Solstice (A Jasper Hale/ Twilight novel)

Chapter One: Ontario

~ For Jennah, who loves Twilight more than air, and for those who hated the books, or (like me) thought the backstories were better than the main story line.~

Ember's Point of View:

"Bella! I'm so glad you came! It's been so long." I greet my old friend upon opening the front door of my apartment, quickly dragging her into a hug. "You look different." I chuckle, noting her golden eyes, identical to my own.

Bella grins at me. "I feel different."

We don't talk for a moment, just absorbing the differences, the things that have changed about the other since we parted ways. I know for a fact that almost nothing has changed about my appearance. My once lengthy, ash brown hair has been recently cropped shorter, just above my shoulders, but other than that my appearance has remained frozen in time.

Bella looks more mature than the last time I saw her, though granted, that was when she still lived in Phoenix. She's paler now, and her once chocolate colored eyes have been replaced with a golden color that marks her as a "vegetarian" vampire. Her hair is still in its natural, loose ringlets, but with more of a shine than it did when she was still human.

"So does this mean you're less prone to being a klutz now?" I ask with a smile, breaking the silence.

She laughs, and I notice it as another thing that has been altered. It's more of a pealing laugh now, more refined.

"Yes, I have definitely improved on my balance." Bella responds, walking inside my apartment as I open the door wider for her.

I shut the door behind us, and lead Bella down a rather unadorned front hallway and into the main room of the apartment. "I'm still settling in; I moved in two weeks ago." I explain to Bella, moving the two of us into the sitting room.

Because I don't require any sleep to keep my body functioning, instead of setting up my bedroom first, I set up the sitting room. It lies in the very back of my apartment, featuring two floor-to-ceiling windows that allow a substantial amount of light in during the morning. Creme curtains are pulled back by ribbons on either side; a precaution for non-vampire visitors. The dark wooding of the floor is in stark contrast with the upholstry of the eggshell couch and various other chairs scattered about the room, and to brighten the space, multiple violet and light green pillows have been added. Book sit stacked on the coffee table, all of them worn from years of love.

I keep very few pictures, mainly to evade questions that could be brought up about my past by those I do not wish to have prying. One of the few that I have kept though is one of Bella and me, and I notice Bella's eyes gravitate to the photograph as soon as she enters the room.

It was taken about two months before she moved to Forks; the day I told Bella that I was moving to Maine. Bella had told me a few days before about her plan to move in with her dad, freeing her mom to travel with her step-dad. I admired her for what she had decided to do, but also knew it meant I needed to move again. The only reason I had stuck around for so long was my friendship with Bella; she had become much like a younger sister to me in the six years I had known her.

Staying any longer would begin to arouse suspicion; I was beginning to look too young for my supposed age to match.

Bella had known what I was back then. She had suspected for awhile; the coldness of my skin despite the scorching temperatures, and the fact that I never ate around her. The closer she got to the truth, the more closed off I had become from her, until one day she saw me feeding on a mountain lion. It was about a year and a half after meeting me, and I had no choice but to explain what I was to her.

She took it better that I could have hoped she would; my ability to glamour myself made solid proof in her eyes that I wasn't lying. My gift allows me to change parts of my appearance, which was crucial to staying under the radar when in a sunny state like Phoenix. I was still mastering my gift back then, only able to change small things about my own appearance, but now I can make myself appear like photocopies of others, or project my glamour onto someone else. I can even borrow other vampires' abilities by glamouring myself to look like them.