Chapter 32 – The (self appointed) Original Witch explains

"He's a WHAT!?"

Bella shouted as Esther explained the differences between a werewolf and a shape shifter as that is what the La Push wolves actually were.

"Why is my father a werewolf Esther?"

"Let me tell you a story, child"

Esther started.

"When each and every of my children were born, I saw a vision of them happy with their mates"

what does that have to do with anything?

Esther motioned to a long wall with seven paintings. Bella walked to them and began examining them. The first one featured Freida, clad in a long silk yellow dress with a crown of yellow and white daises, standing tall next to Jasper. His eyes were perfectly golden, dressed in white with an identical crown on his floppy hair.

"Alice is gonna hate this"

Bella joked. The Jasper in the picture looked perfectly serene with a soft, happy smile on his face. he was also clad in a military uniform. Esther snickered as Bella moved on to the next drawing. That one featured Finn with Sage, both clad in clothes of the time when they had first met.

"Their first wedding, only two weeks after they first met"

Esther said happily.

"Love at first sight"

The third drawing had something that shocked Bella. It featured Elijah, without a thinking, brooding, constipated face but smiling widely in his swim trunks with Lexi sitting on his broad shoulders holding her hands up in the air in a victory pose.

"Now that I didn't see coming"

she snickered. Next drawing had her in it. Her cheeks filled with blood as her eyes drank up the picture of herself and Klaus, holding each other close, leaning against a big old tree with the waterfalls of Mystic Falls in the background.

"This IS me, right?"

she had to make sure. Esther smiled in a maternal way and nodded.

"Nik looks younger in this picture than he is though"

"Nik?"

Esther raised an eyebrow. Bella squinted at the older woman who smiled and pretended she didn't see the cheeks of the girl flush even more realizing the slip of her tongue.

"he does... I had started to lose hope he'll get his soul mate until he showed up that morning holding you"

"how did you know it's me?"

Esther pointed a long finger to a tiny detail. the girl in Klaus' arms had very prominent distinguish mark on her. a cold one bite mark on the inside of her right arm right above her wrist.

"I couldn't copy it so Lorelai never had it"

"so you created Lorelai?"

"Kind of"

Bella raised both eyebrows in question.

"it was more than obvious that you weren't from our time when we met you. When Mikael killed you and sent you to your time I kept some of your blood"

"my blood? why?"

"so I can recognize you when I met you again"

"did it work?"

"of course not. the sheer fact that Mikael went a little bit sword happy and killed you after turning both you and Niklaus created the doppelganger"

"okay..."

"however when Mikael tracked Katerina in mystic falls in 1863 he met Lorelai as well. She had your spunk but she did not have your mark"

Esther pointed to Bella's bite mark again making the young vampire trace her fingers over the slightly risen skin

"Stefan said his father got rid of Lorelai though. how does that lead to me being born and Charlie and peter being werewolves?"

Esther smiled again, this time looking like the grinch

"when Giuseppe Salvatore got rid of Lorelai I got a job with her and her husband as their maid. soon she got pregnant and gave birth to twins. During her pregnancy I made her drink a concoction that would definitely create you as the next doppelganger"

"you made my doppelganger drink my blood to make sure she'd eventually give birth to me"

Bella summed it up. Esther nodded.

"Lorelei's husband was a werewolf. Her children were born on a full moon and Trevor was a werewolf that night"

"Alright"

"she was loosing a lot of blood due to complications and attracted a couple rogue vampires."

"the mortal enemies of werewolves"

"I was busy trying to save the babies with my magic so Lorelai was unprotected"

"did she die?"

Esther shook her head slowly with the grinch-smirk superglued on her face

"a flock of swans attacked the vampires giving George the upper hand to kill them"

Bella burst laughing

"and they changed their names to Swan?"

Esther nodded

"weirdly enough, that makes perfect sense. and the werewolf gene just kept passing down from father to son?"

"yes. today your father killed someone in the line of duty and triggered it"

"what about peter?"

"he killed henrik"

Bella's eyes widened comically

"he's alright, don't worry. It's not easy to permanently kill an original"

"why didn't I trigger it?"

"have you killed someone?"

"after I turned, yes"

"you're the original swan and the doppelganger at the same time. You'd never trigger it"

Bella shook her head and rubbed her head slowly.

"You suck at telling stories..."

she muttered before getting up again to examine the rest of the soul mate paintings. Rebekah's painting featured an island and a surfer with saggy blond hair running out of the water straight in her arms.

"who is he?"

"no idea"

Esther chuckled. Kol's painting included a large Christmas tree, himself dressed as Santa and a hot redhead perched on his lap in a tiny green dress, red and white striped stockings and Santa hat.

"I don't wanna know"

she muttered and moved to the last painting of henrik. This one included a beach, First beach if Bella recognized the cliffs correctly, a sandcastle, Henrik and Pete in swim trunks and two twin girls with black hair and black eyes working faithfully on the sandcastle.

Bella chuckled. Competitions of the best sandcastle were on the first weekend of june, one of the few things she liked in Forks.

"Looks like it's gonna be a busy year"