Cold Earth

Chapter 1 - Water Slaughter

Dreams fall through the night like soft summer rain—

by morning, my heart is drenched.

From the Collected Memoirs of Nishma Taher

Royal Library of Gis-Eren

Water Slaughter

The thermometer at Halvorsen Field Station read 113 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest recorded temperature in the United States of America on that particular Friday afternoon in August, 1990. The semi-arid lowlands of north central Oregon were no stranger to triple-digit temperatures, but this felt different, as if the sun had taken notice of this particular patch of Earth.

A yellow school bus trundled down the gravel drive connecting Halvorsen Field Station, a cluster of cabins and outbuildings nestled in a dry hollow, with Oregon state highway 218. Inside the school bus sat twenty-five children, a blend of boys and girls all ranging in age from nine to twelve, except the few who had recently turned thirteen with summer birthdays. In all, the children comprised the fifth and penultimate summer session of Camp Halvorsen, a sleep-away science camp owned and operated by the Oregon Society of Science and Technology. Accompanying the children that afternoon were two camp counselors in their early twenties and three junior counselors in their mid-to-late teens—a standard crew for swims in the John Day River.

The bus came to a stop at a barbed wire fence, and a counselor named Wendy got out to open the gate. Everyone craned their necks to watch her, each for their own secret reason. Wendy was a collegiate champion swimmer, a bronzed goddess with blue eyes and platinum braids. She wore a vermillion one-piece swimsuit with a beach towel tied around her slender hips. The bus passed, idling at the highway. Wendy closed the gate, skipped to bus, hopped up the stairs and whirled into the first bench seat on her left, oblivious to the boy already sitting there.

His name was Aruna, and he was one of the few thirteen-year-olds. Not that anyone would have guessed it. Aruna was a late bloomer, smooth-skinned, lean and coltish. Not a spot of acne marked his face. He wore a dirty plain T-shirt, plaid swim trunks and scuffed leather work boots tied loosely over bare feet. Like everyone else, he sat on his towel to keep his thighs from sticking to hot vinyl seats. The last ten days of daily swims and desert hikes had left his olive skin tanned and ashy, obscuring the weird freckles on his nose. In recent months, his wild, black hair had taken on an alarming curl, now concealed beneath a powder blue bucket hat. There was one more thing. Aruna was missing his right eye, its lashless lids long ago sutured shut over a hard, acrylic implant.

Wendy plopped down next to Aruna so close he could feel her heat against the skin of his left arm. The bus lurched forward, Diesel engine roaring as it accelerated down the undivided highway. A hubbub of conversation rose as hot wind blasted in through open windows, tossing hair, cooling sweaty skin. Aruna thought he smelled something on that wind, aromatic like incense. It reminded him of his sister.

Wendy tapped Aruna's shoulder and shouted above noise. "Hey, are you going open that window or what?"

Aruna mumbled something as he turned and reached up with both hands to pinch the window's child-proof release tabs. But he managed only one, and the window got stuck at an angle.

"Let me." Wendy twisted and reached up over Aruna, her elbow nearly knocking the bucket hat from his head. He clapped it to his scalp and slumped down in the seat, hidden from everyone behind. Her outstretched body was mere inches from his face. She smelled sweet and fruity. Aruna snuck a peek, fully expecting his teenage eye to home in on her breasts, but he found his gaze wandering into strange territory. Wendy did not shave her armpits. The window clacked open and she plopped back down.