Bella was lost in the woods and her house burnt down. You really think that leaving has been the best thing to do? I blinked at the text being typed on Alice's tiny little phone screen. She was unaware I was here. In the spirit form I was soundless, and godly in my surveillance powers. I hadn't meant to spy, I had just been looking around the house, now able to closely inspect all the details I had ever previously missed. I was actually on my way through Alice's closet when Alice had walked in and grabbed her phone from the bedside table. She had muttered about texts from Rosalie, and that had caught my interest too. After that... well I was shocked that she was trying to text him. Trying to reach out to him, using what... sympathy? She sent the text and received no reply. She threw her phone down on the bed, exasperatedly. Jasper approached her, walking unbeknownst through me, to rest his hands on her shoulders, and massage them gently.

"You aren't going to get a response." He mumbled to her.

"I'm supposed to be the psychic here." She muttered back. "Although that's been on the fritz recently. Once an assured gift, I seem to be devolving. Where's Bella?"

"Watching Esme cook." His hands paused on her shoulders and she turned to look at him, questioningly. "I'm... I'm not sure. Something's wrong."

"What do you mean exactly?" Alice pressed, analyzing.

"Since Edward left..." A twist of emotions ran through me, and I was infinitely glad I wasn't in my actual body. I'd probably have burned down the house. "She's been..." Jasper searched for the right word. "Bipolar."

"Bipolar?" Alice asked, looking dubious.

"Yes." Jasper nodded. "Bipolar. Or something along those lines. It's like she's two separate people and I can't believe the divide is so clear."

"How do you mean?" She prompted. He breathed for a moment, searching, and then continued.

"You know that I can reach out, into this house, and tell who is where by feeling them. Esme has a different feeling to Carlisle, to you, to Bella. Well now Bella has a different feeling too."

"She did nearly die three times in a week. Her family, the people she relies most on to save her managed to let her down two of those times, and the love of her life walked out on the other one. I'm not surprised she feels different." Alice muttered, again unhappy about her lack of vision.

"No, you aren't understanding me. One part of Bella, is Bella, hyped up with uncertainty, loss, depravity, confusion, everything I expect. Even being here is unsettling to her. But the other part..." He looked down to his left, where I was assuming Renesmee was downstairs. "It feels old. Calm. Angry. Patient. Curious. Insatiable. Do you feel it?"

"Yes. Is she like that now?" Alice asked, looking at Jasper with understanding. I realised that he had been copying my emotional climates, and sharing them with Alice. She had felt what he felt from me, and from Renesmee.

"Yes. She's like that now. I've never felt anything like it. Except maybe Carlisle." He amended. Alice looked down at her phone.

"So what? Do I text him that she's had some kind of psychotic break?" She asked. Jasper smiled.

"No. It isn't that. I'm not sure what it is... but it isn't that."

I left the room at that point. What was I going to do? I could ask Renesmee to stay in spirit form while Jasper was around, but then what happened when I needed to sleep? The last thing I wanted to do was burn the Cullen household down. The days until we had our own place again were innumerable and potentially vast. Alice was going crazy with me around. As her best friend she wanted to spend time with me, but the longer she was around me, the more she looked like she needed a fix of a drug of some kind. She would get anxious, agitated, eager to leave, eager to see the future again. It had disappeared around me, and I couldn't tell her why. It made our conversations shallow, and tense. Jasper was watchful as ever, trying to understand. He - at least once - had managed to have a meeting with Carlisle about what I could possibly be suffering from. Carlisle at least seemed unchanged, but perhaps that was centuries of practice. Trying to keep Renesmee away from talking to him was like asking a frog to hold their tongue in around a fly. She itched to reminisce with someone as old as her.

My trips to Jacob were becoming more frequent, an easy time to relax and hang out. Renesmee was always enthusiastically present then. She truly loved being back on the reserve she had used to know. Often I was given a historical commentary on places Jacob took me, while he was trying to fill in whatever he could. A few weeks into that arrangement, my world shifted once more.

We were sprawled out on the giant driftwood tree at the beach, discussing someone's birthday party that would be in a few weeks. Jacob looked terrible. Although he had insisted on coming out, a fine layer of sweat was covering him. He looked simultaneously cold and hot. He would unzip and rezip his coat within minutes and he looked as though he was starting to get green with nausea.

"Jake... you look like shit. You should probably go home." I finally said, after we'd sat for a few minutes in silence.

"Yeah... probably. I know there's a stomach bug going around." He said, trying to be casual, but there was something sinister behind it. Renesmee chimed up then.

"Actually, could you ask if the stomach bug is local? Reserve-only kind of thing?" She asked me.

"Uh, I haven't heard of anything going around Forks. La Push school been hit hard huh?" I asked.

"Well Sam got it a while back, but last month both Jared and Paul got sick within days of each other."

"Okayyy... so why's that freaking you out?" I asked.

"They changed. Remember, I told you they started hanging out together, differently, looking at me strangely, like they were expecting me to be sick. Hell I'm half scared they've poisoned me, and Sam'll come rushing in with an antidote, but the catch 22 is I have to join his weird-ass gang."

"Actually he's going to be joining their gang soon enough." Renesmee piped up again, looking completely calm. "It sounds like the three boys are the start of a wolf pack. Jacob's maturing into one. Hell I think he's grown since I've met him. It's happening. He'll likely shift soon.

I stared her down, demanding an explanation, but Jacob interrupted her before she could begin again.

"Yeah alright. I'll head home."

We three walked back to Jacob's house, and from Jacob's point of view it was in concerned silence. Renesmee, however, talked the entire way. She explained about the second puberty, the maturation of the spirit warriors in her tribe, and how it was looking like he was going through the same process. She talked about the fact that there should be some kind of symbol, a necklace, talisman, or tattoo even, that distinguished the pack members from the others.

"Most of the tribe will know about them. It's a well-guarded, tribe protected secret. You pale-faces would have no clue, but the spirit warriors become a kind of living law and legend." She continued. "I can guarantee that tonight will be the last night you'll see him for about three or four days."

I gave Jacob the biggest squeezing hug I could when I left. It felt wrong, not telling him what I knew, not preparing him for what was to come. Renesmee had reiterated that it was tribe business. It fell to the pack to explain.

"Feel better, okay?" I tried not to tear up as I let go. "And call me when you can, alright?"

Bye Bells. He signed, I tried to smile at him. He looked mockingly concerned in response. "You aren't saying goodbye indefinitely. Jeez. Cheer up. I'm not about to die."

"That a promise?" I asked, trying to smile as he turned back to his house, diverging from the path I was taking to the SUV.

If he responded, I didn't hear it.