And Here's Alice!
Bella almost hit the woman in black as she turned onto her road.
It was a cloudy day, and the small woman was definitely underdressed, wearing a frilly empire waisted black dress with Regency-style puff sleeves. If it had been pink, she would have looked like a cupcake; as it was, she looked like she was going to Napoleon's funeral. Her hair was more Louise Brooks than Jane Austen - short black pixie rather than lumps of curls everywhere. She carried a matching black frilly purse and sunhat. She was as pale as the Cullens, and she was walking in the middle of the road.
"Hey!" yelled Bella as she slammed on her brakes. The whiplash from stopping so fast hurt her neck; she hoped she wouldn't have to see Dr. Cullen again so soon. The woman kept walking, though, as if she hadn't heard her. Bella turned off the engine and jumped down from her truck. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Finally the woman turned, and Bella gasped. She resembled nothing more than the vampire Bella had met in Croatia years and years ago. Except that her eyes were a bit more orange than red, but it was still the strangest color she'd ever seen on a person. If this was a person.
As if she read her mind, the woman said, "Of course. I'd hurt your car more than your car could hurt me. Didn't they tell you anything?"
"Th-they? The -" and here she swallowed and whispered -"the vampires?"
Instead of looking at Bella as if she were crazy, the woman nodded. "How many have you met? Besides Jasper, I mean."
"JASPER is a vampire? Holy crow! I - I mean - what, what the hell is going on?"
The woman sighed. "Oh, I can see you really don't know anything. Well, I can see your father won't understand, so let's go to your home before he gets back there. I'll - hide in your closet," she said, nodding. "Oh, you can call me Alice, by the way."
"Bella Swan... and how do you know Jasper?"
"Now that is a question best answered not in public," she replied, her face almost smiling. 'Almost' was the story of her face, really, as she had the deadest expression Bella had ever seen.
"Um, I guess you aren't planning on eating me, or, you'd have already done it?"
"You smell nice, but I'm trying really hard not to eat humans anymore," she said blithely, as if it was a problem everyone had, not eating humans.
Bella swallowed as she started the car. She was about to ask if that was really true, when Alice spoke. "We can live on animals, and that's what makes the eyes change towards yellow. I have no idea why human blood makes our eyes red instead, but that's what it does."
Drive. Keep driving, you're almost home. "So Edward and Jasper are vampires who live on animals instead of humans?"
"Oh, you're right, they are! Did Demetri tell you about witches?"
"Uh, yeah, I think he said he was one, and I was one, and my power was to block his."
"You actually block lots of stuff, but not mine," she said casually. "I can see the future, but not always that clearly. It helps if you're firm in your decisions."
"Oh. You can see the future. Is uh, is that why you were walking in the middle of the road?"
"In that road, yeah. I walk most places though. Like I said, cars can't hurt me, so whatever. I'm not suicidal."
Bella swallowed her words, as she had been just about to ask. "And you wanted to meet me because..."
"Honestly I'm a little worried," she said in a soft voice that didn't sound worried at all. "I mean, logically I know Jasper and I will get along sometime, but when he disappeared I got pretty freaked."
"He disappeared? You mean when he went to Alaska?"
"No, before that. I saw him in Alaska just fine, and that was reassuring. On some levels," she said in a voice with more sarcasm than anything else she'd yet said.
Bella decided she didn't want to know what Jasper was doing in Alaska. "But you've never met him?"
"Nope! Just seen him in visions since I became a vampire."
They turned into the Swan's driveway. "OK, so you were human once."
"I was, but my memory only starts after I was a vampire. One of the first visions I had was Jasper's face."
"Could you see the future before?"
"They said I could," she said in the flattest tone Bella had yet heard her use. "I don't remember anything, like I said."
"And they turned you into a vampire?"
"Right."
Bella led her up to the bedroom. "So, yeah, I guess you'll know before I do if my dad's coming up here. Feel free to read or play on the internet while I do homework or uh, eat." She shuddered. "I am kind of not ok with the whole killing people thing."
"Believe me, neither am I. Humans just taste a lot better, like, um... chocolate versus broccoli?"
Bella laughed out of sheer reflex. "OK, ok. I guess I can't really do anything to help you. I'm still uh, kinda stuck on the Edward is a vampire thing."
"Oh?"
"Well, he told me a bunch of stuff that can't be true if he's a vampire... that was once a human... and oh Jesus, all the Cullens are vampires too, aren't they?"
"Uh, I believe so, yes. Carlisle and Emmett and Rosalie? Definitely."
Bella felt boneless as she collapsed onto her bed. "My doctor is a vampire! Oh my God, oh my God!"
"The Cullens were all turned by Carlisle, and I think Edward too?"
"Yeah, that's basically what he said, in way that a liar would!" She hugged a pillow to her face.
"That's weird. I mean, he told Jasper he was going to tell you, or have Jasper tell you, I don't know why he wouldn't just say it."
"I don't know either! I thought he was just being a cute guy interested in me! But no, he's a vampire and who the heck knows why he was talking to me! He probably wants to eat me!"
Alice actually frowned. "Well, I kinda want to eat you, but I'm not going to. English doesn't have the best words to describe desire vs. wants, though. Like, again, you desire chocolate, but for dinner you probably want calves brains or something. Right?"
"Uh, not precisely, but something savory, sure. So, Edward kinda wants to eat me, but he would prefer not to chow down on people, is that what you mean?"
"Yeah, that about sums it up."
"So he was just being a guy chatting up a girl?"
"It's possible."
Bella moaned into her pillow. She wasn't quite sure what was worse, Edward being a cute guy chatting her up, or Edward being a vampire wanting to eat her.
