Another explosion rocked the air and I struggled to keep my feet, clutching the leather satchel.  Above me, one of the hot-air-balloon contraptions whizzed by, the people inside armed to the teeth. 

“Wait!” I screamed up at them, beginning to run, holding out the satchel.  “Wait, you can’t fight them without this, you’ll die!” 

They couldn’t hear me.  They were too high and my voice was lost in the countless other screams, explosions, and ripping, relentless wind.  How could I get them the satchel?  Somehow I had to.

Desperately, my eyes searched for a way, seeing a lone promontory a few hundred yards away.  Maybe if I could reach the top, the people in the balloons would see me. 

I began to run, heedless of the booming and shaking ground.  Ahead, lightning ripped through the hazy sky, striking the balloon that had just passed, sending it careening down into the earth.  Only one of its occupants survived, sailing through the air like a bird to alight gracefully on the same hill I was racing towards.  If I could only reach him!

To my left, an elephant was rampaging and I had to deviate my course, leaping over a dead woman’s half naked body, but I tried not to think about this.  All I had to think about was reaching that hill.  Dust choked me as I ran and almost blinded me, but I ignored everything except that hill, looming ahead of me now.  The balloon man was still on top, bow and arrows in hand, shooting down at something on the other side of the hill.  I pushed for the last hundred yards, gasping as my legs met the steep incline, making it impossible to keep up my pace. 

“Stop!  Stop, you need to take this!”  My voice was harsh and ragged as I called out to the man.

He turned from the other side of the slope, his bleached hair shining white and his light eyes locking onto me with strange knowing.  “What are you doing here?”  He called, his own voice as ragged as my own.  

I reached him, wordlessly holding out the satchel.

He grabbed my shoulders roughly and I saw how lean and muscular he was.  “Why are you here?”  he demanded again, his voice thick with a strange accent.

“You have to take this,” I rasped, thrusting the satchel at him.

He shook his head.  “It’s useless now, woman.  You should have come before.  We needed you sooner.”

I fought back hot tears.  I’d just about killed myself to get him this satchel and now he was telling me it was useless?  “You have to take it!”  I repeated.  “You’ll never win unless you have it.”

He turned away, grimly taking his bow in hand again.  “You know nothing of it.”  His tone was dismissive.

I looked past him for the first time, down the other side of the hill and my breath caught.  Huge black beasts, like great lions, were stalking up the hill, pulling chariots of armed men.  Behind them, another row of elephants.  And the lightning!  Cracking red from the thick sky, called down by those in the chariots, the wind and lightning came again doubleforce. 

Resigned to imminent death, the lone archer drew his bow and aimed.

“Why won’t you take it?”  I almost sobbed, trying one last time to give him the satchel.

He loosed, hitting one of the black lions, then reloaded before looking at me.  “Foolish woman.  It is not that we needed,” he gestured disdainfully at the satchel I still held.  “It is you.  It was always you.”

Red lightning flashed again, blinding me and burning my face, my arms, my lungs.  I couldn’t breathe!  I couldn’t…  I was breathing and lying in darkness.  My hands went to my face and I looked around wildly.  My face felt normal and I realized I could see my clock on the nightstand.  3:17am.

“They’re getting worse.”  I frowned, not meeting Kate’s eyes across the table. 

“Have you told your parents about them, Annalie?”  My best friend demanded.  

My frown deepened.  “No, and I’m not going to.”  I’d always been able to talk to Kate about anything, but lately these dreams had come between us.  It was mostly my fault, I knew, since I was so reluctant to talk about the dreams in detail.  I would definitely not be telling my parents I was suffering from nightmares at my age.  I tried again. “Kate, it’s not just the dreams, though I’m having them at least twice a week now.  It’s that there’s this…foreboding…that comes with them that doesn’t leave when I wake up.”  That sounded overly dramatic even as I said it.  I covered quickly, “I mean, I know they’re just dreams, but what if there’s something to them?  Some warning or something I really am supposed to do in real life?” 

Kate was giving me a blank stare.  “I think you need to relax.  It’s just a phase, like when you had a crush on Eric.  That passed, thankfully, and this will too.  You’ll leave for college in a few months, be in an exciting new environment, and forget all about your nightmares.”

I gave up trying to explain and gazed out the cafe window, watching as a young couple passed on the sidewalk, hand-in-hand.  They looked perfectly happy and I felt a little jealous.

“When were the first ones?”  Kate was asking.

“They started about six months ago.”

“And how do you know they’re all ‘the same flavor’ as you put it?”

I shrugged.  “How do you know when two different episodes are part of the same TV series?  It’s kind of like that.  They all have the same feel, and everyone is dressed in a certain way.  You know, like they dressed two hundred years ago, or somewhere more primitive or something.” 

“You could always see a specialist,” Kate suggested.

I made a face. “Definitely not.  Besides, I…” I cut short as Kate stiffened, eyes trained on something behind me.

“Don’t look now, but your mom and the whole board for her education center are here.”

I groaned.  My mother was an influential person in our small-town community and everyone knew me as Michelle’s daughter.  “Have they seen us?”

Kate nodded.

“Well, I guess we just say ‘hi’ as quickly as possible and then find somewhere else to eat lunch.”

Kate nodded again, emphatic. 

“Annalie, Kate!”  My mother made her way over, trailed by the other board members.  “I didn’t know you girls would be here, would you like to join us for lunch?”

“No, mom, Kate and I were just thinking about getting coffee before heading over to the pottery workshop, but I don’t think we have time for lunch.”  My stomach growled protest, but my face remained pleasantly smiling. 

“Oh, that’s right, I hope you girls enjoy the workshop, that sounded like so much fun.”

I nodded, wondering if it was too soon to leave.  

Kate saved me. “We should actually head over there now, Annalie.  Nice to see you, Mrs. Robertson.”

“You too Kate, will I see you again this weekend?  Are you coming over to go hiking with Annalie?”

“That’s the plan,” Kate smiled. 

“Great.  Have a fun class, girls!”

I was half way past my mother when I bumped into someone. “Oh, excuse me, I’m sorry!”

“Michelle, who is this?  Is this the daughter I’ve heard so much about?”  The man spoke with a strange accent, was rather short, and, unlike the other four board members with my mother, I didn’t recognize him.  He must be new.

“Yes,” my mother was saying, “Leo, this is Annalie.  Annalie, this is Leo.  He has recently moved here from Puerto Rico and joined the board.”

Ah.  That explained the accent. 

“I’ve heard so much about you, Annalie, I’m glad we ran into you now, it is nice to put a face with a name. I hear you are all set to begin school across the country this fall,” Leo began.  Behind him, Kate caught my eye and edged toward the door.  

I glanced from her back to Leo, trying to end this conversation as quickly as possible without being overly rude.  “Yep, I sure am.”

“And do you know what you want to study or do after school?”

I tried not to make a sour face.  “I’ve definitely thought about it.  Maybe I’ll be a storm chaser.” 

Leo chuckled, blue eyes twinkling in a strange way, as if we’d just shared some inside joke.  “You might be just that, Annalie.  But make sure you are the one chasing the storm instead of being chased by the storm.”  The way he met my eyes when he said this made me feel strangely uncomfortable.

“Umm, okay.” 

He flashed a half smile.  “I admire your mother very much, she is a wonderful director.  It was nice to get to meet her daughter today.”  He held out his hand and I took it, still not quite sure of him.  Finally, after the handshake, I made my escape, slipping past my mother’s cadre to meet Kate at the door.  Outside the café, we walked briskly through the early spring air to my car.

“I’m still hungry and we do actually have time for lunch,” Kate said as I unlocked it and climbed in.

“Subway?”

“Better than nothing.”

An hour later and we were happily engaged in our pottery workshop, dirty up to the elbows, and I’d almost forgotten all about my dreams and premonitions as I worked to round out a bowl of wet clay without putting a hole in the side.  This was just what I needed.  To get dirty, think about making things, be creative and engage with nature.  Maybe if I spent more time making bowls or hiking with Kate, I wouldn’t spend as much time brooding. 

“That was fun!” Kate exclaimed as we washed up after setting our creations to dry.  “It’s a four-week session, right?”

“Yep.”

“Oooh, I’m excited to glaze mine next time.  I think I’ll do the goblet blue and the bowl purple.” 

I smiled at her enthusiasm.  It was contagious and I started thinking of the colors I would use on my pieces as we grabbed our jackets and headed out.  The sky had grown cloudy and I could smell the heaviness of rain in the air.  Across the parking lot, a hobo pulled his hood up and I felt a little sorry for him.  Hopefully he had somewhere to wait out the rain. 

“Annalie, did you get a parking ticket?”  Kate’s voice called my attention back to my car and I saw the white paper flapping in the breeze, pinned under my windshield wiper.

“No way, we’re in a parking lot!”  Our town was small and rural enough that there wasn’t paid parking anywhere.

“Maybe it’s just some event flyer.”

Reaching the car, I removed the paper, surprised to see hand-written letters.  A chill ran down my spine as I read: THE STORM IS COMING. CHASER, OR CHASEE?

“What does that mean?” Kate demanded, reading over my shoulder.  She hadn’t heard my earlier conversation.

“I have no idea.”  My voice was quiet but my mind was racing.  Leo.  It had to be Leo.  But why?  Was he some kind of creeper?  Had he followed us?  How had he known which was my car and where we were?  I looked up, glancing all around to make sure we really were alone and that there wasn’t some Puerto Rican gang waiting to jump out at us from behind a bush.  

“Maybe someone meant it as a joke for someone else,” Kate suggested, still looking at the note.  “Or maybe it’s some weird religious group?”

I tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Let’s go, Kate.  I have some homework I need to finish and it’s going to rain soon.”

Kate gave me a look.  “It’s only Saturday, Annalie, you have plenty of time.”

“Yes, but you know how I feel about being cold and wet.  I’ll drive you home now and then we can meet tomorrow to go hiking.”  Why wasn’t I telling her about Leo?  Shouldn’t I?  If a creeper was on my trail, someone should know.  What I didn’t like admitting, even to myself as I drove Kate home, was that, while most of me was a little frightened by the note on the windshield, a part of me was a little excited.  It was a fascinating mystery.