The Forgotten Child-Twilight

Chapter 2

Melodic Specter

"Why are you so nervous?" Carlisle asked as he looked lovingly at his wife.

Esme cast a serious glance at her husband and said, "It's been ages since the entire family has been together. This means a lot to me Carlisle."

Carlisle knew that Esme's heart had shattered when the "Cullen Clan" had slowly drifted apart and went their separate ways. It had been around fifty years ago and they all knew they were becoming conspicuous. It got to the point of ridiculousness when Carlisle and Esme claimed to be in their early forties when they appeared more in their mid-twenties.

Forks was no longer safe, so the family would disband as they had in the past, and eventually come back together.

Alice and Jasper were the only children that stayed with the Cullen Family after they broke apart. And that's how Esme viewed all her adopted children... as her own children.

Carlisle knew it had taken pieces from her heart to separate, but now they were moving back home to Forks. "Was Canada, that bad?" he teased her.

"I'm just happy that we're becoming a family again. Beyond happy," Esme said.

Carlisle, Esme, Jasper and Alice had been at the Fork's family home for almost a year now. They had replaced the broken windows, the rotting wood, added a new coat of paint and had basically given their previous home a huge make-over.

Soon, Rosalie and Emmett would be back home.

Alice and Jasper had completed all the repairs to the cottages, so that Bella and Edward, Rosalie and Emmett, could have their own "home away from home" if they so had chosen.

But something still wasn't right. There was a sweet pungent odor in and around the house.

The smell had reminded Esme of the wild honeysuckle of her youth. As she was arranging all the new furniture in the living room, she could have sworn she heard music... or was it somebody singing? The harmonies were so alluring that she stopped and searched in and around the house.

When she spoke to Carlisle about it, he had confessed that he'd been hearing the same sound, almost daily, from the moment that they had returned to their old house. Carlisle had told her that he searched for the strange musical sounds, but had found basically nothing.

Carlisle told Esme, "The only thing I saw was a dirty, grubby little boy, I gestured for him to come, but Jasper came around the corner, and when I looked back, he was gone."

Jasper had recalled the incident as well because he had not smelled any human scents nearby. Despite these strange circumstance, the small family of four had rebuilt parts of the main house as well as the cottages as they listened for the mysterious melodies.

ooOoo

The next day Esme spoke to her family, "I saw him too, but only for a second, before he disappeared into the thicket. I would have gone after him but I was afraid I'd scare him."

"I haven't seen any visions out of the ordinary," Alice said, "But I think it was a good idea to just let him go. He's probably just the child of a neighbor, or his parents were hiking and he took a wrong turn. There's lots of possibilities," Alice finished.

Carlisle looked at his three family members and forced himself to be silent. He didn't know why, but he hesitated to admit that he had seen the child many times. That once while in the garden he saw and beckoned the child to him. The boy had come to stand right beside him taking Carlisle's icy hand in his own.

Before he could ask the child his name, Carlisle heard Esme and Alice heading in his general direction. The child began to struggle to get lose from Carlisle's iron grip. Not wanting to distress the boy, he had let go and the child seemed to disappear behind a group of trees.

Carlisle had said nothing of this experience, fearing that the rest of his family would not return. He wouldn't blame them; the entire thing seemed odd and bazaar. Besides, he felt a strange protectiveness about this child... something familiar that he just couldn't pinpoint.