Disclaimer: Don't own it.
A/N: This chapter is split screen.
That's a strange mistake to make
You should turn the other cheek
Living in a glass house
Life in a Glass House, Radiohead
Chapter Three
Edward Cullen was traveling on foot, flying through the forest of Forks on an unusually sunny afternoon. He hadn't been back to this place in over six decades. In fact, he had made it a point to never think about the sleepy Washington town, and had done a good job of it. Until now.
It had been five years to the day that Bella Swan was no longer alive. Being without her for 62 years, he could manage. He knew that somewhere, as he existed, she did as well. The thought comforted him, gave him solace. Even if Bella were old, wrinkled, weary, and had no hair, he would take her. But with her gone, he lost that feeling. The warmth that was once there, ever-present, had disappeared, and frozen into the perpetual numbness he had become familiar with.
Edward, he could hear Alice calling to him in her thoughts, falling behind his giant, sweeping strides through the damp brush. You need to be careful here. I can't see anything – it's not a good sign, that we're vulnerable.
Edward slowly came to a stop in front of the old white house that he and his family had once lived. It was now overgrown with plant life, windows broken, the white exterior grayed and sagging with age. A subtle wind blew through his hair as Alice came to a stop at his side, her face blank. She had seen this – this ruin. This picture of a life that once was.
She turned her head to the side, looking anywhere but at the house. "I don't even know why we're here, Edward."
"It was in the area," he said flatly, his gaze sweeping over and over every inch of the place before him.
"No, we're supposed to be in Seattle, remember?" She crossed her arms over her chest and stared Edward down. "Now I know why you brought me instead of Emmett or Carlisle. They wouldn't have let you do this."
Edward shook his head, and put on a lopsided grin. "Actually, Carlisle asked of me to do this. He's thinking of relocating back here with Esme while we're in Seattle." He walked toward the house, placed his hand on a worn wooden beam on the front porch, and felt it move underneath his grip.
Alice cocked her eyebrow at Edward, and walked slowly next to him. "And?" she asked, her tone all-knowing. Edward looked back at her wide-eyed, not doing a very good job of disguising his thoughts to her. "I may not be able to read minds," she explained, though she needn't have to, "but I know when you're up to something."
Edward let out a rush of cool air before answering her. "And, I needed to see it for myself. Carlisle knew that. I wasn't the one he wanted to come, but I asked it of him. As a favor." He looked at her, his expression guilty, then away as a rush of wind blew through the trees, and rattled the remains of their home. Edward raised his nose into the air. "Do you smell that?"
Alice shook her head, sniffing at the air. "No. Just smells dirty, like this whole town always has." She smelled again. "Probably just coming up from the ocean."
Edward moved toward the trees that lined the outside of the forest, his gaze probing into the darkness. He took in one more breath. "It just… it seems familiar." After a few moments, Edward turned his back to the forest, and took one last look up at the old house.
The warm late summer wind blew through the clearing where the house sat once more, rustling through the trees, and the expanse of brush. The smell had disappeared. Edward closed his eyes, feeling the warmth that he had forgotten, and lowered his heavy shoulders. "We can go now."
---
"Whoa," Sofie breathed, the photograph from the diary now in her hands, and five inches from her face. "Who is this?"
I grabbed it from her, seeing it for myself. "It must be…" I turned it over, "some kind of magazine clipping or something."
"No, Remy, this is real. Look at the watermark on the back."
Sure enough, there was the Kodak label, printed a thousand times over, signifying its validity. I shook my head. "Maybe there's some explanation in here… a family friend, an old boyfriend, a stranger, someone…"
"A boyfriend?" Sofie asked, her tone incredulous, and an eyebrow cocked. "Mom said grandma never dated anyone but grandpa. So that can't be it. No way. I mean, look at this guy," she held the photograph up next to her face, as if I hadn't quite looked at it yet. "He's… beautiful."
---
"Edward!" Alice hissed, creeping inches behind him, hunched over, and crawling among the tall grass that divided Forks from La Push. "Edward, we should not be here! Ever! Do you hear me?"
Edward crept closer to the boundary line, daring himself to cross.
"We still have a treaty to honor! A treaty that you were a witness to, I'd like you to remember. La Push is out of bounds." Despite what she was saying, Alice stayed right behind Edward the whole way, tiptoeing across the line with him. "Edward Cullen!" She grabbed him by the shoulder, wheeling him around to face her. "Do you know what you're doing? Any idea at all? You're putting us at risk, you're putting them at risk… you don't know if they're still out there. There could be a whole new generation of… of werepeople that we have no knowledge of…"
"There's no one, Alice." Edward said the words slowly, meaningfully. "No one. The last wolf died out with Embry Call."
"What?" Alice looked at the reservation, so miniscule, and what had once held such a very large secret. "You didn't tell me that." Edward heard Alice's mind running rampant. I thought the only wolf they had was Sam Uley.
"I didn't really know it for myself," he admitted. "I had an idea, but now it makes so much sense. Of course there would be wolves in La Push as long as we inhabited Forks, and others passed through. You can't have one without the other." Edward looked at the reservation, his eyes scanning over all of the small buildings by the sea, the winding roads covered in rock. "They must have abandoned their forms to grow old."
Alice shook her head. How do you know this?
"Carlisle passed through, almost six decades ago now. He wanted to offer his congratulations on Bella and Jacob's marriage." Alice still looked confused. "We got a save the date in the mail, probably by accident, but it was from Charlie to Carlisle and Esme. When he stopped by briefly, he noted all of the wolves. Sam Uley, Seth and Leah Clearwater, Embry Call, Quil Ateara, Jacob, all of them. It was so inconsequential to me then, but now…
"Today is the day that Bella died, five years ago." It physically hurt Edward to say those words out loud. It made them somehow truer. "Her family, they are all gathered at her home, cleaning out her things. Her daughter Naomi can't stop seeing their faces. She is remembering that Embry was the last to die, a month from today." Edward's brow puckered as he listened in to all the voices held inside the tiny house, focusing on just Naomi's. She was the Black child that was thinking the most information, going over the most painful memories. "I'm not… I don't think she knows. She hasn't mentioned anything once about werewolves."
Alice took a step toward Edward, a frown falling over her delicate face. "How can they not know, Edward?"
He held his finger up in the air, tuning in more finely to the other rooms in the house. A very distinct voice was shouting things, thinking in circles, and making new discoveries. "Bella never told them."