Chapter Seven: Notebooks

"What? Jacob, don't even try to make this funny. This is serious! Now don't screw with my head. Tell the solid truth," Renesmee whacked Jacob's arm and he cringed. Renesmee blushed and rubbed his arm. "Sorry." Jacob nodded and turned towards the rest of the table, his eyes solemn.

"Sorry to say, but, I'm telling the truth."

Josh growled. Unlike Seth and Jacob, if he growled when he was human, it sounded real. Real as in, identical to his wolf growl. The group of girls walking past our table squealed and ran when they heard him. I chuckled lightly, and Bella glared at me, thinking that I was laughing at Jacob.

"That's impossible! For all the Quileutes know, you've been dead for 150 years! I'm sure they would have chosen a new chief by now. And please tell…how exactly are you chief?" Josh leaned in towards the table, his human scent the strongest scent I could smell. I leaned back into the chair and Bella patted my hand, knowing why. Josh raised an eyebrow at my sudden movement, but otherwise left it un-acknowledged.

"My father told me before we left to live in DC, three years after Nessie was born. He showed me a picture of Ephraim Black, my great-grandfather. He was a russet wolf, and he was chief. He also pulled out a collection of journals that had belonged to all of my greats. All of them wrote that when they were wolves, they were russet colored. I come from a dynasty of Quileute chiefs. The Black family has been chief for the entire existence of the Quileutes, with one exception. For the years before I was born the Quileute chief was Sam's father. Then I was born, and toke over chief. Being the only Black family child besides my sisters, I was supposed to produce the next chief. But since I imprinted on a vampire, I can't. That means I'm still chief." Jacob squeezed Renesmee's hand and she smiled at him.

"Jacob, you know what this means. You need to choose a new chief. Soon." I said. We couldn't lose our werewolf.

Jacob bristled and his hands shook. "You think I don't know that, bloodsucker?" He yelled. Bella gasped and Nessie slapped him. He hadn't called any of us that since 2020. And only then because we had refused to let him go to his father's funeral because it would cause questions to arise. It was like one of us calling him a dog again.

I stood up and leaned across the table, holding my breath as I brought my face an inch away from his. His hands stopped shaking and he looked scared for a moment. "Don't ever call me that again. Because if you do, it's your funeral." I hissed and sat down with fury boiling under my skin. Bella stroked my cheek and tried to calm me down as I listened to Jacob try to form a good comeback in his head.

"Are you okay, Edward? Don't let him get to you," Bella whispered, turning so that she was looking away from the table. Most of the people in the cafeteria had watched the confrontation and were talking about it in hushed whispers. One girl even thought I was going to kill him. If only she knew how easy it would have been. But I never would have voluntarily hurt my daughter that way.

Just fine. I hate that little phrase of his…bloodsucker. He should know that it's an insult to Renesmee, too, when he says that. You can see the hurt in her eyes and in how fast she let go of his hand when he said it. I've never seen her slap him before. That really hurt her. I looked around Bella at Nessie and saw the tears rimming her eyes. She had pulled her legs up and was hugging her knees. Jacob looked at her and his expression softened when he saw her reaction. He reached tentatively towards her and brushed her fingertips with his. She whacked his hand away.

It dawned on him how much that word hurt her and he leaned across the table to hug her. I heard him whisper sorry in her ear. A smile of relief played across her eyes and she hugged him back, dropping her legs back to the floor.

"I wonder how Emmett, Rose, Carlisle, and Esme will react when the find this out." Alice was always the voice of reason and she always knew how to make people feel better. She was almost as good at it as Jasper, and everyone heard a small giggle escape from Renesmee's lips.

"Yeah that's gonna be hilarious. I like the way Carlisle's eyes pop out of his head when he's shocked. It makes him look like one of the cartoons that were on TV when I was little. You know, we're kinda like that. All of our kind is. That Loony Tones Roadrunner guy! With his fast little feet, just like us!" Nessie burst into giggles, and after a moment everyone else did, too.

"Didn't he always go beep beep VROOM? I remember that cartoon we watched it everyday!" Bella gasped, enjoying the moment of normality, especially after such a tense moment. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way.

"And Esme always gets so worried right away. If she were human she would have worry lines on her face 24/7," I observed, sending everyone into fits of laughter again. I noticed that Josh just sat there with a confused look on his face. Seth was laughing because of how we were acting, but he really didn't understand what we meant.

The rest of the day everybody was thinking about what we had said at lunch and I couldn't stop laughing. The teachers thought I was going crazy. Mr. Daniels, the gym teacher even asked me if I was going insane. Well, he actually asked Bella, but I answered.

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but I've been crazy for the past 200 some years." Bella's shoulders shook with silent laughter. Mr. Daniel's eyes grew wide and he shook his head as he turned and walked away.

I was beginning to worry. Celli hadn't been at school since the day Josh arrived, and that was about 2 weeks ago and Josh was about to turn back into a werewolf. There were 3 days left until that happened and I planned to go looking for that nosy girl that same day. She needed to be under almost constant surveillance so she didn't just randomly tell anybody. The only people that could know were people that lived in Forks and Rose had begun to realize that her family had lots of out of town relatives over. Thus the reason for the spying.

Bella and I took the first shift. We were to watch her for three days straight without breaking to go to school. It was the oddest sensation for me because I had sometimes done this with Bella when she was human. I would watch her all day long, sitting outside of her house then moving inside when she was asleep. We were doing the same thing.

We sat outside her house and watched her wander around seemingly aimlessly all day long, then sneaking into her room at night to search and see if there was any evidence of her telling anybody. Bella found a notebook labeled "The Cullens/ Vampires" on the cover in her desk. That was on the last day of our shift so we took it home to show it to Carlisle.

His eyes bugged out of his head when he read the cover and Bella snickered under her breathe with me. Carlisle narrowed his black eyes at us for a moment but then returned his gaze to the notebook, gingerly opening the top cover and laying it on his desk. We stood behind his chair as he flipped through the pages. I could see out the window and watched Alice's canary yellow 2155 mustang convertible. I had expected them to drive, but I saw them run into the woods, making the leaves flutter. It was their shift for the next 3 days.

As I returned my focus to the notebook, a black wolf slunk into the room and laid down at our feet with his head at his paws. Ranger was curious.

Read the notebook out loud, guys. I want to know too. I nodded in agreement and focused on the first page's caption.

"Cullen family members…Carlie? Oh, Carlisle!…Esme…Emmett, Rosalie…Alicia? She must have thought that's what Alice's name was. Jasper. Edward, Bella, Renee? Renesmee! She didn't list Jacob. But she listed Renee and Charlie. Odd. We never had any pictures of either of them." Bella's voice wavered at Charlie's name and Renee's. She still missed them so much.

"Next page. Fake names. Carlisle Masen. Esme Masen. Emmett Masen. Rosalie Whitlock. Alice Brandon. Jasper Whitlock. Edward Masen. Bella Brandon. Reneesmee Brandon. She forgot Jacob again. And she's forgotten Seth, too. He's part of our family. That must mean she has a separate Werewolf notebook." Carlisle said. Ranger growled lightly, his head popping up.

That's bad. She could have information about me! Or my cousins! Carlisle's eyes popped out again when I relayed the information and Bella struggled not to laugh. Carlisle looked at her with an eyebrow raised and she shook her head.

I whipped out my cell phone and called Alice. She answered on the first ring.

"Hello, Edward."

"Hi, Alice. Why are you guys still running?"

"I'm still running. Jasper is already there. We haven't eaten in almost 3 weeks so I'm up in the mountains near the old house now. I just caught scent of a moose. Hold on one moment." I tapped my foot on the ground as I waited for her. "Ok, I'm back. So what's up?"

"Tonight you and Jasper need to get into her room and look for a notebook. It'll have something like Werewolves or Quileutes written on it. Do you see you or Jasper finding it?"

Alice didn't speak for a minute and Bella and Carlisle held their breath. "Yes, Edward. Jasper finds it. It's purple and says The Quileutes/ Werewolves written on it. Just like the other one, except there's a question mark after werewolves. Like she doesn't know."

"Ok, good. When you get it tonight, have Jasper run it back. Carlisle will need that one as well."

"Okay, Mr. Bossy." She giggled. "See ya'."

" See ya'." I hung up and sighed with relief. "They'll find it tonight and Jasper will bring it back. I have a feeling that it'll be around 3 am."

Continue reading, Stregoni. I'm almost ready to fall asleep and I want as much information as possible before I start dreaming of rabbits. I cocked an eyebrow at him. Wolf thing. He explained.

"Okay, here we go. Real identities. Oh-oh. Carlisle Cullen- Born mid 1640's. Esme Anne Platt Evenson/ Esme Cullen- Born super late 1800's. Emmett McCarty/ Emmett Cullen- Born early 1900's. Rosalie Lillian Hale/ Rosalie Hale- early 1900's. Mary Alice Brandon/ Alice Cullen- early 1900's. Jasper Whitlock/ Jasper Hale- Civil War. When was that? Wow. She doesn't know when the Civil War was! Anyway, Edward Anthony Masen/ Edward Cullen- 1901. How did she find out my exact birth year? Isabella Marie Swan/ Bella Cullen- September 13, 1987. Wow, down to the dime. Odd. Renesmee Cullen- 2006. So she knows our real names and birth years or periods." I read slowly so I wouldn't make any mistakes.

"Couplings. Carlisle-Esme. Emmett-Rosalie? Alice-Jasper. Last names are different… Edward-Bella, Married; Renesmee is daughter. Renesmee- no couple. But then the Indian is alone, too. Renesmee-indian boy? What's his name? Shorter indian boy…no couple. What's his name? Start new notebook for indian boys and tall guy with long hair and the black dog…wolf…fox? Wow, Ranger. She thought you could be a fox! Oh my god that's hilarious!" Bella laughed. Ranger growled and stalked away to the distant corner.

Carlisle stood up and shook his head 6 times before waving his hand at us in dismissal. I picked up the notebook and tucked it under my arm as we walked swiftly out the door. I knew he wasn't going to need it because he was going out to hunt with Esme. We all needed to hunt, but this whole finding a new chief and making sure Celli doesn't blab to non-Forks people had everybody tied up tight. Bella and I hadn't hunted for three weeks and it was getting really hard to be near the wolves and Nessie. Almost everyone in the family had eyes so coal black right now that you couldn't even see the pupil. It was somewhat eerie.

Ranger heaved to his feet and followed us out the room but he didn't follow us down the stairs to the living room. He took a left and plopped down on his bed in his room and started sleeping right away. I laughed. Everybody who could sleep was asleep right now. Jacob and Nessie were passed out 3 floors above us and Seth was snoring on the couch with the TV remote grasped tightly in his hand.

"It would be a relief to be able to sleep right now. To clear all of this out of your mind and just sleep in simple blackness or dream of colors, and the sky." Bella sighed and rested her head against my arm, closing her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Bella giggled quietly and said, "Sleeping."

Jasper arrived around 4 with a tattered purple notebook in his hand. His shirt was ripped in multiple places.

"What happened to you?" Bella said, looked at the torn fabric. Nessie was awake now and she ran up to the 3rd floor and grabbed Jasper a new shirt. After he had taken of the ripped one and put the new one on he sat down on the couch.

"This will sound funny, but I was talking to Alice on the phone, not watching where I was going and I literally ran into a bear so hard that it shattered the phone." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the remains of a small slide phone that he had gotten 4 months ago. I laughed despite myself and Jasper glared at me.

"So the bear was totally mad and he attacked me. I wasn't completely ready so he was able to pin me down but I ended up getting him." Jasper grabbed his shirt again and pointed to red marks spattered all over the white fabric. He smiled slightly then strode to the door. "I should get back to Alice now. See ya' in 3 days." Then he was gone.

Ranger came plodding down the stairs and sat down, his eyes droopy. I'm still waking up, ok? Did…Jasper bring the other notebook? I thought I heard his voice. I nodded and laid it on the floor in front of him. He set his paw on top of it and sniffed it. It smells like a bear! I laughed at that.

"Ranger, man, it's a long story. If you had woken up a few minutes earlier you would have heard it." I muttered, leaning down to pick up the notebook again. Bella plopped down on the couch and reached for the notebook. I shook my head.

"We should wait until Carlisle gets home. Let's go hunting." Bella squealed and clapped her hands, leaping up. We ran out the back door and I placed the werewolf notebook next to the vampire one seconds before we blasted out the door.

Bella and I ran for twenty minutes flat and stopped right as we got into a small forest in Canada. This was Bella's new favorite place to hunt because of all the mountain lions that lived here. I loved it, too. We spotted four a few minutes after we got there and went after the two bigger ones. The smaller two fled when we reached them. I noted the direction they were heading (east) before I flew through the air to land soundlessly on a lion's back. He yowled and twisted around but he wasn't fast enough before I sunk my teeth into his neck. Bella was wrestling with hers. For some odd reason she enjoyed that.

We ran into Carlisle and Esme on the front steps into the house 6 hours later as we were coming back and they seemed extremely happy. Carlisle took the fact that we had gone hunting as a good sign and that we had gotten the werewolf notebook.

"Jasper brought it over?"

"Yes, Carlisle. But he was later than expected because he had a run-in with a bear. It was a good morning for Jasper and us, but not for the bear!" I chuckled and Carlisle rolled his eyes at me. Bella stuck out her tongue and Esme swatted her upside the head, giggling. We walked into the house as a group and were blasted by the scent of pine trees. I glanced around and saw that almost every square inch of table was covered in some sort of forest thing, from pinecones to fall leaves in gorgeous colors.

"Nessie!" Bella called, looking up the staircase. Jacob pounded down the stairs with a cup of coffee in his hand and smiled slightly.

"No yelling so early. Some of us are still asleep," He yawned hugely before dropping onto the couch at Seth's feet and pulling the remote out of Seth's hand. He clicked a button and Seth jumped up.

"I was watching that!" He stood up and stretched before sitting down on the couch again. Nessie dashed into the room and sat down in the armchair. Bella grinned at her and Nessie inhaled deeply, taking in the glorious scent of the forest.

"Well if you were watching it you would know what was on! So, tell me, Seth. What exactly were you watching?" Nessie's chocolate brown eyes danced as she watched him squirm to find an answer. I sat down on the loveseat with Bella while Carlisle retreated to his office with the notebooks and Esme dashed up into her room to change before she went out to buy some more human food for the wolf people.

Bella and Nessie grew more and more amused as Seth fidgeted and squirmed.

"Ok, guys. Seth was passed out solid and right now he's trying to figure out what channel he was watching last night so he can think up a show. Jeesh, Seth, try not to be so obvious in your thoughts!" I punched him lightly on the shoulder, making sure that it was really soft by my standards so it didn't hurt him. Bella cackled and stood up, wandering around and touching all of the forest things.

"Nessie, darling, what happened in here? I keep expecting to smell a squirrel or moose!" I chuckled and started walking upstairs towards Carlisle's study, hoping to see what was in the notebook. Jacob caught my arm when I was on the 5th step and gave me a look.

"Where are you going?"

"Upstairs to talk with Carlisle. He has the werewolf book and the vampire book. I want to look at them." Ranger's ears perked up suddenly and a growl echoed through his mind and escaped his throat. It wasn't a response to what I had said. "Ranger, what's wrong?" Then I heard it, loud and clear. Gravel crunching underneath bike tires coming up the drive. They were probably half a mile away.

Bella rushed to the door and squeaked when she saw who it was. It was Celli. But where were Alice and Jasper, then? I leapt over the staircase rail and pulled open the back door just as Alice bolted in with Jasper a few feet behind her.

"Celli suddenly decided to come here. I saw her looking for the notebooks!" Alice said. "Carlisle, we have human visitors!" she added, sitting down on the stairs. I ran up the stairs and caught Carlisle as he walked out of the office with the notebooks grasped tightly in his hand.

"Don't bring those down! It's Celli and Alice saw her digging through her room looking through them. I think she saw Jasper returning last night, too, because her thoughts are super jumbled and mad but Jasper's name pops up a lot and so does spying. Give the books to me and I'll put them upstairs behind one of the mirrors in our room." I spoke so fast that it took me less than a second to say that.

Carlisle handed them over and bolted downstairs to organize everybody. I turned and launched off of the rail onto the 5th floor rail, landing with a soft thud. Then I pushed open a door and saw the second closet. We used this one for our shoes and coats. It was a walk-in with mirror paneling across the back wall. The mirrors popped off the wall and my eyes widened by what I saw. There was an 8x8 inch size hole in the wall with a small wooden door. The door had a latch on it but it popped open easy enough.

The hole was about two feet deep and tall enough to fit Ranger standing up. The floors were hardwood and the ceiling had a light bulb hanging from it. I leaned in, setting the notebooks down on the smooth floors inside the miniature room. The little door shut with a click and I pushed the mirrors back against the wall, snapping them into place as the doorbell rang 5 floors down.

Leaping over the rail, I landed lightly at the bottom of the stairs on the 1st floor as Esme was opening the door. Bella grabbed my hand, pulling me down onto the loveseat with her. I could hear Ranger's paws pacing in the kitchen and small growls rumbling in his throat. What is a human doing here uninvited? This is insane, not to mention dangerous for me! If she discovered me, Ashland would have my throat within seconds. I just can't reveal us to a whole town. You vampires are crazy for doing it. Won't the Danag punish you?

Bella raised a finger and shushed him, waving him away when he peeked his head around the corner. Celli came in the second the door was open wide enough and I could hear Esme hold her breath as Celli brushed passed her. Emmett raised his hand in a wave as Rosalie and he came into the room from the dining room. Rosalie's face turned into a mix of surprise and fury.

"Hello, Celli. How are you? We noticed you haven't been in school the past two weeks," I said, smiling.

"Yeah, yeah. Enough nice talk. Where are my notebooks and why are you spying on me?" Celli stood near the door, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked very tall, but that's just because the living room is sunken. I hissed at the saw time a growl and two phasing sounds came from the kitchen and dining room.

"I've done research and I know that there are very powerful vampires in Italy that would just die if they knew what you were doing. The city of Volterra is supposedly ruled by a normal human family and they have an address you can write to. The letter telling them about what you are doing is…well, I won't tell you where it is. But I want answers now or else they're coming here."