Honeybee

Chapter Nine~Maria.

Chapter Nine
Maria.
Elizabeth Cullen
Calgary. March, 1979.

"Alice, please, come back to us." I begged her frantically, the dead look in her eyes causing fear to grip me deep in my bones as I got onto my knees in front of her.

She had been perfectly fine a minute ago. Laughing and teasing Edward as he and I sat at the piano picking through a new composition. She had teased him for being a "mamas' boy" before suddenly getting pulled into a violent vision.

I had never, never, seen her become so seized by fear in one of her visions. She tended to be quite analytical when it came to her visions, always treating them as a choice and opportunity to change directions, and so I had never seen her look so resigned to whatever chaotic event she was seeing in her mind. I quickly flipped on the imaginary switch in my mind to be able to tune into her thoughts, yet I found nothing there. I had already missed the vision. She was so numb to whatever she had seen that she wasn't thinking about anything at all.

"Is she broken?" Edward worried, hovering over my shoulder as he realized that the blank state of her thoughts was a very bad sign.

"I-I don't know." I shook my head. "Alice, sweetheart? Please, say something." I begged again, taking her hands in mine in an effort to shake her out of her strange state.

"Maria." She whispered grimly, as if the very name was a synonym for death in her vocabulary, before turning slowly to look me in my eyes.

"Maria? Who's Maria?" I questioned her quickly.

At that moment, I heard the sounds of four distinct footsteps returning from a hunting trip.

However, Carlisle was at the hospital still as he had a long surgery today that had several complications. So Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie decided to hunt today and leave Alice, Edward, Carlisle, and I to go tomorrow. That's why I was so confused to hear four pairs of footsteps instead of just three.

I met them at the backdoor quickly, and the moment I saw the strange woman with them, I knew she had to be the deadly Maria.

She was young in appearance with rough brown waves of hair running down to her waist and wide crimson red eyes. She was tiny, not quite as small as Alice but barely taller than her. The moment her eyes met mine, I could see why Alice seemed so fearful of this small girl. Her dark orbs held a cold calculating nature to them.

I immediately decided that I didn't trust her and wanted her far away from my family.

"Mom," Jasper spoke, his tone stiff and cautious in a way he had never spoken to me before "this is Maria." He introduced her. "Maria, this is Elizabeth Cullen, my mother figure and the co-leader of this coven."

"Co-leader? Ha! I knew that he would go crazy without me...poor fool." Maria's mental voice chided as she gave me a polite smile.

"Come in." I spoke very coldly to her, trying to get my point across that I was the over-protective mother type.

"Don't worry, Ma. I'll stay close to her. Nothing is going to happen to anyone." Emmett looked down at me as he entered the doorway and I pressed a quick kiss to his cheek in thanks.

"So, Maria, what do we owe this visit to?" I asked, speaking her name with venom, as she hovered by the fireplace looking through the photos on the mantle.

"I am the leader of the Mexican coven." She spoke boastfully, another trait I didn't admire, as she turned to address me. "I was simply coming to check on one of my defected coven members. Jasper was always a favorite to me, of course." She smiled threateningly, her Spanish accent suddenly much heavier on her tongue.