Haunted Destiny: A Midnight Dragonfly Bonus Short Story by Ellie James Page B

night, too. For, yeah, the drama.)
    “So let me tell you,” she said against a strong gust of rain-heavy air. “I can, you know.”
    I did. I knew. I knew she could tell me.
    “ No ,” I whispered, hugging myself.
    Harmony stared me down a few seconds longer before giving me one of those deep, I’m-really-annoyed-with-you sighs, and plopping the seriously old deck of cards her great-grandmother had passed down in front of me.
    The wind swirled around us, stronger, heavier, bending the crepe myrtles and sending trash scurrying along the cobblestone. The bars were all open, and they, of course, were full. Music played loudly. A few had signs in the window, advertising hurricane parties. But most of the shops were closed. Only a few people hurried with their umbrellas along the sidewalk.
    Voluntary evacuations had that effect.
    The facts were simple. New Orleans sat below sea level, basically in a bowl. Someday a big storm would come and the city that I loved would go under.
    Shivering, I started to look away, doing a double-take as I saw one of the shop owners crouched in a display window with dozens of vacant eyed dolls. Some wore threadbare gowns of Victorian lace. Others showed off antebellum finery. One wore black. Desiree had given each a name and a birthday, and as the first wispy drops from a feeder band swept across the cobblestone between us, she lovingly packed them away, one by one.
    “He’s just too beautiful for words.”
    I twisted back to find Harmony shielded by our huge tarp, with my sketchbook open in her hands. I always brought it with me to kill time during slow periods.
    “Give me that!” I shrieked, but she scooted further back, turning the book to show me the picture she was looking at.
    But really, I already knew.
    “Maybe that’s it.” She grinned. “Maybe today’s the day you’re finally gonna meet this guy.”
    My heart slammed really hard.
    “This picture’s new, isn’t it?” she asked. “When did you draw this one?”
    From the river, a tugboat wailed.
    I thought about changing the subject, but with Harmony that wasn’t a possibility. “A few days ago.”
    “There’s more detail than before,” she observed.
    There was. A lot, actually. At first, when I’d awoken to find my notebook open at the foot of my bed, the guy had been little more than a shadow. That had been my first night in New Orleans.
    Before that, I’d only drawn in my sleep one other time. And yeah, the next afternoon they’d found the girl two grades ahead of me in the swamp, exactly where I’d drawn her.
    “Still no idea who he is?” Harmony asked.
    I shook my head, gathering my damp frizzy hair into a fist behind my neck. I’d been drawing this guy over and over for months, but I had no idea who he was.
    Harmony liked to call him The Guy of My Dreams.
    But his name didn’t matter. All I had to do was look at him, and I couldn’t breathe. Touch the line of his face, and invisible fingers tickled the back of my neck. Skim a finger along his lower lip, and feel the kiss whisper through me.
    I wanted to think that meant something .
    His eyes were warm but intense, and I knew they would be blue. His hair was thick, wavy, falling carelessly across his forehead. There was confidence in his sharp cheekbones, and laughter in his smile.
    Lost in my own world, I wasn’t aware Harmony had turned the page, until she blurted out a single word. “Mountains?”
    I twisted my mouth. The guy sorta made sense. The mountains…not so much.
    “I didn’t think you’d ever left Louisiana,” Harmony said.
    The rain started to fall harder, sweeping in a horizontal dance from the river. “I haven’t.”
    “Then what gives?” she asked, thumbing through page after page of mountain ranges. Those I’d done in colored pencils, with blue skies and white clouds, green trees giving way to snow-capped peaks…with a single dragonfly placed randomly in each.
    I’d sketched close to the identical picture fourteen