "You're a book character and I, a real person, have taken your daughter's place after my untimely, also car-accident-related death" thing again? Yeah, I don't think so.

Charlie didn't seem to notice any weirdness on my part though, because he just muttered "Figures," while stroking his mustache.

"Do you think Billy might know something about what's going on with me?" I asked, hesitantly. It wasn't really my favorite thing Stephenie Meyer had done, taking an existing Native American tribe and turning them into supernatural creatures, but I guess if the vampires didn't know what was going on with me, the Quileute were my next best bet.

"I don't know," Charlie sighed, and, apparently having given up on his attempts at breakfast, toppled the mess of eggs into the trash can. "But we're certainly not going to get any breakfast here or anywhere else in town. Let me call Billy and see if he's free today. Go get your coat."

I slid out of my seat and ran back upstairs to my room to grab my jacket and boots, but stopped just short of my door when I saw who was already there.

Emmett was lounging on my bed, an old teddy bear held between his hands as he made it wave at me.

"What are you doing here?" I hissed, quickly closing the door.

"Bella Watch," he shrugged, not at all apologetic. "Alice has been keeping an eye out, making sure that you're alright, and about ten minutes ago you disappeared. They all figure I'm the one you're least likely to flip out on for some reason so I'm just here to make sure you're not dead."

He smiled big enough that I almost forgot to be mad at the Cullens for continuing to interfere with my life. Almost.

I rolled my eyes so hard I wouldn't have been surprised if they got stuck that way, and said "Yeah, I'm going to see Billy Black. Something's going on, and I'm going to find out what it is."

Then Emmett's words caught up to me. "Wait, you mean Alice stopped being able to see me because I decided to go to the rez? Does that mean that some of them are already turning?"

Emmett shrugged again, tossing the bear up and down in the air. "Beats me, but if Alice can't see something the answer is usually death or wolves."

"Okay, whatever," I said, grabbing my things and putting my hand on the doorknob. "Now you know where I'm going, so you can let the rest of the stalkers know. Please feel free to not come visit when Alice loses me again."

Emmett cracked another smile and swung himself off my bed, way too gracefully for someone as bulky as he was. "You got it, sister!" he said, sketching out a sloppy salute before wandering over to my window. I didn't bother watching him leave, just slipped down the stairs to where I could hear the low murmur of Charlie's voice as he spoke to Billy.

The drive over to the reservation was quiet. I couldn't speak for Charlie, but I was lost in my own thoughts. Not to be too introspective or anything, but I wasn't really sure that Billy would have the answers I was looking for. I know Stephenie Meyer had written the Quileute to be a mystic Indian stereotype, which was its own can of worms that I was not equipped to deal with, thank you very much, but also, this wasn't something that had ever happened in Twilight, so how would someone, even the someone who should have the most knowledge in-universe, be able to explain what had happened to me.

Also, I didn't even think I could tell the whole story to Billy because that would mean telling Charlie that, oh yeah, I wasn't Bella and his daughter was dead and we all know how well that turned out last time.

I was going over scenario after scenario of how this whole thing could go when Charlie pulled the cruiser to a halt in front of the small ranch with red siding that belonged to the Black family. Billy was already sitting outside on the small porch, wheelchair poised at the top of the ramp, and as Charlie and I got out of the car he wheeled over to meet us.

"Hello Bella," Billy said quietly, once he was in front of us. He seemed to be looking me over more carefully than was polite, but I guess curiosity was only natural when dealing with someone who was dead less than 24 hours ago. And, if Charlie's initial reaction was any indication, Billy was probably checking me over to make sure I wasn't actually a vampire.

"Charlie told me you were alive, but I didn't quite believe it until now," he added, interrupting my train of thought. "I'm not sure how much use I can be, but you're welcome to come inside for some breakfast. Jacob finally learned how to make eggs," and even though Billy had turned around by this point, I could hear the familial love in his voice as he mentioned his son.

His son, who was one of the main love interests of this person that I wasn't. Great. Super. Nothing could go wrong here! I could feel myself getting manic, but I tramped down the urge to let out a hysterical laugh and followed Billy and Charlie into the house.

The house opened into a living room with light brown carpets, a big green couch, and lots of room to maneuver. I could hear sounds from the back of the house that I assumed was the kitchen, and I trailed after Billy and Charlie into the farmhouse looking kitchen, where Jacob was standing at the stove, dumping eggs onto a big plate.

"Hi Mr. Swan, Bella!" he said excitedly, and I was struck by how young he was. I guess I knew intellectually that Jacob was two years younger than Bella, than me, which would make him a freshman, either fourteen or fifteen. But it was another knowing that and seeing that. Jacob looked like a kid. He was tall, for sure, towering over Charlie, but he was lean - no, even more than that he was gangly, and his hair, still long, fell down to his mid-back with the top layers pulled up in a knot to keep away from his face.

My point was that it was hard for me to see him as a potential love interest, especially when he was waving me over to one of the mismatched wooden chairs and placing a plate of eggs and toast in front of me.

Once Billy and Charlie were similarly served and all four of us were sitting down at the table, Billy looked at me expectantly and said "Why don't you start at the beginning."

With all eyes on me I could feel myself start to get nervous, and I held my orange juice glass in both hands to give them something to do other than shake, feeling the cold wetness creep in.

Obviously the real beginning - the car crash in D.C. with Debbie and Kenneth - was off limits, so I started instead with yesterday morning, and the van coming out of nowhere to hit me. I described the feeling of pain, even though I couldn't actually remember the sensation anymore. Apparently that's a psychological thing, maybe to protect us or something, but humans can only remember that they were in pain, not what it felt like. So fun fact I guess. I hesitated a bit before launching into the explanation of waking up in the morgue with Edward, and I did not miss the way all three men's eyes tightened when I described how he took me back to the Cullens' house even though I didn't want to go. Even Jacob, who knew intellectually that the Cullen's were vampires even if he hadn't experienced them or becoming a werewolf yet, seemed to darken a bit when I mentioned them. I finished my tale with how Alice drove me home and how Charlie confronted me on the steps.

After I was done talking, I took a long sip of orange juice so that I didn't have to look at anyone's faces. We sat in silence for a few minutes, Billy contemplating my story and the rest of us waiting for his answer.

Finally he let out a breath and scrubbed at his eyes with his hands. "It's great that you're not dead and you're not a vampire and the treaty isn't broken, but I don't know what to tell you. Our tribe is familiar with vampires and shapeshifters and that's it. That's not to say that there is no other magic in this world, of course, but I don't know what's going on with you."

And I had known going in that this would be a long shot, especially since I couldn't bring myself to describe what had really happened to me, from the beginning, but I still couldn't help the pit that formed in the pit of my stomach at the thought of not getting any answers here either.

Charlie, who had been shoveling breakfast in as quick as he could, took a big gulp of orange juice and said "That's alright. Thanks anyway, Billy."

Jacob walked us out of the house back to Charlie's cruiser, but before we got to the car he said "Actually, Mr. Swan, do you mind if I talk to Bella for a few minutes?"

Charlie shrugged and slung himself into the driver's seat while I followed Jacob a few feet away to the side of the garage.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I think I might know someone who can help you, actually," Jacob said cautiously.

"Really? Who?" It's not that I was suspicious, it's just that Billy had been my last shot. Other than him and Carlisle, I didn't really know of anyone else in this universe who would even know about the supernatural in the first place.

"Do you remember my older sisters?"

I nodded.

"Well, Rebecca's always been really into magic and the supernatural and stuff, and when she moved to Hawaii she told me she found a coven."

"Like, of witches?" I could feel my heart beating a little faster as I started to get excited. Rebecca and witches hadn't factored into the books at all, but honestly, what did I know at this point? Bella hadn't gotten hit by a car and Charlie hadn't known about vampires and werewolves in the books either.

"Yeah. She doesn't really talk to my dad anymore, so I didn't want to say anything inside, but she can do magic and stuff. Not a lot, she says she doesn't have enough juice for the big stuff, but she knows someone who can bring people back from the dead."

As fast as my heart had been beating before, I think it stopped right there in my chest as I tried to process what Jacob was saying.

"You mean, you can do that?" I said, breathless.

He nodded solemnly. "I didn't really believe it before, I thought the Cold Ones were the only way to come back to life, but if you really died and got up again, maybe it is true. Anyway, I texted her about it and she says you can call her and ask. Here's her number."

My hands shook as I took out my phone and put Rebecca's contact info into it.

"I hope you can figure out what's happening," Jacob said, before giving me an awkward smile and a hug, and walking back inside.

I slowly made my way back to the car and sunk into the front seat as Charlie pulled away from the Black house and started to drive home.

As Charlie drove us out of the reservation, I was lost in my own thoughts on what I would say when I called Rebecca. I was jolted out of my thoughts when Charlie swore and stomped on the brakes, swerving the car a little to avoid hitting someone standing in the middle of the road.

I blinked, but, no, what I thought I was seeing was what I was actually seeing. Edward was standing in the middle of the road, face stricken with what could only be grief. Glancing to the other side of the road, I could see Alice standing silently next to Edward's Volvo.

Charlie yanked on the parking brake and practically kicked his way out of the cruiser, leaving the door hanging open as he marched up to Edward. I scrambled out after him, wondering what the hell Edward could want now, especially after Alice had given me her word (although on second thought, it's not like I knew any of them well enough to believe that her word was any good) that there would be no more kidnapping attempts.

When I caught up to the scene in the middle of the road, Charlie was giving Edward a very stern Dad/Chief of Police lecture about the dangers of darting out into the middle of the road in front of oncoming traffic.

I noticed that Charlie was absolutely treating Edward like he was a fragile and human 17-year-old boy, instead of the indestructible vampire he knew he actually was, and I wondered how much Charlie knew about the rules governing humans who knew about vampires, or if he had just decided it would be easier if the Cullens didn't realize he knew about the supernatural world.

As soon as he caught sight of me though, Edward had clearly stopped listening to Charlie, because he enveloped me in his arms, apparently ignoring the way I stiffened in them as he said "Bella, thank god! Alice saw you disappear after you drove onto the reservation. We had to be sure you were alright!"

I was still trying to subtly extricate myself from Edward's stony embrace, when Charlie said, frostier than I'd ever heard him before, "What do you mean, Alice saw Bella disappear?"

Edward immediately tensed around me, carefully letting me go and turning back to Charlie slowly. He and Alice exchanged a meaningful look and I internally rolled my eyes. Alice was probably watching the future and telling him what to say, and I couldn't believe how blind I'd been to the fact that they relied on their powers this much. I mean, seeing me disappear caused a full blown panic? I knew it was most likely due to the first of the boys shifting, although this did seem a lot earlier for this to be happening than I was expecting, and I get that Alice probably wouldn't know what had caused it, but she hadn't seen me die, and even if she had, she knew that I didn't stay dead, so anyway in conclusion I was just really pissed off at the vampires' dramatics, that's all.

"No, Edward just meant that she didn't respond to my last text. After the car accident we've just been so worried. When she didn't text back right away we might have overreacted." Alice piped up, eyes wide and looking every inch the innocent ingenue.

I scoffed internally as Edward nodded in agreement.

Charlie's posture did not relax at all but he did turn to look at me and said, with a greater deal of emphasis than I thought was strictly necessary, "Well, of course that makes sense. I'm so glad Bella has such wonderful friends to look out for her."

Frankly, I don't know what Charlie was doing, but if he'd made it who knows how long without being killed or turned he probably knew a thing or two, so I played along.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry I didn't text back. We were having breakfast with Billy and Jacob Black and I got distracted. But I'm totally okay, see?"

The vampires nodded, Edward's slow and measured and Alice's bouncy and guileless.

"Well, we better be going," Charlie said with a pointed look at me. "Bella is still pretty fragile."

While I wasn't sure how I felt about everyone was acting like I'd been in a small fender instead of a fatal collision, it certainly made it easier to pretend everything was normal, so I gave Alice and Edward a small smile (more like a grimace) and quickly got back in the car, hearing the tale end of Charlie's parting warning for Edward to stay out of the road.

Back in the car, Charlie and I continued down the road that would take us back to Forks. As we drove away, I could see Alice and Edward still standing by the roadside, watching us leave.

Back at the house, Charlie gave me a hug that melted my insides and settled down on the couch with a beer to watch the game. While he might not have been the perfect father, his uncanny ability to be there when I needed him and to leave me alone when I needed was perfect for me.

I made some tea in the kitchen and curled up in the window seat, steaming mug in one hand, cell phone in the other, Rebecca's contact information pulled up.

In the end I couldn't make myself call her, so I sent a text.

hi rebecca this is bella. jacob said you might know what happened to me. spark notes i got hit by a car yesterday and i was dead and now im not. thx

Almost immediately the screen lit up with an incoming call from Rebecca's number. My heart started pounding in my chest as I tentatively hit the answer button and brought the phone up to my ear.

"Hello?" I said, and almost didn't recognize my voice, it sounded so scared.

"Hi, Bella?" said a rich, feminine voice. "This is Rebecca. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'll do my best to help."

"Okay," I said in a small voice.

"This is going to sound strange, but I know a woman who can bring people back from the dead. But it's a really involved ritual that usually takes a month and it needs to be completed during a new moon."

"But I died yesterday morning and was back in less than 24 hours."

"And yesterday was the full moon, not the new moon," Rebecca said.

I sighed. It had been a long shot after all, since there was a little bit more going on with me than just dying, but I decided that if I was going to get any answers I needed to trust someone, and why shouldn't that someone be Rebecca?

I peered around the corner to make sure Charlie was still focused on the game before I ran upstairs to my bedroom to get some privacy.

"What about if I didn't just die?" I asked. "What if something else happened?"

"I don't know," Rebecca sounded confused. "Tell me what happened and I'll see if I know anything."

I took a deep breath, and launched into my story.

"I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it," I said. "Last Monday I was in a car with my foster mom and brother, and it was icy, and we skidded and went over the bridge. But I didn't drown. I woke up in Chief Swan's car. And for the last week I've just been living this stranger's life. And at first I thought, you know, okay this is fine. I'm still me, just in a different body. So I went to school and went home and did my homework and all that normal high school stuff. But then yesterday I got to school and I heard this screeching noise and when I looked up a car was coming at me, and it hit me and it was so painful, and then I think I died because the next thing I knew it was late at night and I was waking up in the morgue, but I was still in this body and this life, not my real life. And then today we went to the rez to ask your dad if he knew anything, but he didn't, but Jacob said you might because you're a witch, and so I texted you and now we're talking and um… yeah. Do you know what's going on?"

I heard Rebecca blow out a big breath on the other end of the phone and there was a long pause where neither of us said anything. Finally, Rebecca said "You're not Bella Swan?"

"No." I hesitated, before I decided to forge ahead anyway. "And I don't exist in this world. So I don't know what happened to Bella but she's not here anymore."

"Hmm," Rebecca said musingly. "Possession of the living by the dead is a common concept in many cultures. My husband is Samoan and they call it Ma'i Aitu, and Catholics believe in demoniacal possessions. Not that you're a demon! Just that, it's a thing. I don't know. I need to talk to my coven about it."

"Do you know why I can't die?" I asked hesitantly.

"I'm not sure," she said apologetically. "I mean one possibility is that you already died once so for whatever reason that was it. Can I call you back when I know more?"

"Yeah," I said. I didn't want to let on that I was dejected by her not knowing much, but at the same time I didn't think it was really fair to be putting all this on her either. And it wasn't like I had been totally honest. There's a lot of room for misinterpretation when what I said was "I'm not Bella," and what I meant was "This is all a book what the fuck is happening to me?"

"Okay," Rebecca said.

"Thank you for helping me! You don't have to do this," I said, belatedly realizing my manners.

"Don't even worry about it. Anything for one of Jakie's friends." I swallowed a lump in my throat because that was the problem. I wasn't Jake's friend. I didn't know anything about him other than what was written into a stupid book about a teenager who falls in love with a vampire. Before I could say anything else (not that I knew what else to say) Rebecca hung up.

I sat on my bed staring out into the gray mid-afternoon light. I didn't know what to do. I'd thought that I would have a starting point when I got here, even if it was some half-remembered plot points from a series I'd read in middle school, but now?

I didn't want anything to do with Edward or the rest of the Cullens, Jacob was nice but so obviously a kid that I didn't feel like I had anything in common with him, I didn't even have any of Bella's human friends to lean on because they all thought I was dead, and I didn't even know what was going on with the whole "dead-but-not-really" thing I had going on.

If I didn't want to sit in my room decomposing until Rebecca Black called me back, there was really only one thing I could do, and that was to call Carlisle Cullen and ask for his help in un-faking my death.

AN: Ma'i Aitu is a real phenomenon in Samoan culture, it literally means "spirit sickness" and the most common form it takes is the possession of young women, especially virgins. In canon Rebecca's husband is Samoan so I thought it would make sense that this would be a concept she's familiar with. In many Native American cultures (though I couldn't find anything about Quileute legends specifically) there is the concept of shamanism, where the shaman invites a spirit to enter their body to provide knowledge, but I don't think that Rebecca would connect this idea to Bella's "possession."

Here's a couple scholarly articles if you want to know more, and also if the way I wrote this concept into the story is offensive in any way please let me know! I'm not Samoan or Native American so I don't want to speak over anyone or provide false information!

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