Prologue

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

- Maya Angelou

It all started with a book.

From the time that I first began to understand the concept of the English language, I was fascinated by the written word. When I was just four years old, I found a tattered old fairy tale book in my mother's closet, and I taught myself to read. Stories were everything to me. Dashing princes, daring swordfights, mythical creatures – I could be instantly transported to beautiful, sun-drenched lands where people rode ponies all day and laughed and hugged and never, ever fought with each other.

Not like my house.

The ever-present gloom of Forks colored all of our attitudes. With the curtains constantly drawn (to keep out the neighbor's prying eyes, according to my mother), it was like we lived in a persistent state of twilight. Throughout my early childhood, I remember wondering what the difference between night and day was supposed to be. For the Swans, everything was always just varying shades of gray.

My mother, Renée, had put off enrolling me in the local public school, though I was already a precocious and inquisitive six year old, due to the so-called "secular nature" of their curriculum. When my father, Charlie, argued with her over this (something they fought about frequently, leading me to believe I was the sole source of all their unhappiness) she became enraged.

"No child of God is going to be put into a school where they don't allow prayer," she seethed, her cheeks turning a bright scarlet in contrast to the mellow gold of her tidy hair. My mother was beautiful. Her lithe silhouette was constantly hidden behind the impenetrable barrier of her overly starched, high-necked blouses and excessively full skirts, but in the occasional sparkle of her changeable, seawater eyes, I could sometimes see the fun-loving and attractive woman that had snared my Father so long ago at that church picnic.

My father ran a weary hand across his stubbled chin. "The girl has to go to school, Renée. It's the law. How's it going to look if the Chief of Police's own daughter is flouting the rules?" He took a break from staring down my mother to give me a cheerful grin and a wink. If Renée was the strict enforcer of all things good and wholesome in our house, my Father was the true instigator of mischief. When he'd come home from a long day of leading Forks' finest, I'd rush to his arms where he'd throw me in the air and tickle me with the bristly whiskers of his moustache. I'd scream with laughter until he placed me back on the floor, only to glance up at my mother, whose frown dictated that roughhousing wasn't right for delicate little girls. All the happy would leak out of his brown eyes, and I would be left with more gray, more sad.

My mother, deep in thought, pushed her hand into the oversized pocket of her skirt and came up with her well-worn bible. As she thumbed its leather cover reflectively, a flash of sudden inspiration came into her eyes.

"I'll teach her myself," she stated firmly, nodding her head. "She can learn better in her own home than she can in that run-down heap of a school."

She placed her bible back into her pocket and leaned down to my diminutive height, grasping my small arms firmly in her work-calloused hands. "Wouldn't you like that, my baby Bella? Staying home with Mommy all day and learning about the miracles of Jesus, our lord and savior?" She shook me a little when I didn't answer her immediately. I wanted to go to school with the other kids my age. I wanted friends and birthday parties and sleepovers. I looked up into my mother's wide eyes and then turned my face to see my father, who looked completely worn out from all the arguing.

"Yes, Mommy. I want to stay home and learn with you," I replied robotically. Anything to make my father's eyes stop looking so hollow. I couldn't stand any more of the fighting.

She immediately dropped me and turned to face him. "See? She wants it, too. You can stop all this nonsense about that stupid public school now." My mother smiled triumphantly and walked toward the kitchen to start dinner.

"Oh, and Bella," she called over her shoulder, that beautiful sparkle back in her eye, "we'll go down to the library tomorrow to pick you up your own card."

That was how I found myself in my very own sanctuary. As we walked out of the rain and through the double doors of Forks only library the next day, I discovered a beautiful new world. The rows upon rows of books, the colorful wall murals, the happy-looking children quietly engrossed in their own reading and imaginative adventures… it was as though I had finally found a real home.

"Well, hello there," a sweet voice trilled, interrupting my thoughts. I finally shook myself out of my astonished reverie and looked up into the face of a dark-haired woman with the sweetest smile I'd ever seen. She held out her hand for me to shake, and her smile got wider. "I'm Miss Angela, the children's librarian. Can I help you with anything today?"

I shook her proffered hand in as grown-up a way as I could manage. "I'm Isabella Swan–Bella for short–and I'm here to get my very first library card," I stated proudly.

My mother, eyebrow raised, carefully extracted my hand from Miss Angela's and cleared her throat. "We," she loudly enunciated, "are here to pick up some books regarding home schooling and Christian morality." Releasing my sweaty hand, she rubbed her own on her faded print skirt. "Can you point us in the right direction?"

The librarian's eyes narrowed a bit, but her smile miraculously remained intact. "Absolutely, Ma'am." She turned and crooked one finger, beckoning us. "Right this way."

We followed Miss Angela across the deep pile carpet of the main reading room until we reached a door marked 'Children's Room.' She stopped abruptly and faced my mother.

"Perhaps it would be best if we left Bella here while we search for the books you requested," Miss Angela suggested, ushering me toward the doorway with one solicitous hand. "Children can sometimes become far too loud and boisterous in the non-fiction section. It disturbs the other patrons."

My mother paused, thoughtful, and then finally nodded her head in approval. As Miss Angela guided her away, she turned her head back briefly to wink at me mischievously. A slow smile spread across my face as I realized I truly had found my very own sanctuary – and a brand new friend, to boot.

As the years passed in a slow haze, I often found solace in the library. When my father finally gave up on the ghost of their former love and left my mother, I cried myself silly in the pages of Wuthering Heights, wondering why my parents marriage couldn't have been as eternal as the obsessive love that was Heathcliff and Catherine. Once my mother realized she could send me to Forks Christian Academy tuition-free (if she slaved away in the guidance office six days a week), she pulled all the necessary strings to enroll me immediately. I was going into the sixth grade, and I was terrified that the other kids would think I was some kind of home-schooled freak. I poured my heart out to Miss Angela, and she comforted me, wondering aloud how anyone in their right mind wouldn't immediately fall in love with my kindness.

It was through her encouragement, and the occasional phone call to my father–through the library's free phone–my mother had cut up all our pictures of him and refused to acknowledge that he'd ever even existed–that I mustered up the courage to try to make new friends at the Academy. Luckily for me, on my very first day, I met Jessica Stanley. Her father was the music minister at our church, First Baptist Forks. She had hair as buoyant as her personality, wild dark curls flying everywhere when she'd bob her head enthusiastically at whatever silly thing was coming out of her mouth at the moment.

"Are you Isabella Swan?" she'd questioned me intensely, coming up behind me in the crowded hallway as I attempted to remember the combination on my brand new locker.

"Um… yes?" I replied warily, carefully setting down my books. I'd seen Jessica before at church. My mother never let me talk to any of the other kids, but that didn't mean I hadn't stared at them whispering together through the services.

"I'm Jessica Stanley. I've seen you around First Baptist." She tilted her head questioningly, a gesture I would become intimately familiar with over the course of our acquaintance. "Why haven't you been in school before now?"

I braced myself for whatever bad reaction I was bound to get when I revealed I was one of the 'home-school weirdoes' that everyone made fun of. "Uh… my mom was teaching me for awhile."

She frowned. "Oh." As she snapped her chewing gum, the overpoweringly fruity scent of it wafted over me in a way that made me feel slightly nauseous. "Come sit with us at lunch."

And that was that. From that first day, I spent all my time with my ready-made group of Academy friends. Beside Jessica, there was Mike Newton, a well-mannered, pleasant boy with blonde spiky hair and a friendly smile, and there was Lauren Mallory. Lauren was Reverend Mallory's only daughter. I realized pretty quickly that just because you're the child of a minister, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a nice person. With her shiny ice-white hair, big blue eyes and overdeveloped body, she was a magnet for the boys at our school. That pretty face, however, could easily twist into an expression of malice. That first day at lunch, I witnessed it firsthand.

"That's a really pretty skirt, Bella," Mike had commented nervously, a slight stammer in his voice. I blushed tomato red at the compliment and quietly thanked him while making a point of picking the crust off my tuna fish sandwich. Glancing up, I noticed Lauren's eyes were narrowed into angry slits.

"Yeah," she chimed in, her voice syrupy-sweet, "it must have taken you a real long time to sew it yourself. Where'd you get the fabric from, Walmart?"

Jessica guffawed loudly beside Lauren and hid her mouth behind her hand, while everyone else at the table looked away awkwardly. I didn't think it was humanly possible, but I felt my face flush an even brighter stain of crimson at the remark. I brought my eyes back up to meet Lauren's and found hers glinting with spiteful humor. From that day forword, I made a point to keep a low-profile around her.

After my first official day at the Academy was over, I found myself sprinting toward the one place where I knew I could find refuge from the exhaustion that was about to overwhelm me. When I entered her office in the library, Miss Angela already had a plate of peanut butter cookies (my absolute favorite; I could eat them 'til I was physically sick) and mint tea waiting for me. As I related the day's activities to her, I found myself able to laugh at the situation with Lauren that I had originally found so horribly embarrassing. School the next day didn't seem so bad after all.

This became my routine for the next few years; morning devotionals with my mother, the bottomless pit that was school, and then the library with Miss Angela, where I could finally be myself and relax. Once I entered the ninth grade, she offered me a position as a library assistant and I was ecstatic. I told my mother, who didn't feel comfortable with me having a real job, that it was volunteer work to promote Jesus to Forks 'heathen' children. She finally acquiesced. I had never been happier, doing work that I believed in and loved. Everything in my life was finally stable and secure.

At least that was the case until Edward Cullen showed up one day for Storytime and all hell broke loose.