Chapter 6

Rita McErin's POV

My plane touched ground and I stepped out followed by the camera. I looked around the Portland airport and grimaced as I saw it was raining. I loved that it rained so little back in Texas, but from what I'd heard it rained horribly here throughout the year.

We began driving in the car; it was almost two hours before we reached the house. On the way we drove through complete desolation, but not the kind back home. It was miles and miles of trees; green trees soaked in rain. The car skidded on the wet road every mile or so and by the time we arrived at the house I was about to pass out.

"My nerves are fragile. I can't be riding in these conditions," I told the camera when we finally stopped driving in front of a house that was ten times larger than ours. This house was two stories and painted white. It sprawled over a huge amount of land. I got out hurriedly walking through the rain. When I walked in I stopped in my tracks.

"Tell us what you think."

"This house is huge. How big is a family that needs this much space?" There was a large grand piano and the backside of the house was stained glass. The only places to sit were a couch and a recliner which struck me as odd since it was such a big house. I continued walking through the house and found that the whole first floor was this massive living room, a kitchen, a study, and a bathroom.

"My husband would never condone the food this kitchen is stocked with. All I've seen is processed meat and chips." I continued looking through the kitchen. "And candy. Let's leave the kitchen. I think this is going to make me sick." The only thing I ate was lettuce because that had hardly any calories except for Sunday night dinners in which I had to eat whatever was cooked.

The study was lined in paintings and filled with books. "I wonder if someone works from home," I pondered. I walked to the desk and saw blueprints. Maybe the father did architecture; that would explain the huge house.

The study was the first place I felt a bit of religion. There was a cross above the door; it looked old, antique. I wondered how old it was? There was a large Bible that I was afraid to touch. It looked so old; the binding was coming undone and the cover was a thick paper. It had beautiful gold scripture on it that read 'Holy Bible'.

I walked upstairs to the second floor starting there. "This child is so beautiful," I whispered seeing the girl who was probably ten in the picture. She had bronze hair that reached her knees. She was in a white summer dress and was beaming at the camera. Maysen was never like that. She would never dress up like I wanted and she refused to beam at the camera for pictures. I wish Maysen had been like that. "I wonder if this is her now, or if she's older."

I continued looking at the pictures and saw one of a large native looking man with his arm wrapped around a small teenager who was over a foot shorter than her. The teenager in this was the same girl from the first picture so I said, "I guess I've been answered. I don't like this though. This man must be at least five years older than her in this." I shook my head. "She seems smart, though." I looked at the bookshelf. "She has all the classics." I couldn't find a Bible one, however. That upset me a little. "During rule change this will be the first thing to go." I held up a rock and roll CD. Rock and roll is the devil's music. "This music is horrible; it's the devil's way to children. I can't understand parent's condoning children who listen to this."

I walked to the room across the hall and found another piano. "This family has too much money. Two grand pianos, and this," I picked up a book to see the books on this shelf were the same as the ones on the bookshelf in the previous room. There were a couple that were different in each room, but they both had all the classics. "I'm disgusted by the money they seem to spend."

There was a huge music collection. I walked over to it and found everything from classical music to jazz to rock. "They can keep the classical music, but this rock and jazz will be going," I said firmly and continued to the floor below.

The other room was a bedroom. It had an antique chair in front of a vanity mirror and an antique trunk at the end of the bed. This room looked like the parents, so I continued on not wanting to invade their space. "Beautiful antiques."

I entered yet another room and this one was decorated with fashion magazines stacked precariously on a table and a laptop. The closet was larger than the room, so I walked in and saw that there was two racks with men's clothes and the rest was women's, and a small woman's at that. This room didn't strike me as the parent's, so I guessed it was siblings. I just didn't understand why such a wealthy family wouldn't be able to put two beds in a room.

I ignored it and said, "Too many material items. These clothes; they're all designer. I can't even imagine how much money they've spent on these. Some of these are too provocative. I know what else we'll be getting rid of."

The last room was the most unique. It had just as big of a closet as the previous, but the room had such an array of things. It had sports equipment and a whole wall that was just a mirror. When I looked at the bed I grimaced. "We're just going to leave this room right now." I had seen a bondage corset and it had bile rising in my throat. This house was anything but a good Christian home. I shuddered and we went downstairs.

"This home needs to be bathed in the blood," I told the camera and grimaced again at the stacked gaming systems in the living room.

I sat down in front of the manual in the kitchen and began reading aloud, "Hello, welcome to the Cullen household. I hope you enjoy our family; we are quite close though we don't spend too much time with each other. I want you to know all of mine and my husband's children are adopted. Jacob is not adopted, nor is he ours. His father was a close family friend, but he died a few years ago and at that time we took him in. He is now twenty, but continues to live with us. He lives in the guest house not the main house, but will stay in the main house quite often. He works as a maintenance man in town doing odd jobs."

I continued to read about their children and stopped once they were listed. "Seven adopted children, and another they raised that lives with them. This is very odd."

I went back to reading, "We allow our children to be together because they aren't related, except for the twins Edward and Renesmee, and Rosalie and Jasper who are siblings."

"Together?" I asked no one. "As in couples?" I pondered aloud before returning to reading. "The children will introduce themselves with their ages once you meet them, so I won't include that. The kids don't ever eat at the same time, so most likely they'll either pick up something or make a sandwich. The only one I ever cook for is Jacob when he's forgotten his lunch after leaving for work. I garden and sketch blueprints during the day, or refinish antiques. I only do that in my free time because with Carlisle's income as a doctor I don't need to work. There are no limits on things such as television, video games, computer time because our kids are very good at time management. They always finish their homework and the only time we've ever been called to school was because of Emmett playing pranks.

"Speaking of Emmett please watch out. He will play harmless pranks quite often and while we don't punish our children often if they do anything too bad this is a list of things that you can take away from each of them. What we consider viable for punishment I assure you Carlisle will explain."

"At least they have some form of punishment, but I haven't heard anything about extracurricular activities. Do these children only play video games or something? My children don't play video games or watch television at all."

I finished the manual and was told to sit in the living room. The family soon entered and my eyes widened. The blonde man at the front extended his hand and shook mine. "I'm Carlisle."

"Rita," I answered shaking his hand. I looked at the eight other people behind him. The first was a tall blonde girl who raised an eyebrow, appraising me before passing me and sitting down on the couch. The huge, imposing man beside her picked me up hugging me tight. I squealed a little.

"I'm Emmett. That's my Rosalie on the couch," he said before putting me down and grinning, joining the annoyed looking woman, well teenager, on the couch.

After them was a little pixie-like girl who could even make me look tall; she wasn't even five foot. "Hi," she said and hugged me excitedly. "I'm Alice and this is Jasper."

"Hello ma'am," he nodded to me and I smiled. At least he had manners.

"Hello," I replied. Alice skipped over to the stairs pulling Jasper with her and sitting underneath them happily.

"I'm Edward," the next guy said and I looked beside him at the dark-haired girl who was looking at me shyly through her lashes.

"Bella," she whispered softly.

I nodded and they moved on, Edward going straight to the piano with Bella following opening a book and beginning to read as he ran his fingers over the piano playing softly.

"I'm Renesmee, but you can call me Nessie," the girl who I'd thought looked so beautiful in the pictures shook my hand professionally and I noticed just how tall the native man beside her was.

"I'm Jacob," the man said and nodded at me.

"Nice to meet all of you," I said tightly. I didn't particularly like this Jacob guy. He looked so much older than the girl who was seated between his legs on the floor. He looked twenty-five, and she was seventeen. I knew he was only twenty, but I still didn't like it. I would kill Maysen if she dated someone more than a year older than her at her age. That would just be asking to be used. If she were older it might be okay, but she wasn't.

"Mom said to tell you our ages," Alice chimed in and began listing them off. "I'm sixteen; the baby of the family." Her laughter chimed through the house softly like bells. "Jazz is seventeen. Rosalie and Emmett are eighteen, and Edward and Bella are seventeen. Renesmee is seventeen and Jacob is twenty, and that's all of us." She fell silent beaming as though she were proud of herself for being the first to chime in. Jasper, beside her, looked uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry for Alice; she's a bit too outgoing sometimes," Carlisle apologized with a deep laugh and a smile for his youngest daughter.

Renesmee laughed at something Jacob had whispered in her ear and I raised an eyebrow. "It's considered disrespectful to talk or laugh while adults are talking," I said as I would at home.

"Excuse me. I'm sorry," Renesmee apologized but I saw the twinkle in her eyes and she pressed a hand to Jacob neck. I ignored the odd action and continued to talk let Carlisle attempt to explain with Alice chiming in every so often.

"Aren't you going to say something to her about interrupting you?" I asked after Alice interrupted for the fifth time.

"She is helping. That's how Alice is," Carlisle shrugged it off and I felt Rosalie's glare intensifying. I looked at her and she stood up quickly. She marched from the room and Emmett was soon following. "I'm apologize for Rosalie. She can take a bit to warm up to you."

Those proved to be the most frustrating hours of my life. Every time someone said something someone else spoke over them. They whispered amongst each other while Carlisle and I attempted to talk and he thought it was absolutely fine. I just couldn't wait to get to sleep that night.

A/N- I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I wanted to say thanks to those of you who have reviewed, added this to your favorites, added me to your favorite authors, etc. That is amazing. I didn't expect that at all. You don't even know how happy I get when I open my eMail and find a bunch of missed eMails about you guys doing all of those things.

Also, I want to ask what your first impression of Rita is now that you've heard something from her POV? More of her is going to come out in the coming chapters, but at this point, what do you think of her?