A/N: Thanks so much for all your wonderful thoughts.

Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.

I'd meant to update over the weekend, but one of my babies wasn't feeling well. She's better now.

Chapter 4 – While You Were Sleeping

A short while later, an in-depth search for my wreaths around the property failed to turn them up. But it wasn't a useless walk.

I trudged through the snowy landscape, aimlessly wandering, while the occasional dry leaf rustled in the chilly breeze, floating ahead of me in whimsical patterns and inviting me to chase it. Back here, the snow was so ivory that it was almost like looking directly into the sun, blinding in its inexplicable beauty. I squinted against its glare, and despite the cold, I found myself sprinting like a child again, laughing as I dragged my all-weather boots through the powdery substance as if it were sand, then kicked up pinecones as if they were seashells. But this was no tropical beach. My breath created a wintry mist that swirled in the air and then disappeared into nothing, reminding me that I was a world away from any tropics. The acoustics of woodland creatures echoed all around me while the hazy sun dappled through an icy canopy of bare branches. There were a few smaller trees back here as well, and as I pondered an idea, I tapped a finger against my chin.

"I wonder just how difficult a task it would be to saw down one of these little guys and drag him back to the house. My first Christmas tree at my new house!"

Hey, if the Forks-sters of Forks could make a killing from twisting wreaths out of discarded branches, I could cut down one little Christmas tree for myself.

A few hundred feet from the house, I stopped and turned.

I'd found out exactly how much property came with the house at the house closing. Although I'd been adequately impressed by the size, I forced my eyes not to bulge and kept my features impassive because Realtor Alice was smirking across the table. She'd already gotten my money; I wasn't about to hand over a total victory to her. Either way, the land itself beyond the house meant little more to me than the wooded landscape I'd look out on but rarely, if ever, traverse.

Now, as I turned from this slightly elevated vantage point in the middle of the woods, it was like I was seeing the house for the first time…and so differently.

Like a snow globe, it looked like someone had picked up my piece of the world and shaken it. As the falling, sparkling snow cascaded and settled, it slowly revealed a clearing in the distance. At the clearing's heart and flanked by a pair of giant evergreens was the old Victorian, its various, snow-topped roofs making it resemble a miniature, wintry castle. It was an ice kingdom, and I exhaled in reverent wonder because I…was its queen.

A burst of pride infused me from head to toe, warmed me like a blanket amid the surrounding tundra, because the house was suddenly more than an investment…more than a setting for a novel. More than a house.

"My home," I murmured to myself with a smile.

The wind whistled through the trees, bending back their branches then releasing them like a boomerang, which sent the snow scattering like a sudden blizzard.

"My home." The words echoed from deep within the squall.

I sucked in a sharp, quiet breath, scanning my surroundings but finding nothing out of the ordinary. My mind abruptly conjured an image – the frame in my bedroom and the picture it displayed of a strikingly handsome young man in the prime of his life. I recalled his expression, a crooked grin that revealed the same sense of pride I currently felt.

When another gust of wind blew, I listened carefully…and heard nothing but wind, woodland creatures, and my breath.

"My home," I repeated with emphasis. Then chuckling, I skipped my way back.

OOOOO

Retrieving my laptop from the car, I sat to work at the kitchen table, facing the windows' magnificent mountain view while I waited for Emmett to finish up his odds and ends. Periodically, I'd hear him moving around the house, but I was focused on my screen, inspired to the hilt, and building a framework based on what I knew as well as outlining those things I still needed to research. I opened my music app and streamed Christmas music from the personal assistant I'd hooked up and situated on the kitchen counter, singing along distractedly and controlling its volume from my phone. Whenever a favorite tune came on, I raised the volume, then lowered it to mellow, background levels in between.

"I don't want a lot for Christmas…"

That one was a favorite, and it played loudly and on repeat for a while.

And that's how I remained for some time: writing, listening to my favorite Christmas music and invigorated and mentally stimulated by a house and its curiosities. So, I suppose I became a bit too lost in my work, too engrossed and unaware of my surroundings. At one point, I noticed Emmett in my periphery. He was just at the kitchen's threshold, shuffling back and forth and sighing restlessly. Concurrently, I noted the sun's position over the mountains, and I realized a few hours had passed. The poor guy was probably done and trying to catch my attention so he could get going.

"One second, Emmett!" I called out. "Let me just get this last thought down before it disappears!"

'I scanned my surroundings…but there was nothing out of the ordinary,' I typed.

Then, I looked up just in time to catch Emmett walking into the kitchen from the opposite direction to where I'd just seen him pace.

"All done!" he declared with what I was starting to note was an almost perpetual grin.

Meanwhile, my jaw may or may not have hit my keyboard.

"What?" Emmett frowned.

"Were you just…over there?" I asked once I realigned my jaw. I pointed to where I'd just peripherally seen him pace and shuffle.

"Who?" He tapped his chest with a finger, then looked over his shoulder as if to confirm I was speaking to him. "Me?"

"Yeah, you, Emmett."

"Over there?" He pointed to where I pointed.

"Yeah."

"No." He shook his head.

Our gazes held.

"Still a knower as opposed to a believer?"

"It's you guys!" I griped. "You, and Alice, and…Mike, the HVAC asshole!"

Emmett laughed and laughed.

"You all keep talking about it, and you've got my imagination working overtime!"

"I thought you said you were a writer?" he said, laughter downgraded to chuckles. "Don't writers need active, overtime-working imaginations?"

"I mean…yeah! I need my imagination to work, just not overtime!"

"Mm," he said, no longer laughing or chuckling but his continuing mirth at my expense evident in the crinkling of his eyes. "Boy, you really don't scare easily, do you? And I'm glad you don't," he added quickly. "I only hope he doesn't step up his attempts based on your effrontery. Especially at this time of year."

"He? And what do you mean, at this time of year?" Despite my five-second outburst of irritation, I now asked the question excitedly and with a grin of my own, anxious to peel back another layer to the story. Hey, I knew there were no such things as ghosts. If Emmett and the rest of the town insisted on believing, I'd just reap the benefits.

Sighing, Emmett leaned against the counter and crossed his legs at his ankles in a similar manner to how Mr. Masen had done so in the photograph upstairs. He then crossed his arms against his chest.

"When we were kids, breaking into this house on Christmas Eve was like a rite of passage."

"What?" I snorted. "Why?"

"The Christmas season has always been…Masen's season; when he's at his strongest, at his most…robust."

"Why?"

"He was killed on Christmas Eve."

"Ahh," I nodded. "That's right."

"According to our town folklore, someone found out that he had a secret stash of cash, and after his death, there were a string of break-ins."

"By who?" I breathed.

Emmett shrugged and shook his head. "That, we don't know. But the potential thieves were scared away in ways that…well, that made this house a local legend, that named it a haunted house. And according to these legends, Masen's ghost is always at his worst, at his angriest, on Christmas Eve."

"So you guys all took your chances on Christmas Eve, willing to piss-off an already angry ghost for the chance to uncover the gold pot at the end of the rainbow."

Again, he chuckled, but there was a note of ambiguity in it this time as if we weren't sharing a laugh about the same thing.

"Almost everyone in town has given it a try. Some barely made it past the door or the window through which they climbed in, while some individuals got a bit further before Masen chased them away."

"Hence, all the holes that have now been plastered over."

"Exactly."

Despite the rather morbid topic, I couldn't resist chuckling. "But, supposing there was such a thing as a ghost in this house, and a hidden stash of cash, why the hell would he guard it so much? He's dead. He can't use it."

"True," Emmett nodded, "but I think more than the money itself…it's what it represents that riles Masen up. The greed behind those who wanted it then, and those who want it now."

"So you believe he was betrayed?"

"I do," he confirmed with a sharp nod.

"By who?"

"That, I don't know. I mean, there were a few possibilities: his men, his cousin, his girl, his boss-"

"Wait, wait, wait." I bounced my fingertips against my other hand's palm in a time-out gesture." Masen had a girlfriend? Wait, what am I asking?" I asked myself now. "Of course, he had a girl. He was pretty hot."

Emmett quirked a brow, his mouth twitching mirthfully. "How would you know that?"

"There's a picture of him in a small frame in my new bedroom."

"Is there?" he nodded. "I never heard of that. Anyway, other than for her existence as part of the town folklore, I don't know much about her."

I sucked my teeth. "Damn. All right, and what about his boss? Know anything about him?"

"He was some dude."

"Doesn't tell me much, Emmett."

"Had a strange name…" Emmett tapped his chin as he searched his mind. "Hold on; it'll come to me. It was something weird. It'll come to me." When it hit him a half-minute later, he stopped tapping and snapped his fingers. "Aro Volturi!"

"Aro Volturi?"

"Aro Volturi! Strange name, huh? Anyway, the dude owned a few of the Seattle speakeasies of the time. Officially, Masen worked as a carpenter for him."

"And unofficially?" I smiled knowingly.

"Unofficially, Masen ran the rum and liquor market for a large chunk of Seattle."

"So, not just for Aro's speakeasies?"

His brow furrowed. "I'm…not sure, but I don't think so."

"Hmm. Wonder if something went wrong…" I trailed off, mentally planning my research. I'd have to look up this Aro guy, as well as some unnamed, unknown girlfriend, in addition to god-knows how many underlings who worked under Masen. The best place to start would probably be with articles of the evens of that-"

"Anyway," Emmett interrupted my musings, "like I was saying, I think what riles up Masen is the greed, the avarice inherent in people who'd search for money that's basically…well, basically blood money."

"You mean greedy fuckers like Mike."

"Yep."

I smiled. "Emmett, while I'll agree that Mike is a mercenary asshole, that's as far as I'll go because you're talking about a man who's been dead for a hundred years, in the present tense."

He held my gaze wordlessly.

"It was a combination of wind and snow that attacked Mike before! Not a ghost!"

"If you say so," Emmett sing-songed.

"I mean, true, he was a gangster, and gangsters are known to be-"

Recall how I'd had mellow Christmas music streaming through my personal assistant?

It suddenly erupted into an ear-piercing, cacophonous clamor; volume raised to head-splitting levels that had Emmett and me clamping our hands to our ears while The Carol of the Bells threatened to splinter our eardrums.

"What the hell?" Emmett roared.

"Holy crap!" I howled, reaching for my phone and dropping it a couple of times before I finally managed to locate the little side button and turn the volume down.

It went right back up.

"Stop it!" I shouted while turning the phone off completely. I then glared at the air.

Meanwhile, Emmett laughed and laughed. "Shouting at the air to 'stop'? Bella, are you still claiming to be a knower as opposed to a believer?"

OOOOO

Emmett left, whistling a happy tune to himself while fanning himself with a check with about a billion zeroes on it. No, not really. He'd been fair. I'll give him that.

I then wandered around the house, turning light switches on and off and grinning like the first woman to witness Thomas Edison at work.

"We have light!" I exclaimed in a stupid voice, curving my hands like claws a la Frankenstein's bride and mixing nonfiction with fiction.

When I heard what sounded like a snort and a whispered "Get out" behind me, I spun around, frowning in annoyance.

"Okay, if you're my imagination, you're becoming stale, boring, and honestly, repetitive. Think of a new line, dude, because uttering the same one over and over will never make me a bestseller." Then, I lifted my chin defiantly, though my heart raced a little quicker than it should've. "And if you really are a ghost, you're starting to piss me off. Either way, cut it the hell out."

And with that, I spun around again.

"Unladylike language," I thought I heard behind me, and growling to myself, I stomped away.

Deciding I needed food, I made myself a grilled cheese in my new pan that I set on top of my mint-green-and-white antique stove. The cleaning service had left it sparkling. Unfortunately, when I walked over to my new fridge for a drink, I must've accidentally knocked into the burner's heat knob and sent the burner's flame to high-as-fuck. When I returned to the stove, with a glass bottle of sparkling water in hand, black smoke billowed from the pan.

"Holy crap!"

In an instant and fluidly, I turned off the burner, lifted the pan by its handle, and deposited pan and grilled cheese into the sink, turning on the faucet and coughing at the ensuing cloud of charred bread and cheese.

"You little fucker," I breathed, nostrils flaring as I glared at my ruined pan. "These pans weren't cheap. If it wasn't my house now, I'd make holes in every damn wall 'til I found that stash of cash, and then I'd blow it all on top-of-the-line pans," I hissed.

When my little rant was met with silence, I smiled as I pulled out another pan and made myself another grilled cheese, glowering daringly at the burner the entire time.

As I sat at the table a few minutes later and took a bite of my nicely toasted grilled cheese, I chuckled to myself.

"Arguing with ghosts. Bella, girl, you are totally losing it, and it hasn't even been one full day!"

OOOOO

I took an uneventful and destressing bath in my antique, claw-footed tub, which the cleaning service had also left sparkling. As I lay back my head on my blow-up pillow and shut my eyes, I realized something…strange.

It was the first time since I'd arrived at the house that morning that I genuinely felt…alone.

All day, I'd had the sensation of being observed, of having eyes on me, studying me, analyzing me in the way a scientist would visually examine a newly-discovered species. But now, here in my tub, I felt utterly unobserved as if I'd entered a shrine wholly to myself, one where no one else was allowed.

That sensation of total privacy followed me into the bedroom later as I dressed in warm, flannel jammies and a robe. With a glance toward the picture frame, I ventured to my living room slash parlor room. It must've been the extreme recentness of having looked at the picture, but as I looked around, it hit me all of a sudden that this was the same room as the picture in my bedroom. There was a beautiful upright piano in the room, rich mahogany wood with an intricately embellished cabinet and smooth legs. The straight top was closed, hiding the ivory keys. I was no player, but I tried to open it out of curiosity. It wouldn't budge, apparently locked shut somehow from the inside. Therefore, I satisfied my curiosity by skimming my fingertips over the rich wood panels.

That was when something else hit me. Mr. Masen hadn't been leaning against a table in that picture. He was leaning against this piano.

A low sound emanated from deep in my throat, one of surprise mixed with inexplicable pleasure, as if the discovery somehow benefited me.

"Well, well, Mr. Masen," I murmured to myself, "were you a skilled piano player…or was this for your girlfriend?" I wondered. "A gift…a way to pass a romantic evening together?"

Obviously, there was no reply.

After a minute, I sighed and made my way to the Queen Anne settee, a sensation of having one foot in the past and one in the present swirling around me. But, abandoning thoughts of Mr. Masen and antique pianos, I turned on my extremely modern new flatscreen, which Emmet hung up for me over the parlor's mantle. While I settled on a Christmas movie, my HVAC system whirred in the background, forcing warm air into the room. For after a while, I laid back and lost myself in the problems of Ebenezer Scrooge, but at some point, I noted that the heat had turned off, and I was suddenly trembling, the drafts in the house making themselves known.

"Good work, Mike, the HVAC guy," I muttered sardonically. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought a blanket down, and now I realized the perils of living in a huge house. The bedroom was about five miles away. Trying for body heat, I curled in on myself, but I could've sworn I saw my breath swirl before me. Scrooge's issues had lost my interest, and my eyes had already grown heavy-lidded when the TV started flickering then went out with a flash.

"Oh, crap, not you too, Emmett, the Electrician," I groaned. "I was sure I could at least count on you."

I considered stumbling up from the settee and shuffling over to the respective units, checking them out for myself, like a woman who didn't need a damn man in her life. At the very least, I could retrieve a blanket and a flashlight for myself.

But my gaze drifted lethargically to the shiny new windows, their crystalline panes reflecting a backdrop of sparkling snow contrasting with an inky sky. I sighed. It was a hypnotizing, meditative sight that elicited a loud yawn. It'd been a long day of moving in, the exhaustion compounded by an imagination working on overdrive thanks to Alice, Emmett, Mike, stupid tales of this house's Christmas ghosts…and strange, inexplicable events.

I drifted off, but minutes or hours later, the TV must've turned back on. I couldn't see anything because I kept my eyes closed, but there was music playing – piano music, to be exact. So, it must've been some sort of Christmas special. Someone on TV was attempting that favorite holiday classic of mine on the piano, the one I'd replayed over and over today. They kept stumbling, though, but not with the botchy fingering of some amateur, more like with the skilled playing of someone who just needed some practice to get it right.

"All I want for Christmas…" I sang along sleepily to the tune, eyes shut, "is…you!"

OOOOO

My eyes fluttered open to a house blanketed in darkness juxtaposed by an outdoor ivory glow. I'd nodded off and spent my first night in my new home on the settee in the parlor. At some point, the previously blinking lights had wholly surrendered to the Victorian's shitty, century-old framework. At least, the heat had kicked back on.

"Great framework, indeed," I muttered drowsily, curling up like a kitten on my Queen Anne, vaguely noting I'd apparently slept-walked upstairs to my bedroom at some point and retrieved a blanket. Why I hadn't just stayed in bed, I had no clue. Either way, I was too focused on hating on my realtor.

"Alice the Realtor, if I were Santa, you'd be on my naughty shit list."

I shut my eyes again.

But, although my body was drained, that darned overactive imagination was still kicking and ready to conjure an echoing chuckle followed by a deep voice that, though it spoke in a low, conversational, and dry tone, managed to vibrate throughout the room.

"Miss Swan, if you were Santa, something would need to be done about that language before you were allowed anywhere near kids."

My eyes popped open.

Sitting at the piano was a man. He had his back to me, dressed in trousers, a matching vest, and a crisp white shirt, and as he turned to look over his shoulder, my heart jumped into my throat.

Mr. Masen offered me a wry grin, his green eyes laughing at me.

"Good morning, Miss Swan."

In reply, I fell off my settee.

Then, everything went black.

A/N: Thoughts?

Is 'While You Were Sleeping?' a Christmas movie? I feel like that should be up for debate. Either way, I used it as the title for this chapter. (Naming the chapters after Christmas movies, btw). ;)

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If I can't update in the next few days, Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! And just happy and safe days to everyone!

"See" you soon!