Page 4 of Face Her Fear

Sandrine said, “I asked you. Is that what you think?”

“Shit,” Josie said.

Sandrine pushed her rear end to the very edge of her chair. “Josie, you’ll know this, I’m sure, from your work. When we are under threat, our sympathetic nervous system goes into a fight-or-flight response. One of the other responses, governed by our parasympathetic nervous system, is a freeze response.”

“Yes,” Josie said. “You don’t know which of those your body will do until you’re tested.” Luckily, her own body responded by fighting.

“Because these responses to danger are governed by our autonomic nervous system. They’re involuntary, physical responses to threats. Rapid heartbeat, labored breathing, flushing or paling of skin, a rise in blood pressure, muscle tension, dry mouth. Those are just a few things that can happen when our body’s sympathetic nervous system is activated.”

“Okay,” said Josie. “But I don’t need to mentally scan my body to tell you that I feel the stress in my chest and stomach.”

Sandrine’s serene smile was back. “It’s good that you can identify these areas. Let’s keep talking about our physical responses to trauma.”

“Why?” Josie asked bluntly. The twelve-pointer gave her a decidedly judgy look.

Sandrine was unfazed. “Josie, in the same way that our bodies have immediate, automatic responses to danger, they also have a process for calming us down. That’s the parasympathetic nervous system response. It reverses the rapid heartbeat, loosens the tense muscles, brings your blood pressure down, that sort of thing. It is a state of rest and healing. Your body should be able to switch between these two states—fight or flight and rest and healing—with ease and regularity. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“I can’t switch,” Josie said. As if to put the exclamation point on this realization, her heart did a double tap. “I’m stuck.”

“Your body should be spending more time in the rest and healing stage but if you cannot get there, it is a problem. The body scan, when done consistently, will help your mind to align more with your body and help to slowly remind your body to go back to its relaxed state when it doesn’t need to be on high alert. But if that doesn’t work for you, we can try something else.”

Sandrine stood up and circled behind her chair. The room was furnished like a sitting room with their two chairs, a long couch, and a couple of end tables. In the corner was a credenza with a record-player on top of it. Inside were hundreds of vinyl records. Sandrine thumbed through them.

“Does that thing work?” asked Josie.

Sandrine beckoned her over. “We’ll find out.” She chose a record and placed it on the turntable. Then she turned to Josie. She rolled her neck and began to shake her arms. “First, we shake.”

Josie raised a brow. “Shake?”

Sandrine started shaking her legs out one by one. Soon, her entire body was juddering. “It’s called neurogenic tremoring. It helps release muscle tension, burn off your adrenaline. Get your body back to a more neutral place. Try it.”

Josie imagined the twelve-pointer laughing at her. She looked around at all the other fake animal eyes. They seemed disinterested. Sandrine twitched, unabashed. “Come on! Try it!”

She was on top of a mountain, alone in a room with Sandrine and a dozen taxidermied animals. She’d come to this retreat because nothing else was working. “Sure,” she said.

She started moving her head side to side, then shaking out her arms and her legs. She followed Sandrine’s lead, imitating her. After a few minutes, Sandrine stopped long enough to drop the needle on the spinning record. First, there was only a whirring sound, followed by a crackling. Then came the first notes of a song Josie recognized from the oldies station in Denton. The Four Tops began singing “I Can’t Help Myself”. Sandrine started swaying along with the rhythm. “Now we dance!” she announced, grinning. “Catchy, right?”

It was one of Josie’s favorite songs.

Sandrine turned up the volume and they danced.

That night, for the first time in ten months, Josie slept soundlessly until morning.

FOUR

SACRED NEW BEGINNINGS RETREAT, SULLIVAN COUNTY

Day 5

Screams cut through the stillness of the winter day. Josie froze on the dirt path and scanned the area. They were coming from somewhere near the lower part of camp. Josie turned away from the path that led to the mountain’s summit and raced down toward the cabins. The weather had only gotten colder as the week progressed. The ground was hard and unyielding beneath her boots. Her breath came out in clouds as she sprinted. No smoke puffed from the cabins’ small chimneys. Still, she checked each one as she went, pounding on the doors and trying the knobs. They were unlocked and no one was inside. With each building she came to, her hand went to where her gun holster normally sat on her waist. Of course, it wasn’t there. She wasn’t a detective here, she was just a woman on a retreat, trying to process years of trauma. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sandrine’s voice narrated the science of what was happening to her body in this moment.

The screams continued, unabated.

As she neared the last cabin before the main house, the one in which Sandrine was staying, she heard a thwacking sound nearby. Josie took a quick look inside to confirm it was empty and went around to the back. Brian Davies leaned against the back of the structure, smacking a long, flat vape pen against his open palm. His shoulders tensed slightly as he registered her presence.

“Busted,” he said, offering her a pained smile.

She pulled up short, turning her head in the direction of the screams, but they’d stopped.

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