Bright and early, Lilah was up, showered, dressed, and on her way to Sullivan's Greenhouse. She hadn't gotten all that much sleep the previous night. She worked at The Lodge until the restaurant closed at ten, and stayed until midnight to do some prep work to help Shelley get a start on the morning.

She didn't mind running on five or so hours of sleep. She was used to it. Working was still ingrained into her very soul—working until she was over exhausted, until her bones ached, until she wanted to melt into a puddle and disappear. No one forced her to work that much anymore, but it felt good. It was good for her to be productive instead of sitting with her thoughts and her paranoia. It would be even better when she got her home garden going so she had something to do with what little free time she had.

Lilah hopped out of her Taurus and threw her messenger bag around her shoulders while pulling her hood up over her head. It was raining, a drizzly, light kind of rain that had been more or less persistent since her arrival in Forks. She didn't mind the rain and the cold weather. If anything, she preferred it to heat, though it was still just as annoying in its effects on her hair. Like her mother, she had curly, defiant hair, the kind that went nuts in humidity, like that provided by the Forks rain.

She grumbled. Her hair was in a braid, but she was sure she'd had a hellish amount of frizz by the time she got inside.

"Good morning, Miss Porter."

Lilah stomped on the welcome mat by the door to get the rain and mud off her old hiking boots. "Good morning."

Bev was already a whir of activity. The old cash register was open as she counted the float cash for the day, which she did while organizing some new seed packets the store had gotten in the mail, while she sipped her coffee and slapped the store radio intermittently, as the classic rock station kept going fuzzy. Bev said it was because of the rain. Lilah knew different.

Bev glanced up at her from beneath the brim of her Seattle Mariners baseball cap.

"You did not get a lick of sleep last night, did you?"

Lilah shook some of the rain off her jacket. "I got enough."

"If you're stretching yourself too thin between two jobs, I'll fire you here on the spot," Bev said. "You don't need to work yourself to death before you turn thirty."

"I want to work here."

Bev stared at her, exasperated, and then she laughed.

"You'd get another job anyway, wouldn't you?"

This time, Lilah laughed. "You already know me."

"You've already proven you've got enough of a work ethic for about ten people," said Bev. "I can't say I've met many others your age who chose to work two jobs on their feet."

"I like to be busy. And I like to cook just as much as I like to garden. Might as well get paid."

Bev shook her head again. She pushed the cash register drawer shut, finished counting, and smacked the radio again.

"Well, since you like to work so much, you can get started in greenhouse nine after unlocking everything. Those baby pumpkins should just about be ready to go."

Nodding, Lilah started to head out the door, only to be stopped by the sound of Bev clicking her tongue. She knew what that meant and promptly turned back, accepting the slightly outdated walkie-talkie that Bev held out, waggling before her eyes. She thanked Bev, hooked the thing into her belt loop, and went out the back door, trodding through the puddles that were starting to form on the dirt paths that wove between greenhouses.

Her walkie-talkie was already making a series of funny static noises, almost like it was gargling. She grumbled and plucked it off her belt loop, slapping it like Bev slapped the radio, hoping to make the thing behave. The thing had never worked properly for her. So much so that Bev already said she was a technology jinx.

Of course, that statement was truer than Bev knew. She was a technology jinx. It came with being a witch, as magic and technology tended not to work together all that well, at least cheaper technology. The cheaper or less well made it was, the more it failed when in the presence of magic. It was the same problem with Bev's radio—though Lilah could surely never tell her that.

The walkie-talkie was simply too stubborn for Lilah. She accepted her defeat and turned its volume all the way down so she didn't have to listen to its death rattle for the rest of the day.

She went down the row of neat little greenhouses, unlocking them all so that customers were free to roam through them as they pleased, and then ducked into number nine, where rows and rows of little green, white, orange, and yellow pumpkins sat, waiting for her. Fall gourds were in the same greenhouse, all being grown for autumn decor. Some would go into fall baskets, other would be freebies, sold one by one, and some would be donated to Forks Elementary School for the children to paint.

Bev had already told her all of this because she operated her business like a well oiled machine, and she had for fifty years. Like the Malloys, she was another fixture in the Forks community. She worked hard to provide them with the highest quality plants and gardening tools she could, and was always more than happy to stop and give them advice about their gardens, or to lend an ear and listen to any of the problems they had in their lives. She was a pillar of the town, a trusted, respected elder.

Bev's late partner, Trudy, had been the same. Their 'wedding' photo still hanged on the wall over the cash register in the main shop. It was touching. Lilah saw just how much the two women meant to Forks, and just how much Forks meant to those two women—not every little town would be so accepting of an open lesbian couple, and yet, Forks was.

She figured it was part of why Bev still worked so hard even when she was well past retirement age. She wanted to continue to work for the town that had done so much for her and Trudy.

Lilah grabbed a wheelbarrow from the end of the greenhouse and decided to start gathering some of the pumpkins. Bev had been right; they were ready to harvest. She knelt down and got to work, unafraid to get her hands dirty.

Already, Bev had chastised her for not wearing gardening gloves while she worked. I'm old enough to know that you should protect your hands, Miss Porter, she'd told her again and again. Lilah appreciated the advice, and appreciated it more because it so obviously came from a good place, yet she didn't pay it much mind. She liked the feeling of her hands in the dirt. She liked when it got under her nails. She felt connected to the earth. And the sight of her dirty hands made her feel as though she'd really gotten in there and worked.

She was a tactile person, after all. She guessed it was why she liked cooking too. It was material, hands on, something that kept her focused on the world around her instead of her mind and instead of her paranoia. It relaxed her.

There had been a garden behind her childhood house. Like the kitchen, the garden was also the domain of the women and girls in the family, and it grew enough food to feed a few armies. So much so that, more often than not, it felt impossible to think that Lilah and her family could take care of everything within it. Summers in that garden ended with her feeling so overworked that she'd rather melt into a puddle.

Something about that had felt nice.

Gardening, like cooking, had become something she enjoyed. Two things she continued to do after she was thrown out of her family home by fifteen years of age. Her father had given her two choices: she could leave on her own accord, or he would kill her so she had no chance of coming back.

She chose the former. Not because she'd had any regard for her own life at that point, but rather because she thought it would be better for her mother and for her siblings. She didn't want them to have to live with a killer. She didn't want that trauma for them.

She didn't want him to kill her because she knew that if he did that, he'd be all the more capable of killing one of her siblings or her mother the next time they infuriated him.

There was no bluff there to call, either. He meant it. He would kill her, or he would be sure another man in his congregation would. They did not suffer witches in his church. They were descended from one of the great witch hunters of American history, Daniel Porter, who had wiped out all of the witches from New England before the seventeenth century turned into the eighteenth century.

As her father so often reminded her, Daniel Porter would not have suffered her to live after he discovered she was a witch. He was being merciful by giving her the option to flee.

She had been beyond lucky. When she left, there was already a coven of witches waiting for her with open arms to take her into their family. To love her, to nourish her spirit, to educate her, to allow her the space to be herself, the witch that she was. Phoebe never looked at her as anything but her daughter. Morgan and little Zoe had both accepted her as a sister and as a friend.

Those five women meant more to her than anyone else in the world. It was why she had come to Forks, to go into hiding, to protect them.

She took a deep breath, focusing on the pumpkins. The sensation of her fingers in the dirt. The smoothness of the pumpkins' skin. The texture of their leaves, their vines, their stems. Better to be engrossed in her work than lost in her mind.

There were eyes on her now. She muttered a curse word under her breath, hoping that she hadn't let any stray tears fall, because she didn't want to look like a wreck in front of some poor, innocent customer. Knowing the people in Forks, they'd want to stop and help her, which was the last thing Lilah wanted.

She couldn't burden anyone else with that. She wouldn't even know how to explain her life to someone if she could.

She wiped some of the dirt off her hands and onto her jeans, and rose to her feet, following where she felt the gaze coming from. Indeed, there was a small woman—girl?—in the doorway. She was petite, with sharp yet cute features, a pixie cut, and a well-tailored, designer looking jacket that seemed particularly out of place in a place like Forks.

The woman, girl, maybe, was staring at her, her small mouth hanging open. Lilah recognized what she was and, for a moment, wondered how the hell her magic would work in a sudden life and death situation.

Then she noticed her eyes. Warm and golden. Almost exactly like Constance's eyes.

Lilah exhaled and let her shoulders drop. Safe again…for now, anyway.

"Um, hi," she said, taking a step forward. "Is there something I can help you find?"

The girl—woman, now, Lilah decided, that seemed more apt—took two steps back. Her small hand lifted the sleeve of her jacket up over her mouth and nose and she feigned a rather convincing sneeze that probably would've fooled anyone else in town.

"Excuse me," she said. Her voice was high and sweet, matching her cute, unassuming face. "I, um…is Bev in today?"

"Yeah, she should be back in the shop," Lilah said. There was a pause, which she filled by asking, "Do you need me to show you the way…?"

"Oh, no, I'm a regular, I've got it, thank you," she said.

There was another pause, one that Lilah did not fill. She watched the other woman's face with curiosity. Her eyes were distant now, as if she was frantically scanning through the files of her brain, a feeling that Lilah knew all too well.

Apparently having come up empty, the other woman's brows furrowed together and she closed her mouth, frustrated. Only then did her eyes meet Lilah's once more, and her lips curve into a faint smile.

"You must be new in town, I take it?" she asked.

"Yes, just moved here at the beginning of the month. My name's Lilah Porter, it's nice to meet you…—"

"Alice," she said. "Alice Cullen, and it's a pleasure to meet you as well."

Lilah's heart skipped a beat. She smiled so wide she was sure she'd betrayed herself, but Alice did not seem to notice, or if she did, she didn't quite understand.

"Carlisle and Esme Cullen, you must be related to them…?"

"My adoptive parents," said Alice. "I take it you've already heard about them from others here in Forks?"

No.

"Yes, everyone's been waiting for their favorite doctors to come back from their summer vacation," Lilah said.

Alice smiled. "We're all glad to be back."

Curious, Lilah asked, "How many Cullens are there?"

"Seven total. I have three adopted brothers and one adopted sister…I'm actually rather surprised you didn't hear about all of us through the Forks rumor mill."

Changing the subject now, Lilah asked, "You're sure there's nothing I can help you with?"

"No, thank you," said Alice. Her smile was strained and she stepped back again. "Just wanted to ask Bev a few questions about a fall garden plan…it was nice to meet you, though…"

"Same to you."

Lilah smiled as she watched the petite vampire disappear up the path toward the store. The Cullens were precisely the reason that Constance had sent her to Forks in the first place. It was their presence alone that would protect her, and by extension, her family, from the wrath of her father.

Her father, and the members of his clergy, who had carried on Daniel Porter's tradition of witch hunting. They were not at all afraid to kill witches but they were petrified of vampires.

In particular, they were petrified of Carlisle Cullen, because, as Constance told her, he had been the one to kill Daniel Porter over three hundred years ago.