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(Ithaca, New York, the day that Cedric was dropped off at the Stanley home)

Alice Cullen looked suddenly up, her eyes unfocused as always when her foresight changed in a significant way.

"Yes, darling?" Jasper noticed the change in his wife's emotions, which were now alert and curious. "Who is it?"

"Bella," said Alice in a puzzled voice, and without giving him time to shrink from the subject she added, "Jazz, does Edward have any relatives that particularly resemble him?"

Jasper raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't know," he said. "Carlisle might, though."

Carlisle's golden head appeared in the doorway of the couple's room. "Why do you ask?"

Alice looked up. "Because someone just moved to Forks who looks almost exactly like Edward, and is bound to meet Bella tomorrow at school," she said. "And I've been watching Edward ever since he left; he's still tracking Victoria." Her brow furrowed. "That's odd. I didn't see him - the boy, I mean - at all until a few moments ago."

"What about Bella?" asked Esme coming up to stand beside Carlisle. She really was very fond of the human girl, and had been beyond grieved to leave her in the way that Edward insisted they do so.

Alice grimaced. "Bella's in for a rough surprise," she said. "I can't really see too much, as there are so many variables involved in what will happen over the next few days."

"Poor Bella," sighed Esme. "How is she, Alice?"

Ever since the Cullens had left Forks, Bella had become the unspeakable subject, the elephant in the middle of the room, the name which was not spoken. This was Edward's bidding, for he had wished to remove himself and his family entirely from Bella's life. "No calls, no emails, no messages," he had said. "And no looking into her future either, Alice. We've done enough damage, and it's time to stop before we do more."

Even after Edward had left the family to track down Victoria, it had been uncomfortable to speak about her.

Alice looked sad. "She's doing the bare minimum necessary to survive and nothing more. It's as if being without Edward has killed her. It's genuinely painful just to watch. No, Jasper," she added as he opened his lips to utter some words of self-reproach. "I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, do not blame yourself for Bella's pain. And no, it wouldn't have mattered if you'd drunk yourself to bursting before the party, or stayed away from it. Things happen, love. Even Edward acknowledges that."

"She is right, son," came Carlisle's deep, quiet voice. "Do not hold yourself to blame for what should not have been."

Jasper remained silent, but his expression remained unconvinced.

"As long as Edward is gone, then," said Alice. "I think I'm going to keep an eye on Bella and this strange boy who looks so much like Edward. If Edward comes back, I'll try to focus on something else. I've got a funny feeling about this one that I've never had before."

~o0o~

(Saturday)

Alice suddenly leaped to her feet in alarm. "Bella!" she cried involuntarily.

Having felt her distress, Jasper was at her side almost before she had spoken. "What is it?" he asked. "What's happened to her?"

"Is she okay?" asked Emmett, flying into the room quicker than thought. Rosalie appeared behind him in a few more seconds, and came no further than the threshold of the living room, where Alice sat with Jasper now beside her.

"She disappeared!" wailed the distraught Alice. "Just like that - without any kind of warning, and now she's gone!"

By this time her entire vampire family had gathered in the room, and they were all staring at her in unadulterated horror.

"What did you see before she vanished?" asked Esme, her eyes wide.

"I don't know! She was driving down to La Push with two used motorcycles in her truck for some reason I can't fathom, she was about to park, and then - just like that - she disappeared completely!"

"Could the Quileutes have - " began Rosalie.

"Absolutely not," said Carlisle firmly. "They are guardians, not predators."

"A crash? Did she hit the house?" asked Emmett.

"I don't think so - I'd at least be able to see someone inside the house, or even the house itself," said Alice.

Esme looked troubled. "How can we check on her?" she asked. "At Edward's request we broke all contact with everyone in the area."

"But Edward can't make us forget her cell phone number," said Emmett. "We can still call her on it, can't we?"

"She wasn't liable to answer it when her ringer was on full volume and she had nothing else going on," said Alice, picking up her own cell phone nonetheless and dialing. She held it to her ear, and they all heard the phone ringing. It rang and rang and rang, and at last Bella's voice responded, "Hello. You've reached Bella Swan. I am currently unable to take your call. Please leave me your name, number, and a brief message. Thank you."

The tone sounded, and Alice spoke, not bothering to keep the worry from her voice. "Bella, if you check your voicemail, this is Alice, and I'm so sorry for not saying goodbye to you when we left - in fact, I'm sorry for everything, but if you get this message, please, please, please call me back as soon as you get a chance." And she hung up.

"Should we try to contact Edward?" asked Esme.

"Not on your life!" said Rosalie vehemently. "He'll want to go straight to La Push and tear it apart looking for her, and nothing we do or say will stop him."

Jasper straightened up. "If Bella doesn't call back in the next four hours," he said. "I propose that at least one of us call Edward and we all go back to Forks and the surrounding area - without being seen - and start tracking her."

As no one had a better idea, everyone agreed to this, and Carlisle glanced at his watch and said, "Now we can only wait."

But Alice suddenly frowned in complete puzzlement. "Wait," she said. "There she is again. She's with Billy's son - Jacob, apparently - and nothing in particular seems to be happening. They're talking about her motorcycles - now she's flickering - argh! This is so confusing! Here she comes again, they're wheeling the motorcycles to the back of the house, and - ooh, this can't be good!"

"What can't be good?" asked Esme.

Alice grimaced. "Bella's apparently going to have Jacob fix the motorcycles so that he can teach her to ride them later."

"Bella on a motorcycle? That's definitely trouble," said Emmett decisively. "Charlie can't possibly know about this, can he?"

"No, and that's on purpose," said Alice. "She and Jacob are going to hide the bikes from Billy so that Charlie doesn't find out."

"Maybe that explains her disappearing," said Rosalie.

"No, I don't think so," said Alice. "It seems to have something to do with the house, oddly enough, because as long as Bella stays a fair distance from the actual house I can see her just fine. Very odd." She frowned. "Well, it looks like she's going to be sitting and watching Jacob fix cars for a while, so I suppose technically we don't have anything to worry about for the present. I'll keep an eye out though, I don't care what Edward said, and he's not here now anyway."

The next few hours passed in watchful quiet as Alice kept an eye on Bella (and Jacob and eventually his two friends). When at length Bella got up and said she had to go on home, Alice tensed. "There she goes," she said. "She's headed toward the house - and she's gone again, just like I thought! What now?"

"I propose we wait and see if she reappears," said Emmett. "And if she doesn't, we go back like Jazz suggested."

"Hey!" protested Jasper. "Only Alice is allowed to call me Jazz."

"She hasn't reappeared," said Alice, biting her lip in anxiety. "It only took a minute or two for her to reappear last time - "

"Then maybe we should - " began Esme, but Alice's ringtone suddenly sounded. Not too many people called Alice on the thing, so she checked it. "It's Bella," she said, looking up. "Bella's phone anyway. I still can't see her."

"Well, answer it," said Emmett.

Alice put the phone to her ear.

Shorter than I like to post, but at least I've got it sandwiched in between two longer-than-normal ones!

Okay, so about the Cullens:

What you need to know first off about them is that they are a coven of vampires (personally they'd prefer the term "family") who do not drink human blood - they only drink the blood of animals. This sets them apart from almost all other vampires, at least in Twilight canon.

Carlisle Cullen is the head of the coven, and is considered the adoptive father of the Cullen family. He "created" (bit) all the others.

Esme is his wife; she is considered the "mother" just as Carlisle is the "father."

Edward, the vampire who had a relationship with Bella, has a special talent: he can hear people's passing thoughts, unless the person is actively guarding them or blocking him out. That is, of course, the reason that he asked his family not to speak or think of Bella anymore, because he doesn't want to have to hear thoughts that would remind him of her. At the moment he is not there; he is attempting to distract himself by following the aforementioned Victoria.

The other four, as elsewhere indicated, are all in pairs: Jasper with Alice, and Emmett with Rosalie.

Jasper has a rather interesting ability to sense and influence the emotions of other people. He also has not been a non-human drinker for very long, and so has the tendency to occasionally "fall off the wagon" and drink humans occasionally. In fact, it was because he attacked Bella in a fit of bloodlust that Edward became convinced that Bella would only be safe so long as she was near no vampires - and so he got the family to move away from Forks.

Alice has, in short, the ability to see the future - but that is a rather simplistic way to describe what is really a rather complicated talent. What Alice sees is the outcome of a decision that someone has made - if they change their current decision, Alice's vision of that future changes accordingly. If a person is undecided about what they will do, Alice sees a vague blur. If someone dies, Alice's vision of that person becomes total blank - and that is why she was so worried about Bella. The reason she couldn't see Bella will come up in a later chapter, but for now, I shall simply say that Alice's vision does have loopholes she's not aware of yet.

Like Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rosalie don't really have "talents" per se beyond their basic vampire superspeed and superstrength and so on. Emmett is the jokester of the family, and Rosalie the vain, self-centered snob - and that's literally all there is to their characters in the book. And that's it for the Cullens!

Victoria is a vampire who has a talent for self-preservation - that is, she can anticipate danger and escape from it. Her mate James was killed by Edward because James tried to kill Bella, and so she looks on Bella for James' death. Edward is at this point only hunting her down to distract himself from having left the other (better and worse together) half of himself back in Forks, and is not doing it very well simply because of her talent of evading danger.