Chapter 29

The morning of June 20th was unseasonably cool. Rain had come and gone during the night, making everything alight with little reflective orbs of dew.

It was beautiful. A gift of sorts, Bella thought, to those who would notice the exquisiteness of nature.

It was also Edward's birthday.

Footsteps, light and airy, made Bella turn her head with a smile. "Hey Alice," Bella sighed. She looked at the vampire decked out in yoga pants, fitted jacket, and matching shoes. "I didn't know that you did yoga."

"Yeah, vampires can do anything you can do… better."

"You and your song lyric answers. It's weird."

"It's not weird, it's a gift." Alice pouted and then sighed, "Makes the tedium of immortality much less boring."

Bella just shook her head and faced forward, looking into the a small entrance of the woods that she didn't remember ever seeing before. To her, it looked like the trees arched in a way that made a door and it was a bit unnerving.

Part of her was itching to get a closer look, the other half remembered that she had made a promise to both her mother and Edward that she would stay out of the woods until her mother got there.

Luckily, it wouldn't be a very long wait. Renee was already on her way.

Renee had opted for a rental car to drive herself when Bella offered up Charlie to come pick her up- much to his dismay. But Renee was adamant about being on her own, as she said she needed the time to think.

Six hours in the car to Port Angeles and back was not ideal for Bella either so it worked out well.

"So did Edward send you to babysit me while he runs off to hunt?" A chilling breeze blew by making Bella shiver. She raised her legs up to her torso and wrapped her arms around them, trying to warm herself.

"Kind of," Alice huffed as she sat down. "You know how he worries."

"Well, I am still pretty upset with you." Bella turned her head away from her friend. "Being psychic, you should have seen the outcome."

"I know and I'm sorry. I don't always see everything. There were too many choices' playing out that it was impossible to see which outcome was going to come to fruition. Besides, you can't stay mad at me, I see you forgiving me, soon."

Bella huffed in exasperation. "Excellent."

"Bella, I'm not here to beg forgiveness for our senselessness. I'm supposed to show you something."

That raised Bella's curiosity and she turned her face toward Alice. "Show me what? I really don't want to see anything like that one guy from before."

"Oh, he's totally dead and burned into little bits of fertilizing ash."

Bella sneered at the visual. "Really?"

Nodding vigorously, Alice placed her hand in Bella's and the vision poured into Bella's mind.

A man in a darkened ally stood over a woman who was lying on the ground. She was looking up at him in absolute fear. He still looked burned to Bella. She could still see a screaming female's face imbedded in the tortured flesh, but she wasn't screaming. She was watchful of the situation, her expression kind.

But then, as if she had a moment of clarity or precognition, the woman's face was suddenly bordered by her hands, pulling at the seared flesh until she could finally lift herself from his body. But then the woman became an apparition, twisting upward and away from him like a wisp of a smoke until she was completely detached from the man.

She stood next to the fearful woman with a kind smile and nodded.

The man was aloof to what was happening within the darkness of the alley. He was trying to strangle his victim. He missed her shaky movements as she reached her hand into her purse and pulled out a gun.

She aimed at shot the man right in his head.

Bella recoiled with the shot ringing in her ears and watched as the vision changed. She saw the spirit of the screaming woman float upward while the man's lifeless body fell to the ground.

The next vision was at the crematorium.

Flames licked at his flesh, his spirit screaming in pain, and feeling each injustice that he ever did to wrong another. He was finally paying for the way he treated the screaming woman, and others.

Alice released Bella's hand and everything faded away.

"So, song lyrics help my mood." Alice whispered. "Poems or clever cliché quotes from movies do, too."

"What," Bella started with a shaky voice, "did you not understand when I said that I don't want to see anything about that man? That was… crazy… intense."

"Yeah. Intense is a good word... but you get used to it. I try not to be indifferent, but after a while… it's torture seeing things that I cannot interfere with or shouldn't interfere. I sometimes see what happens when I do interfere and it isn't always pretty. Some things are best left to the fates."

Bella nodded. She knew people couldn't feel everything the saw on the news and that people's suffering sometimes lays wake in the recesses of the mind until it's them that is in the despair.

"Well, at least he's dead." Bella surmised, laying her chin on her knees.

"Bella," Alice exhaled with frustration. "That's not what I was supposed to show you but I don't really want to, but Edward says to and since it's his birthday and I can't just not do as he asks on his day… so here goes-" Alice grabbed Bella's hand so hard and held that Bella gasped and winced.

Visions seeped in twisting, as if in a vortex, completely different.

"It's a past vision first, then a future, so it could still change." Alice said as flickers of fuzzy pictures started to sharpen into comprehensible images.

It was Renee but she was so much younger than she was now. Her stomach was large and bulbous as she stood at the edge of the forest, talking in a foreign language.

Gaelic.

The words were soft as a whisper, her hands gracefully moving through the air, in a set of circular motions. It was then that Bella notice that Renee was standing within a circle of rocks or some other type of spherical things.

White clouds that were floating in the blue sky seemed to darken, blocking out the bright sun.

Light shadows over the forest floor darkened into long ominous humanoid shapes while bits of lighten infused orbs seemed to dance around Renee.

"Look familiar?" Alice asked, worriedly.

"Yeah. I've seen this before, in my dreams."

"Well, we saw this the other day when you ran away."

Bella nodded. The visions dissipated and she could see again. "What is she saying?"

"A poem of some sort; I don't speak the language, so I don't know for sure but I think it's similar to the one she gave you."

Bella frowned. Her mom was an odd one at best, but there always seemed to be so much more to her than she ever could know.

What could have Renee delved into?

"She's always been kind of unusual. Always searching for something, someone… " Bella whispered.

"She's lost, obviously." Alice said matter-of-factly,"People pick their mates because they see something they think they need in the other. Like me, I don't recall too much of my human life, but I was very alienated having a psychic gift. I had little to no love in my human life and so I have an empathetic, compassionate mate."

Bella scoffed, "Yeah, maybe, when he's not trying to eat and kill me."

"To me he's empathic, sensitive, caring to my needs and likewise… to the outside world? Nope." She giggled. "I like that about him. Anyway, look at Rosalie. She was always proper and controlled; a debutant… her mate is the opposite. He's fun, boyish charm, says the wrong things, and takes her out of her own head. But you and Edward are so closely aligned its odd. The only thing that I can think of is that he's fast and strong and immortal to your slow, weak, mortality."

"That's awesome. You have a way with compliments."

"So I'm not being very articulate." Alice huffed. "I'm trying to say that your relationship is so new it's hard to say what all the reasons are that draws you two together, but you're what Edward needs too, you know. I can see that."

Bella nodded, getting teary eyed. She wiped at her face. "So, was that what you wanted to show me?"

Alice nodded. "For now."

Bella looked into the woods, trying to see the same thing that was in the vision.

But there wasn't anything there. The woods were eerily quiet.

"I guess we just wait until Renee gets here, then."

Alice was watching Bella intently. Her eyes trying to tell Bella what her mouth couldn't. After a few odd moments, Alice gave her a slight smile.

If she could cry she would have.

"Bella," Alice said in a small voice.

"Yeah?" Bella looked away from the tree line and looked at her friends, curiously.

"Just… you know, be careful."

"What do you mean? Did you see something else?"

Alice's bit her lips shut, moving her hand away when Bella tried to grab it.

"I will tell you more when the visions align more clearly. They're, uh, wonky."

Bella watched her friend, ready to call her out on her lie but couldn't. There were tires crunching on the driveway.

"Edward's here." Alice said softly, "So is your mom… and Charlie. You really do know how to bring the drama to Forks, don't you?"

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A/N: I hope that answered more questions. The man is with the winds, so to speak. The woman that was attached to him is released and the other woman is okay.

Are you ready for Renee? She's my favorite. (Enter evil laugh here.)

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