The Little Girl Who Saw Things

A visitor to the Cullens with a mysterious special talent has sent Alice into a coma-like state, reliving her repressed human life. But what started out as a simple enough hurdle to overcome, is quickly becoming more and more difficult, as Jasper struggles with his feelings and Carlisle realizes a terrible truth.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, so this is sort of like two stories in one. On the one hand, it's the story of Alice's human life. On the other hand, it's the story of the Cullens during this crisis. Names and dates at the beginning of every chapter indicate the POV and the year.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the Cullens or any of Twilight's events or characters for that matter.

Prologue (Alice Cullen, 2007)

She isn't the most beautiful of our kind I've ever seen: average height, maybe 25 in human years, blood-red eyes, brown hair. But she doesn't seem a threat.

She's coming to our property, and she'll arrive soon.

"Somebody's coming," I spoke aloud for the benefit of everybody else as Edward frowned at me.

"Who?" Carlisle asked.

She's speaking, and her voice still holds a twinge of a British accent – more noticeable than Carlisle's, but similar. Maybe in her human life, she had been British, and judging by its disappearance, she's old. Maybe fifty years or more to our life.

"My name is Devora," she said, looking at me. "I come to –"

And then Jacob, Leah and Nessie entered the room. Growling with frustration, I rubbed my forehead. "Anybody who is not 100% vampire needs to leave the room," I growled furiously, even as Jasper gave my arm a light squeeze in reassurance. "I can't see."

"Nobody expects you to do everything, Lissy," Jasper murmured softly into my ear, soft enough that nobody could hear his words. Nobody but Edward, who had long ago learnt to keep Jasper's pet name for me a secret. I could only imagine the ribbing Emmett would give the both of us if he found out. He would kill himself laughing if he knew that Jasper was less of the Southern gentleman than he believed. A true gentleman, in Emmett's mind at least, would never think to degrade a lady's name by butchering it from the original.

"Her name is Devora," Edward spoke up just then, and I sent him a grateful look. Much as I loved Nessie, and much as it didn't bother me as much as it had before her birth, when everything had been much less certain, she still gave me a furious headache if I was trying to concentrate on something. "We're not sure what her purpose is here." As I closed my eyes again and tried to refocus around Nessie, Jasper's fingers began kneading at the back of my neck comfortingly.

God, that helped so much. What had I done in my human life to deserve him – saved a burning houseful of orphans?

"But she's close?" Carlisle asked.

"Yes," Edward replied, picking up Nessie when she paused at his side expectantly. "She'll probably be here –"

"– within the hour," I managed to say tensely. "Possibly even the next few minutes."

As if in answer to my prediction, there was a soft knock at the door just then and I finished my thoughts aloud. "She's here."

Leah (probably eager to be out of the room full of vampires – she didn't handle our scent with nearly the grace and finesse that Jacob or Seth did) bolted for the door. "Well, whoever it is, is definitely a bloodsucker," she was muttering disgustedly under her breath.

I heard the door open, and again, I tried to see into the next few minutes, but Jacob and Nessie were still in the room, blocking my view. It drove me crazy, it really did – I could now empathize with how Edward felt being unable to hear Bella's thoughts.

But if I really tried, ignoring Jacob (who didn't give me a headache, because he was just a blank spot in the future), I could see the vague outline of something behind Nessie. Frowning and muttering under my breath, I tried to bring it more into focus.

"Hey, Nessie," Jacob spoke up suddenly, "how about you and I and Leah go outside for a while?" Nessie immediately jumped down from Edward's arms and ran off with her 'wolf-people', clearing up my vision enormously.

I owed that dog big-time.

The room was dark. There was a crowd of people standing around me, murmuring something under their breath.

And then everything went black.