Chapter 109

Esme

Where were the guys? What were they up to and how dare they leave us here in limbo? Rose felt as angry as I did at leaving us out of the loop like two fragile little human girls. I'm amazed they hadn't asked the Volturi to babysit! We passed our time reading, shopping and keeping my business going, thank goodness I remembered all the details of my clients and their briefs! The good thing about being in Italy was that we could window shop for new idea's but even that got old eventually yet every time we tried to contact the boys they were either in the middle of something or not answering their phones!

It didn't occur to us straight away that Alice had been largely forgotten but when it did we decided to try contacting her ourselves. Dangerous? Yes it could be but neither of us were willing to sit around like wall flowers any longer. She traveled to Pisa first and found a small apartment to rent on a short six month lease while keeping on the cottage outside Livorno, it was as well to have multiple residences with the Volturi around. From there we joined a tourist day trip to the villages around Pisa including Volterra. Among a crowd of day trippers we should be able to mingle unseen.

Obviously we couldn't just go marching into the citadel and demand to see Alice but we did our best to check all the windows facing out onto the town square and for any trace of her scent but there were just too many different vampire scents around to pick out a faint trace of one particular person. So our trip had been wasted or so we thought at the time. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that Rose had a brainstorm.

"If we plan several trips to Volterra well in advance then just maybe Alice will see them and find a way to get a message to us."

I hadn't thought of that but it made sense provided she wasn't being held in confinement but then why should she? Alice was no threat to the Volturi, their only concern should be if she were to try to run away and in Volterra with so many of the guard around that was pretty well impossible.

It wasn't until our third and last visit that we finally made a breakthrough. We had decided that appearing in Volterra too many times was becoming dangerous, we were playing the odds and so far they had been in our favour but that wasn't likely to last. We were almost ready to return to the coach when a young boy came up to us looking around as if afraid he might be followed,

"Signora Cullen?"

I nodded while Rose looked around to see if anyone else were watching us or if it were a trap.

He took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to me.

"A lady gave this to me, said I would find you here. She said you would pay me money to return to my village if I delivered it safely."

"What lady? What did she look like?"

"She was pretty with dark hair. She told me where to find you and to give you this."

"Where did you see her?"

I had handed the paper to Rose who unfolded it smoothing the wrinkles so she could read the message.

He pointed behind him up the mountain,

"A villa in the mountains, close to where I live. I look after goats and one wandered close to the villa. We don't go there usually, its bad luck. My father says demons live there but I'm not afraid."

He hit his chest with a small fist pride and bravado shining in his face when he said that and I couldn't help smiling. He couldn't have been much older than ten.

"What else did the lady say?"

"She asked me to return and tell her you got the message, she tells me to come to the villa at dusk once a week until she needs me again. I tell her I will and she promised me money to help my sister Maria who is sick."

"What's your name?"

"Luigi, Luigi Salvino."

"Well Luigi, here..."

I fumbled in my purse handing him a bundle of Euros which he took with open mouthed astonishment.

"This is too much Signora."

"No, you just do as you promised and don't tell anyone about this. If you come with another message there will be more."

He nodded and kissed my hand like a gallant young lad before disappearing back into the crowds in the square.

Then I turned to Rose,

"What does she say?"

Rose smiled,

That she's fine. That the Volturi are getting nowhere with her and that she has made a friend who might prove helpful. She says not to worry about the guys, they are fine, so is Bella and everything will work out if she can help it."

"Well she doesn't sound as if she's in too much trouble there in fact knowing her I'd say she's giving more grief than she's getting."

"Do you think she wants our help in that case?"

"I don't think she would be asking that boy to keep looking for her if she didn't think she'd be needing to get a message to us sooner or later. I'm just glad we decided to do something instead of just waiting around to hear from Carlisle or Emmett."

We decided to move permanently to the apartment in Pisa so as to be closer in case of emergencies and Rose finally got through to Emmett and heard the latest. Charlie and Carlisle were hunting down Edward and Darius seemed to think he was headed after Bella's mother. I could hardly believe Edward could be so vindictive, he certainly had never acted this way before and targeting an innocent woman was wicked. I almost offered to fly back but Rose said they had it all under control with Darius' help. She didn't have time to tell him about Alice and the message because he was called away by Carlisle, nor did he give any indication of how long it would be before they joined us or asked us to fly back although as things stood I would have refused to leave Italy in any case.

We had a near miss the next time we visited Volterra unaware that there was a festival going on. It was only the huge crowds of human tourists who had come to watch the parade that saved us from discovery as Marcus Volturi and Sulpicia came out onto the steps of the clock tower under the shade of a huge canopy to present the Mayor with a cheque to fund the school building renovation work taking place in the town. As his eyes swept over the crowds I expected him to point at us and call the guard but there were several groups of children ready to present him with a huge card of thanks and her a bouquet of flowers before singing a song to the delight of all the parents and tourists. I'd forgotten that the Volturi did a lot for the inhabitants of the town, they were quite the benefactors!

After that scare we stayed away for a while although we were desperate to get more news from Alice. We even considered going up into the mountains to see if we could trace the villa, I cursed myself for not asking the boy the name of his village. Mind we might have stood out like a sore thumb wandering the hills looking for a villa when we knew nothing about it or where it was. That's when we heard from the guys again, or at least we heard from Emmett again. Renee was safe, Darius had held Edward until they arrived and Charlie had certainly started to make him pay for his treachery. Emmett was flying over to be with us but Carlisle was going with the others to collect Charlotte who it seemed had escaped from The Major. If only the same could have been true of poor Bella. We decided not to tell them about Alice, they had enough to be getting on with for now.