Page 2 of Face Her Fear

The property seemed like a lot for one person to manage. Josie had expected a single chalet at the summit of the mountain. Instead, there were several buildings arrayed like steps in a clearing high along the side of the mountain. At the base of the glade was a small outbuilding, no bigger than a shed, then a larger building, painted red like a barn. After that was the main house, which was where Josie and Sandrine currently sat. It was a behemoth, fashioned out of logs. Built as an A-frame, it had large windows that overlooked a sizable porch and a wall of trees beyond. It was the most impressive structure on the mountain and certainly the largest, dwarfing the six tiny cabins that lay on the other side of it.

Sandrine’s beatific smile stayed in place. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. The hunters do all that themselves when they’re here. I’ll talk to Cooper about all of us taking on some chores this week to make it easier on him. We haven’t been much help so far though it’s only the first day.”

Josie smiled tightly. “Great.”

That’s what she needed on a retreat for processing trauma: housework. Or, given the rustic nature of the place, camping. It was mid-December, and freezing. Josie was worried that the well supplying the water that ran to each building would freeze. The main house and cabins were powered by gas-guzzling generators and heated using wood-burning stoves.

Sandrine chuckled. “I promise I won’t make you chop your own wood, Josie.”

“I’d like to go on record that it’s probably safer for everyone if I chop wood rather than cook.”

This elicited a full-throated laugh from Sandrine. She tossed her head back, her long salt-and-pepper curls undulating. Beneath an oversized black sweater, her thin shoulders shook. Josie felt some of the tension that had been knotting her shoulders all day loosen. Things had been tense between her and Noah in the few days before she left, and the retreat had suddenly seemed like a welcome distraction. Driving the three hours to Sullivan County had given her a feeling of relief. Until she arrived in one of the most remote areas of the county at a small gravel parking lot, miles from anything resembling civilization.

“You’re not the outdoorsy type?” asked Sandrine.

Josie shook her head. “No. I like modern technology. Like putting on the heat by pressing some buttons on my thermostat. Also, my car and phone.”

And Netflix, she added silently. What was she supposed to do with all her downtime this week?

That morning, Sandrine and Cooper had met Josie and five others in the parking lot. They had been told not to bring their phones or any electronic devices—including tablets. They’d left their vehicles there, each one of them taking their turn riding in a John Deere Gator, driven by Cooper. He’d escorted them up an uneven path that zigzagged across the face of the mountain. The path was just wide enough for a small car to pass but falling rocks had blocked part of it, thus necessitating the use of the Gator to get them up the mountain and deposit them into a clearing at the base of the camp. From there, they’d had to lug their bags the rest of the way up to their assigned cabins.

“Owner says he’ll get those cleared next spring so people can drive up again,” Cooper had told her.

Sandrine smoothed the fabric of her dress over her knees. Black yoga pants peeked from underneath. On her feet were a pair of white sneakers. “To be perfectly honest, I enjoy creature comforts, too. I’ve got subscriptions to just about every streaming service in existence. Even the British ones! But there’s no Wi-Fi up here, even if we had all brought laptops and tablets.”

Josie wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the location. Sullivan County was north of her home in the small, central Pennsylvania city of Denton. Josie had been here on several occasions for cases in her capacity as a detective for the Denton Police Department. Her ex-fiancé’s family had a farm in the county.

When Josie didn’t say anything, Sandrine said, “I know it’s difficult to go without those things, but I really do find that the more we disconnect from the outside world during these retreats, the more beneficial it is to everyone. It gives us all more time and energy to focus on the things inside of us that need attention, to do the necessary work of accessing and processing some of the trauma we’re all carrying. Tell me, Josie, why are you here?”

“To sleep,” Josie blurted out, not thinking.

She expected Sandrine to admonish her for what must have seemed like a flippant answer but instead, she simply nodded. “Insomnia is one of the ways that stress and anxiety, particularly surrounding trauma, manifest physically. It can be crippling.”

Josie nodded, though her inability to sleep for the last ten months hadn’t been crippling so much as it sometimes made her feel like she was drunk, delirious, or losing her mind.

Sandrine said, “I understand you’re a police officer.”

Josie swallowed over the lump in her throat. “Yes.”

Josie had grown up in Denton and after college, joined their police department, working her way up from patrol to detective.

“Is it a busy department?” asked Sandrine.

Denton was a small city tucked away in a valley surrounded by mountains. While its central district was concentrated along the banks of a branch of the Susquehanna River, much of Denton included the more distant areas that spider-legged out into the mountains. In spite of its many rural and remote expanses, it had its fair share of crime.

“Yes,” Josie answered. Her eyes drifted toward the mounted head of a twelve-point deer above the windows. It stared down at her with derision.You asked to be here, it seemed to say.Stop being coy.

She really was delirious from lack of sleep. Imagining a deer speaking.

“We’re a very busy department,” Josie added, shifting forward in her chair. “My insomnia started in February. My colleague, Finn Mettner, died in the line of duty. I was holding his hand.”

More of the tension in her shoulders fell away.

Sandrine also shimmied her way to the edge of her chair, matching Josie’s posture, closing some of the distance between them. “I’m so sorry, Josie. Obviously, I knew you had experienced some great losses. It was on your application. Thank you for telling me about Finn. It gives us a great starting point. What was he like?”

Josie had expected Sandrine to delve directly into Josie’s feelings surrounding Finn’s murder. No one ever asked Josie to talk about him. In fact, even her colleagues, who had also been close to Mett, refused to mention him at all. For them, it was too painful but for Josie, the painful part was acting like he had never existed at all. It felt wrong to her. She wanted to keep his memory alive.

Almost daily she thought about him and reminded herself: he was here; he was real; I loved him.

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