First Day of the New Millennium, Great Falls of the Potomac

Golden Fawn looked out the plane window at the Great Falls of the Potomac. They were magnificent, but she shuddered, remembering her grandmother's story about Ardua of the Potomac. She had learned in college that the Ice Age had not extended this far south, so the story could not be true. She remembered telling her boyfriend about Ardua that day, and he had joked that global warming would be freeing record numbers of evil spirits in the next generation. She had laughed, as she always did at his jokes, even though she had rarely found him funny. He had always liked mocking every story she told him as a crazy superstition. Now, here she was, on her way to the newly constructed, not-yet-open, Museum of the American Indian, where she would be working for the Curator, setting up educational exhibits to tell visitors all kinds of stories. Someday thousands and thousands of people would learn stories that very few believed in anymore. What was the point? That's what her father had said, but her grandmother had hushed him. Golden Fawn missed her. Golden Fawn missed her stories.