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Beginning notes: This is an Edward is the human/Bella is the vampire version of Twilight with a twist - the twist being that I tried to change as little as possible from the original story. A lot of writers make major changes to the story when they write these - different characters, different vampire powers, different timelines, different plot points (and the unforgivable - Charlie is gone! NO!), and when I went looking for a story where everything was as close to the original as possible, I couldn't find the right one. So I decided to write my own.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, which goes without saying, really. Twilight and all characters, settings, etc. portrayed therein belong to Stephenie Meyer. She owns the sandbox. She's just nice enough to let us play in it sometimes. (Thank you, Stephenie!) Likewise, I do not own Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. They belong to . . . well, I don't really know who they belong to because Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) has been dead for over a hundred years. Someone does own them, I guess, but I'm not them, whoever they are.

Twilight Through the Looking Glass

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die."

Genesis 2:17

"Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell you all my ideas about
Looking-glass House. First, there's the room that you can see through the glass - that's
just the same as our drawing room, only the things go the other way . . ."

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll

PREFACE

When you're seventeen years old, you don't think much about dying. Death is something that happens to other people - to older people or to people who have diseases like cancer. It happens to people you barely know, like the father of the girl who sits next to you in Biology class, but never to you. Still, whether I'd thought about it or not, this was it. Mine was here. Mine was now.

I wondered if this, my final act, would be enough, if it would finally make me worthy in his eyes. I was giving my life in exchange for his. If this, the ultimate sacrifice, wasn't enough, then there was nothing more that I could give.

Across the room, a triumphant smile spread across my killer's face. I fought back a shudder.

Why hadn't I realized just how far out of my league I was in this strange new world that I had somehow been drawn into, this world away from reality? I could see how every wonderful moment of the past few weeks had been pulling me closer to this place, to this final end, but even now, as I stared into the smiling face of my own impending death, I wouldn't have traded a single one of those moments for anything.

1. NEW GIRL
(FIRST SIGHT)

That morning began much like any other morning, with the blaring of the radio in my ear. I fantasized briefly about hitting the snooze bar before I leaned over to turn the volume down to a much lower level. I lay there staring at the ceiling as the weatherman detailed the forecast for the day - cloudy with rain. Not exactly a surprise in this town. If the little town of Forks, Washington is known for anything, it's known for the rain. Climatologists will tell you that it rains here more than in any other place in the continental United States. I guess every town has to have something to brag about.

Rising from bed, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and stumbled toward the shower on a stiff ankle. My mother was working the night shift this week, so I tried not to make much noise. I showered as quickly - and as quietly - as I could in the little bathroom that we shared, then dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. I sat in one of the three chairs that surrounded our tiny kitchen table and stared out at the falling rain as I ate, then I washed my few dishes in the sink - no sense leaving them for my mother - and stacked them in the dish rack to dry. Back in my bedroom, I ran a comb through my impossible hair, grabbed my jacket and backpack, and headed out the door into the rain, the stiffness in my left ankle forgotten.

The drive to Forks High School was uneventful, and by the time I parked my car the drizzle had lightened into a fine mist. In this town, a light mist qualifies as nice weather, so there were several dozen students hanging out in the parking lot in small groups, catching up on the events of the weekend before class started. I leaned back into the Volvo's interior to pull my backpack out of the front seat and turned to close the door behind me. That was when I saw it. In the last row of parking spaces on the far side of the lot was a truck I'd never seen before.

It was old, far older than I was, and older than my mother, too. In fact, the last time I'd seen a vehicle this ancient had been in an old coming-of-age movie set back in the 1960s. But this truck was far from being a rusted out antique. The paint was a bright, shiny red, and the way the rain beaded up on its glossy surface suggested that it had recently been waxed - and not with the cheap stuff, either. The chrome was so shiny that I probably could have seen my reflection in it if I had been standing closer. Did a student really drive this to school? Had a visitor parked in the wrong part of the lot by mistake?

"Hey, Masen," Mike Newton greeted me as he left the cluster of students gathered around Tyler Crowley's van and headed in my direction. Today, as every day for the last several weeks, his clothes were neatly pressed, and his blond hair was gelled and spiked to perfection. I had seen him watching Jessica Stanley a little more closely over the last few weeks. He hadn't seemed to work up the courage to make any move in her direction yet, but he was definitely trying to impress her.

"Hey, Newton."

"How was the weekend?" he asked. I shrugged. There was nothing of interest to report. I gestured toward the other side of the lot.

"Whose truck?"

Mike turned to look, apparently noticing it for the first time. "No clue," he said, shaking his head. "I haven't seen it around town."

"It looks like somebody spent a lot of money on it," I told him as we turned toward the building that housed our lockers. "I'd hate to be the guy that puts a scuff on that paint job."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Mike answered.

. . . . .

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say "I was just thinking that myself" or "You took the words right out of my mouth," I'd have Harvard paid for. Sometimes, in my more imaginative moments, I'd swear I could read people's minds. When I was a little kid, I tested the theory on my mother, telling her to think of a number and then trying to guess which number it was. I never got it right. My mother had a theory, though. She insisted that the reason I was usually thinking the same things as other people was that I listened with more than just my ears, that I paid more attention to people's moods and body language than most people did. That's how I knew that Mike had a thing for Jessica, even though he'd never said a word to me about her. Then again, Mike always was pretty easy to read.

Mike and I weren't the closest of friends. Truth be told, I really didn't have any close friends. I was the sort of person who is somewhat friendly with everybody, yet not close to anyone. At the beginning of my sophomore year, when Mike had first started actively trying to be my friend, I knew that he was only making the effort because of his guilt over "the incident," but somehow, a year and a half later, Mike was still hanging around, and I didn't think guilt had anything to do with it. Well, not outside of the gymnasium, that is. Our friendship had become more of a habit than an actual friendship, just as it had become my habit to sit with Mike and his friends during lunch.

When I sat my tray down at the lunch table a couple of hours later, most of the regulars were already seated. Jessica Stanley, the object of Mike's interest, was already there with her friend Lauren Mallory. Lauren's pale blond head was bent close to Jessica's dark curls, and I couldn't help but wonder what sort of sadistic gossip Lauren was spreading, or who the innocent victim was. Everyone knew that Lauren had a vicious streak a mile wide. I tried to stay clear of her myself. Jessica seemed nice most of the time, but sometimes I got the feeling that she could be just as brutal as Lauren when she wanted to be. On the other side of Lauren sat Angela Weber, as different from Lauren as night and day. Angela was a shy, sweet girl. She always seemed determined to see the best in everyone, but I could never figure out just what she saw in Lauren Mallory that was worth her time. I took the empty seat next to Jessica and was trying to ignore her when I overheard her whispering, ". . . and that reddish-brown hair is always so . . . tousled, and those dreamy green eyes . . ." They were whispering about me. I had hoped that Jessica had gotten over her crush. Apparently not.

"I thought for sure we were going to have a pop quiz in English," Mike muttered as he sat his lunch tray down on the table across from me. "I don't get Wuthering Heights. I mean, who cares? Everybody in it's crazy."

I didn't answer. I'd been raised around the classics - my mother was a die hard fan of anything by Austen or the Brontë sisters - so Wuthering Heights was nothing new to me. Of course, in my opinion, "crazy" wasn't the best way to describe Cathy and Heathcliff. "Horrible people intent on ruining each other's lives" would have been a more accurate description.

"So," Jessica interrupted, always willing to draw attention to herself, "has anyone heard anything about the new girl?"

"New girl?" I asked, suddenly remembering that today was supposed to be the first day for the daughter of the town's new chief of police. In a school this small, a new student is a major news event.

"Yeah, you know, Isabella Swan." Jessica nudged me playfully with her elbow, but I had a feeling she was annoyed that I hadn't kept up with current gossip.

"Actually, I think she prefers 'Bella.' That's what she's been telling teachers,'" Angela Weber added helpfully from her corner of the table.

"And that's all anyone can find out about her." Jessica frowned. "She doesn't act very friendly, and she's already all buddy-buddy with the Cullens." Her voice lowered slightly on the last two words. Everyone's did when they spoke of that particular family.

The Cullens. My eyes automatically darted toward the three people seated at a table on the other side of the cafeteria. The Cullens were . . . unusual, to say the least. Two boys and two girls - the adopted and foster children of Dr. and Mrs. Cullen - they had moved to Forks over the summer two years before. Only two, Emmett and Alice, had been legally adopted as members of the Cullen family. Jasper and Rosalie, the twins, were still technically Hales. They all lived together in the same house, and, much to the shock of this little town, they were dating each other. Emmett Cullen, the big, muscular one that no one would have dreamed of picking a fight with was dating Rosalie Hale, whose nearly unbelievable beauty had turned the head of just about every guy the first day she'd set foot in Forks High School. Alice, Emmett's pixie-like younger sister, was dating Jasper. Jasper, with his strange, moody expressions, was the most unusual of them all. Lauren had once spread a rumor that he was so weird because he was on drugs.

They were all beautiful, almost unnaturally so. But there was something about them that wasn't right, something about their perfection, their flawless pale skin, and the strange purplish circles under their eyes that just didn't sit well with the rest of the student body. They mostly kept to themselves, and the rest of us were happy to leave them be. Some people went so far as to describe them as "creepy," and I couldn't exactly disagree, but there was something about them that pulled at me sometimes. It was like . . . I knew they had some secret, and some intrinsic part of me wanted to know what it was. Even now I could feel it pulling at me. Emmett, who looked like he could be the entire football team - what was that in his expression as he glared down at his lunch tray? Annoyance? Rosalie had a faint smile on her face, as though some private thought had pleased her. I wondered what it was. She was looking across the table, her eyes not quite focused on Jasper, who seemed . . . edgy . . . or nervous . . . or something . . . but where was little Alice, with her energetic bounce and her enigmatic expressions?

A finger snapped in front of my face, and I blinked. "Hello? Earth to Edward," Mike said, a smile creeping across his face. "Look, I know Rosalie Hale's a bombshell, but I wouldn't stare if I were you. That boyfriend of hers is built like a tank."

"No, I just . . .?" I trailed off. Why was everyone always so hung up on Rosalie? Sure, she was beautiful, but something about her had always been a turn-off, like she was giving off bad vibes or something. I pulled my eyes away from the other side of the room and focused on Mike. "I was just wondering where Alice Cullen is."

"I wouldn't mess with her, either. Her boyfriend is just . . . weird." Mike gave a shudder.

"No, I just . . . nevermind." I shook my head and went back to eating.

"Well, does anyone know anything else about her?" Jessica prodded, clearly unwilling to let the previous conversation go. She probably wanted some juicy new piece of information to share in her next class. "I mean, what's up with her and the Cullens, anyway?"

"They're her cousins," I remembered as I picked at my lunch. "My mom was telling me about it over the weekend. I forgot all about it." I ignored Jessica's disapproving glare as I tried to remember the details. "Mom was talking to Dr. Cullen at the hospital the other day. Chief Swan's wife was Dr. Cullen's older sister, but she died a while back. Bella was their only child. She and Chief Swan moved here so that they could be closer to the rest of the family."

"Interesting . . ." There was an excited gleam in Jessica's eye. These new details must have met with her approval. Apparently she'd already forgiven me for withholding information.

"That's sad," Angela said, frowning. "At least she has family here, people she knows. The first day at a new school has to be tough." Mike and I nodded in agreement - we'd both done our stint as the new kid - but Jessica was off in her own little world.

"I wonder . . ." she began, but we were left ignorant of Jessica's thoughts because, at that moment, Alice Cullen appeared in the cafeteria doorway with a girl so beautiful that she couldn't possibly be real. The breath caught in my throat.

She looked like something out of a painting. The heavenly creation of a Renaissance master, perhaps, because only an angel could be so perfect. If this was Bella Swan, and it had to be, then she had definitely been named well. Bella she was. I had never seen a more beautiful girl.

I watched dumbly as she smiled at Alice, the expression only increasing the loveliness of her heart-shaped face. Her skin was porcelain perfection, and I could see that her eyes were dark, but at this distance I couldn't identify the exact shade. Soft waves of mahogany hair tumbled down past Bella's shoulders and bounced against her back as Alice skipped toward her family's lunch table, dragging her cousin along behind her. And Bella was laughing. I couldn't hear the sound - I was too far away - but somehow I knew that it had to be beautiful. She was like something out of a dream. I pinched my leg through my jeans, half expecting to wake up, but I didn't.

"Wow," I heard Mike mutter through my stupor. "The Cullens have good genes."

"The others are adopted," I reminded him absently, my eyes never leaving Bella as she and Alice sat down at the lunch table. Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper all looked up as they sat, and Emmett and Jasper laughed at something Alice had said. I watched as the angel leaned over to nudge Alice in the arm.

"Maybe it's something they're feeding them." Mike's eyes, like mine, and like a good portion of the other male eyes in the room, were still fixed on the Cullens' lunch table. "Whatever it is, they're doing something right. And it doesn't look like Bella came with a boyfriend. Maybe the rest of us will have a chance this time around."

Jessica frowned across the table at him. Apparently she didn't like us paying attention to other girls. It was then that I noticed the almost-bruises under Bella's eyes. Yes, she was definitely one of the strange and mysterious Cullens. My gaze darted back around the Cullens' lunch table. Rosalie was sitting tall and perfect in her chair, like a princess on her throne. Emmett was smiling across the table, apparently teasing Bella, his earlier displeasure forgotten. Jasper still looked . . . bothered . . . or . . . hungry . . . and Alice looked happy and concerned at the same time, with one arm slung around Bella's shoulders and her other hand joined with Jasper's on the tabletop. Bella looked . . . beautiful . . . perfect . . . and empty.

Empty? Where had that come from? I sighed and shook my head. My imagination was running away with me again. I could practically hear my father's voice. Junior, get your head out of the clouds and back on the ground, where it belongs. Beside me Jessica was complaining to Lauren that all guys ever paid attention to was a pretty face. Ironic, considering that all Jessica usually talked to her friends about was how cute this guy or that guy was. I shook my head again and glanced up at the clock on the wall. Lunch would be over in another five minutes.

Angela, Mike, and I all had Biology after lunch, so we walked as a group toward class. The faint mist from this morning had gone back to a steady drizzle, so there was a bottleneck at the door of building two as students removed their wet raincoats and hung them up on the coat rack just inside the door. Mr. Banner, a traditionalist, had assigned seats in alphabetical order at the beginning of the year, so I ended my conversation with my friends, and we spread out to our seats in different parts of the room. I sat down at my empty lab table and started pulling books out of my backpack. There was no need to stick to my side of the tabletop. For the first half of the fall term, I had shared this table with Hannah Layton, but in the middle of October her father had been killed in a logging accident. After that, her mother had moved the entire family to California to live with Hannah's grandparents. Since then, the table had been mine alone.

Glancing up, I saw Bella Swan enter the classroom. She was just as breathtakingly beautiful as she had been in the cafeteria. Mr. Banner was standing at the front of the room, preparing for the day's lecture. She spoke with him for a moment, offered him a slip to sign, and followed his gesture with her eyes as he pointed at me. Me? Why was he pointing to me? I realized after a heart-stopping moment that he wasn't pointing at me, but to the empty seat beside of me, the only unoccupied chair in the classroom. As she walked down the aisle between the rows of tables, I offered her a slightly nervous smile and scrambled to move my notebook from her side of the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her come to an abrupt stop in the middle of the aisle. I looked up to see why.

Bella Swan was staring at me. Her dark eyes widened in shock for an instant, and then her body went rigid, as though she had tensed every muscle. She looked as though she were trying to decide whether to sit down or go running for the door. Then, suddenly, she was no longer just staring, but glaring at me in disgust, as though I were something undesirable that she had just found stuck to the bottom of her shoe. After a few seconds of that cold stare, she jerked her face away and closed her eyes as if she couldn't stand the sight of me. The revulsion was clear on her face.

I stared at her closed eyelids in confusion. Had I done something wrong? Jessica had said that she wasn't very friendly. Was this the way she was treating everyone today? No, not possible. I was the only one in the classroom she was staring daggers at. After a moment I pulled my gaze away from her face. I couldn't let her catch me watching her this way. She was already upset by something I had done, and catching me staring at her would do nothing to improve the situation.

After a moment, she walked the rest of the way to the empty chair and sat down. She made no attempt at being friendly. She didn't even acknowledge my existence. She simply tilted her head so that her hair cascaded down over her shoulder, blocking her face from my view.

The most beautiful creature I'd ever seen was sitting beside me. And she hated me. And I had no clue why.

Before Mr. Banner had even begun to speak, she had already scooted her chair so far toward the edge of the table that she was practically sitting in the aisle. I kept my eyes on the front of the classroom as Mr. Banner began to review what we had discussed in class last Friday. What had I done that could have caused her to react to me in such a way? I glanced at her quickly out of the corner of my eye. Her notebook was out, and her right hand was occupied taking notes. Her left hand was clenched into a fist on the tabletop. Aside from the movement of her pencil across the page of her notebook, she was unnaturally still, her body straight and rigid in her seat. It was like sitting next to a statue.

I didn't understand her anger, if that's what she was feeling. Somehow, it didn't feel like anger. It didn't feel like disgust, either, but what else could it have been? I had seen her facial expressions, had judged her body language, but somehow, her reaction felt . . . off, like there was something missing. Remembering my earlier foolishness in the cafeteria, I shook my head. I needed to learn to keep my imagination in check before it got me into trouble. I glanced back up at the blackboard and copied down the words that had appeared there during my last few moments of daydreaming.

For the rest of the hour I watched her out of the corner of my eye and tried to pretend that I was listening intently to Mr. Banner's lecture. In truth I only caught about every other word. I jotted down notes on the finer points of cell walls, but cellular anatomy couldn't hold my interest. I was too distracted by Bella Swan to give the subject my undivided attention. Her face was still hidden behind the curtain of her hair, her hand still pressed into a fist, her body stiff and still. I wondered what I could possibly have done to make her react that way.

When the bell finally rang at the end of class, Bella was out of her chair like a shot and out the door before anyone else could even put their notebooks away. I stared at the empty doorway for a moment, trying to understand what had happened between us. By the time I put away my notes and made my way out of the classroom, Mike was waiting for me outside the door.

"So, what did you do to the new girl, anyway? Stab her with a pencil?"

"I don't know," I answered, genuinely bewildered. "I didn't even say a word to her. She acted like she hated me before she even sat down."

"You just lack that certain charm," Mike joked as he squared his shoulders. "Trade me lab partners. I bet I'll have better luck."

I shook my head as we walked toward the gymnasium. At least it had stopped raining.

Ah, Gym class. The bane of my existence. There had been a time, a time not too long ago, in fact, when I hadn't minded this class, but all good things must come to an end. It was a volleyball day, thankfully, and volleyball I could handle. The sports that required me to run were the ones that I tried to avoid. I was no good to anyone when I was limping up and down the court from one end to the other.

I was just leaving the locker room after class when Coach Clapp waved to me from across the gymnasium. I changed direction so that I would meet him in the middle.

"Edward, can you do me a favor, and take these down to the main office?" He tossed me a set of car keys. "I found them in the locker room after sixth hour. I can't leave until I get all of the equipment put away for the day, and I'm sure someone will be missing them in a minute or two."

I shrugged. "Yes, sir. No problem." I took the keys and headed toward the far door of the gymnasium, avoiding walking past the trophy case. I fought against the flow of foot traffic as I walked toward the main office. Now that the school day had ended, most of the students were headed out of the buildings and into the parking lot, instead of the other way around. As I stepped through the office door, the sight that met my eyes stopped me in my tracks. There, at the counter in the middle of the room, stood Bella Swan. She was speaking with the receptionist, Ms. Cope.

"I'm sorry, Bella," I heard Ms. Cope tell her, "but this is the only way to arrange your schedule to fit you into the subjects you were studying in Alaska. Maybe you could talk to Mr. Banner? I'm sure he's had students who didn't want to do some of the labs right after lunch. Maybe he'd let you do them after school, instead?"

As the receptionist finished speaking, I saw Bella tense and begin to turn. I was fully expecting the anger in her gaze, but that didn't make it any easier when her burning stare met mine. Obviously, her feelings toward me hadn't changed in the past hour.

"Nevermind," she muttered to Ms. Cope through clenched teeth. "Thank you for trying." As she turned and hurried past me out the door, I caught a glimpse of her face one last time. The anger was gone. Now she looked close to tears. I stared after her as she retreated down the hallway outside.

Ms. Cope sighed after Bella, then smiled as she registered my presence. "What can I do for you, Edward?" she asked.

"Coach Clapp asked me to bring these down," I answered, handing her the keys across the counter. "He found them in the locker room after sixth hour and figured someone would be looking for them soon."

"I'm sure they will." She smiled again. "Thank you for bringing them by."

"You're welcome," I answered automatically as I turned and headed out the door toward my locker.

The parking lot was already partially cleared by the time I got to my car. I unlocked my door and glanced over toward the other end of the lot. The red truck was already gone. Behind me, I heard - or sensed - someone trying to sneak up on me.

"It's no use, Mike. I know you're there." I didn't bother to turn around. He did this to me at least once a week.

"How do you do that?" he asked, popping into my line of vision as he leaned against the rear door of my car. "It's like you have eyes in the back of your head or something."

"Radar," I said with a weak grin, glad to have a distraction from the enigma of Bella Swan. I nodded my head in the direction of the now absent truck. "So, did we ever figure out who the truck belongs to?"

"Yeah, actually. That's what I was coming to tell you. I watched them drive away in it about five minutes ago."

"Really?" I said as I leaned into my car to set my backpack in the passenger's seat. "Who was it?"

"Your girlfriend," he replied with a smirk.

"Huh? Oh," I said, catching on. It looked like my momentary distraction was over. "Seriously? A cop's daughter drives that? That thing had some serious restoration work done on it. Wherever they came from, the police department there must have paid better than the one in Forks does."

"Or they have part of the Cullen family fortune."

"Probably," I admitted as I tried to link this new clue to what little I knew about Bella Swan.

"Oh, well. Just thought I'd help you solve that mystery." Mike turned toward his Suburban. "I'll see you tomorrow, man."

"Yeah, see you tomorrow," I echoed back absently, but my mind was already elsewhere, wrapped in the mystery that was Bella Swan.