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Chapter 4: The Memories That Haunt Us
They both turned to Annabella for confirmation. She nodded. "Sophia is the reason why I know the Volturi. Aro and I have an understanding."
"Nobody goes 'way back' with the Volturi Annabella. What did you do?" Carlisle's voice was full of horror.
"You do." Esme was beside Carlisle. "Carlisle studied under them 480 years ago in Volterra."
"I did too. Aro helped me develop my gifts."
"You have gifts too?" Carlisle asked, not missing her plural. He filed in the later box. "What kind of understanding do you have and how can you have an immortal child and still be alive?"
"I am under the protection of the Volturi. I have an immortal child because of our understanding." Annabella explained as though it were crystal clear but her guests confused faces. "I found Sophia when I was working as a doctor outside of Paris during the plagues of 2075. She was alone. Her creator had been killed and she was on the run from the Volturi. I took her in, tried to control her. Sophia has an incredible sense of awareness and conscience and she wasn't as lethal as other children in the past. Soon the Volturi came looking for me, specifically Aro. He is fond of me and had to see for himself what he thought I had done. I explained that she wasn't mine but I wanted to keep her, turn her over to my diet and help her learn. I agreed that he could call on my gifts when the need arose and in turn he let me keep Sophia, warning that the first sign of trouble with her and he would back, deal or no deal."
Carlisle turned back to Annabella. "Volturi only protect Volturi."
"Aro considers me to be his star pupil. It's an arrangement that has worked for over 75 years; I think we will be OK. He knows better than to take me on." Sophia came over to her and cuddled her legs. Annabella stroked Sophia's head. "I made me choice Carlisle and I will live with it as long as I am the only one who pays the price." Her tone considered the matter closed.
"You mentioned gifts. My sons Edward and Jasper have gifts also. Jasper is empathic, he can influence emotion. Edward is more powerful, he can read minds over distance."
"Aro would love to meet him. The confines of his ability frustrate him sometimes. I have three gifts. I have the ability to shield myself and others from other vampires gifts. It proves very useful. I am a bit like your Edward, I can read minds to an extent, not whole thoughts. I can read decisions people make and manipulate them at will. Aro loves that one. My telekinesis requires work but it will come with time."
"Wow, I can see why Aro would be so interested in you. It is rare to find a vampire with more than one gift. Does Sophia have any gifts?"
"No, not unless you include the ability to throw the mother of all tantrums every now and again as a gift. She has destroyed more than one bedroom."
Annabella took a step back from the conversation. What was she doing? She had spent years building up defences. She had kept her life from the world, never really interacting on any level with anyone except her patients and Sophia. Suddenly she finds another coven and she is leaking details worse than the Hoover Dam when it broke. There was a feeling she couldn't shake, especially with Esme. She had known this coven before but that was impossible, it was the first time she met them. For the first time since her creation, she questioned her human past and instantly dismissed it. There was no way that a coven would interact with humans and live the Volturi's wrath.
"Can we have a chat?" Esme had pulled her from her thoughts with a hand on her shoulder.
Carlisle turned to Annabella. "Do you mind if I study your daughter?"
"Ask her, she is old enough to know her own mind. Play fair Sophia!"
Annabella led Esme through to the back garden and sat down on the patio seat out of human instinct rather than need.
"Something has been bothering me." Esme began. "Tell me about your past, your human past."
"I don't really remember much, it has faded over time. What I do know, I researched after I was born a vampire. It was strange, I found a letter to me that my human self had written. I had wanted to be turned." She paused, taking stock. "I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona with my mum and moved to Forks, Washington when my mother remarried. I don't know much about my life in Forks but my father died a few years after I was turned. The letter told me that my life in Forks really wasn't worth looking into but that my life in Phoenix had been happier. I changed my name when I was turned, like the letter told me too. I was called..."
"Isabella Swan." They both exclaimed at the same time.
Annabella was immediately on her feet and at the tree line. Esme had followed her and stood 10 feet away. "How do you know?"
"I knew an Isabella Swan who lived in Forks, in fact our whole family did. Do you remember anything about us?"
"My human memories have faded. They are very dim, like someone turned out the light. Maybe if you gave me more details."
"You came into our lives in 2004, you and our son Edward were in love. You were such a clumsy human and our whole family loved you straight away, we seen you as part of our family. You were good friends with Alice, you, Edward and her made quite the crew. You were so accepting of us, so fearless of what we were. I was so glad to see Edward happy at last, he had been alone so long that I couldn't care if you had a third eye and webbed feet as long as you loved him back."
"Isabella was in love with a vampire." She muttered in disbelief. An image passed through her head. A man standing in the sunlight, sparkling, the sun catching his bronze hair. He looked no older than his late teens. He stood looking at her, his shirt open, hard and lean muscle defining his chest. He was beautiful. She felt her breath hitch as his intense stare, like he was waiting for something. "Oh god." Feelings of intense love and pride washed over her.
"I remember him, Edward. His eyes. He loved her as a human."
"He loved you. Things changed after you were attaked by another vampire."
"James." The memories were flooding her mind now; the baseball game, the ballet studio, the hospital. "But we were still together after the attack?"
"Yes. Edward went to extra lengths to protect you but you had this idea that you wanted to be turned which Edward was dead set against. After your 18th birthday, Edward decided that the danger that you seemed to attract was because of him and your life would be better if we were no longer part of it. We left without saying goodbye."
"Jasper slipped. He attacked her. Edward left her." Her stunted sentences were punctuated with pain.
Annabella sank to her knees in the garden, the grass soaking her skirt. The pain and rejection washed over her. This is what Isabella had fought so hard to protect her from. The pain that had hurt so much that she thought being turned would heal or at least make her forget. After 150 years of success, Isabella's last wish had been torn apart with a conversation.
"He left Isabella alone in the forest. She thought he didn't love her anymore, he walked out of her life taking anything that might have shown his existence. She felt so much pain. That's why she went to Victoria to be turned. That's why I am here."
"Oh Bella, you are Isabella. Why do you talk about her as if she is someone else?"
"She asked me to. My human self told me in a letter that she wanted me to be someone else, to allow Isabella Swan to die that day. There was nothing about what happened or why she wanted to be turned and she told me not to look. She was banking on the degrading of human memories to hide her pain and I have never looked deeper into it. I have lived my life by that letter ever since. Isabella Swan and I are not the same person."
"You will always be Bella to us." Esme joined Annabella on the ground and put her arms around her shoulders.
"I'm Bella to Sophia as well. Even Aro calls me Annabella."
"You must come to the house, we can't let you go again. It hasn't been the same since you left. Let's go back to Carlisle and Sophia, he will want to know."
One more chapter to go before you meet Edward and the Gang again
Quick Question: Do the Twilight vampires have tastebuds? I know they don't eat but do they taste, i couldn't find the answer in the books
Need Help: I've just had my story rejected by 'Twilighted' and they recommended a beta reader to look at my work as i have never had one. Can any be my one, recommend one or help me find one...pretty please