Mavericks

Prologue: Evening

Nadie never appeared before sunset. In the summer, when the sun charitably lingered, so that people may have their bonfires and children may play in driveways without meeting darkness, Nadie did not come out until late. It didn't matter much to Elliot, because he waited so often that an hour meant nothing to him.

Elliot didn't know where Nadie came from, only that for as long as he could remember, she had emerged from the forest's edge, and been as much a part of it as the leaves and the branches. When he was too young to join them, his older sister, Isla, and Nadie would play together, and Elliot watched them. Nadie taught Isla how to climb trees and whistle, and Isla taught Nadie how to jump rope and blow bubbles, and though Nadie was terrible at both of those things, she could climb a tree faster than most people climbed stairs.

He couldn't say for sure, but Elliot was fairly certain that he and Isla were the only people to ever see Nadie. She was timeless, somehow, and though Elliot couldn't ever tell exactly how old she was, he knew she should have gone to school with Isla. But she didn't. She was copper skin and tumbling black hair, but not sixteen or eighteen or anything definite.

Elliot saw the exact moment Nadie arrived. Her thin frame was silhouetted against the backdrop of a dark forest, and she leaned against a tree. Though her face was in the shadows, she was clearly inviting him to follow. Sometimes she came out to meet him. Today was not one of those days. He checked his shoelaces before running over to her.

"It's your summer break now, isn't it?" she asked. Her voice was low but smooth, and would have seemed odd coming from her mouth had he not been used to it.

"Yeah," he said, panting lightly.

"You'll still be waiting for me?"

"Every night."

Her lips twisted into a smile, playful and promising, and she began to walk backwards, deeper into the trees. Once they were both a few steps in, she turned around and started to run, not to escape Elliot, but in the hopes that he would follow. Of course he followed; Elliot couldn't imagine a time when he wouldn't do whatever it was she wanted.

That night was a night of stars and streams, and starsandstreams, because in evening light, glimmering water and a glittering sky did not look too unlike. And though it was a night that was threaded with that undefinable magic which made up Nadie and her secrets, it was a night like any other.

It was not the first time Elliot had stood barefoot and ankle-deep in icy spring water, and it was not the first time his feet had dried by dangling loosely from a tree branch. And Nadie told him stories she had told him before about mystical creatures and living spirits and her voice soothed like an ointment to a burn, and it was familiar and strange and so incredibly like home.

When Nadie led him back to his house, leaving him alone in his backyard before disappearing once more, he didn't protest, because this was what Elliot knew. Nadie was a girl and she was a waterfall, and he was utterly at her mercy.

******

AN:

Hi everyone! I'm Amber. If you've been reading my Harry Potter fanfiction, you know this. If you haven't been, welcome! My main reason for writing this is that while I love writing my fanfiction, I felt like I was missing out on something by not also working on one of my own original ideas. So I decided to start something new, and this is what became of it. Hopefully you enjoy this, because I'm kind of in love with my new little world and the people in it. Please vote and comment if you are interested in more!

Amber