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

distant, like he was drifting away from everything—Mattie, the cabin, the heart.

Mattie didn’t think. She grabbed the heart and threw it out the window. They heard a wet splat against the snow.

For a moment Mattie thought there would be a response from outside—that the creature would rush to the window again, or that William would emerge from the woods. But there was nothing—only the sway of the trees and the cold wind and the press of night all around.

“What did you do that for?” C.P. said.

He was angry, swinging the flashlight toward Mattie’s face, but for the first time she felt relieved to hear his anger. It meant he was himself again. She’d been frightened by the distance in his voice, the feeling that he was floating away and leaving her behind. She couldn’t do everything on her own. She needed him.

“We . . . don’t . . . need . . . that,” she said.

She wanted to explain more—explain that it wouldn’t help him or Griffin to keep the heart, that it would only frighten and upset them more to have it in the room with them—but her voice wouldn’t let her say the words. Her throat hurt terribly now, almost worse than it had when William was strangling her.

C.P. didn’t respond, only stood there, and she didn’t know what he was thinking. This was, in some ways, more disconcerting than his anger. In the brief period she’d known him, C.P. had always made his feelings clear from moment to moment.

Mattie found the matches for the candles. There were several in metal stands on the mantel over the fire, and she lit these first. C.P. stayed where he was, not watching her, not appearing to see anything at all. After his initial burst of anger he seemed to have faded out again, his mind gone someplace where he didn’t have to think about his friend having his heart removed by a monster.

He’s gone away to a place where he’s safe, where he doesn’t have to think about it. I recognize the signs.

Mattie had used this tactic herself many times, so she wouldn’t have to feel what William was doing to her. The trouble was that she couldn’t stay where her mind brought her. She always had to come back to the present world and the pain William left behind. When C.P. came back, his friend would still be gone and they would still be trapped in the cabin and there would still be a monster outside the door.

There was no wood to cover the window so Mattie took one of her thick quilts and folded it up. She used a chair to climb onto the worktable, knelt in front of the window and then carefully tucked the quilt into the frame, wrapping part of the top edge around the curtain rod so it would stay in place. Some of the draft still leaked around the edges, but at least the cold wasn’t pouring into the room. More importantly, the empty eye of the window was covered again. The monster (monsters?) couldn’t see inside.

She climbed down from the table. There was still plenty of firewood in the cabin, because William had expected her to stay inside all day. Mattie assembled the firewood and lit the kindling, feeling terribly daring as she did. She was only allowed to start the fire if William was watching.

Her stomach rumbled. The bread and cheese and butter were still on the dining table, just as she’d left them, and there was enough water for tea.

Mattie bustled around, slicing the bread and cheese, tending the fire, preparing the kettle and putting it over the flame. She felt soothed by the normalcy of it, the routine of doing chores. She set out two plates, just like she always did, and two cups for the tea, and when the water boiled she poured it out.

She noticed then that C.P. wasn’t in his fugue state any longer, but watching her with a curious expression on his face. Was it pity? Mattie felt herself flush. She didn’t need his pity. She didn’t deserve it, either.

“Sit . . . down . . . and . . . eat . . . something,” she said. She felt ashamed of the meager offering, unable to explain that William kept all the food in the storehouse under lock and key. They only had this much because he’d been in a generous mood, thinking that once he killed the demon he’d return home, the triumphant hunter.

And the triumphant hunter would then get sons on his little wife.

She felt the gorge rise in her throat but she swallowed it down. She didn’t need to submit to him anymore. Never again.

C.P. looked at the neat assembly of sliced bread and sliced cheese and the plate of butter Mattie had put out.

“We could make grilled cheese sandwiches with what you’ve got there. You have a pan, right?”

“Grilled cheese,” Mattie said, and she had a sense memory so strong it made her sway on her feet. Crunchy bread that tasted of butter and a thick layer of melted yellow cheese, still hot from the pan, and next to it a bowl of soup and the noodles in the soup were shaped like letters.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, making a movement like he was going to help her stand.

Mattie waved him away, closing her eyes. She could almost still smell the soup, taste the bread on her tongue.

“We don’t have to make it if you don’t want to,” C.P. said. “I just thought it might be better than cold bread.”

“We . . . can,” she said. “But . . . I . . . don’t . . . know . . . how.”

“Oh, well, I can do that. I can make four things in the kitchen without a microwave, and grilled cheese is one of them. Well, five things if you count cold cereal, but is it really making food if you just pour the cereal in a bowl and put milk on top? Sometimes I don’t even put the milk in, either, just eat the cereal out of the bowl like chips. That’s usually only if I have sugar cereal, though—you know, the stuff