Black Cats

Forks

Sitting in the car, there were two, very similar, images that I couldn’t get out of my head.  I sipped my juice as I thought over those images. The first one was Alice’s hand taking the hand of Jolene, the other one was Emily taking Edwards hand.

‘You were testing them.’ I said accusingly to Edward.  He had seen the pictures in my mind.  He didn’t bother to deny it.

‘We needed to know.  They could have staid home.  We just need you.  If we go for Renesmee and Jacob, they can stay with the Quileutes, that is the safest place on earth apart from your region.’

Surprised I raised my eyebrows.

‘There are not many vampires that dare to go to the south-west of Flanders.  There are a lot of stories about disappearances of even large groups of vampires.  They went to investigate and disappeared anyway.  Some of those stories are recent..  That is the reason that there was the last place on earth we searched. 

If every member of your family is able to do what you can, then that is the explanation why even the Volturi are avoiding Flanders.’

‘And you wanted to test if all my family has those powers ?’

‘Which is not the case.’ he replied.

‘Hmmm.’ the image of the well in the emerald forest flashed through my mind.

‘Is that a vision ?’ asked Edward; ‘I have seen that place before in your mind.’

‘No, it is not a vision.  It is an image I use to focus during meditation.  An image I created in my mind.’

‘No it’s not.  That place exists. I know that place.  It’s in the mountains.  We all love to go there.  Especially Carlisle.  That spring is the reason we like Forks, even more than the constant cloud cover.’  While he said that he nodded at Alice.

‘Can we know that too ?’ I asked in my schoolteacher tone, very British.

‘I asked Edward if you had a vision of our well.’

‘It is not a vision.  Like I said, I use that image for meditation, for years !’

‘It’s still strange.’ Replied Alice.

A few minutes later we arrived at the airport again.  ‘Could we not fly directly to Forks ?  Did we had to stop in New York ?’

‘We needed to refuel and to shop.’ Said Alice.

‘You needed to shop.’ Said Edward silent in her ears, loud enough for everybody to hear tough.

The car drove us direct to the airplane.  Alice took the suitcase and Colin took care of the basket with the rest of the breakfast. The chauffeur took the rest into the airplane and then left.

In the plane Collin took a set of playing cards  out of the basket, with the logo from the hotel.  Alice frowned but said nothing.  She and Edward were not asked to play with them.  It didn’t seem like they cared.

‘Esme and Jasper will be waiting for us at Port Angeles.’ claimed Alice ‘That is nice.’

‘Wouldn’t you mind to try your visions when we are in the air ?’ Alice asked me very friendly.

‘Ok.’ Edward, Alice and I went to one side of the plain while Colin and Seth took Jolene and Emily to play with the cards on the other side. When they sat down, I caught a glimpse of the red soles of Jolene's shoes. I could have expected that.

‘How long did it lasted, when I took over your abilities ?’ I asked Edward.

‘My gift, you had for about five minutes, twenty-three seconds and eight-teen hundredths of a second, ‘I rolled my eyes, ‘the gift from Alice half a minute longer.’