Author's note:
This is the first part of a coming-of-age story with elements of fantasy, suspense, and inevitably romance, because it seems everything I write is a romance. It seemed to fit best in this category. There will be sexual content but perhaps less than most stories here, at least to start.
This portion of the story is set in the late 1980s to early 1990s. All sexual activity is among consenting adults over 18.
..........................*** Prologue ***...........................
Javier Sanchez was flat on his back when he met the girl who would one day change his life.
"Excuse me," a small voice said. "Are you quite all right?"
Javier blinked confusion at the girl leaning over him. Black hair, very white skin. Something odd about her eyes, but she looked friendly. Must be their new neighbor. He'd accidentally popped out of the woods into her backyard before tripping on something.
He shook the leaves from his hair and sat up, extending his hand. He offered his most winning smile, the one that made the girls at school giggle.
"I'm Javier," he said. "And thank you, I'm just fine."
She gave him an odd look and didn't take his hand. But then again, he was pretty dirty, and she was wearing a fine dress. Like the ones Mamá put on when she occasionally dragged him to church.
"Javier," she repeated carefully. His smile broadened, because she said it perfectly the first time. White girls rarely managed that.
"My name is Esther Thompson," she said, and she might have said something more if Pedro hadn't caught up to him.
"You're IT!" his cousin yelled. "Oh, hello. Who are you? Do you want to play?"
"My name is Esther Thompson," the girl repeated, and then just stood there looking nervous. Maybe she was shy, or weird in the head like Fat Charlie. But Charlie was nice, and Mamá said you should always be polite.
"You're weird," concluded Pedro, before dashing off back into the forest.
"That was Pedro," sighed Javier. "He's only nine. I'll be twelve next month. How old are you?"
Esther fidgeted and glanced nervously behind her.
"I am twelve years, one month, and nine days old. And I'm afraid I'm not allowed to play."
With that she turned and walked towards her house. Javier felt a pang of sympathy. What kind of parents didn't let their kid out to play?
"I'm out in the woods a lot," he called. "I live right next door. Just wander into the trees a little and maybe you'll find me. We can be quiet, so no one would know we're playing."
He knew she'd heard him. But it was six months before he saw her again.
* * *
"What are you doing?" Esther asked from behind him.
In his surprise Javier nearly knocked over his log fortress. He hadn't exactly forgotten her, but over the months he'd sometimes wondered if he'd invented her entirely.
"Uh," he said. "It's a fort. Big square building that you can hide in and fight off anyone who comes."
Esther nodded seriously. She was wearing another fine dress, slightly muddy at the bottom. They were far enough into the woods that their houses were barely visible through the trees, so she must've walked up pretty quietly. For a while she seemed content simply to watch him break up more little branches and arrange them. Javier found he didn't mind her company.
"Mother is sick," she said eventually. "She said I could play out back instead of lessons. She didn't tell me how far I could go."
Javier grinned. He liked this odd girl. And she was kind of cute, in a weird way. He'd figured out what it was about her eyes: they weren't quite the same color. Somewhere between dark green and brown. Even some blue mixed in one of them. She looked away, embarrassed, when he looked at her too long.
Over the next few weeks she came out more often, and he learned a little about her. She'd been home-schooled her whole life. She was an only child, like him, but her parents were really religious, so religious they didn't even *go* to church. Aside from him the only kids she knew were from their little home-schooling circle.
It was hard to believe she was the same age as him. She seemed so grown-up, though even for a girl she was really small. He invited her to play tag, or climb trees, but she always declined. He thought it might be worry about her clothes or something, but then he felt bad when she explained one day.
"I get tired easily," she said, looking uncomfortable.
Javier wanted to know if there was something wrong with her, but he could almost hear Mamá telling him not to pry about other people's health. So he nodded seriously, the way Esther did, and set his mind to inventing some games they could play with sticks.
Sometimes she found him a couple times in a week. But then he didn't see her for a few months.
"We should make a signal," he said when she finally crept up on him one day. They'd worked out that they could just see each other's bedroom windows. "I'll open my blind halfway and put my big green frog in the window when I'm in the woods."
* * *
The summer after sixth grade was the best of his life. He told Esther more and more of his life, and was rewarded with a smile, or some of the odd little things she'd learned. Javier was pretty good at school, but she was like a walking encyclopedia. It seemed like she was so good at schoolwork that her mother found it hard to keep her busy. Javier felt guilty about that, especially when he figured out that her mother was getting sick more often.
One afternoon Mamá was out getting her hair done, and he convinced Esther to sneak into his bedroom window with him. She was flushed, out of breath, and glowing with happiness when he finally pulled her in.
"Who are they?" she asked, pointing at some of his posters.
"Soccer players. You know, football." But she didn't know, and he spent the next few minutes trying to explain it all. He liked Esther, but she was so weird, and for someone so smart it sometimes seemed she didn't know anything.
