Authors: Unknown
expression from skepticism to sadness, or so she hoped.
“Th at’s tragic,” she said.
“It is. But it’s also, sadly, the reality that some of our people,
once they come into a little bit of money—whether through a sta-
ble, prosperous job like Isaac or through a winning slot machine
payout—are ill-equipped to handle that lifestyle change. To com-
bat this, we’re going to be piloting a fi scal responsibility program sponsored jointly by the casino and the cultural board. I’m going to propose we name it the Palmer Program as a way to remember our
unfortunate friend.”
Aroostine found herself nodding along as he spoke, more in
response to the cadence of his voice than out of any real agreement with his words.
62
CHILLING EFFECT
“Th at seems like a good program to run, regardless of whether
Mr. Palmer’s death ultimately proves to be tied to a drug deal,” Joe said in a voice that hinted at the conversation being over. Th en as if to drive home the point, he stood and yawned widely. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Buckmount, we’ve had a long day, to put it mildly, and my
wife’s asleep on her feet. We’re going to turn in, if you don’t mind.”
Buckmount sprung to his feet. “Of course, of course. You sleep
well and, please, call me if you need anything, anything at all.”
He pressed a business card into Joe’s hands and then strode for-
ward to shake Aroostine’s hand with a vigorous pump. She stood
and gripped his fi rm hand with a wan smile on her face.
Joe showed him out and deadbolted the door behind him. He
stood, back against the wood-hewn door for a moment and looked
at her wide-eyed. Finally he said, “What a creep.”
She arched her stiff back, and heard the bones crack in protest.
She needed to do some yoga, or stretching, or something. Tomorrow.
Whether Joe knew it or not, he hadn’t been exaggerating. She
was ready to fall asleep standing up.
“Yeah, he’s defi nitely a creep. Let’s go to bed.”
63
Aroostine sat on the fallen log. Th e orange sun overhead warmed her
bare shoulders. Th e wildfl owers danced in the soft breeze, and birds
chattered and called from the trees.
Lily was running and twirling, dancing through the meadow with
her beribboned fairy wand fl oating on the breeze. She laughed and
jumped and sang a tuneless song.
Aroostine felt herself smiling. It looked like the girl was playing
with her shadow. But as she looked more closely through the long, wavy
grass that swished with the girl’s every leap, she realized that Lily was
playing with a large beaver.
She squinted. No, not a beaver. Her beaver. Her spirit guide. As if
it sensed her looking, the beaver turned to face her, and the sun glinted
off its sleek fur. Yes, it was defi nitely her beaver with the wise, silver eyes
that saw into her soul.
What was her spirit guide doing here?
What do you want?
she
asked it silently.
CHILLING EFFECT
Th e beaver didn’t answer. It turned and resumed its frolicking with
the girl. Aroostine settled back on the log.
Th en something blotted out the sun. A dark cloud?
She turned her face upward, as the birds shrieked and fl ed the trees
with a furious fl apping and calling. Rabbits thumped by at top speed.
Th e dark silent shape hovered above, exactly over Lily and the beaver. Th en the bottom opened soundlessly and an object streaked toward
the earth.
Aroostine’s brain processed what was happening just seconds before
the blast hit.
“Run!” she shouted, but the sound of her voice was drowned out by the
tremendous noise that accompanied the blast. Intense heat baked her face.
A bright white fl ash fi lled her fi eld of vision, and when it cleared,
the meadow was engulfed in fl ames, and the spot where Lily and the
beaver had danced was a just crater in the charred and broken ground.
Joe bolted upright in the dark, unfamiliar room. His heart ham-
mered in his chest. Th e metal taste of fear fi lled his mouth.
Aroostine was screaming. An anguished, high-pitched wordless
scream.
He fumbled for the bedside light, terrifi ed of what he’d fi nd
once he managed to force his trembling fi ngers to switch it on.
A soft yellow circle of light illuminated the bed, and he steeled
himself.
Beside him, his wife continued to scream, open mouthed and
drenched in sweat. She thrashed from side to side.
She was sound asleep.
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up from the pillow,
pressing her shaking body into his chest.
“Wake up! Roo, you’re having a nightmare. Baby, wake up!”
65
MELISSA F. MILLER
He held her struggling shape as tightly as he could and just kept
repeating the words in her ear, over and over. Still, she screamed.
He leaned back and held her at arm’s length. He shook her
fi rmly.
“Aroostine! Snap out of it.”
Should he slap her? Th row cold water on her face? His brain
raced as fast as his pulse.
Th en, all of a sudden, she stopped screaming and slumped for-
ward and began to sob softly.
“Roo?”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him, hot tears streaming
down her face.
“I . . . I had a vision . . .”
She was panting, struggling to bring herself under control.
He stroked her hair.
“Shhh, it’s okay.”
He felt her heartbeat begin to slow.
And then a fi st began to pound on the door outside. Urgent
and loud.
Her eyes widened with fear, and she grabbed his T-shirt with
both hands, fi sting the material tightly.
“You stay here,” he said, as he gently extricated his shirt from
her clammy grip. His kissed the top of her head then eased the cov-
ers off and rose from the bed.
He padded through the dark, unfamiliar halls and fl icked on
the dim light over the stove as he passed the galley kitchen. Th e
urgent knocking resumed. Th e sound echoed, hollow and loud, in
the still night. He grabbed a knife out of the chef’s block on the
counter and gripped it near his thigh.
When he reached the door, he hesitated with one hand on the
deadbolt, wishing for a peephole.
66
CHILLING EFFECT
He wet his lips and called, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Boom Cowslip.”
Th e sound was muffl ed through the thick wood door, but Joe
recognized the voice as belonging to the man he’d met on the trail.
He inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly before pushing back the
deadbolt and fl inging open the door.
Boom regarded him with concern, then his eyes dropped to
the eight-inch knife in his hand, and the concern morphed into
real worry.
“What’s going on in here? I heard a woman screaming.”
Joe followed his eyes to the knife. “Oh, Aroostine had a night
terror. Th e knife was just . . . a precaution. You heard her screaming?”
Boom nodded gravely. “Yes. May I?” He gestured toward the
living room.
“Oh, jeez, sorry. Of course, come in.”
He ushered the older man into the house, closed the door, and
rebolted it. Boom lowered himself into a chair while Joe returned
the knife to its slot in the wooden block.
“Night terrors, eh?” Boom called from his seat.
Joe was turning around to answer when he saw Aroostine in
the doorway leading from the bedroom, with a blanket wrapped
around her shoulders.
“It was a vision, actually,” she said in a hoarse, shaky voice.
Boom peered at her from the chair for a moment. Th en he rose
and walked over to the doorway.
“A vision?”
She nodded mutely.
“Did your spirit guide make an appearance?” Boom asked in a
knowing tone.
“Yes.”
Joe stood awkwardly in the kitchen, feeling very white.
67
MELISSA F. MILLER
“Aroostine, this is Boom Cowslip, the man I told you about.
Why don’t you go sit down with him and I’ll put on the kettle for
tea? I’m pretty sure Lee said there’s tea around here somewhere.”
She gave him a shaky smile as she trailed the older man to the
seating arrangement. “Tea would be great if you can fi nd some.”
He busied himself at the stove and listened with half an ear as
Aroostine recounted her vision, which sounded like a fairly standard horrible and terrifying nightmare with the addition of one large beaver. By the time he’d brewed a pot of chamomile tea, she’d fi nished and was cocooned in the sage green blanket, staring blankly at the
wall. He placed saucers and cups down in front of both Aroostine
and Boom then put down a third for himself.
As he poured the steaming hot liquid into each cup, Boom
broke the silence.
“It’s interesting that your beaver would alert you to the drones
that fl y overhead. Or did you already know about the testing facility?”
Joe watched as Aroostine opened her mouth and then clamped
it shut, remembering her promise not to tell anyone that Ruby had
told her.
“I already knew,” she said simply. Her tone didn’t invite any
further questions on the topic.
Boom narrowed his eyes and regarded her for a long moment.
“I think your guide believes there’s something amiss with the
drones. Do you think it’s tied to Isaac’s death? Or perhaps this
young girl you described?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug but Boom shook his head,
rejecting the gesture.
“It’s your vision. What do you think the message is?”
His words hung, solemn and searching, in the air while Aroost-
ine sipped her tea. At last she balanced the saucer in her lap and said,
“I don’t know. I . . . I’m pretty removed from the culture, Boom.
My visions usually aren’t crystal clear; they’re more like watching a 68
CHILLING EFFECT
staticky TV program without cable. Th e only ones that are vivid are portends of danger. I know that much.”
“You need to sit with it, daughter. Th e message will reveal itself.”
Joe was tempted to roll his eyes at the hokey shaman talk, but
judging by Aroostine’s grave expression and wide eyes, she was tak-
ing it seriously. She’d mentioned her spirit animal to him a few
times, and she claimed it had helped her fi nd him last year when
he’d been kidnapped, but she generally avoided talking about any-
thing mystical or native with him. Now, listening to her conversa-
tion with Boom, he felt extraneous, almost invisible. Outside.
“I will,” Aroostine promised the old man.
Boom gave a somber little nod of the head and then set his tea
on the side table.
“I’m glad no one was hurt. I’ll leave you folks to get back to
sleep. Th e sun won’t rise for a few more hours. You should rest.”
Joe let Boom out and bolted the door, then joined Aroostine
on the couch. She was staring at the wall. He didn’t know what to
say, so he rubbed her shoulders. After several minutes, she leaned
into him.
“Let’s go back to bed. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep but
maybe you can get some rest,” she whispered into his chest.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he scooped her into his arms and
carried her into the bedroom like a child, the blanket trailing along the fl oor.
69
Aroostine was sure she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. And she was half-certain she didn’t
want
to, not if it meant she might hav
want
e
another vision. But Joe insisted she try.
“I don’t want to have another vision,” she fi nally whispered.
He’d always put more stock into her visions than she had. In
fact, she had kept the whole spirit animal guide thing a secret when they’d been dating and well into the fi rst few years of their marriage.
Because, by then, she couldn’t quite fi gure out how to say, “Honey, I’ve been keeping this secret from you.”
But when she fi nally screwed up the courage to tell him, he
hadn’t laughed or asked a bunch of ignorant questions. He’d just
nodded, sat with the news for a while, and then asked one ques-
tion: “Does it have a name?” And when she told him no, it was an
unnamed beaver, he’d tilted his head and painted her with a look.
“If it were my spirit guide, I’d at least name it.”
CHILLING EFFECT
Now he nodded, “I bet. But you have to sleep. Just relax, Roo.
I’m right here.” He cradled her like a child and stroked her hair.
After a moment or two, his reassuring words melted into a
wordless song. He was humming something—a lullaby, maybe. His
mouth brushed her ear. She closed her eyes.
She didn’t know how long he’d soothed her like that, it could
have been minutes or hours. She just knew that at some point he
succeeded in lulling her to sleep. She knew this because now she was tucked under Joe’s right arm struggling to open her heavy eyelids in response to a hammering noise.
Joe stirred beside her. He raised himself on one elbow and
cocked his head to listen to the sound while she blinked herself
awake, taking note of the sunlight streaming through the curtains.
She’d slept past sunrise? Her body must have been utterly
drained for her not to have risen with the fi rst rays.
She pushed herself upright, too. Th e pounding grew louder.