Miss Pestilence knew how to overcome adversity. Her last name was ‘Pestilence’ after all. She’d heard every Four Horseman joke you’d care to dream up and always received them with a gentle laugh that made you feel a born comedian.

When her father, Horace Pestilence, reluctantly told her of his visions, they terrified her. He spoke of enormous balloons falling to the earth in fiery spirals and great stampedes of humans and animals screaming and running. Some would be crushed, he said, ’neath the wheels of steel carriages that had no horse to pull them. Others would be burned in the raging fires that followed.

Seeing her fear, he patted her riot of dark brown curls she kept tidily piled on her head, and said not to worry her pretty little head about it, as he felt his vision was far in the future. The both of them would be long gone by then.

But Miss Pestilence worried her pretty little head anyway. That night, she paid a visit to her good friend, Mr. Clockworth, the time travel specialist.