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

though. You opened the window for him. You trusted him. Why did you trust him?

“What if the monster eats Griffin?” Jen said. Instead of getting louder this time, her tone had dropped practically to a whisper, like she was saying something she shouldn’t say, or didn’t want to believe in.

It’s your own fault he took you. It’s your own fault that your mother is dead.

“No.” Mattie shook her head from side to side. “No. No.”

“I know, I don’t want to think about it either,” Jen said. “It’s too horrible.”

Jen thought Mattie was distressed over the thought of Griffin being eaten. And of course it was a terrible idea, that kind man torn to pieces like the fox Mattie saw in the snow. But that wasn’t what made her shake her head and mutter “no.” It was the seed that had planted itself in her mind that she could not dig out.

It’s your fault.

It’s your fault that your mother is dead.

William knocked on the window in the middle of the night and you should have known better, you shouldn’t have opened the window.

“It might not eat him,” C.P. said. “It might not kill him at all. But every second we stand here arguing is another second that we’re not helping Griffin.”

What would Mattie tell the police when she got to them? That she was a kidnapping victim? Was she still a victim if she opened the window for him, if she didn’t try harder to run away from him? What if the police sneered at her, said that she should have done more, should have fought back, should have let him kill her too rather than stay and submit?

“I know,” Jen said. “I know. I just don’t know what we can do.”

You used to fight back. You used to try to run. That was why William put you in the Box. And after a while you forgot about Mom and Heather and about your life before, and it was easier to do what he wanted than be hit all the time.

“Hey, I bet you have stuff at that cabin,” C.P. said to Mattie. “We can go there and take things, useful things to help us, I don’t know, defend ourselves. I remember seeing an axe by a stack of firewood.”

“No,” Mattie said, her hands held out in front of her as if to ward off an attack. He wanted her to go back to the cabin? Back to where William was? She backed away from C.P. “Not . . . there. William.”

“Are you crazy?” Jen said. “She’s finally gotten away from her kidnapper and you want her to go right back to him?”

“He might not be there. We’ll be able to tell from the outside,” C.P. said, though he sounded a little ashamed. “It’s just a dinky little place. If he isn’t there we can take some stuff. A guy like that is sure to have all kinds of weapons, guns and knives and whatever. And if we come across him again and he’s got a gun, then at least we won’t be helpless.”

Oh, he has guns and knives and whatever, Mattie thought. He’s got an arsenal to defeat a demon.

“Do you really think you could shoot another human being?” Jen asked quietly. “Because I don’t think I could.”

If William wasn’t at the cabin, if he was out in the woods searching for Mattie, then they could gather up some of the things he’d brought back, weapons they could use to defend themselves from the creature and William. Mattie didn’t know how to use any of it, didn’t know how to shoot a gun because William had always made certain she couldn’t, but maybe one of the others could.

And there was the trunk. William’s mysterious trunk. Mattie was sure there were items in that trunk that would help them, items that would help her remember where she came from. Maybe even items that would tell her what happened to Heather. She could break the trunk open now, no need to wait for William’s key, no fear about leaving traces behind that would get her punished.

“I get the feeling that either we shoot him or he shoots us,” C.P. said.

He’s hiding secrets in that trunk, secrets about me, secrets about my life before. I need to know.

“We’re not going back to that cabin with Samantha,” Jen said.

“Yes,” Mattie said, her voice still a strained frog’s croak. “We are.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

It took them less time than Mattie expected to find the stream. The stream was her only geographical anchor—if she found the stream she could find the rabbit traps, and if she found the traps, she’d find the trail that led back to the cabin.

C.P. suggested that they just walk straight north, away from the cliff. Jen and C.P. shed their heavy packs and tucked the packs into the boulders so that they were well hidden from animals. Then they clambered over the boulders until they reached the cover of the trees.

At least, C.P. and Jen clambered—lightly, like goats darting from ledge to ledge—and Mattie struggled up behind them, hampered by her heavy, handmade skirts and her general lack of outdoor fitness. She did a lot of hard, heavy work in the cabin but none of it involved climbing, or walking for hours. The chocolate bar, while delicious, had also not been enough to satisfy the deep gnawing in her stomach. On top of everything, she was tired and heartsore and felt sick every time she thought of William, Heather, her mother.

What she really wanted was to lie down and sleep for several hours, and hope that when she woke her voice would be normal and her mind clearer. Everything had happened so fast. Was it only that morning when she’d woken to find an unnaturally cheery William ready to hunt the creature? Was it only a few short hours ago that she left the cabin and found William in the woods confronting the strangers?

Jen and