Hey guys! Another amazing chapter of this amazing story. Again, not mine. But here's to KenoshaChick! If you're on here, then thank you so much for this amazing story! Vote, Fan, Fave, whatever floats your boat.
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Things were quite tense in the Cullen household. It was 6:47 pm. The seconds ticked by very slowly. Only a few minutes until this mysterious guest would arrive. I didn't quite agree with all the precautions everyone was taking. Jacob had his pack circling the estate while he sat next to me in the living room, ready to phase at any moment. Jasper and Emmett were circling the grounds as well, but no one had latched on to an unidentifiable scent or any indication a stranger was moving among us.
Carlisle and Esme tried their best to appear at ease, mostly because everyone else in the room was absurdly anxious. Aunt Rosalie was sitting in a sofa chair next to Jacob as my first line of defense. I both appreciated and despised her attentiveness; I was young, but I wasn't helpless. Alice was sitting next to my mother on an adjacent couch, and while she was slightly less overprotective than Rosalie, she was practically twitching with impatience. She had no way of seeing what was coming, and it made her extremely uncomfortable, even after living with me for six years. My father paced behind me slowly, back-and-forth, again and again. He must not have been considering the implications of his pacing, because with each edgy pass he made my mother, who was already the most nervous of anyone, increasingly panicked. I couldn't help rubbing my hand against my forehead. The entire scene felt a little melodramatic to me.
"Wouldn't it be better to send Nessie to the reservation?" my mother asked my father on his hundredth circuit through the living room.
"Mom, every wolf from the reservation is surrounding our house. It would be the least safe place right now," I joked, attempting to lighten the tension. They just ignored me.
"Edward?" she asked again.
"We've done everything we can do," my father said unemotionally as he continued with his pacing. He didn't miss one graceful step.
"But you won't be able to hear her." My mother's voice was strained with worry.
"Everything will be fine," he answered her confidently but coldly. He wasn't as confident as he pretended to be.
I was annoyed by what I thought to be an overreaction. "You guys need to stop freaking out. She said she means us no harm. Why would she lie?" I asked, attempting to be the voice of reason. "And if we couldn't sense her last night then that would have been the best time to strike, right? To take us by surprise? If she is trying to attack us, she's never read The Art of War."
My mother gave me a cold look that was meant to silence me. Realizing I wasn't going to convince them of anything, I complied as I sat back in the deep chair and counted the seconds passing us by. I was amused at how my father's pacing, Jacob's breathing, and my mother's deliberate adjustments of her hands seemed to work in time with the ticking of the clock.
I jumped slightly when, at the exact moment I said sixty in my head, there was a knock at the door. Apparently, our guest was one for punctuality.
Carlisle stepped forward to open the door while everyone else in the room paused and leaned forward in spontaneous synchronization. I had to lean around Jacob to get a better look at the front door.
She was tiny; no more than 5'3" and impossibly thin. Her attire was off by a few centuries. She was wrapped in a black dress that hid the form of her lower half, and a thin shawl covered her head, masking the bottom portion of her face. Her wavy bright blonde hair flowed from her headdress down to her waist. Her eyes were a deep ebony that showed no trace of crimson. I could tell by the small wrinkles near her eyes that she was smiling. I also noticed there was no new scent in the air, nor had there been a sound as she walked to the door. There had not been a howl from the pack or a phone call from one of my uncles indicating they had seen or heard anything. If I wasn't looking at her standing in the doorway, there was no way I would have known she was there.
