Into the Woods
By: Everleigh Allen
Chapter 10
Bella woke up with a start.
Disoriented, she looked around and saw the floor to ceiling bookshelves lined with books, cd's and dvd's. She got out of the bed and started to look through all of the books.
There were journals, hundreds of them, and Bella found herself touching them reverently, a smile teasing as she looked at the dates.
Over a hundred years of his thoughts.
Chicago, Illinois, 1918
New York, New York, 1930
Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1925
And on it went- year after year or every few, until one year caught her eye.
Forks, Washington, 1986
Bella pulled the journal from the bookcase with a smile, curious to why the man was in Forks the year that Bella was born.
December 16, 1986
I arrived just this morning with the rain at my back, barely beating the storm. The atmosphere was crisp and clean with one storm already passed and another one coming. I love such moments.
Carlisle arrived just days ago with Esme excited to get the new house ready for our arrival.
The house would be full this occasion as we had been apart far too long.
I had spent the past few years in a log cabin in the deep forests of Alaska. Just inside the Arctic Circle.
The name, Artic Circle seems so romantic, but upon my arrival, it looks just the same as everything else around it.
To say I was impressed would be an overstatement.
I was not without visitors, sadly, and although I stated on numerous occasions that I wish to be alone, the sentiment was not taken seriously.
Tanya, is ever the most persistent woman I know.
Perhaps there could have been a mutual interest there if only I couldn't read her mind.
Sadly, she has never mastered blocking me from her mind, and I hers.
Her succubus nature is not one I cherish, nor do I want to be another conquest to conquer.
December 21st 1986
Alice arrived today. Her mind is scattered and I can't help but want to run off through the forest just to get some peace of mind. Actually, I think I'll do just that.
December 24th, 1986
Christmas is when I miss my Masen family the most. It's an odd thing to say because my memories of them are vague at best. Luckily, Carlisle had the sense of mind to manage the estate and the items in it after my change so I wouldn't be without. Aunts and Uncles knew I was "sickly" but still able to handle the affairs as I deemed fit.
They have all since passed.
Many vampires choose to be nomadic, but many more vampires in this day in age are managing their human affairs easily. It their victims were alone, vampires would also take over the homes, money, identities, and other such items of their victims. I am not a fan of that practice but having the gift that I do, I don't really need to rely on those types of items for survival.
Alice is also a gracious help to our financial situations as she likes to dabble in the stock market and other financially promising endeavors. She has been known to help other vampires as well.
December 25th, 1986
Opening Christmas presents is always a fun a curious thing in the Cullen Coven. Every year we try to find obscure items for each other just to make the tedium of another holiday pass more easily.
I am, however not impressed by my gift from Alice this year.
She is ever the jokester.
In a small black box, wrapped up in a KISS action figure paper is a little note.
It is taped below:
Your mate is in gestation!
Congratulations!
I must say in all seriousness- Alice is not funny.
January 1st, 1987
Today I sat at in my meadow.
It's covered in snow, not that I feel the frigid cold.
It's a new year and with it comes the anticipation that there's a soul in creation just for me.
Much like this meadow in a few months' time- the cold with melt away and the spring grasses will stand on end reaching for the bits of sun through the trees.
A new life is stretching and moving within the womb she is warmly sheltered.
I should leave, I know this… but I can't.
She holds me here.
Its days like today, when the snow is thick and those flowers are weighed down by the frigid cold, that makes me worry.
What if I am the ice and she is the flower?
That I am an unmanageable weight on her life- her soul?
I know that my mate is human; I clearly see Alice's thoughts and I have accepted it.
But way Alice laughs when she sees something in my future irritates me.
But even more infuriating is her ability to block me when she wants to.
There is only so much of the Dirty Dancing monologue one male can take!
So, against my own will, I try to just live my mundane life, knowing she's out there being carefully created just for me- away from me.
I will just have to endure it.
As Alice says.
July 4th, 1987
One of the holidays that we can watch but not participate in is the fourth of July.
So we're all sitting with everyone else on the hard metal bleachers that border the Forks High School Football field.
I am horribly bored.
Alice is grinning like the Cheshire cat.
Jasper is glaring at me, obviously feeling my disdain for his wife and this afterlife in general.
But then, it is as if I am sitting in the middle of my meadow. The lilacs are in bloom and I can't help but breath in the most intoxicating bouquet of wildflowers.
I inhale deep.
The smell is closer and closer and when I open my eyes the venom starts to pool in my mouth.
I swallow it down and look at Alice. She motions to the side, just a couple of feet next to me.
A teenage young woman sits carefully with the help of the young man next to her.
Her blonde hair falls down her back in layers and it does nothing to hide the scowl lining her face.
But what is most intriguing is that she does nothing for me.
Her eyes are lined red and bleary, as if she's about to cry but doing her best to keep it together.
Then there is movement and my eyes travel downward to a bulbous belly.
I see the movement from within, it's as if a little hand or foot is trying to reach out to me, but cannot due to its current confines.
The woman grunts and starts to tickle at the offending appendage and the bump disappears from her skin.
I look at Alice and she winks so I look back at the blonde.
I feel a bit odd.
I didn't even realize I was holding my breath.
So imagine my surprise when I lean in and take of breath towards the girl.
Nothing.
I hear nothing from her mind.
I feel nothing towards her, either.
Which is good, because she's holding the hand of a teenage guy next to her as if her life depended on it.
Alice dropped a pen at my foot and I have to lean forward, mere inches away from her stomach and take a minute breath in.
It is the baby that smells so delicious.
I'm instantly appalled with myself.
Straightening up I pass the pen to a smirking Alice and roll my eyes.
But Alice is relentless.
She turned to the woman as if she knew her, as if they were old friends, and asks all about the baby. My attention is instantly peaked and I can't help but be grateful for every morsel of information.
She's 7 months pregnant.
It's a girl.
They're so excited, but scared to be parents.
They are in love.
Then Alice, so blazingly, asks if she could feel the belly.
Renee, her name, beams at the attention and agrees happily. Unshed tears are gone and instantly replaced with delight.
She sits back and I can't help it- I ask to feel the baby, too.
Taking one look at me, she blushes but agrees.
I gently put my hand on her belly, feeling the shock of electricity,
The baby moves and I can feel her.
She's moving all over the place in the womb and the woman laughs. The soon- to-be father doesn't seem to notice.
If I could cry, I would have.
But then she comments on how lovely and cool our hands feel on her warm stomach. The man next to her stiffens and leans forward, looking at me and Alice as our palms are stretched over the belly.
It's a warning glare.
We instantly retreat.
When we get home, I see a note that Alice left inside my room before she and Jasper left to their house.
You just felt up your mate.
And her mom.
…
"Reading those aren't good for your health," Edward scoffed as walked into the room slowly with a plate with a blueberry muffin sitting atop it. He knew Bella was going to find his journals and although she probably should have asked, he couldn't help but wonder what she must be thinking.
Bella turned to Edward, taking in his worried face and smiled, trying to calm him.
"I am almost sorry for snooping." She said with a smile, picking up the offered muffin and taking a bite.
He just smiled, "Shall I read you some of it?"
"You know I know some of the story, right?"
Edward's smile faded, "I do now, though I suspected you know certain variations of it. In Alice's mind there was something there, I'm sure."
Bella crawled into the bed, "Read to me."
He followed her, getting in the bed and lying over the covers. He opened the book and began to read.
August 15, 1987
If I would have known the way this day would irrevocably change so many futures would I- could have I- done anything different?
My heart is broken.
If vampires could cry, I would.
It took Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper to hold me back from getting in the car and following Renee Swan to New Orleans.
I had to let her go, I know that now that I'm more rational and had it not been for Alice replaying over and over little blips of the baby's life, I doubt Renee would be breathing right now.
How can I just allow a person leave with such precious cargo after the little blips of thoughts I heard? How do I know she will not harm her child just as tried to harm herself?
Do I dare ask these questions to the heavens?
Does a man like me have the right to plead a prayer?
"I was a bit dramatic, back then." He smiled ruefully.
"You had every right." Bella smiled, picking apart her muffin. "You forget I lived with her."
Edward looked around, slightly bothered, "You're getting crumbs everywhere."
"If you had a dog, they would clean it right up… shall I call Jake?" Bella asked sweetly making Edward rolled his eyes. "That's what I thought. Keep reading."
"Yes, where was I… oh, pining over the loss of my soul mate?"
"Ha Ha."
Edward read:
As soon as Alice had seen the vision of Charlie and Renee we were off running through the forest. They were miles away, on the border between the Quileute boundary and ours. They teetered on that line.
Renee was standing in the water, looking at Charlie as he skipped the flattest rocks into the water.
She was irritated, wondering if she even mattered to him.
He wasn't paying her enough attention and the deeper she went into the water the angrier she became.
It wasn't until he was running that she wanted to hurt him.
She felt so hurt by Charlie that she didn't care about anything, even herself.
Then I watched her float under the water, letting the current take her within the deepest part of the river. But it wasn't until she was next to a large bolder that she decided that life was too painful.
She didn't care if she lived or died.
There wasn't anything in her mind that I could find about the baby and her safety.
So, when she grabbed the rock and let go of the air in her lungs I saw red!
Never have I felt such rage. I bounded out of the forest and straight into the water. I grabbed her up and out of the water.
The woman was shocked. Her brain couldn't comprehend what was going on, and when she finally did, it was too late- I had her suspended by her throat.
Her fight or flight kicked in, as the body always tries to save itself when in danger and she was no different. She kicked at me.
But it was futile.
"Stop fighting me, Renee." I told her, careful not to crush her or block any airways. Her feet touched the rocks below, not that anyone else could see that.
She hissed at me. Her eyes angry and searching much like they were on the fourth of July.
I had no doubt she recognized me.
"I will not hurt you for as long as you do not harm the child within you. If the child is ever, ever subjected to such dire circumstances, ever in danger of loss of life or limb, I will hunt you down and kill you. She is mine and I will come for her someday."
I released her and she fell to the ground. Charlie stood on the shore, soaking wet and watchful. Tears lined his face as he tried to come at me, but he was too weak from the river's current.
It took everything in me to walk away from Renee that day.
I didn't know- neither did Alice that Renee would leave Charlie or that she'd end their new marriage and move across the country.
To see the man in so much pain hurts me, but even when I see him around town, he's so far inside his head, he doesn't seem to notice me.
Or Alice.
Or maybe he doesn't care.
Edward looked at Bella but her eyes were thoughtful and sad. Edward shut the journal and moved through the room silently, placing it back in its place.
"So that's my side of the story as I saw it."
"Yeah," Bella moved the blueberry muffin away from her, no longer hungry.
A/N: Don't judge Edward or Renee too harshly. There are all kinds of sides to a story. There won't be a ton of journal entries. Thanks for reading and your kind reviews.