This was it. The moment of assurance that Edward had waited on since they met this morning (had it really only been this morning that his life had altered? Even as a vampire, the hours felt like eternity), and even with all the suspicions he had, this was not the answer he had expected. A ghost? Yes. As absurd as it was, there were far stranger things he encountered in his afterlife than a Victorian ghost, strangely enough. If he was being honest, Emmett was more of an enigma to him than a ghost. But a spirit? And a spirit tied to an object? That was unheard of. With all the years he had lived with Carlisle, who was a wealth of knowledge, he had never implied he's known of a creature like this.

How he desperately wished his Father figure was here now.

The soft sound of the stream filled the sudden silence between them.

Alice had already seen one outcome from this conversation. He knew taking Alice's visions at face value was a surefire way to get trapped in the future, always thinking about what would happen rather than enjoying the present, much like the first few years they lived together.

Her visions aren't set in stone, he reminded himself. It's only one of the possibilities.

But, if she was correct, as there was no way he could see himself abandoning creature in front of him before they reached the end of this trail, he was about to trust Lettie with the greatest secret of his family, something he had spent over 100 years hiding from anyone but other known vampires. The very thought of revealing himself to an outsider made his skin crawl in a way that warned him of the danger, pushing him to run as far away as his legs would carry him, more than likely into the deep snowcovered mountains of his cousin's home, to avoid the lengthy list of dangers that would no doubt come from the spoken truth.

A human finding out was easy to avoid, they had been doing it for plenty of years now. If all else failed, simply pack up and leave town before anyone else was the wiser. But a human being told? That implied something deeper than aquaintanceship, deeper than the pretend interactions his family did on a daily basis, deeper than he was even willing to consider. Not only would his family be drawn into the mess that a friendship would bring, but the Volturi would show up eventually to finish the job. Dead or turned, that was the only outcome of associating with the likes of him and his family.

But, this was Lettie. No longer human, just like he was. A past human who had spent the morning with him wandering a new path, exploring the terrain in a way that made him feel like a physically heightened newborn again. She had smiled at him with kindness, never attempting more than what he was willing to give first. She was an enigma, and a marvel. The same loathing and understanding of one's own limitations that ran through his own mind more times than he could count was also running through hers. Her soft voice, only moments earlier light and teasing, was now desperate, sorrow coating her words at his unwittingly being drawn into her world. A world that, by her implications, would let other's of her kind know of him, in whatever capacity that was. Sight, sound, smell, he wasn't sure, but the parallels to his own life were hard to ignore.

He felt a strange, but not entirely unwelcome, kinship form between them for a moment.

His hand clenched, then unclenched, mindful of the ghostly hand under his. If Alice didn't see the danger in his first instict, then he would take this selfish moment with both hands.

"I suspected you weren't human from the beginning," Edward settled on after a long moment. Lettie's eyes widened in surprise.

"Surely you jest."

"You're right, there are beings in the world that are not so easily explained. You, for example, were something beyond human from the very moment we locked eyes. I didn't need to know what you were to know that you're different." Lettie's eyes were flickering between his, her entire being coiled up, ready to spring at any sudden move. She was waiting for something, something terrible by the way her hand tightened on his arm.

"You were aware?"

"No human has ever been able to sneak up on me before," he said, the small tease he tried falling short as the truth made him sound too ernest. Lettie looked as though she was holding her breath. He tried again. "I also don't know of any human who has been able to stick their head through a wall without damaging it."

She deflated all at once. A cheap joke, Edward internally winced at how unfunny it was, but it served it's purpose. Her hand relaxed under his, her body rocking back onto her heels. Lettie looked embarrassed, though she nodded in understanding.

"I was afeared you would be reluctant to believe my explanation when the time for truth arrived, so I did not hide my abilities. I am embarrassed, however. I believed you too enthralled with Miss Everette to notice my mischief."

"It's hard to hide things from me."

Edward didn't wait for her response, instead maneuvering so they stood side by side, sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow, reminiscent of the, hopefully, similar way Lettie would have strolled in the past. Her mind immediately jumped in delight at the familiar action. They turned as the trail did.

"As we agreed on, there are beings beyond human in this world," he started once they found their rhythm. "My family, for instance, is hard to explain to those that haven't encountered anything like us before. We don't eat food, we don't sleep, we don't need to rest like humans. We drink the blood of animals to survive, and if we stay in one location for too long, people will notice that we don't age a day." He glanced to the left, eyes trailing over the beams of pure sunlight that filtered through the canopy. Taking a deep unnecessary breath, he reached his hand out, sunlight immediately bouncing off to cast a swirl of dancing refracted light. Lettie gasped, stepping forward. Edward reached out, using his arm to stop her from stepping off the small hill they were on, and letting his other be brought closer to her face to examine. The crystalline appearance disappeared as soon as it was removed from the light.

"A vampyr?" Edward let out a sharp laugh at that.

"It's been a long time since I've been called that. Vampire, though, yes."

"And your family?" she asked, looking up to meet his eyes.

"All of them. You saw them move incredibly fast, didn't you?" He waited until Lettie nodded. "They are like me. All fast, all deadly."

Lettie took a moment to ponder this, putting her hand back in the crook of his elbow so they could continue walking. She barely made a sound as they moved, sock clad feet pushing her dress with every step. The path began to widen as the trees thinned, the end of the road fast approaching.

Edward let her thoughts soothe his mind. Less sporadic than before, but not any less detailed, Lettie thought hard about what he had said, drawing connections between them just as he did. Memories began to become clearer as her mind wandered. He let out a short laugh when her thoughts drifted to an old story of a vampire, one he had not heard about for many years.

"You seem familiar with what my family and I are."

"In a sense, yes." Edward let Lettie use him to balance herself as she gently hopped over a large rock. The path began to widen as the trees thinned and leveled, the end of the road fast approaching. "My fond acquaintance, I believe I've mentioned her, Miss Eliza Blanchard," Lettie waited for Edward to nod, "she was a rather strange girl, though she had to be to openly engage with my family with minimal reprocussions, and she adored reading. Her Father was a well respected book keeper for a wealthy merchant. It allowed him to procure strange books from all over the world. She was most fond of stories that told of supernatural creatures, to which neither her sister or her Mother approved of. She was rarely without one in public, you see, and their strange titles were difficult to hide."

"I'd imagine so."

"Yes, it was quite unladylike to be seen carrying a book that had 'A Feast of Blood' written across it in bold lettering." Lettie sighed. "Though, that was something I had always loved about her, my Eliza. She was strange, yes, but the kindest woman I'd ever had the pleasure in meeting."

In an instant, Lettie's mind was filled once more with those same images Edward saw when they were in front of the old dance hall. A flash of light, a darkened silhouette, laughing voices. This time, however, a new body appeared. She was short, probably around Alice's height, wearing what Edward recalled as standard Victorian partywear. Her face was red and blotchy, stained with tears, as she thrashed against someone holding her back. She was reaching out, reaching towards Lettie, mouth forming her name.

"I've always wondered what happened to her, after all these years." Edward was reeling at the speed in which Lettie was able to pull him in and out of this one memory, barely coherent enough to catch her words as he returned to the present. "If I recall correctly, her Father was in talks with a gentleman from London, another book keeper such as him, though not quite as old. They would have made quite the pair."

Just up ahead, the trees parted, their hiking path cutting into a small clearing. True to its name, the ruins of an old cobblestone house stood in the center, cumbled to the point of being just a collection of half walls forming a ghost, for lack of better word, of it's former layout. The gap in the trees let in the morning light, sky cleared to a complete blue, lighting up the wispy grass, far too tall for anyone to have walked through recently, or of any frequency.

Edward paused at the edge of the trees, just as he always did with the sun, using his vision to scan the area for any hikers. It only took him a moment to realize that Lettie too had stopped, though she was still a step behind him. She was gazing into the clearing, eyes wide as they could be, brown irises lighting up gold in the ambient warmth. Her mind was only repeating one phrase.

"The sun," she finally muttered out loud.

"Yes." Edward gazed down at her. She looked between him and the clearing, once, twice, debating her words.

"It has been a very long time since I've been in the sun." Her fear was unneeded to affirm out loud as the tremble in her voice was more than enough.

Though they had been outside seemingly all day, this sun was not like the one they explored under this morning. This sun was hot, burning the earth under it, warming your skin until it became unbearable.. Their hike had taken them time in the darkness of nature, time enough for this sun to tear through the clouds and alight the world once more. Edward's mind conjured up the musty attic he had been in only this morning, the only light coming from the stain glass window, casting a burning red on everything it touched. This light, this sun, was everything bright and warm that was missing from that hidden room.

Without much thought, Edward sped across the clearing, leaning casually against the nearest wall of the old house to face her. He reached a hand out, palm up towards the sky. Lettie's eyes were glued to him, his palm, his eyes, watching the way his skin shimmered without the cover of shade. He lit up the entire field.

A shiver ran up his spine under her intense gaze.

"Join me?"