~ Fury Of Fire: A Woman Scorned ~

by

Cricket Sawyer

Dark clouds swirled around her, picking her up. She could feel herself being sucked into the funnel’s vortex. Mesmerizing, nearly hypnotic blue eyes peered at her out of the storm’s center and seemed to be calling to her. She could see a hand stretched out to her. Did she dare reach for it? Suddenly she was afraid and pulled away; swirling higher into the storm’s dust-choked center. Were those eyes Nathan’s, if they were, what was the message. Was it a warning or merely a nightmare? Cyan didn’t know if or how to extinguish the feeling and thoughts associated with what she perceived to be dreams—except—experience told her different. Was her clairvoyance brought to her in dream-like form or was the dream interpreted as some form of clairvoyant experience. Her head ached with the thoughts.

Cyan snapped out of the dream in a cold sweat. She hated her dreams lately. The only way she could stop them was to stop sleeping; an option she had tried many times since she learned her dreams bordered on clairvoyant. Maybe they actually were clairvoyant but she chose not to follow that bit of paranormal reality. Even though it persisted and insisted it would be part of her life. She wondered if paranormal was reality— or was there a different way of phrasing what was happening to her. She remembered when she was younger, there had been times she had thought she had dreamed something and it was ‘déjà vu’ when those thing turned into reality.

Early spring skies in the Midwest foretold weather, her mother always said. Yellow for wind; in her dream she had been racing through a landscape illuminated by yellow skies. Omen or premonition? She didn’t want to think about it. The skies this morning were a blaze of lavender and red. More of her mother’s weather predictions in the form of clichés stormed across her mind. “Red in the morning, sailor take warning,” she shuddered.

As she hurriedly dressed, choosing the perfect shade of yellow to highlight her hazel eyes, she pulled a brush through her shoulder length auburn hair before she gathered it into a ponytail high up off her neck. Thoughts of Nathan skittered across her mind. In less than an hour, they planned to leave to pick up their belongings from their “other” lives as a joint venture, sharing the cost of gas. Nathan would be driving his Camaro since it was in better, more reliable shape than her antique rattle-trap Chevy, to compensate she would also be paying for their meals. Both with former lives, both with pieces of themselves strewn across other states; today was the day to retrieve those pieces and move on. Sharing expenses for the move would keep them on equal footing, Cyan told herself.

This was a typical arrangement with Nathan. They had started out sharing horror stories of their broken love affairs over Dutch treat lunch’s and movies. She felt better not owing anyone, especially not another man at this point in her tender recovery stage.

Cyan rarely dreamt of Darien anymore. She didn’t see him in her dreams all bloody and beaten, calling her across deeply scared barren landscapes. The relief was short lived though, because as his images faded a new menace appeared. Now, a woman appeared. At first she was distant, barely visible, only a shimmering presence, nearly ghostlike. But she seemed to be getting closer. She glared at Cyan now. Her eyes reminded Cyan of a black panther she had seen in a zoo once. Pacing, menacing, threatening, sleek black lines, blazing white teeth, rose pink tongue, but those eyes; those incredible, hypnotic, yellow-green eyes. She shuddered at the image of the big caged cat and the newer image of the female whose same vicious yellow-green eyes terrorized her dreams of late. Cyan could feel her hate.

She tucked the yellow t-shirt into shorts the color of sun dried mud. She ran her hand over them to smooth them into place. She squeezed some lotion into her hands to rub the length of her long legs. She gazed at her legs in the mirror. “Not too bad for a forty-something broad,” she said and blew a kiss skyward. That probably would be classed as a small sin in her mother’s eyes compared to the life she had fallen into with Darien. She sighed again, the past was the past. Today, it was retrieve what was good from the past, the stuff that had any value in her life now and forge ahead.

The doorbell rang and she pulled herself into the now. A quick glance in the mirror told her that she had finished applying her make-up just in time. Nathan smiled as he greeted her at the door.

Kiss on the cheek, brotherly hug, she realized this was the first time in her adult life she was actually friends with a man. Not, friends-hoping-to-get-you-into-bed-soon, friends; but plain, everyday, come-on-lets-do-something-fun, kind of friends. She hugged him back, glad for his presence especially after her troubled sleep.

“You look like you had a sleepless night. Are you worried about picking up your stuff?”

Cyan shook her head, “No, just nightmares kept me up most of the night.”

“Want to talk about them?” Nathan asked, holding her shoulders at arms’ length and looking deep into her eyes.

“Naw, that’s okay. I’ll be fine once we’re on the road.” She lied, she knew the dreams would return until she figured out what they meant. “Did you have breakfast yet? I was about to toast a bagel, but I make a wicked omelet if you’re hungry.”

“If you have a spare bagel and an extra cup of coffee I wouldn’t mind. We can eat them on the road, if that’s okay with you. The weatherman is predicting unsettled weather later today and some possible storms, we should get an early start.”

Cyan’s stomach tied in an instant knot as memory of the windy yellow skies of the dream swept back across her mind. Funnel cloud, her stomach knotted tighter. “Tornados?” she questioned.

“Not that I heard. Fast moving storm system. Like they can predict the weather with any accuracy lately,” he said

“You are right,” she said, handing him a hot bagel and a travel mug full of coffee. “I’ll grab my rain jacket just in case.”

Once settled in the car with seat belts buckled, the Camaro humming peacefully down the road, her troubles seemed to fade with the music and the motion of the scenery passing by the windows.

Early morning mist hugged the river like a quilt. A few ducks skimmed along the banks of the bay where the sun had poked through. Everything looked lazy and sleepy as they drove through town and out into the country that only the road made a path through. No homes, stores or gas stations, only miles of gray blacktop ribbon stretching between acres of trees on either side of the road.

“Got a nasty note from a—not sure what to call her—she’s obsessed with me—I—well, helped when she was a student, she seems to think it meant more—she sent me a note yesterday,” Nathan said as he put the cruise control on and slid back to stretch his long legs. “She must have been in town; it was stuffed in my door.”

“She can’t seem to get over you? Has she done anything serious or threatening?” Cyan asked. Again the panther getting closer flashed before her.

“She’s crazy, but I think harmless. She calls and leaves messages on my machine when she knows I won’t be home, that type of thing.”

“Be careful,” Cyan said. A chill ran up her spine and tickled her hairline; yellow-green eyes appeared in the roadway before her. She blinked and they disappeared.

Nathan looked at her with raised eyebrows and a quizzical look in his eyes, “You know something I don’t know?”

“No, not really.” Should she tell him about her dreams? Then she’d wind up having to explain about other things that had come true from her dreams. Like his mesmerizing blue eyes. What was she doing? She quickly averted her gaze and starred out at the deep woods that were painted in a million shades of spring green.

“Did you ever realize there were so many shades of green?” she asked.

Nathan looked at her with the same questioning gaze. “I swear girl, you are some kind of mystery,” he said and then focused his attention on driving. “Yes, spring is nearly as beautiful as fall. Maybe it’s just the anticipation of new life that makes the green rival the shades of autumns’ reds and yellows.”

The journey through several more states was merely a blur of empty roadway and transitions between winter and spring that left towns looking dirty and unkempt. Light conversation held Cyan’s premonitional dreams at bay throughout the trip. Nathan loved to drive and Cyan drove only for brief periods when Nathan needed more than a food stop rest. They didn’t stop except for food, until they reached Oklahoma.

They loaded Cyan’s stuff into the small trailer they rented from a gas station in Enid and then moved on to pick up Nathan’s stuff from Oklahoma City. The one night they planned to stop in a motel didn’t happen. The unsettled weather reports made them both leery. Oklahoma, seemed to Cyan, to sit right in the middle of what was known as the famed Tornado Alley. She didn’t want to be there if these storms put another hatch mark on that claim. They headed back after Nathan had a short nap in a campground where they swam, ate and regrouped to head back. Cyan curled up in the car seat to sleep a bit until Nathan wanted her to drive.