Chapter 1: Here We Go Again

Chapter 1: Here We Go Again

Why is it that the hardest part of school is the end?

My mind was floating randomly through a million different things in the course of a second, vainly trying to find something to occupy itself. It was Friday, the last Friday before February half term, and Mr Krucks’s year 9 science class were chattering to each other across the aisles of the desks. Only a few were watching the U rated musical projected onto the board. I wished it could capture my attention, but I’d already seen it twice over the course of the day.

It was the last lesson before the end of school. I should be excited. I had a whole week ahead of me, with plenty of time for the things that were important to me. Just one thing, actually. Alex.

Alex.

Alex Alex Alex Alex!

I couldn’t get him out of my head, although that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. I let my mind wander, tracing back over the last few months; the happiest months I had ever had. After my abrupt departure from the realms of fiction and fantasy (I got hit on the head and came home in a coma), Alex had been the most wonderful boyfriend anyone ever had. He walked with me to every lesson, even if we weren’t in the same class. He didn’t mind if I sat with him and his friends at lunch, and he was perfectly content to brave the gaggle of girls that I sat with.

Allie, Gemma, Susie and Beth were the best friends a girl could ask for, always up for shopping trips, and completely understanding when I wanted to spend time with Alex, although none of them had ever had anyone like him before.

Alex was sat next to me now, and I looked at him at the exact same moment he looked at me, both of us smiling. Alex had understood everything about the Necklace almost instantly, and it made it easier having him know.

The Necklace.

Ever present in my life, the tiny silver bow glowed dimly under my shirt. I clapped my hand over it before it could attract attention in the dark room, and Alex’s grin widened. He took my hand and began gently playing with my fingers. I rolled my eyes at his attempt to distract me, pulled my hand free, and reached into my school bag. Reading was almost as good as going to the places for real. My imagination had always been wild.

It was his turn to roll his eyes as I pulled out a dog eared copy of New Moon by Stephanie Meyer and turned to the folded page. I smiled at him and immersed myself in the world of vampires and werewolves. I loved this book. Although some parts were hard for me to read, I kept going back to the Romeo-and-Juliet-style story line that was still entirely individual. Something about Bella Swan, the way she looked at the world, perhaps, or the fact that she saw everything in detail, made her one of my favourite characters in fiction.

If you like it so much, why don’t you go there?

I turned to look at Alex, as if he had spoken aloud.

He was bizarrely nonchalant about my mind reading. I had picked it up after re-reading Twilight a few months back, marvelling at Edward’s unique gift, and wishing I could do it too. Of course, thanks to the Necklace, as soon as I wished it, I could. It was a little different; I could only hear a person's thoughts if I was listening, or if they wanted me to hear them.

Alex had thought nothing of it when I had told him, accepting it just as coolly as everything else. He regularly talked to me in lessons this way. Sometimes I wrote notes back, sometimes I conveyed what I wanted on my face. Now I raised my eyebrows and stared at him. He hated being away from me. He had to be chased away from the bus by the teachers every day, and if we hadn’t lived in different villages, he would have walked me home. So why was he suggesting that I go somewhere that he couldn’t see me every day, where he couldn’t just call if he wanted to talk?

I took my school planner off the desk, flipped it open to the next week and jabbed a finger at the huge red heart I had doodled on the page around the words ‘A whole week of heaven’. I was subtly reminding him that his grandparents had let him invite me to their summer house in Cornwall for half term. Stephen and Eileen Parks, too old to do much travelling, trusted the two of us to manage alone for the week, and both of us had been looking forward to it.

There will be other holidays. Besides, I think my dad would rather I spent time with him.

Alex’s father Henry lived in London, at the other huge estate owned by their family. His family was phenomenally rich. Alex could have gone to almost any school in the country, but he had chosen to come to Swindon and live with his grandparents, so he could go to an ordinary school and have an ordinary life. I was eternally grateful that he had; if he hadn’t, we would never have met.

I grabbed a pen from my pencil case and began scribbling furiously across the blank page at the back of the book.

‘But Alex’ I wrote, ‘if I go away, we can’t talk to each other, for who knows how long.’

I don’t mind. I know you miss it, the excitement of the unknown and all that. You’re always doodling in that book of yours.

He reached across and tapped the pictures scrawled all over my planner; eyes, drawn with pencils and pens, some black and white, some coloured, a few scribbled out completely. He let his hand run over one area in particular, where 8 pairs clustered together. The ones in the centre were brown, and the 7 that surrounded it were various shades of gold and ochre. I rolled my eyes. My obvious obsession with Bella and the Cullen family didn’t mean I would leave him willingly. I jotted down a short note expressing this, and then looked towards the front. The teacher had stopped the film and turned the lights on, and was trying in vain to calm the class down as the final minutes ticked by. No one was listening to him, but everyone packed away their things in a rush, and they all somehow managed to hear the bell. A cheer erupted from the class as they surged towards the door. Mr Krucks gave up trying to organise them and sat down at his desk, fanning himself with the lunch menu from that morning. He waved to us as we exited behind everyone else, hand in hand; attempting to avoid the crush in the corridor. “Have a good holiday sir!” I called as we left.

We walked silently through the half empty corridors, hands swinging between us, until we found a quiet spot just off the main hall. Alex immediately started talking.

“Becks, I know you think I can’t handle you not being here, but I’ll deal with it, OK? Dad does want to see me, and Grandma doesn’t really want to leave us alone all week. You can sync up time if you like, you know, so it will be like you never left, and we can still have that time together. Your parents could still think you’re coming with me and we’ll think of something to tell Grandma. I just can’t stand seeing you unhappy, Becky.”

I sighed. “Alex, I have never been happier in my life. I can go somewhere else whenever I want. It doesn’t have to be now.”

“I really don’t mind Becky. Go and have some fun. Anyone can see that you miss it; you’re always fidgeting and school goes too slowly for you without the adventure.”

He smiled at me and I melted like hot wax, wrapping my arms around his neck. He put his hands on my waist and held me close. I sighed, and he grinned, realising I had given in.

“Won’t you miss me?” I asked in my most sugary sweet, girl-next-door voice.

“Of course I will. Even if you’re only gone for a second or two, I’ll miss you like crazy.”

His eyes looked sadly into mine, and I looked sadly back. I forced myself to smile, and then said, “I’ll come to your house tomorrow, as we planned, while your grandparents are out. We’ll go to the bottom of your garden and I’ll leave from there, OK?”

He just nodded and tried to smile too. “I love you.” he whispered.

“Of course you do.” I smiled again, and reached up to kiss him. His hands tightened, and then he released me. “You’re going to miss your bus,” he reminded me. I pouted, but pecked him on the cheek and ran to the bus, waving at him until he was out of sight.

***

The next day, my mum dropped me at the huge ornate gates of the Parks House estate, with a tearful kiss and a sniffily “have fun”. I waved until she disappeared, then began to walk up the foot path by the drive, dragging my single suitcase and bending over slightly under the weight of my backpack.

Parks House was enormous. It had been built during the reign of Edward VII as a summer home, but Sir Fredrick Parks, who established the family fortune, had given it to his son Harold as a wedding present. Since then, the two properties had been passed to alternate generations, (Henry had inherited Parks Manor in London from his grandfather, Alex would inherit Parks House from Stephen) and money had been shared between them. The front was all white, a little faded with age, and decorated with columns and stone carved lion heads. Inside the house had six bedrooms, all with en suites, three further bathrooms, two studies, a library, a drawing room, two living rooms, a monumental kitchen, a dining room and, my favourite, the ballroom.

I liked the ballroom because it was unquestionably the most beautiful room in the house. It had marble columns along the walls making shallow little alcoves and hidey holes, and gold decoration on the ceiling. An enormous crystal chandelier cast rainbows across the room in the sunlight, reflected by the big French doors and the mirrors along one wall. The floor was polished and wide, uninterrupted by furniture save for a few gilt chairs around the edge and the huge black grand piano in one corner. I wasn’t much of a musician-I preferred singing- but I did play the piano now and then, and I had never played anything to compare with the crystal clarity and ringing sound that this particular instrument produced.

On a normal day, I would have gone up the ten sloping steps to the front door, knocked, and waited for Richard, the butler, to let me in. But today I was being secretive, so instead I gently floated my suitcase off the ground so it wouldn’t make a noise, and darted around the side of the house to the garden.

The garden was as big if not bigger than the house. It was half lawn, dotted with beds of roses, tulips and lavender, and half lake, the vast expanse of water planted with water lilies and lotus flowers and home to a family of graceful white swans and a seemingly infinite number of little green frogs.

I spotted Alex waiting for me by the waters edge and I ran over to him, a huge smile on my face. He smiled back and opened his arms to me. I went into them and kissed him softly on the lips. He sighed and pulled away.

“I don’t have to go.” I reminded him.

He smiled weakly. “I already told Dad I would spend the holiday with him. Grandma thinks you decided to go to France with your parents, so that’s all sorted. You can take the whole week if you like.” His smile turned a little sad. I pressed my hand against his cheek and looked into his eyes. “I love you,” I told him, very serious, “Never forget that.”

“I won’t” he promised, and leaned in to kiss me again. When he broke away I laid my cheek against his shoulder and we hugged each other tightly.

“I’ll miss you Lexi.” I whispered, using the nickname his mum had used for him that I had adopted.

“Miss you already Becky-boo” he murmured.

I pulled away with a sigh, took hold of the handle of my suitcase and waved once before closing my eyes in concentration and snapping my fingers.

The wind whistled past me as I travelled through the non-reality between worlds. I kept my eyes tight shut, not wanting to see the terrifying sights that raced past me. The next second the wind stopped and I landed on two feet, bending my knees to absorb the impact. Unfortunately, my suitcase’s landing wasn’t quite so perfect, and it toppled over, hitting my legs and knocking me to the ground. I huffed and heaved myself up off the grass, plonking my backpack down and looking around. I was in a wide grassy space, standing by a fairly large white washed house with attached garage and a lilac front door. I smiled. Lillian had already been here, that much was clear.

Lillian was my guardian. I was the twelfth girl to wear the Necklace, and, as the most recent before me, Lillian had been assigned to give me a hand. She helped me to use the Necklace for good and made sure I didn’t make a mess of reality. She told me when I was about to catch up with the stories I went to and that it was time to go home. She told me when I should and shouldn’t use my power for something, and she covered for me in times of emergency (like when I had my accident and she made it look like I had fallen down the stairs at school, rather than getting caught in an avalanche as I had done). She was my best friend, someone who understood, because she had been in my position. Her guardian hadn’t been as vigilant, though, and Lillian had had no one to stop her when she made her Mistake.

Each of the Shining Sisters (so called because they looked like beautiful shining women) had made a Mistake, used the Necklace’s power in a way that changed reality beyond repair, and been removed from the time line completely, except for Hope, the leader, because she was the first. Most of the Mistakes came down to greed, jealousy or selfishness, ranging from making Romeo love them instead of Juliet, to reanimating a dead relative, to Lillian, who had taken a star out of the sky and kept it in a jar under her bed for a month, until the constellations shifted and Hope found out. I shivered. Lillian had only been 15 when she was ‘removed’, and she had lasted the longest so far out of the others. Each outlived the last by no more than a few months. If I followed the pattern, I wasn’t going to make it to 16.

Brushing away the dark thoughts, I grabbed my bags, opened the front door of the house and dragged them inside. I was greeted by a wide hall with pale pink walls and a curving glass staircase. A small purple end table held a phone and a set of keys, with my school bag resting against its base. I smiled again. Lillian was very good.

I dumped my things (I would unpack later), grabbed my bag and the keys and went back outside, locking the door behind me; although I seemed to be quite far out in the forest, you never knew when someone would come along out of the blue and decide to have a look around. Suddenly curious, I closed my eyes and let my mind roam outward, trying to pinpoint my exact location. In my minds eye, I saw the road twist in both directions from the end of my short driveway. About 2 miles in one direction, a secluded little drive was almost hidden in the dense foliage-the Cullen’s house- and 5 miles past that were the outer limits of Forks. 8 miles the other way was the edge of the La Push reservation, home to the Quileute Indian tribe and their wolf protectors. With a jolt, I realized my house sat exactly on the invisible vampire/werewolf treaty line. Frowning, I decided I needed to ask the Necklace for a time check. Monday, March 30^th floated into my head, followed by You are 18. My age matched up to the main character in the story so I could blend in more easily. In this case, that meant Bella. If she was 18 and it was March... that meant I was in the short space of time between the end of New Moon and the beginning of Eclipse (I tended to avoid planting myself actually into the story; too much chance of things going wrong). I had two weeks, max. I could live with that.

***

I teleported to school, promising myself I would sort out a car before tomorrow. It was lunch time, but the red headed Ms. Cope on reception didn’t seem surprised by my late arrival. Everything had been arranged before hand by Lillian. I was a foreign exchange student, here for two weeks to learn about similarities and differences between British and American culture. Ms. Cope probably thought I had jet lag and had slept in. She gave me a schedule and a map, smiling and saying “...and welcome to America dear,” as I walked out of the office.

People stared as I walked to the cafeteria to get some food, but I ignored them, concentrating instead on the fact that it was unusually sunny for Washington, and wondering if it was women’s intuition or Lillian’s planning that had prompted me to wear a short sleeved t-shirt today. I bought my lunch and scanned the rows of heads, as if I was looking for a seat. I was really looking for something much more specific.

Ah ha!

The two girls sat together in the crowded lunch room, chatting across the table while the boy next to them engaged himself in a comic book. They both had brown hair, worn straight down their backs. One girl wore glasses, while the other had slightly curlier hair and chocolate brown eyes. I smiled. The only empty seat in the cafeteria was next to that girl. How perfect.

“Excuse me,” I said, faking shyness, “Can I sit here? There’s no where else to go.”

“Of course!” the girl with glasses smiled at me, “I’m Angela, and this is Ben.”

The boy nodded in recognition of his name, then returned to his book.

“Hi, I’m Becky Wainwright. I’m on a foreign exchange here from England... is something wrong with her?”

The other girl was staring into space, not listening at all.

“Ignore Bella,” Angela said kindly, “She’s always like this when it’s sunny. She just misses Edward.”

“Who’s he?”

Bella answered, breaking out of her daze at the name. “He’s my... boyfriend,” she said, as if she weren’t sure if that was a good word. “His family are really adventurous and their dad takes them hiking when it’s nice out. They’re on a camping trip right now. It’s been like this all week.” I tried not to giggle at Bella’s glum expression. Instead I just smiled and looked out of the window at the sun. Summoning my power, I pictured a dark cloud over the sun and slowly moved my hand under the table, closing it into a fist and twisting it around.

“What if I could guarantee that your Edward will be back for next period?” I asked, turning back to the girls at the table.

“I’d say you’re crazy. There’s no way...” Bella trailed off as she looked out the window. A large grey cloud had crossed the sun, and there was an audible groan from the students as the rain began.

“I think the camping trip is over.” I mused quietly, grinning.

***

Edward was in class next period, sat calmly in a seat near the back, waiting for Bella. I was in that class too, and he looked at me curiously when we entered. I had trouble suppressing another giggle. The teacher sat me at the empty desk behind them, and Bella turned around to chat.

“I guess you were right Becky. You’re pretty good at predicting impossibilities.”

“I told you Bella. I guaranteed it.”

“Will someone introduce me, or do I have to listen to inconsequential chatter for an hour?” There was a slight edge of frustration in Edward’s voice, a frustration that was rarely seen in him.

“Of course! How rude of me.” My accent seemed to surprise Edward. I nearly giggled again. “My name is Rebecca Wainwright, but you can call me Becky. I’m on an exchange here from England. You must be Edward Cullen. It’s nice to meet you.” I said all this so fast that Edward was left looking a little confused. He seemed to register that my hand was out, and he gingerly shook it. His hand was ice cold; he eyed me suspiciously but I just smiled wider. Class started then, and Edward and Bella turned round to concentrate. I listened carefully, focusing on him while still listening reflexively to the lecture and taking notes. Edward wasn’t concentrating on the lesson of course. His thoughts continually strayed to me. Who is she? he thought, Where did she come from? And why did I have such the strange feeling I’ve met her before?

Aw, you’re thinking about me!

I had pulled up a protective barrier around myself when I had arrived, not wanting to be at the mercy of whatever vampire abilities I encountered, but it was flexible enough that I could carefully pull it back and allow Edward to hear me as if I had spoken aloud. I read the shock as he heard my voice, heard him struggle not to freeze and give himself away.

Shh I whispered no one else can hear, and Bella will get worried if you react.

Edward was perfectly still. He didn’t dare move an inch. He was sure the voice was mine. Even from our short conversation, he could recognise my smooth accent and refined manner of speech. It suddenly dawned on him that he hadn’t been able to hear my thoughts when I walked in. He usually tuned out the thoughts of the people around him, and he hadn’t been trying to hear me because I’d been with Bella, the only exception to his talent.

I know what you are Edward. You and your family.

Edward stiffened. He couldn’t help it. I saw Bella shoot him a worried glance and he tried to smile reassuringly. She didn’t seem convinced, but she turned back to the teacher.

How can you know? Edward thought, sure that I could hear him. Did Bella tell you? (She wouldn’t do that.)

Bella didn’t tell me, I knew already.

How?

I just did. It’s incredibly complicated to explain, so I won’t try, just trust me when I say I mean you no harm.

Edward risked a confused glance over his shoulder at me. I was facing the front, craning my neck slightly to see over Bella’s head and doodling on my book without looking. I acted as if I had noticed him looking at me and smiled warmly.

How do you know about us? Edward was careful to speak only in thoughts. This was private, and Bella didn’t need to be involved.

My voice rang in his head, though I did not move. Meet me in your little meadow tonight and I will attempt to explain.

Edward knew the place, he went there often. Very well. 11:30 tonight.

Why the late hour? You may not need it, but I get cranky if I don’t sleep.

(How does she know so much?) Bella won’t go to sleep until at least 11:15, and I won’t leave her until she does.

Then bring her with you.

NO! I still don’t know what you are, and I don’t want to lead her to danger.

I told you Edward, I mean you no harm. I am completely human. I will not harm Bella. On the contrary, I laughed softly, I’m hoping we will be good friends.