"Violet sees the future."

I am still reeling from the embarrassment. After a mortifying thirty seconds of silence following Violet's laughter led to Elliot stammering an excuse to flee the table, Rehema lost no time in ushering me to the bright, spacious kitchen. I'm sitting on a stool by the island now with the Bennett matriarch, carefully licking the whipped cream off my fingers from a strawberry meringue pie she placed in front of me with an order to eat. She does the dishes in her flowing dress, her wild hair spilling over her shoulders, and I wonder vaguely if ancient Greek sculptures of Aphrodite used her as the model.

Rehema places another plate flowing with strawberries and cream in front of me as if reading my mind, and I dig in to drive the flustered feeling away. I had to wonder what it was Violet saw; would I end up becoming the World's Clumsiest Vampire? Would the Bennetts see how ridiculous I was and drive me out in shame? Or did she just . . . see something on my face?

I was later assured, though, that Violet had the same reaction to Rehema and Theo, and Nathaniel and Amelie when she first met them. I refused to acknowledge the fact that each was a set of mates, and instead dug into my second helping of pie.

"She can't see the immediate future, and she can't turn it off; it's like a second layer to her, a layer that's a veil over the real world around her. She doesn't give the specifics to anyone but Henry, but he says that if she focuses hard enough, she can push the reality she sees to the back of her mind and only look at what will come, hence that . . . stare of hers."

Rehema doesn't say it condescendingly, or with any particularly negative tone, but I still shudder at the memory of Violet staring at a space behind me like I wasn't even there. Like Alice, I think absently. Like Alice, but every day of her life.

Miserably, I stab my fork into a strawberry while Rehema excuses herself from the kitchen.

I'm in my pajamas in my room later, preparing to sleep— Sleep, Evelyn had said, comes with Elliot's gift. Use it. —and finding myself tossing and turning restlessly. I had been entirely prepared for the occasion that when I became a vampire, I wouldn't be sleeping ever again. Evelyn had told me that it would feel unnatural at first because it was only by the help of Elliot's gift that a vampire could be able to sleep at all. It seemed that four of the Bennetts had chosen not to, evident from Amelie's crooning voice, Johnny's rambunctious footsteps, Henry's brassy laughter, and Elliot's happy tone.

The bedsheets are Egyptian cotton, thousand-thread count, and the pajamas that Amelie so graciously loaned me feel like water on my skin. The rest of the Bennetts who "slept" seem to be completely nonexistent; I can't even hear a breath from them, or a rustle of bedsheets, almost as if Elliot had coaxed them to the deaths they should have had long ago.

A rap on the door startles me from my thoughts. Hyperaware of every brush of hair in the house, I'm surprised when Henry enters, eyes just as cold as usual. The moonlight streaming through the window reacts oddly against his dark hair, almost reflecting off the pitch-black strands there, and he sits on the blanket chest at the foot of my bed.

"Good evening, Bella," he begins, and I'm surprised to hear what his voice sounds like without its usual contempt. It is when he starts playing with the tassels at the end of my bedsheets, though, that I realize he almost seems nervous.

"Hi, Henry," I say, shifting uncomfortably. "Where's Violet?"

"Sleeping," he answers automatically. "These things take a toll on her . . . about Violet . . . I'm sorry about that earlier." He forces the apology out between gritted teeth, and as if he wants to say something before losing his nerve, he barrels forward with the subject. "You're staying for good, then?"

Henry seems to have accepted the idea, but I'm still mortified at the idea of infringing on his perfect family. "As long as you'll have me, I guess . . . I don't really have anywhere else to go."

"That's fine," he rushes, eye twitching once. "Even if we wanted you out, Theo's too nice to tell you, and Rehema's too polite. And we all listen to them, especially since Rehema's the one who created us. But I just need you to know one thing." The warning look in his eyes is back. "If you hurt Violet, Bella, I will have your head, Theo and Rehema be damned."

"Hurt her?" I gasp, venom pooling at my eyes. "I wouldn't ever—"

"I know," he snarls dangerously, "But I'm serious, Bella. She's sensitive. You know, when she was younger, people saw her as a total freak? Nobody's parents would even let their kids get near her. Even I thought she was insane . . . my father, my biological father, stuck me into an arranged marriage with her since he was in love with her mom when they were younger. The things I said when I first met her . . . if you even think about causing her that same pain that I caused her that day, you're dead to me.

"There are too many people who've hurt my mate, and there's no way I'm going to let it happen again after all the hell I've been through for her. The night before the Titanic sank, I still hated being in an arranged marriage with her. She looked me in the eyes and said 'we're all going to die tonight' and I remember thinking what kind of crazy plot I'd gotten myself into. It literally took me a sinking ship and floating in ice cold waters for an hour to realize I actually cared about this insane, innocent, ridiculously naïve girl, and dammit if I let anyone corrupt her. Not you, not Evelyn—"

"Evelyn?" I interrupted in surprise, and flinched away when that knife-glare was aimed at me.

"Yes, Evelyn." He laughs bitterly at the look of shock that crosses my face. "I know, right? Little Miss Perfect hasn't always been so sweet. December 1920: Evelyn and Elliot go for a joyride on their dad's biplane. It was Violet who freaked out and told Rehema where to be, and when to be there. When the two went down, Evelyn absolutely hated Violet— kept on spouting some nonsense about wanting to die human —and gave her hell every second of everyday. Honestly, I still hold a grudge with her for that, and it would probably be worse if Evelyn hasn't been spending the past fifty years trying to make it up to Violet for making her feel like trash when they met."

I shift uncomfrotably, a shudder rolling down my spine. "Henry . . . why are you even telling me this? I thought you hated me."

A wicked grin crosses his face, all teeth and sharpness and eerie honesty. "Well, wouldn't you like to know everything about who you'll be spending eternity with?"

I never actually go to sleep that night.

Henry's words replay in my head like a scratched record. Did he plan to scare me half to death, or were his intentions true that he wanted me to walk into the family with open eyes? I don't want to think him cruel enough to lie to me, but . . . he never did deny he hated me.

It's impossible that any of the Bennetts could be like that. Vampires were supposed to be perfect . . . the Cullens proved as much to me.

But did they? I shake the thought off; perhaps the biggest flaw I could name in any of them is Rosalie's hatred or Jasper's bloodlust, but the family as a whole never proved to be anything but a perfect porcelain statue set, one that I would have died to join. The thought occurs to me, not for the first time that night, that maybe now my beauty will be enough to win back Edward if I can find him. But again, it's driven away by the stinging reminder that I would only be a bother, that Edward simply didn't want . . . me.

I shiver. My idea of perfection is the idea of vampires. But if the Bennetts aren't perfect, then are the Cullens? Did I ever truly know Edward's family at all, or just the idea of them?

The thought is too far for me to comprehend, and I try in vain to go to sleep. I knew the Cullens. I knew Edward. I loved him. I would have died for him.

I try to silence the voice in my mind that reminds me, with his name having been the last on my human lips, that I already did.

The house comes to life like clockwork, and I get to listen to each Bennett stir awake. Similar to how their sleep sounded like death, their awakenings sound like life. Each wakes with a gasp of air, similar to the sound of someone resurfacing after spending hours underwater. It feels anticlimactic when I simply slip out of bed, not having slept at all.

The kitchen is serene. It is a fine Sunday morning, and Rehema works at a loaf of banana bread. Across the glass table outside, fruits and cheeses are already lain out, and Nathaniel nibbles slowly at his breakfast with a book in his hand, Theo across from him. To my right, Violet sits on the ground before a recliner while Henry grips bobby pins in his teeth, braiding her hair away from her face. Evelyn, Amelie, Elliot, and Johnny are hardly specks in the distance as they splash along the wet sand of the low morning tide, attracting stares from early joggers who veered far enough down to the Bennett beach house.

"Good morning, Bella," Rehema greets, setting a plate of oatmeal before me as I sit down. I lick my lips as she loads brown sugar, strawberries, blueberries, and almonds on it, topping it off with a healthy splash of milk, then sets down an ice cold glass of water with cucumber and mint leaves floating at the top. "Eat. You're hunting with Nathaniel today, up in Oregon, so you'll want something to tide you over until you can get your hands on a nice bear or mountain lion."

"It's okay for me to eat even though Elliot's not here?" I ask in surprise. I had assumed that Elliot's humanizing power would be limited by proximity.

"Well, Elliot is only down there collecting sand dollars," Rehema reasons. "But if it bothers you, I can call him down."

After that awkward encounter last night? I wouldn't be able to eat a bite if he came around, much less came anywhere close to me. The thought of Elliot's legs bumping into mine the night before quickly turn into the thought of mine wrapping around his back, something I can say with absolute confidence did not and could not happen. I let out a squeak and duck my head. "That's okay, please don't!"

Rehema, to her credit, doesn't appear as startled by my outburst as the others in the dining room.

"I mean," I amend quickly, "If he's having fun, I don't want to bother him." And if he came, Evelyn was bound to join, and I don't think I could ever live it down if she decided to touch me and take a reading of my thoughts . . . especially the intrusive, dirty one about her brother. I can't be sure how her gift or mine worked, but the idea that my shield could fail me or that she could involuntarily learn all my deepest secrets is too risky for me to entertain.

Rehema shrugs with a simple "suit yourself" while Violet snickers in the corner. I resist the urge to glare at her; I'm not close enough to any of the family yet to do that.

Nathaniel flicks his book shut— Wuthering Heights —and addresses me with a gentle smile just as I finish up the last bite of oatmeal. "Are you ready to go?" he asks, and I realize his voice, with an English lilt and soft, deep quality, is just as soothing as Amelie's when she isn't around to conpare.

I return his smile— whatever there is to say about the intimidatingly loyal Bennetts, one thing I can say with confidence is that I look forward to having him as a brother.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready."

I'll work on developing maybe two or three Bennetts per chapter as Bella begins to integrate herself into the family, and Bella herself will develop throughout. The Edward confrontation will be pretty slow-burn, so please be patient! I'm hoping to make the payoff well worth the wait.

This is probably the quickest interval between chapters I've had thanks to your reviews and favorites. Please let me know what you think of the story so far, and suggestions would be welcome!