Frost
David Rose
Copyright David Rose 2016
Published by
Two Moons Books
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Fiction Disclaimer
This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and actions have either been invented by the author or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to real persons, whether living or dead, or to actual occurrences, is therefore necessarily and entirely coincidental.
Frost
In his dream he was surrounded by frozen trees, fir and spruce and shattered pine, and a hateful wind blew through him. If he closed his eyes, the trees crept nearer to him, or so it seemed. Every time he looked again, the icy branches seemed to be a few inches closer, the numbing cold radiating from them, a touch of frost upon his face. A tumble of snowflakes streamed past, obscuring his vision. Because of the encroaching trees he tried to keep his eyes open, blinking only when he had to. Slowly he turned around, looking for something more, but there was only the snow on the ground, the brittle bark and snowy branches, and the gleaming evergreen needles.
The pale light of a winter morning shone through the panes of the bedroom window. On the mountain slopes outside the snow lay in scattered drifts, the leavings of a windy night. Sunlight glimmered like white gold on the windowsill and lightly touched the rumpled mound of pale green comforter, under which Jim Prentice still twitched and mumbled. The Oregon paneled door swung open, and bare feet padded over to the bed.
"Hey, Dad! Wake up!"
Reluctantly, the nightmare withdrew and he opened tired eyes. Jessica was beside his bed, one knee on the mattress and a hand at his shoulder. His daughter was wearing her favourite My Little Pony flannel pyjamas.
"Jessie?"
"C'mon, move over," she ordered, crawling in under the covers as he made space. "What was all that moaning about? Were you having a bad dream?"
"Mhm." Gratefully, he closed his eyes again.
He'd woken up cold once again, and Jessie was a comforting warmth against his back.
"Never mind," she told him, "I'm here now." She patted his shoulder. He could just imagine the expression on her fifteen-year old face, the bright brown eyes, the delight of youth in turning the tables on him. He the child, woken by a nightmare, and she the comforting parent.
Jim snorted to himself, and was rewarded by a delighted chuckle, half muffled against his shoulder blade. Yeah, he thought, telepathy in full working order, as usual.
He settled to dozing once more, but wasn't allowed more than a few moments.
"So? Don't you have anything to say to me?" Jessie wanted to know.
"Like what?" he mumbled.
"Like, isn't there something you want to tell me, today?" she pressed.
Why today, particularly, he wondered? But then he remembered.
"Oh! Happy birthday, honey!" He rolled over to grab her and kiss her on the tip of her nose, their private tradition. He couldn't even remember when that had started.
She gave him one of her special 'I love my Daddy' looks, and then reminded him, "And you promised me waffles for breakfast, remember?"
"Uhuh."
"Uhuh! And it's nine o'clock, and I'm starving!"
"I see," he said, sitting up. "And if I understand your meaning, then this poor old bear is going to have to get up right this minute and get to work?"
"That's right," she told him brightly, snuggling down under his bedding. "Mmm, your bed's nice and cozy!"
He stumbled off to the bathroom, and then made his way to the kitchen. Sixteen. That meant his little girl was sixteen, not fifteen any more. Almost grown up. Ha.
As he went about mixing batter and making coffee he reminisced.
Marie had died when Jessie was nine, six - no, seven years ago now. The unborn fetus that would have been Jessie's baby brother had died with her. In the city over the following three years he'd felt the growing division between him and his little girl, and been helpless to do anything about it. He'd left city life then, taken Jessie and moved them to the mountains. Alone together out here, it hadn't been long before that trend reversed, and instead they'd grown very close. He was the town doctor, and provided medical support for the Park administration, often accompanying the rescue teams.
The closer they got to nature the better he liked it, and Jessie felt the same. Young as she was, she was a junior member of the Mountain Rescue team herself now; a trainee, really. He shied away from that thought, switching on the waffle iron and looking in the cupboard for the maple syrup. There had better be some - that girl and maple syrup! He'd hidden it, he recalled, behind the oatmeal. There it is.
When he looked in to call Jessie she was buried under his duvet, nothing visible but her curly chestnut hair.
He'd set out breakfast on the kitchen table by the time she wandered in, yawning, now in her mother's dressing gown and the well-worn slippers. As the enticing aroma of fresh waffles reached her the yawn vanished to be replaced by a broad grin.
"You made enough this time," she chuckled.
He laughed. "I remember the first day of the holidays,"he answered. "I think I had one waffle for breakfast. One!"
They sat down, the wood stove shedding a comforting warmth over them.
Jessica looked up at him and mumbled through a mouthful of waffle and syrup, "Tha' shuf gna gillya."
"Sorry, couldn't hear a word," he told her, sitting back and sipping his black coffee.
"I said, that stuff's going to kill you," she repeated.
Jim thought to himself that yes, she'd become something of a health nut since getting involved with the Mountain Rescue people. That boy she's been seeing, Luke, that's it, he's almost a hippie. Would have been, if there were still any hippies. Endangered species, if not extinct. He chuckled at the thought, and was pinned by a frown from across the table.
"You'd better not be thinking of blaming Luke for my opinion. Coffee's bad for you and that's a fact."
Jim laughed out loud, and Jessie couldn't help smiling.
"What are you doing today?" he asked. "Remember, we're going to Franco's for dinner."
"Meeting the guys, going riding. They're throwing me a surprise party at Blackwater Camp."
"A 'surprise' party?"
"Yeah, I'm not supposed to know. Annie told me, though, and Bella, and..."
"Small town, right?"
"Only way to live, right!"
An hour later he was shaving and considering how he looked in the mirror. The long face was his, a little more tanned than he'd been in the city, the narrow nose, and square jaw. The dark eyes, the curly brown hair with just a hint of silver speckle. But he looked old, haggard. That wasn't right, it didn't make sense. Why would he look like that? He felt fine, he'd just about gotten over losing Marie. He tried smiling at himself. The man in the mirror just bared his teeth like a cornered wolf.
"Hey, Pat!" he greeted the coffee shop owner. Pat Milligan was a genial, laid-back kind of guy, which when you thought about it was kind of odd considering how much caffeine he sold - and consumed - on a daily basis.
"Hey, Jim," came the reply, and, "your usual, then?"
Jim threw him a thumbs-up and headed for the corner table he liked to sit at on a Saturday morning. This was no Starbucks; it still looked just like it had in the fifties, chrome trim and all. Nevertheless, Jim thought the coffee was probably the best in America. In under a minut
e Pat was placing his espresso and the Herald in front of him. Jim smiled his thanks and picked up the paper.
It was a tragic story, headline news in their small town. A pair of tourist hikers out in the park who didn't know what they were doing. A breakdown in radio communications, and a young girl who'd figured out where they'd gone and set out on her own to rescue the couple. The blizzard the news stations had been warning everybody about for the last 24 hours had come down fast. When the Mountain Rescue team found the bodies, they were all three together; the girl had found them and started them on the trail back, but there just hadn't been enough time. They'd taken shelter in a scrape of a cave below Mount Mackenzie, but the temperatures had gone down to 20 below, and stayed there for three days.
The text blurred before his eyes and he felt the tears spilling over. It was just so unfair. If something like this were to happen to Jessie...
And it could, so easily. She was so bright, so eager, so self-confident.
"You all right, Jim?" Pat was asking.
"Yeah," he gulped, gesturing at the paper, "it's just so sad."
"It is that," Pat agreed, but he gave Jim an odd look all the same. Shaking his head mournfully he headed back to the counter.
His coffee drained and the shipwrecked paper abandoned on the table, Jim stood on the sidewalk and considered for a moment. Then he walked around the corner to the post office to check whether the pharmaceutical stock for his surgery had showed up yet. The postmistress was Debbie, a sunny twenty-three year old who looked as though she should be a cheerleader. Today, though, she looked somber as she shook her head and promised to look into when the parcel would arrive.
"I'll call you," she promised.
"What's wrong, Debbie?" he asked her, "You don't usually look so down."
Her eyes filled and she turned and stumbled towards the back office, her shoulders heaving.
Troubled, Jim held his position for a moment but then figured that if it was anything he needed to know about, he'd hear it sooner or later. Still he wondered, as he started home, what it was that had gotten Debbie down so. It really wasn't like her at all.
His steps quickened as he remembered that if he wanted to see Jessie before she went out with her friends he'd better be home before eleven.
Passing the Park administration offices on Main, he was almost bowled over by a skinny teenager who burst out of the doors and sprinted across the street, head down. Jim caught a glimpse of an angry, tear-streaked face as he spun to avoid a collision.
"Luke?!" he shouted after the boy, but he was gone, around the corner of The Woodsman, the main supplier of camping gear and outdoor equipment.
Jim carried on homewards. It seemed everyone in town was out of sorts today.
"Jessie!" he called as he stepped through the door, but there was no answer. Too late, he thought with a smile - she was always reluctant to get out of bed in the morning, but once up she went straight from Park to Overdrive. The thought of bed hit him like a grizzly bear. Suddenly he felt exhausted. Better take a nap.
In his dream he was looking down from the helicopter doorway to where the rescue team beckoned them in towards a clearing at the foot of Mount Mackenzie. He struggled, thrashing about in his sleep. He didn't want to go there, he didn't want to see...
He gasped awake, heart pounding, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. No, just a nightmare. He had a feeling he'd had that horrible dream before, but he couldn't remember when. Jim let himself settle back, shifting to a comfortable position once more. There was that warm lump at his back again: Jessie must be back from her party. He patted at her absently. Just a bad dream. Comforted, he drifted into a light doze, which slowly deepened into a healing sleep.
Jim woke at sunset, alone. He would always be alone now, because he remembered it all. He wondered whether grief could really make one crazy, and mocked himself for wondering. He was a doctor, he knew the impact it could have on the human spirit. And the more so when grief was as traumatic as it had been for him, finding Jessie with those tourists at the foot of Mount Mackenzie. He'd had no idea, until that moment; hadn't understood why Tom Henry had been trying to stop him getting into the cave.
In the kitchen he was washing up, just a plate and a mug, when he looked up into the twilight at the edge of the woods. He saw his reflection on the glass, overlaid on the darkening forest. Movement drew his eye out through the glass, and there by the big fir he thought he saw - no, he did see, his Jessie, a smile and a wave for him, before she flowed behind the tree and out of sight. A girl of frost and pale light. Jim blinked to clear his eyes, but there was only his face reflected against the gathering night, a small smile cornered against all sorrow.
_______________________
Author's Note:
I hope you enjoyed this story. If you felt it was worth reading, please consider writing a review to tell others what you thought. If you would like to send any feedback or comments, my email is
[email protected].
Publisher's Note:
If you liked this book you may also enjoy these:
Living on the Knife's Edge - A short story about the precipice of love and life, also by David Rose
No place to Lay My Head - A vampish short story by E. A. Walker.
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Cover Art
Cover Image: FrostCover01.jpg by David Rose using.CC0 images sourced from www.pexels.com.