It started gradually. There were small flashes of blond hair and chubby cheeks; childish laughter and sleepy smiles from blurring faces. Eberle saw as the boy, around the same age as she was, fall from a tree that had grown in his back yard and break his arm. She felt the break as if it were her own, waking up from the dream screaming for her parents. She witnessed all his firsts and all his lasts; him oddities and all his secrets.
She knew he was different to her, with his layers of fancy clothing and thick southern accent; his strict uncaring parents and the men and women who seemed to do their bidding with brutal punishment. She saw flashes of a world that was unknown to her; the world a more formal and structured place than she had ever seen in her little life.
Eberle never said anything about her weird dreams or her connection with the blonde boy though she felt a strong pull towards him. She just knew that he was important, though for what reason was yet to be determined
Over the years, Eberle grew into a curious young woman and the blonde boy did so too. She had dreams of his life as she lived hers. The day she first started high school at fourteen, she dreamed of his first lesson in dancing and etiquette. When her sister was born, so she saw his brother born. And so, it went for years, feeling as though they were growing up together.
Sometimes Eberle wondered if their connection was mutual. Did the blonde boy see her life play out as she did his? He must think it so foreign to his, with the flashing lights of Seattle and electronics that were so few in his life.
Soon she was seventeen and he was signing up to be in the army and her heart ached for him every time he was in danger. She watched as he advanced beyond his peers and became the youngest Major and one fateful night she saw him meet her.
He was on a horse, riding back from somewhere. This was the clearest that Eberle had ever seen him before with his shoulder length blond hair, broad shoulders and lean build. He had a sharp jaw line, the last of his youth still shining through his features. He was dressed in a rumbled dark blue uniform with red trimmings and had a musket strapped to his hip. Soon enough he found Her. She was standing there with two other women, all beautiful, as if just waiting for him to arrive. She had long black hair that cascaded over her shoulders and soft angelic Mexican features. Eberle could see that the blond boy wanted to stop to offer help, as he was a kind man but every bone in her body was screaming for him to run far away from this creature. For she was not human, with her too pale skin, red eyes and a greed that surpassed any human emotion plain on her face.
"Lovely, an officer." The blond one said and her voice sounded like bells.
"You'd better do it, Maria. I can never stop once I've started." Said the other.
"What's your name soldier?" SHE asked him, her sharp Spanish accent making a chill slide up her spine like the shake of a rattlesnake's tale before it strikes.
"Major Jasper Whitlock, Ma'am." The blonde boy said, the twang of his honeysuckle southern accent made her blood sing.
"I hope you survive. You may be of great use to me." And then she sprung like a jungle cat, fast and graceful as she attacked him.