1707 March

London, England

"Stop!" "Get down!"

At ten years old I was always on the run from the soldiers around my home town of London, England. They hated me, because I was always going where children ought not to have been going. Climbing was my favorite activity, and there just weren't any climbable trees in London. So, in place of the trees, I climbed buildings.

So the day I caught my first glimpse of how truly complex the world was, it wasn't really a surprise that it all began with me running across the rooftops of the houses of London, my brown hair with flowers growing in it streaming behind me, my vine green eyes shining with excitement, my bronze skin glistening with sweat from running, and British soldiers yelling angrily as they chased behind me.

A church was only a few rooftops ahead of me. If I could make it there, I knew, I could climb the bell tower and escape the soldiers. That was my goal.

Jump. Only two rooftops in between me and that church ahead. The soldiers were getting closer. They were grown ups, they had a lot longer legs than I did. But I was a kid, and I had more energy.

Another jump, and only one more rooftop stood between me and safety. The soldiers were too close, I could hear their footsteps right behind me. But I couldn't get caught. The soldiers would drag me home and I'd be doing extra chores for a month.

I jumped, but this time one of the soldiers grabbed the back of my shirt as I did. They lost their grip as I flung myself forward and off the rooftop, but it was enough to throw me off balance. I barely make it to the next rooftop, sliding on my stomach and scrambling to keep from falling off the edge. I managed to get to my feet just as the soldiers landed right behind me. They landed much more cleanly than I did, and one of them grabbed me. I yelled out angrily as I struggled to break free of them. The church roof was just ahead of me. Then I'd be up the bell tower and away.

I broke away with just enough time to launch myself clumsily off the house's rooftop and towards the roof of the church. But I realized almost immediately that I wasn't going to make it. And on the roofs of two-story buildings, I knew that the fall was going to hurt. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to watch the ground approach.

It never did though.

A hand grabbed my wrist, catching me. My knees hit the church wall hard enough to hurt, but that was a small price to pay for not falling two stories down to the ground, I knew. I opened my eyes and looked up to see a boy with dark hair, grey eyes, and a red bandana covering his forehead. He looked down at me as he gripped my wrist with one of his hands, keeping me from falling.

He pulled me up onto the rooftop, and then started pushing me towards the tower the moment I was on my feet. "Climb up! Hurry! I'll get rid of them."

It all happened in a rush. I didn't have time to think. I just started climbing as quick as I could. Thankfully, I'd always been a fast climber. I was halfway up the bell tower before I glanced down and saw that the boy was watching me climb. The soldiers were right behind him, though, one of them reaching out to grab him.

"Watch out!" I screamed. The boy spun around and was a blur of motion as he knocked the soldier closest to him down, and then lunged towards the other solder's rifle.

"Climb!" he yelled at me when he glanced up and saw that I hadn't moved. So I started climbing. I scrambled as quickly as I could upwards until I was standing beside the large iron bell at the top. I looked down to see the boy backed up against the base of the tower, surrounded by half a dozen soldiers now.

I dropped to my knees, my hands gripping the edge of the stone ground. "Climb!" I screamed down to him now. "They're really bad climbers!" Soldiers may have been fast, but they were horrible and slow climbers. It was how I'd always managed to get away from them, because I could climb and they couldn't.

"Don't come down until we're gone!" the boy yelled back up at me. I stared down at him, confused. Then I watched in amazement as he burst forward and crashed into one of the soldiers. They both went down, but the boy rolled back to his feet easily, ducking under another soldier's arm as he reached out to catch the boy. I could hear him laughing, even from where I was, as he tripped another soldier and sent him to the ground.

I couldn't help but laugh too, as the boy launched himself off the church's roof and landed gracefully on the roof of the house right next to the church. He looked up at me, grinning, and bowed. Then, just as the soldiers made the jump to pursue him, he turned and ran away. The soldiers all forgot about me as they chased him.

I quickly started climbing down, wanting to follow. Since the soldiers weren't focusing on me, I could follow them in secret, hiding, until the boy lost them and I could go to him safely. By the time I got about halfway down the tower, they were so far away though. I paused, blinked my eyes, and activated my second sight.

My pupils became ringed with silver as the world took on a blue tint and everything slowed down. All the soldiers I could see turned red, places where I could disappear from sight paled – and there, in the distance, running in slow motion, the boy shone the brightest and most beautiful silver that I'd ever seen.

I watched them as I struggled to move. Moving while my second sight was activated was like moving through thick mud – difficult and slow. I watched as I struggled to continue to climb down, until I lost my footing on the tower and dropped down the last half of it, down to the roof. My second sight instantly vanished as I landed wrong, hurting my ankle. By the time I got home that evening, my ankle was swollen and ugly looking.

It took a few days for my parents to finally have to leave the house at the same time, leaving me home alone. As soon as they were both gone, I snuck out of bed and made my way painfully and slowly out to the courtyard, where I sat in a rocking chair by the flowers.

I hadn't stopped thinking about the boy that saved me from falling and led the soldiers away. I didn't know who he was, but I hoped that I would be able to see him again some day.

"That looks bad," a familiar voice said, pulling me out of my own mind. I looked up to see the boy, almost as if summoned by my hopes, standing just on the other side of the gate set into the low wall surrounding my family's property.

For a minute, I was too surprised to speak. Finally, I realized that he was looking at my ankle, poking out from under the hem of my skirt. "It's not so bad," I finally said, glancing down at it. "It should heal up soon. I only sprained it." At least, that was what Mother told me. I didn't know enough to know any different.

"How?" he asked, lifting his gaze to my face.

I looked down again, feeling myself flush with embarrassment. "I fell off the bell tower, that day you saved me."

The boy immediately laughed, "I went to all that trouble so you wouldn't get hurt, just for you to hurt yourself the moment my back was turned?" I was almost positive that my face was getting even redder, and I was too embarrassed to even look at him by that point. "Are your parents home?"

I shook my head, happy for the change of subject, as I looked at him again. I hoped my face wasn't nearly a s red as I thought it was. "Mother's running her errands, and Father's at work. If either of them were home, I wouldn't be out here."

"Why not?" he asked as he reached over the gate and unlocked it, letting himself in as if it were already a normal thing for him, to be coming into my family's courtyard.

"They won't let me leave my bed until my ankle heals," I said as I watched him.

"That might take a while," the boy said as he walked over and sat on the ground in front of my chair. He lifted the bottom of my skirt a little bit so that he could get a better look at my ankle. The swelling hadn't gone down and by then it was purple and looked oddly shaped, ugly. "It's broken."

My eyes widened, "How long will it take to heal?" I was almost afraid of the answer.

"Well it won't heal right if the bone's not reset."

I sat back and narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him. "That's not as painful as I think it is, is it?"

"It'll be more painful if it's not fixed," he looked up at me. "Then it could hurt the rest of your life."

I just gaped at him, speechless.

"Don't move," he said as he grabbed my ankle with one hand and my foot with the other.

"What are you doing?!" I demanded quickly.

Instead of answering though, he pulled on my foot, hard and quick. I heard a really loud crack and suddenly my ankle hurt at least twice as much as before. I bit back a scream and whimpered, yanking my other leg up against my chest, curling up as much as I could. Then, after a minute, it didn't hurt nearly as much as it did a few minutes ago.

"Better?" the boy asked.

I lifted my head slowly, quickly wiping away tears, and nodded. "Yes…how did you learn to do that?"

He shrugged, "I watch people a lot."

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but then I heard a carriage roll up to the front of the house. I didn't know if it was my mother or father – by the time, it could have been either.

"Oh gods!" I gasped. "You have to go! I'm going to be in enough trouble just for being out of bed!"

"No you won't," the boy turned around so that he was kneeling in front of me with his back to me. "Come on, I'll take you to your room before your mum even knows you've gone."

I trusted this boy even before I knew why, even before I knew who he was, what he was. I dropped my uninjured leg, leaned forward, and wrapped my arms around his neck. "It's up the stairs, on the right. Hurry!" I whispered quickly, my heart swelling with the excitement of this.

He hurried into the house and up to my room, barely rounding the corner at the top of the stairs before the front door opened and my father called that he was home. Once the boy got to my room, he set me down on my bed before rushing back to the door, closing it quickly but silently, as I pulled the blankets back over me. I looked up to see him rushing towards the open window.

"Wait!" I said quickly. He stopped, halfway out the window already, and looked over his shoulder at me. "What's your name?" I asked.

He smiled, "I'm James."

"I'm Maylea," I couldn't help but smile back.

Without another word, he dropped out of sight, and I laid back down.