Chapter 2

Suddenly I was standing elsewhere. I looked around me. A white picket fence surrounded a yard of emerald green grass. A sidewalk led up to a two-story house, painted white with blue trim. Three happy, screaming children were running around in the midst of some kind of game. There was a picnic table across the yard, piled with watermelon. Next to the picnic table, a guy grilling burgers. It was a real picnic.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and whirled toward it. A young girl with flaming red hair stood near me, licking a lollipop. Her bright blue eyes and face looked familiar.

She looked up at me and offered the lollipop, silently. Her eyes appeared too old for her face, as if she was much older than the six or seven years that she seemed. She was adorable and I wanted to pick her up and twirl her around. I heard the screen door on the house and an older woman came out. She was stocky, in an attractive manner. Her hair was also red, but it had heavy streaks of grey running through it. She was wiping her hands on a white apron. She looked around and spotted the girl next to me. She called out, "Jeannie! Come back to the house!"

The little girl looked into my eyes for a few moments, a question hanging in her gaze. She giggled and turned to run to the house, her hair flying behind her. I watched her enter the house, screen door closing behind her with a bang. The older woman shook her head tolerantly and smiling, went inside.

I heard the crack of thunder and gazed skyward. The sky turned dark suddenly and thunder boomed again. As I watched, clouds raced across the sky. Soon the sky became almost black with threatened rain. The light faded and I began to worry for my safety. I turned to go into the house, hoping that these people wouldn't mind if I took shelter in their home.

I started forward towards the house, but suddenly everything had changed. I stood in a room now instead of a yard. The walls were lined with wooden shelves, the shelves full of books. Tables sat in between the rows of shelves, surrounded by chairs. At a nearby table, a young woman sat. Her bright red hair was tied back into a braid, and she wore a blue dress. She was reading intently from a book, and a few others were piled on the table next to her.

Sitting on her other side was a young man. He had brown hair and bright green eyes. He wore jeans and a pale blue t-shirt with a university mascot on the front. I could see that he was only pretending to read the book in his hands. He was watching the girl next to him, with a yearning look on his face.