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

She wanted to dive under the bed, or dive through the window at the back of the cabin. She wanted to crawl up the chimney and perch at the top, far out of William’s reach. Why had they come back to the cabin? Why had they done such a foolish thing? She’d escaped her prison. She should never have returned, not for anything in the world.

The footsteps paused at the door. The flashlight showed the doorknob turn slowly, then the door shifted slightly in its frame as William pushed against it. Mattie saw C.P. press his feet into the ground and his back against the chair. His face was just out of the pool of light but she saw the cords of his neck straining.

“Martha, you open this door now,” William said, and there was no hot anger in his voice, only the ice of winter, and Mattie knew what that meant.

She shook her head from side to side no no no no no no but she didn’t know if she was saying no to opening the door or no to the inevitable punishment she’d receive for defying him.

Mattie heard Jen shifting on the floor, heard the slide of her pants against the wood. Don’t make a sound, she wanted to shout. Don’t let him hear you. He’s going to get you. He’s going to hurt you.

“Martha!” William barked. “You do what I say now, girl, or it will be the worse for you later.”

“Don’t answer him,” Jen whispered.

“I know you’re in there fornicating with those men. You’re a sinner, Martha, and it is the duty of a husband to discipline his wife and save her soul for heaven,” William said.

Mattie would have laughed if she hadn’t been so terrified. William still thought she was having affairs with strange men? When was she supposed to be doing that—before or after she’d trekked through the woods in the night, certain that at any moment the creature would appear out of the trees and snatch her away like it did Griffin?

“You can’t hide forever. When you open that door, I’ll be here, Martha. I’ll be waiting for you.”

She heard the rustling of clothes, saw the door shift again. William must have sat down on the porch in front of the door.

“No,” she moaned. What were they going to do now? They couldn’t escape with William right there. There was hardly any food in the cabin because William hid it all from her in the storehouse. And Jen could barely walk, so even if they managed to get past William, they would be unable to run if he chased them.

Why had she thought she could get away from him? She should just give herself up now, hope that she could bargain for Jen and C.P.’s safety. Surely William would let the other two go as long as he had her. Surely they would be safe.

Don’t be stupid. He can’t let them go. They know what he did to you. They know he kidnapped you. They heard him say he killed your mother. He can’t risk them leaving, telling the police, bringing them back here to arrest him.

This was Samantha again, bossy Samantha who always made Mattie feel slightly stupid.

Then what am I to do? She heard the plaintiveness in her own thoughts, could feel defeat slumping her shoulders, rounding her back.

Stop letting him grind you up under his heel, Samantha said. There has to be a way if you’d only think.

Mattie felt the wall of the cabin press against her back. She’d retreated from the door as she thought (no, you weren’t thinking, you were panicking), her body moving as far from William as possible.

“Now what?” C.P. whispered.

He couldn’t sit there by the door. Anything could happen to him there. Mattie felt sure that William would find some way to reach through the door and hurt him—break it down with the axe, or shoot him right through the wood.

“Come . . . here,” she said, beckoning him toward her.

He carefully levered his body out of the chair, trying to make as little noise as possible, and started toward Mattie.

Jen had stopped moving around on the floor. Mattie turned the flashlight toward her and saw she was completely still, her eyes closed.

“Shit,” C.P. said. “I think she’s passed out.”

He knelt beside her and felt for her pulse, then put his hand on her forehead.

“She’s still alive, but she feels like ice. She’s probably in shock or something. Let’s put a blanket on her.”

Mattie dragged one of the handmade blankets off the couch and covered Jen with it. Jen was so still and cold that Mattie felt certain they were covering a corpse.

“Probably we should disinfect her cuts,” C.P. said. “But we can’t clean them unless we cut her pant leg off, and I don’t want to move her around now. So, what are we going to do?”

He was staring at her so expectantly. He seemed to think she had answers. Did he know that she didn’t know anything, that she was hoping he would have ideas? Didn’t he know that her whole world had been in this room for twelve years?

Stop. Panicking. Stop right now.

It was so easy to say this but so hard to do. She’d spent more of her life afraid than not.

Mattie swallowed hard, because it was still difficult for her to talk. “Can’t . . . leave . . . with . . . William . . .”

“With that guy out there. Yeah, I figured that much out.” He spoke in a low whisper, his shoulders rounded and his head bent so the words stayed in the space between the two of them. It felt uncomfortably intimate, but since Mattie was already pressed up against the wall there was nowhere she could go to make space for herself. “So what are we going to do about it? Is there a gun in here that we can use?”

William had two rifles—the deer rifle and the large one he’d just acquired to kill the giant creature in the woods. It was probable that the