New York City has been on my dream-brain these days.

Dawnpaw, is that you? It's me, Nightfur! Hi!

I had a really weird nightmare. It sounds like a really bad story I'm trying to write, but it's not. I promise you, it's a dream and nothing more. This is how it went:

In the dream, I lived on a bus with my parents. I had no brother (I do in real life).  I think my parents were traveling book salespeople. They were clumsy, and often dropped the books that they were carrying – in fact, they could never pick up books without dropping them!

One day, my dad and I went on a walk. We noticed a cloaked man and cloaked girl, who I assumed was his daughter, doing really inappropriate things that the Admin definitely wouldn't post. Strangely, I didn't actually see them. They were just out of reach of my vision, but I knew they were there and what they were doing. At first, my father and I were both disgusted. We didn't want anything to do with them, and walked away.. Suddenly, though, a look of longing came over his face. He insisted on going back to look at them. I was horrified, and wanted to go back to the bus and my mother, but he dragged me. I heard the cloaked man speak. His voice was like a shadow; soft as a whisper, menacing as a hiss.

He said to my father, "Each time you pick up a pile of books, you pick up one extra that you didn't intend to. It cannot be seen or felt. It refuses to stay in your arms while the other books are there with it.  It pushes them down to the ground. You then try again to pick the ordinary, visible books up. The extraordinary book gives up, and slinks into a corner. Most books don't slink, or push, or refuse. This one does. My daughter, Leah – "

All this time I'd been trying to break away from my father's strong grip on me. At this point, I succeeded. My dad didn't try to get me back. He seemed to have forgotten about me, and he stood transfixed upon the strangers.

I ran back to the bus, which was odd, because I'm extremely slow, and definitely wouldn't have been able to run that distance. I couldn't believe the bus was so close. It hadn't seemed like that...

I told my mother what had happened and asked whether she'd thought I'd done the right thing by coming back. She said yes, and understood that my father  couldn't have been convinced to come back, anyway.

When night fell, and I went to bed, my father still hadn't returned. My mom told me not to worry, that he'd be back soon. "Good night, Leah," she said to me.

"My name is not Leah!"  I exclaimed, wondering how how she could get me mixed up with such a wicked child. Well, I'd assumed she would have to be evil, anyway. Then, I realized I'd never told my mother Leah's name. "My name is Katie, and Leah is that cloaked man's daughter!" I wondered whether I'd gotten on the right bus, and whether this woman was even my mother. "Who are you?" I asked, and I watched as  she turned into a woman who looked so much like Leah that she had to be her mother.

Leah's mother giggled. "This is who I am!" she said, and I woke up.

That was a really weird dream...