As always i am a twilight disclaimer :(

Dancing on the Air

Chapter 1

June 2001

She kept staring straight ahead as the knuckle of land, bumpy and green with distance, began revealing its secrets. the lighthouse, of course. what was an offshore New England without its stalwart spear? this one, pure and dazzling white, rose on a craggy cliff. just as it should, Bella thought.

there was a stone house near it, in the fog-gray in the sharp summer sunlight, with peaked roofs and gables and what she hoped was a widows walk circling the top story.

She'd seen paintings of the light of the Sisters and the house that stood strong and firm beside it. it was the one she'd seen in the little shop on the mainland, the one that had sent her impulsively to the car ferry.

she'd been following impulse and instinct for six months, just two months after her meticulous and hardworked plan had freed her.

Every moment of those two first months had been terror. then gradually that terror eased to anxiety, and a different kind of fear, almost like a hunger, that she would lose what she had found again.

She had died, so she could live.

Now she was tired of running, of hiding , of losing herself in crowded cities. she wanted a home. wasn't that what she'd always wanted? A home, roots, family and friends. the familiar friends that never judged too harshly.

Maybe she would find some part of that here, on this spit of land cradled by the sea. surely she could get no farther from Los Angeles than this pretty little island - not unless she left the country all together. if she couldn't find work on the island, she could still take a few days there. a kind of vacation from flight, she decided. she would enjoy the rocky beaches, the little village, she would climb the rocky beaches and roam the thick wedge of forest.

she'd learned how to celebrate and cherish every moment of being. it was something she would never, ever forget again.

Delighted with the scatter of clapboard cottages tucked back from the dock, she leaned on the rail of the ferry, let the wind blow through her hair. it was back to its natural dark mahogany brown. when she'd run she'd hacked half of it off, gleefully snipping off most of the long tumbling curls, then dying it bright blonde. over the past months, she'd changed the colour periodically; bright red, coal black, a soft sable blonde. she kept it mid-length and very straight.

It said something didn't it, that she'd finally been able to let it be. something about reclaiming herself, she thought.

Jacob had liked it long, with a riot of curls. at times he had dragged her by it, across the floor, down the stairs. using it like chains.

No, she thought she would never wear it long again.

A shudder ran through her, and she glanced swiftly back over her shoulder, scanning the cars, the people. her mouth went dry, her throat went hot as she searched for a tall, slim man with black hair and eyes as brown and as hard as glass.

He wasn't there of course, he was three thousand miles away. she was dead to him. hadn't he told her a hundred times that the only way she would be free from him would be in death?

Isabella Black had died so Bella Swan could live.

Furious for herself for going back, bella tried to calm herself. she breathed in slowly. salt air, water. freedom.

As her shoulders relaxed again, a tentative smile played across her mouth. she stayed at the rail, a small woman with mid length mahogany hair that danced cheerfully round her delicate face. her mouth, unpainted and soft, curved up and teased out the hint of dimples in her cheeks. pleasure brought s rosy glow to her skin.

she wore no makeup, another deliberate act. there was a part of her that was still hiding, still hunted, and she did whatever she could do to pass unnoticed.

Once she had been considered a beauty, and had groomed herself accordingly. She'd dressedas she'd been told to dress, wearing sleek, sexy, sophisicated clothes selected by a manwho claimed to love herabove all things. she'd known the feel of silk against her skin, what it was to casually clasp diamondsaround her throat. Isabella Black had known all the priviledges of great wealth.

And for the last three years had lived in fear and misery. Bella simply wore a white cotton shirt over faded jeans. her feet comfortable in cheap white sneakers. Her only jewelry was an antique locket that had been her mothers.

Somethings were too precious to leave behind.

As the ferry slowed to dock, she walked back to her car. she would arrive on Three Sisters with one small bag of belongings, a rusted secondhand buick and $208 to her name. she couldn't have been happier.

Nothing she thought as she parked near the dock and began to wander on foot, could have been farther from the pleasure palaces of Beverly Hills. And nothing, she realised, had ever called to more truly to her soul thab this little postcard village. Houses and shopswere both tidy and prim with their colours faded by the sea salt and sun. Cobblestone streets were curvy and whistle-clean as they climbed the hilly terrain or arrowed back to the docks.

Gardens were lovingly tended, as if weeds were illegal. dogs barked behind picket fences and children rode bikes of cherry red and electric blue.

The docks themselves were a study in industry. boats and nets and ruddy-cheeked men in tall rubber boots. she could smell fish and sweat.

She hiked up the hill from the docks and turned to look back. From there she could seethe tour boats plugging along in the bay, and the little sickle slash of sand beach where people spread out ont towels or bobbed in the energetic surf. a little red tram with white letters that read THREE SISTERS TOURS was rapidly filling up with day-trippers and their cameras.

Fishing and tourism, she supposed, were what kept the island afloat. but that was economics. it stood against sea, storms, and time, surviving and flourishing at its own pace. that, she thought, was courage.

It had taken her too long to find her own.

High street speared across the hill. shops and restaurants lined it. One of the restaurants should be her first stop, she thought. It was possible she could hook a job as a waitress or short-order cook, at least for the summer season. If she could find work, she could hunt up a room. She could stay.

In a few months, people would know her. They'd wave as she walked by, or call out her name. She was so tired of being a stranger, of having no one to talk to. No one who cared.

She stopped to studythe hotel. Unlike the other buildings it was stone instead of wood. Its three stories with elaborate gingerbread, iron balconies, and peaked roofs were undeniably romantic. the name suited it, she decided. The Magick Inn.

It was a good bet that she'd find work there. Waitressing in the dining room, or part of the house keeping staff. A job was the first order of business.

But she couldn't make herself go inside, deal with it. She wanted time first, a little time before she settled down to the practical.

Flighty Jacob would have said. You're much too flighty and foolish for your own good, Isabella. Thank god you have me to take care of you.

Because his voice played all too clearly in her ears, because the words nipped at the confidence she'd slowly rebuilt, she turned deliberately away and walked in the other direction.

She would get a damn job when she was ready to