Chapter One: Visions

Edward was the first to know that something was wrong. He always knew first. He had been sitting at the piano, gently playing a new melody that he had devised for help lull Nessie to sleep, since she was the only one in the family who occasionally needed to sleep.

Nearby, Bella sat holding their daughter close.

Stopping in the middle of the melody, Bella looked up at her husband. “What is it?” she asked.

“Something isn’t right,” he answered with a confused look on his face.

Not a second later, Jasper could be heard screaming for Carlisle’s help. As usual, the entire Cullen family went running to Jasper’s aid.

By the time that Edward and Bella had gotten to where Jasper was, everyone else had already gathered. When they peered into Alice’s room, they could see Jasper and Carlisle on the floor. Alice’s head was cradled in Jasper’s lap with her eyes focused solely on the ceiling.

“She just collapsed. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jasper explained to Carlisle.

“Alice, Alice,” Carlisle gently said to his adoptive daughter. “What did you see?”

“A young woman….with an aura like no other. She…she is beautiful.”

Carlisle frowned for a second, took a deep breath and asked one last question. “Was she shining like us or pure light?”

“Light.”

Carlisle didn’t say anything else as he stood up and left the room, leaving everyone confused. Everyone turned to look at Edward, silently nominating him to go and talk with Carlisle to find out what was going on.

Edward silently followed his father back to his office, before even speaking to him. “Carlisle what is going on?” he finally asked, as his father began to scan the many shelves of books.

Still no response. Edward simply stood there until he found what he was looking for.

“Alice saw the child of light,” Carlisle explained as his flipped through a tattered book. “She was one of the first female vampires, if not the first. And she is also the only one who has been known to turn against the vampire ways and retain most of her human traits.”

“How could she do that without a soul?”

“Who says she didn’t have one,” Carlisle said looking his son directly in the eyes.

“What?”

“Come on,” Carlisle said finding what he was looking for in the book. “Let me explain this to everyone.”