Two and a half weeks.
Two and a half weeks it had been since the new girl started at Forks High School, and Alice was about ready to rip her own hair out in frustration as she paced her family's kitchen, trying to get a glimpse of her.
Before she moved, Alice had seen several future visions of the small, delicate girl with the big dark eyes Edward was destined to fall in love with.
But now, now that she was actually in town, Alice wasn't able to see her at all. Every time she tried, all she saw was hazy, swirling darkness. It didn't make any sense.
When people were merely indecisive she was able to see a plethora of possible futures, so it couldn't just be that Isabella Swan was flighty. No, this was something different, and it made Alice want to scream. Never before had her attempts to part the veil of time been so utterly thwarted.
"Still trying?" Esme asked, her voice sympathetic as she came into the room and dropped an absently mothering kiss on the top of Alice's black head. "You're going to give yourself a headache."
"We can't feel the effects of alcohol or anything else fun," Alice said, knowing she was pouting but not inclined to care at the moment. "Yet we still get headaches. Whoever thought up real-life vampires had a sick sense of humor."
Esme chuckled as she watered the plants on the windowsill, then turned to her adopted daughter. "Very true." She cocked her head to the side, her smile gentle and commiserating. "Feel like talking about it?"
"I don't think there's anything new to talk about." Alice threw her hands up as she resumed her pacing. A flash of sun caught the facet of a lacquered nail when her fingers moved, and she was distracted enough to study the ruddy polish. It was about time for either a touch-up or a new color.
Maybe tonight she'd be able to talk Rosalie into helping. Even though their vampire bodies were preternaturally still, they did a better job painting each other's nails than their own.
Alice couldn't explain it; it made no sense. But there it was, and all the female vampires she'd ever met admitted it.
She pulled her attention reluctantly back to the subject at hand, which wasn't nail polish. "I can't get a read on the girl at all. That's not normal. I'm starting to worry."
"About her, or about your ability?"
Alice winced. "Both, probably. Is it that obvious?"
"No need to be embarrassed. It's just who you are. You're used to having an upper hand and you don't right now. Of course you're worried." She crossed to the seldom-used dining table and sat, motioning Alice toward another chair. "Tell me what you know about her."
"Nothing, I told you! I can't see anything." Alice threw her little self into the chair and it creaked alarmingly. She sent a grimace of apology Esme's way, but the older woman waved it away.
"No, not like that, honey." Esme smiled fondly. "You have other senses besides your premonition. I don't go to school with you, remember? What else have you noticed about her?"
"Oh." Alice thought hard, trying to figure out what Esme might like to hear.
It was so difficult, sometimes, to read people without the help of her gift. She wondered how Edward would ever manage if he ran into someone whose thoughts he couldn't read.
She snickered a little to herself. It would be quite amusing if that ever happened. "She's really pretty—sweet, you know? Not all shiny like Rose or smooth like you…she's got something else about her."
"What does she look like?"
"Long dark hair, big dark eyes. Little—but she's still taller than me." Alice grimaced inwardly. Practically everyone was taller than her. "Her voice is low—not rough or gravelly like a smoker's but…nice. Not really girly." She thought for a minute. "Not that anyone would know. She hardly talks."
"Maybe it's hard for her, being in a new town and everything. Give her some time."
"See, but that's just it," Alice said. "This isn't a new town for her. Her dad's the chief of police, and she's been spending summers here since she was a kid. The only thing that's new is the school."
"That's still a big change," Esme said. "She still probably needs time." She gazed out the window at the sun-dappled trees without really seeing them. "I wonder just what happened to make her decide to move?"
"Don't know. Half the school thinks she must have had some sort of awful falling-out with her mom and got kicked out. The other half thinks she's not Chief Swan's kid at all, but in witness protection for some reason. The other half really doesn't care, since she hasn't made much effort to make friends with anyone."
"That's three halves," Esme observed gently.
"So I rounded up. So sue me." Alice mashed her chin into her hand, staring morosely across the table at nothing. "I was so sure when I saw her in my vision, Esme. So sure."
"What about Edward? What does he think of her?"
Alice snorted. "Like he'd tell me." She shook her head. "I know they've met; they have biology together. He refuses to talk about it, though. All I know is that he's constantly pissed off because most of the guys at school keep thinking filthy things about her."
Esme fought to keep a smile off her face. "How do you know that?"
"He complains about having to listen to it. It's just impossible to tell exactly what he's so upset about—that he has to hear all the shit in their heads, or that it's about her."
"Have you tried making friends with her?"
"Of course." Alice heard her own voice becoming more impatient, and she tried to calm it. There was no reason to get upset with Esme—she hadn't done anything. "And she's a sweetheart in school. Shy, but I can tell she's smart, and she has a sense of humor. She won't come over, though, or do anything after school or on the weekends. I really don't know what else to try."
"Won't or can't?" Esme asked. "I've never met the chief of police. Is he a strict father, do you suppose?"
Alice shrugged and scolded herself to keep from picking idly at her chipped nail polish. "She hasn't once mentioned him."
"Mm. Let me think about it." She could see that Alice was growing impatient with the conversation again and wanted to be able to move as she fretted.
"Anything else?" she asked, willing to give her daughter the room she needed to mope. She knew, as they all did, how much Edward needed a mate, a love, someone to give his eternal life the meaning the rest of theirs had. But these things couldn't be forced.
And though Alice hated to be reminded of it, her visions had been wrong before. They were no guarantee that this Isabella Swan was the answer to Edward's loneliness.
"Not really," Alice said, tapping one manicured nail against the gleaming wooden tabletop. She grinned suddenly. "Except that she's a complete klutz."
"Oh?"
"Yeah." Alice nodded, still smiling. "It's about all anyone really knew about her before she started school—apparently during summers she hangs out more with the kids on the rez than in town. But a couple kids whose parents work as nurses and orderlies at the hospital say that she's always in there, like clockwork, every summer."
"For what?" Esme asked, and she glanced up to see Rosalie check herself in the doorway, coming to an abrupt halt. Golden eyes narrowed in suspicion as she caught the last few of Alice's words.
"Oh, just klutzy things. Falling down stairs, running into doors, breaking things." Alice's tone was light. "Wouldn't that be funny? Someone so uncoordinated joining this family?" She laughed out loud.
"Right," Esme said as Alice drifted out of the room and up the stairs. She returned her eyes to Rosalie, whose jaw clenched tightly, her face a stony mask, her amber eyes glittering with tension. "Watch," she told her elder daughter.
"Oh, I will," Rose replied, crossing her arms over her chest. A muscle twitched in her cheek, under the smooth surface of her elegant skin. "I'll do more than watch. If something's happening, we'll find out."
"Don't scare her," Esme asked, her voice solemn as Emmett came up behind his mate and slipped his arms around her. "Alice says she's shy."
"We won't, ma." Emmett grinned.
"I mean it," Esme said, a fraction sharper. "The sight of you two is likely to scare her silly if she's as retiring as Alice says. I'd have Jasper do it, what with his empathic gift, but..."
"We know," Emmett said. "It wouldn't do anyone any good if he accidentally made a snack of her."
Rosalie elbowed him sharply in his side, which only made him laugh harder. "Rose, baby," he said, "you can't save everyone. Even if you think they might need it."
"No," she agreed, her eyes still on Esme. "But I can sure as hell try."