Chapter 7: Another Piece of the Puzzle

I heard voices whispering nearby. I was awake, but didn't dare open my eyes. The image of Edward's hostile face suddenly appeared in my mind, and a pain such as I had never felt before hit me in the gut. Edward. That face......the hatred so evident in his eyes.........I felt tears begin to slide down my face.

"Bella, are you awake?" The voice was kind, full of concern. It was also male. And........it was a voice I knew quite well.

I opened my eyes completely. Edward was bending over me. I screamed. And screamed.

"Bella, hush......" He gathered me into his arms, held me tightly. "Everything's fine. It's me."

I couldn't speak. I was crying much too hard for that. He continued to hold me, crooning softly to me, as I wept. Soon he was rocking me gently. I cried and cried. I didn't think I would be able to stop.

"Bella........don't cry.......I'm here. I'm right here."

His arms were moving up and down my back.

I hiccuped. "But......I saw you........" I whimpered.

"I know, I know......." he answered. "That wasn't me, Bella."

"But.....but......he looked......so much.......like you.........." I pulled back, and stared into his face. He stared right back at me, smiling slowly.

I reached up and tentatively stroked his face. "It is you, isn't it?" I know I must have sounded really dumb, but this was too strange for me to take in.

He grabbed my hand, brought it up to his lips, and kissed the palm. The look in his eyes warmed me through and through.

I sighed, and melted into his embrace. He enfolded me in his cold arms, resting his head on top of mine. We stayed that way for a few minutes, and then I pulled back again.

He saw the questions in my eyes. "Everything's all right," he repeated softly.

Frowning, I turned to look around me. Then I saw them -- three vampires sitting on the ground a few feet away, watching us. Among them was Edmund, the vampire who looked so much like Edward. My eyes filled up again when i saw him.

We were in a moonlit meadow, surrounded by trees that sighed softly in the wind. And yet, nothing looked quite normal. There was a soft, shimmering rainbow light around the moon, which seemed to be much too big. Every blade of grass, the trees themselves -- everything shimmered with rainbow light.

Edmund sneered when he saw me staring at him. "I could never understand you Cullens. Cozying up to humans like that." And he spat at the ground. He actually spat.

Edward bristled at once. Turning to Edmund, he hissed, "You racist scum........."

I touched his arm. "Edward, you're obviously outnumbered here. Don't."

"Your little girlfriend is right," said the third vampire, another male. He looked a little older than Edmund and the female, who was the same one I had seen in the car.

This third vampire now rose. "It's time you understood what's going on," he said, addressing Edward, but somehow including me.

We stared at him, both of us holding our breath.

"Your love simply cannot be. It's not right. It's against nature. Humans and vampires can't have a relationship."

"For that matter, neither can werewolves and humans", the female put in sarcastically, with a feral smile.

Edward began to snarl. I laid a hand on his arm.

The vampire turned to Edward. "The humans have nearly killed us off, in our time. That, as well as the mixing of vampire and human, has nearly made us extinct. We won't tolerate this."

"So what are you going to do?" Edward challenged.

"Where are we?" I blurted out.

No one answered me. Edward, however, circled my waist with his arm, reassuring me.

Suddenly, I got mad. I loved it when Edward was protective, but there was a limit. And I wanted some answers. I pulled away from my beloved.

"Somebody better tell me where the heck we are!" I shouted, surprising everybody.

The older vampire chortled. "Spunky little thing, isn't she?" he commented to Edward, as if they were chums.

Edward grinned in spite of himself. "That's one of the reasons I love her so," he said, pulling me to his side again.

The older vampire looked briefly at me, and then at Edward. "Explain to her," he ordered.

Edward turned to me. "We're in a.......sort of........place between worlds -- ours and theirs. Everything here is in a state of flux. Things could go either way. Right now, you and I don't exist. Edmund is me, who I would have become, if I had never met you, or if I had, and you had died."

"But what about Alice? Where is she? Where are all the others?" My eyes welled up again.

As if in answer, I suddenly saw Alice in my mind. Then I heard her voice, inside my head. "Edward, where are you? We're trying to find you! Is Bella with you?"

My eyes widened. I was shocked. I could actually hear Alice in my mind!

Edward smiled at me. "Yes, I know, sweetheart. And I can read your mind now, too."

"But how.......?"

The older vampire looked at us. He smiled triumphantly. "Since neither of you exists at the moment, everything that applied to your relationship before is temporarily non-existent, as well. Of course, when we complete our plan, you will permanently cease to exist."

"But why?" I looked directly at him. "Why do you want to destroy us?"

He didn't answer, but instead stared at Edward. Apparently I was unworthy of a direct answer from him.

Edward stroked my face. "It's because of Renesmee.......," he began.

"Rene.....who?" What did my mother have to do with all this?

Edward sighed, and held me very close, looking into my eyes. "We're going to have a daughter, sometime in our own future. Her name will be Renesmee. And she will somehow start a trend of intermarriage between species."

I took a deep breath. A daughter.......that meant that Edward and I........happiness bubbled inside of me. Yet, the whole thing was very puzzling.......

"But what's the problem?" I asked, frowning up at Edward.

He sighed patiently. "You heard Victor, Bella." He must have been referring to the older vampire. "They're becoming extinct in their own time, which is hundreds of years in the future. In fact, purebred vampires are rare there."

He sighed again. "Victor, Edmund, and Alison belong to a sort of vampire Ku Klux Klan. They discriminate against humans."