Hello

I know I haven't posted anything for In the Arms of An Angel but I've been having some trouble with it. In the meantime I did an interview (here's the link: thenoncanonawards dot wordpress dot com/2014/07/06/twilight-author-interview-ncbexie25/) and I wrote this would-have-been prologue for ItAoAA per my readers' requests. You see, I posted in the Facebook group that I had the idea and they wanted to read it. ;)

I have no idea when the National Civil War Museum opened. I looked up the website, and it didn't give me a date, so let's just pretend/hope that it's been open since around the late 1960s early 1970s.

So here it is. This clears up how exactly Bella is, as she says, 'exactly the same' as 1860s Bella.

PROLOGUE

Mid-to-late December, 1986

John Napier, head of security of the National Civil War Museum, strolled through the empty halls of the first floor as he whistled a quiet tune. He was a fine man, with greying hair. He was perhaps a bit on the heavy side, or at least that was what his wife told him when he added extra chips to his dinner plate when they had a roast. He'd worked with the museum for nearly fifteen years and had never had a problem—hardly anyone he knew that came here would be interested in stealing something from this place, after all.

It was just him and his co-worker Sally Tenton on the particular night in question. They took a floor each, but after a patrol of the second floor, Sally usually dozed off and that was when John turned off his walky-talky. He didn't want to listen to the snoring.

He made it to the section dedicated to the women, called Women in War. He looked around, walking slowly, teasing himself. He liked this section. He liked the mystery of one of the exhibit pieces in particular—exhibit piece W231: Major's wife, they'd nicknamed her.

The piece was unique—it was mysterious, and thus frequently visited, but besides that it was evidence of a peculiar, tragic love story. A wife dead and a Major missing in action. She died alone; he was never found. What really made it daunting was the position of the bones; huddled, fetal position…

It was a sure winner with the museum-goers.

And it was the only exhibit of bones in the entire museum, and that had been a debated topic for the few years it had been before it was released for public viewing.

The piece was accompanied by a beautiful engagement ring and a few other collectables, one in particular being a photo of the youngest Major of the Civil War who'd been identified as Jasper Whitlock through archival copies of newspapers from that time—a snippet of that newspaper was also provided. That was where they got the story from, and boy, did it help to rope in the customers. People were fascinated.

John sighed and turned to go see the bones to read the story again, let his mind settle on the details, mull them over. He always tried to come up with new theories, just for a way to pass the time.

So his eyes were wide as saucers when he found a very empty glass cabinet. With a low cuss escaping his lips, he pulled his walky-talky out and turned it on. The snoring didn't even phase him as his panicked voice hastened to wake his co-worker up.

"Sally! Get up and come here now."

The snoring broke off. "Wha…"

"Get up here now," he continued fiercely. "We gotta problem. W231 is gone."

"Huh?"

"The Major's wife," he hissed.

The response was instantaneous. "Oh, fuck," was the groaned response. "All right. I'm comin', I'm comin'."

Little did they know, those bones had found themselves slowly forming the baby Isabella Swan of the twentieth century. That little child was to become the exact rebirth of Isabella Whitlock née Swan as fate had decided that Major Jasper Whitlock was ready to be reunited with her. He had received the message from his war friend Peter at this time as well to concrete fate's plans. And in some years, Major Jasper Whitlock and Isabella Whitlock would be reunited.

So how was that? Hope you liked it, but I wouldn't know unless you tell me!

The next chapter of ItAoAA will be up *hopefully* in the next few weeks. Apart from being horrendously busy and having trouble with the next chapter, I've also recently had internet access problems and had to hand in my laptop to be fixed. It's the motherboard apparently. So things are fucked and I'm still having trouble with the next chapter which I've tried to work on the hotswap laptop I have with me in the meantime.

Also, I have a oneshot Jasper/Bella that will be posting next month. Hopefully.

Thanks!

ncbexie25