Near the Bone by Christina Henry (ebook reader color screen txt) 📗

breaking up a large bar into the smaller squares, lining up all the tiny Hershey’s bars on a napkin at the table and eating them one by one. She could almost taste the chocolate on her tongue, feel the creaminess melting inside her cheek. She drew the bar near her face and sniffed at it. The faint sweet aroma permeated the wrapping.

She had to take off her mittens to open it, and almost immediately her hands started shaking. It was too cold to have bare fingers, but she wanted the chocolate. Mattie couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted something so badly.

After a few minutes of struggling she managed to tear the packaging enough to expose the top of the bar. The scent of chocolate wafted out, and with it, a rush of memories that she’d forgotten, an avalanche of the past that threatened to bury her completely.

Standing in the hallway wearing a Sleeping Beauty costume, a pink ribbon in her hair. She held a plastic pail shaped like a pumpkin and so did Heather. Heather was Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Mom was holding up a camera that kept flashing in their faces as she said, “Just one more, one more, say ‘cheese.’”

Saving her allowance so she could buy her own candy from the grocery store. She always selected a Hershey’s bar, even though Heather said she was boring for picking plain chocolate when there were Reese’s cups and Milky Way bars in the world.

Carefully placing half a chocolate bar on a graham cracker and smashing down with a scorched marshmallow on top before adding another graham cracker and stuffing the whole thing in her mouth. It was sweet and dry and sticky at the same time and also tasted of the campfire.

Mattie carefully broke off a piece of the chocolate with her teeth and let it float onto her tongue, just resting there. She’d forgotten what sweet things really tasted like. The memory was nothing compared to the reality.

Jen put her hand on Mattie’s shoulder. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

Mattie stared at Jen in confusion. Then she noticed that she was weeping, hot tears warming her cold cheeks.

“It’s . . . been . . . so . . . long,” she said. “Chocolate. I . . . forgot.”

She wished she could explain properly but her throat still hurt. She hated that she couldn’t speak to them, hated that her first moments with people other than William were limited by this. And deep down she was afraid they would think she was simple, or broken, because she couldn’t make complete sentences without choking.

“How long has it been since you had chocolate?” C.P. asked.

“Since . . . before,” Mattie said. “Before . . . William.”

“So, twelve years, right?” C.P. said. “That’s what they said on the news.”

Twelve years. Mattie knew a lot of time had passed, knew that she’d been with William on the top of that mountain since she was a child, but William didn’t celebrate birthdays or keep track of the days so she’d never been completely sure how long it had been.

I lost my childhood, she thought. I lost my mother and my sister and my childhood.

Now that the subject of the news program had come up again, there was something she wanted to know.

“Heather,” she said. “On . . . the . . . news?”

“Heather?” C.P. asked, and looked at Jen, who shook her head.

“Sister,” Mattie said, tapping her chest. “My . . . sister.”

“They didn’t say anything about a sister,” C.P. said. “Not that I remember.”

Did that mean that Heather was still alive? Or did it mean that she was dead and C.P. just hadn’t been paying attention during the broadcast?

“The only thing they talked about was your mom, how she was . . . well, you know. And about you and how nobody had any idea what had happened to you. The tone of it kind of made it sound like you were dead.”

“You have zero tact,” Jen said.

“I’m just repeating what I heard!”

“Zero.”

It happened then, so fast that Mattie wasn’t sure what she’d seen.

An enormous shadow loomed out of the trees. Shiny claws gleamed in the darkness. A paw swooped down from the top of the boulders, curled around Griffin’s shoulder and yanked him up, over the boulders, into the trees.

A second later Griffin was gone, nothing left of him except his scream that lingered in the air.

All three stood still for a moment. Then Mattie backed away a few steps from the boulder, her eyes searching for any sign of the creature. Would it return? Was it just stashing Griffin somewhere so it could come back for one of them? Would they all end up as part of its collection?

Mattie remembered the animals hanging from the trees, imagined Griffin’s body dangling from one of the branches.

The old familiar panic bubbled up—the longing to hide, to make herself small, to go away someplace where there was no pain and no fear.

Don’t let it come for me don’t let it take me don’t I can’t I just got away from William and now there’s this what did I do why does this keep happening to me why was I not allowed to be happy and free.

“Griffin!” Jen shouted, standing up and staring into the space where he’d disappeared. “Griff, answer me!”

Jen’s voice made Mattie start. What is she doing? Is she trying to bring the creature down on us again? We have to leave. We have to escape before it comes back for us.

Mattie grabbed Jen’s shoulder so the other woman would look at her. “He’s . . . gone. The . . . creature . . . took . . . him.”

“What do you mean, gone? What’s it going to do to him?”

Mattie didn’t know for certain but she had a pretty good idea. Jen and C.P. should have the same kind of idea. They’d seen the inside of the cave. They knew what the creature kept there.

“We . . . run,” Mattie said. “Before . . . it . . . returns.”

“What the hell are you talking about? We’re not going to run. We have to go after him,” C.P. said. “It’s going to take him to the cave, right? So it can mutilate him?”

He didn’t wait for