Prologue

Late 1986

I never knew that this existence would be so dry and absolutely boring. After so many years you would think that I would get used to it. Never being able to be in the sun… eating food… sleeping… I guess it was meant to be this way. I have been this way so long I can't remember human life. My life has taken so many different twists and turns that require me to move constantly with my vampire family. Oh yes, the vampire family. How can I forget the existence that makes all shy away from me or my family… or the desire to lure unsuspecting humans into the forest and take the very part of them that makes them alive? But I, like my entire family, sustained ourselves in a different manner, on the blood of the various predators of the region to which we were living.

However, my life would come to change in only a few seconds… I would want to taste the blood of a human… one so small, weak, and helpless. While traveling to Alaska with my family I crossed paths with a woman carrying a baby… a girl in her arms. I never paid much attention to humans anymore, but this baby… awoke something in me that I thought that lie dormant in my being. I wanted to snatch the child and run with her as far away as I could. The mother would never be able to catch me, I would be done with my task before she could get help to search for the girl. But why? Why would I do such a thing? I had deprived myself of the taste of human blood for so long, why would I want to now change my ways? She smelled so sweet… unlike any blood I had ever smelled. I leaned in toward the mother and spoke, "You have a lovely baby, ma'am. How old is she?"

She turned to me smiling and replied, "Thank you. She's only a month old, my beautiful Isabella."

Isabella. The name rang in my soul, or where my soul would be if I still had one. How could a child named Isabella want me to change my life and threaten the life that my family had built? I wanted to touch her… but then I knew I would want to do more than that so I smiled at the woman and walked away. Alice was waiting for me up the street by the car.

"So what was that all about Edward?"

"Nothing. I was just admiring that woman's child."

Alice went silent for a moment, dazed off into one of her usual trances. This worried me. I waited for her to come to and to tell me what she saw. Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper came up as I waited. They stood waiting, for they knew that she was seeing something that would probably change our lives in some manner, at least eventually if we stayed on our current course. After only a few minutes Alice came to and looked at me.

"What did you see Alice?"

She stood there for a moment, and looked down the street at the woman holding her small child in her arms and smiled.

"I saw a beautiful brown haired woman that would come into your life and change the way that you will live and make you whole."

Rosalie laughed, "I doubt that any woman would want Edward. He is so dark and doesn't want to have company. Remember Carlisle wanted me to be to Edward what Esme is to him and see how that turned out."

Walking up behind her, Emmett pulled his huge arms around her, "You missed out Edward, not that I would have ever let you have her." He leaned in and kissed her softly on her lips.

"I don't think I need anyone actually. I feel fine right now, without someone."

Alice shook her head and spoke, "Oh, Edward. You don't know how much you will change when this girl comes into your life." She turned to the woman down the street and watched her.

I turned to see Carlisle and Esme coming and they were getting into their car, waiting for us to get ready to continue our journey to Alaska to meet up with more of our kind that shared our similar eating habits. Emmett and Rose got in with Carlisle and Esme. I got in the back seat of the other car, while Jasper got into the driver seat of the other. I turned to see Alice still standing there silently. I shut the doors to the car and we waited for her to get in.

"We will meet again, Isabella. You will bring Edward so much heartache, but in the end bring him so much joy. May you have many years of happiness until we meet again."

Alice opened the door and slipped into the passenger seat. Jasper turned over the engine of the car and we started up the highway to Alaska. I wonder why Alice held so much interest in that average woman… she wasn't that interesting. But that baby… I have to forget about the baby. I will never see it again. I doubt that I will never be back in Forks, Washington again and I doubt that I will ever see either the town or that baby again in the rest of my existence.