Rain Dreams
Chapter 2
By Tom J. Hyde
Version Beta-3
VB1 Finished: September 27, 2009
VB2 Finished: October 27, 2009
VB3 Finished: December 28, 2009
Word Count: 1928

Hasid grinned at Theodore. The turbaned man threw the packages into the air, clapped three times in joy, then caught them in a perfectly smooth motion. "Nineteen ninety five!"

His hand slipped down to his inner pocket and got out his wallet. Sadly, there was only his bank card and no cash.

"Do you accept Visa?" he asked sheepishly.

"Silly lovesick boy. Hasid accept all payments!" The little man snatched the card out of his hand, then slipped it into a fold in his turban.

His head jiggled for a few moments before an odd tinkling noise came from the turban.

"Payment good!" Hasid announced as the card suddenly flipped out from behind his right ear. He handed it back to Theodore, who took it limply, staring at it for several moments before slipping it back into his wallet.

When he looked back up at Hasid, the salesman was holding out an electric lime bag.

"Separately lovesick boy must use. Give to unicorn girl. Both happy! We go."

Theodore turned to thank Brooke for her assistance, but she had already leapt back upon the top of the cart. She peered down at him with those almond eyes and gave him a feral grin.

"Enjoy yourself, kid," she suggested.

"Away Hasid go!" Hasid announced at the head of the cart. He said something strange and the cart reared as if it were a bucking horse.

Brooke let out a shriek when the motion threw her tumbling to the ground. Theodore just stood there dumbly as the cart shot forward and ran away. Hasid giggled, leaving the teen standing in the light mist falling from the sky, watching Brooke pick herself up.

"You idiotic old goat!" Brooke bellowed and bolted after the cart, jumping into the air to catch up. Theodore watched as Hasid's cart rounded a corner and vanished, Brooke in pursuit and still hurling insults at the odd little man.

He stood there like an awkward Greek statue for a time, staring after them and still wondering if he had some sort of psychotic break.

The only thing that reassured him of his sanity was the electric lime bag still in his hand. But it only reassured him a tiny bit.

"Theo? Hello? Earth to Theo?"

As if waking from a trance, Theodore shook himself, finding his jacket coated with wet droplets. He looked around.

"Theo? Are you okay?" said a voice from behind him.

Marissa had her arms crossed over the ripped poncho, her left eyebrow arched as if studying some odd animal specimen. Even though there were still a few shards of grass in her hair and her overalls were quite muddy, his breathing quickened.

"What are you still doing here?" she asked, glancing at the electric lime bag in his hand. "And in the middle of the parking lot when it's raining?"

"Well, I was just leaving and I…well, that is to say, I…" He didn't have the slightest clue how to describe his encounter. At least, not without Marissa making a quick phone call to a psychiatrist.

Marissa's eyebrow went a bit higher. "Yes?"

A light gust of wind fluttered the handholds of the bag. "I was…I was waiting for you!"

"Waiting for me."

"Yup!"

"Out here."

Her foot tapped on the ground twice.

"Yup!"

"In the middle of an empty parking lot."

"Yup."

"In the rain."

"Yup."

His voice sounded like the folding of a cat's ears.

"Right."

And then the awkward silence came.

Theodore just tried to grin. It came across as the expression of a badly-drawn cartoon villain.

"Fine. I'll bite. Why?"

"Why what?"

Marissa's face became sour. "Why were you. Waiting for me. Out here. In the middle of an empty parking lot. In the rain?"

The bag shifted in his hand and he remembered Joe's threat earlier today. Now was a good a time as any. "Because I got you a present!"

Marissa blinked. "A present?"

"Yup."

"If you say 'yup' one more time, I'm going to boff you."

"Boff?" Theodore sputtered. "Did you really just say boff?"

"Yes. And I'll do it." She looked quite serious. "Now what's the present?"

He reached inside the bag, pulled out a box and handed it to her with trembling fingers.

She took it and just stared. "What the heck is this?"

"Incense…I think."

"Incense." Her voice was flat. "What kind of a silly name is 'Spirit of the Plains' for incense?"

"Oops! Wrong one." He winced and snatched it out of her hand. He replaced it with the correct box. "This one's for you."

"Honestly, Theo, you are acting so weird to-" She stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes caught upon the text.

"How did you know?" she whispered.

"Know what?"

"About my dream?" Her eyes were glassy, filled with a smattering of shock and a sprinkle of wonder.

"What dream?"

"Then you don't know?"

"No clue."

Marissa clutched the incense tightly to her chest. The plastic squeaked in protest.

"I don't know how to thank you."

"Well…I guess…you could….um…"

Now at the moment of movement, Theodore froze up. No matter how much his mouth tapped out words, it was nothing but gibberish. It was only six words. Why on earth was he having trouble with six measly words?

He sputtered for a few more seconds, but the words refused to resolve themselves into anything approaching coherency. Marissa never noticed. She was focused upon the package, running her hands along the slick plastic as if afraid it would evaporate.

Theodore's embarrassment rose and he fell silent. He simply gazed upon Marissa, surrounded by the misting rain. A sound of faint thunder came from somewhere in the distance.

Marissa shook herself from her reverie and looked up at him. Theodore's face shifted into a crimson spectrum. She darted forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. And she giggled. She never giggled.

The only thing that stopped him from toppling over was a brief gust of wind upon his back.

"I'm gonna go try this right now!"

Before Theodore could recover enough to say anything further, she was gone. She darted out of the parking lot, jumped over a rather sizable puddle, then vanished behind a greenbelt.

His eyes stayed locked in the direction she had disappeared. A gust of wind swayed him ever so slightly. The light rain began to collect upon his jacket in little pools and streams. Nearly five minutes passed before his left leg suddenly jerked forward, followed shortly by his right. Perhaps they were tired of standing out in the cold air. But the movements were almost without the knowledge of Theodore, whose brain was in a far away land of clouds and dancing unicorns.

Reality didn't exist as he walked the slick sidewalks, tracing the path of Marissa. The electric lime bag hung loosely from his hand. His motions were stiff, like a toy in desperate need of a dab of oil.

He only registered the physical world when he first noticed the slightly rusted gate that led into Marissa's front porch. His eyes wandered up along the stucco façade of the track home. Ten years of memories flooded back to him and every one of them surrounded a certain raven-haired girl.

For an instant, his hand went to Marissa's gate. It rested there like a butterfly alighting on a white flower.

Then he took the last thirty-two steps to his own front door.

The house was silent, save for the bubbling of the family fish tank in the living room. Beautiful angelfish and brilliant flounders buzzed around faux coral reefs in the deep recesses of the water. There was something serene about the picture, but Theodore had trouble appreciating it.

He usually did when his thoughts were on Marissa.

At least there was no one here. His parents wouldn't be home for hours yet. And he wanted some time to think. Though when he tried to consider all the conflicting thoughts in his head, he found himself subjected to a rather intense and immediate headache.

He attempted to throw his backpack off near the foot of the stairs, but found himself caught by the electric lime bag still clutched in his hand. The rectangular parcel stood out inside of it, giving sharp corners to the otherwise shapeless bag. After disentangling himself, he retrieved the box.

He didn't have much experience with incense, but he didn't think it looked very strange. But the way Marissa had reacted was.

"Spirit of the Plains," he whispered to himself.

The headache returned as he tried to figure out why Marissa was so intent upon the incense, to the point of actually giving him a kiss before running off.

His cheek burned a little at the precise spot her lips had brushed it.

Hasid's words came back to him. He said it was special for him. And he said it was supposed to work with Marissa's incense.

Theodore knew what Marissa was doing at this very moment.

"Am I crazy to trust some fashion-challenged shopkeeper?" he asked the fish.

Nothing particularly helpful came from the fishtank.

He also considered that talking to oneself was supposed to be one of the first signs of madness.

"Who cares?" He marched up the stairs and into his bedroom.

Bulging bookshelves hid the walls of his room The contents of several library's worth of science fiction and fantasy lined the creaking shelves. Haphazard mountains of books and magazines were piled up like sandcastles atop the thick carpet. Upon a desk crammed in front of a particularly unstable bookcase were pillars of notebooks and reams of paper, all filled with notes of fantastical places of magic and power.

The only real expanse of wall visible was a small border around the open window. Deep violet curtains wafted in the cool wet air. The screen was littered with little droplets of sparkling rain. And beyond that were the maroon curtains of Marissa's bedroom window.

Her window appeared closed, though the curtains were waving around as if by an invisible wind. A flutter of smoke wandered between the curtains and the glass. It was pink.

He knelt upon one of the few open spaces on the ground. After opening the incense box with his keys, he spilled the contents upon the floor.

With a few deft motions, the incense burner came together. A golden oval rose in a small dome with three narrow holes designed for each of the thin, green sticks. He wondered offhandedly why there were three sticks.

For a moment, the voice of skepticism rose in the back of his mind. It demanded to know why he was bothering with something so silly as incense. Incense would not make him braver or more courageous. It would not help him to get the girl of his dreams.

At most, it might make him smell a little odd.

But when his eyes wandered back up to the window and he saw another wisp of smoke pass in front of the curtains, he knew the answer. The voice became silent.

If such things as sphinx-girls were possible in this world, then who knew what else was possible?

He struck a match and lifted it to the first stick.

Fragrant serpents of smoke fluttered in the air. Theodore took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The smell brought images of open plains.

And oddly enough, the sound of beating hooves.