Near the Bone

by Christina Henry

  After a long while she was close enough to a tree trunk to grab it. She threw both arms around the tree, pushed up with her knees, and by very slow degrees managed to kneel. Her face rested against the tree bark, her arms trembling.

  “Keep going, Mattie. Keep going.”

  Somehow she got one foot on the ground, and then the other, and then—hugging the tree for dear life—she rose up until finally, finally she was standing.

  The next tree wasn’t too far away. Mattie unwrapped her arms, used both hands to brace against the trunk. Then she pushed off, using the momentum to stumble into the next tree.

  She was up. She could walk—if you could call it walking. She just needed to find her path home now.

  A second later she laughed, though she stopped quickly because laughing made her throat hurt and because it was a horrible barky sound that echoed strangely in the deep silence of the forest. She didn’t need to find the way back. William’s footprints were right there in the snow.

  Mattie glanced anxiously up at the sky. The footprints were only useful as long as she had light. William had said it was only a couple of hours until sundown. She didn’t know how much time had passed since then.

  Every minute you stand here dithering is a minute of sunlight wasted.

  She vaulted off the second tree as she had the first, but the next trunk was farther away and she nearly missed it, only just grabbing one of the low-hanging branches to stay upright.

  Mattie staggered from tree to tree in this way, always keeping the trail of William’s footprints visible. Too soon she realized that the trail was growing more difficult to see. The shadows had deepened. The sun was setting.

  A bubble of alarm bloomed in her chest. She didn’t have any light. William had the candles and matches.

  She took a good look around her for the first time since she’d awoken from her faint. Nothing appeared familiar. There were only trees and rocks and snow, and she had no notion of how far away the cabin might be.

  Her stomach twisted. It had been hours since she’d eaten. Her mouth and throat were parched, too.

  Mattie knew how to find edible berries in the woods but it was well past berry season. She gripped the tree hard with one arm and cautiously lowered into a crouch. She inspected the snow for animal droppings and, finding it clear, scooped large handfuls into her mouth.

  It was so cold against her bruised throat that it hurt. A second later she felt a sharp pain in her temple and behind her left eye.

  Brain freezy! she heard Heather say. I got a brain freezy!

  Mattie almost saw Heather there, waving a dripping ice cream cone around while she held her head with her free hand.

  I got a brain freezy, Mattie thought, and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Her mother told her once that was how to stop an ice cream headache.

  Mom, she thought, but there was no face or voice to go with the name. There was only a vague sense of a person Mattie might have known once, a shadow that she called Mom.

  The snow did nothing to fill her stomach or to fix her lightheadedness, but her throat was less parched and that, at least, was something.

  Mattie didn’t know what to do about the growing dark, though. William never let her carry or keep matches. She wasn’t even allowed to use them unless he was present, and she didn’t know how to start a fire without matches.

  That man might, though. The stranger by the cave. If you asked him, he might help you.

  William would be so angry if she did that. Maybe angrier than he’d ever been.

  Look how he was just because the stranger talked to you.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re too far from the stranger now.”

  But it would be nice if he were near. It would be nice if she weren’t alone in the creeping dark, hungry and hurt and exhausted. The stranger had kind eyes. Mattie thought he would be kind to her.

  That’s fairy-tale nonsense, Mattie. That’s the sort of thing Heather always liked, stories about princes who saved girls from towers and witches and curses and glass coffins. That’s not the kind of thing that happens in real life.

  In real life you never see the stranger again, and no one comes to rescue you from the tower.

  (or the cabin)

  Mattie pushed off the tree, staggered to the next. William’s footprints in the snow were nearly impossible to see already. How could the sun set so quickly? What would happen if she wasn’t at home when William wanted to go to bed?

  “A man’s got to have sons, Mattie.”

  Yes, it was her duty to give him sons and she had failed thus far.

  If she wasn’t home when he said she should be, would William come looking for her? Or would he leave her out in the night and cold and find some other vessel to bear his children?

  “I’ve invested so much time in you, Martha. I hope you appreciate how I’ve worked to make you a good life.”

  “Yes,” Mattie said as she tossed herself from tree to tree, clinging to trunks and branches like bits of driftwood in the ocean. “Yes, I know how hard it is for you.”

  William had to work so hard, had to discipline her so often. She wasn’t a good listener. She forgot that she wasn’t to criticize him. She forgot to be grateful.

  “I’ll be a good wife to you, I promise,” she whimpered.

  She was so tired and hungry and it was so dark. She never knew until she came to live on the mountain how dark the night could be.

  “I’ll be good, only come and find me, don’t leave me alone out here, don’t leave me.”

  Mattie didn’t know where she was going anymore, couldn’t see anything except the vague shapes of trees and the shifting shadows in the snow.

  The night moved all around her, the secret wind and the silver sliver of moon, the rustling of branches, the scurrying of night creatures, the trickle of water.

  Water.

  There was water nearby.

  “The stream,” she said, hurling her body in the direction of the sound.

  If she found the stream, she’d know her way home. The deer path was easy to find from there, even in the dark. Mattie knew that path by heart. It was the only place she was allowed to go on her own because it wasn’t far from the cabin.

  She wouldn’t be home too late and William wouldn’t be furious. The sun had only just gone down, hadn’t it? Soon, so very soon, Mattie would be back in the cabin, fed and safe and warm.

  You’ll be warm there, but you won’t be safe. Not safe at all, and only fed if he lets you eat. You should keep going, keep heading down the mountain, keep running until you find Heather and Mom again.

  She stilled, thinking, wondering. Did she dare? Could she?

  You can. You don’t have to stay. He left you. He left you out here to die.

  Mattie didn’t know who that voice belonged to, but it didn’t sound like her.

  It might be Samantha. Samantha is a girl I used to know. Samantha was never afraid until William.

  The faint trickle of the stream was just ahead. She heard it. It was very close now.

  Just get to the stream. Just get there and you can decide.

  A moment later she was on the bank, stumbling down to the water’s edge.

  The thumbnail moon cast just enough light here, away from the canopy of pines, for her to see that she’d emerged almost directly across the stream from the deer path.

  That’s a sign, isn’t it? A sign from God?

  William would say it was. He’d say it was a sign that she should return to his side where she belonged instead of running away.

  Run away, Samantha whispered. Run away while you still can.

  “But I can’t,” Mattie murmured. “I can’t run. I can hardly walk.”

  She knelt—if she was honest with herself, it was more like a collapse—by the trickle of stream, pulled off her m
itten and scooped water in her mouth. It was so cold her fingers froze instantly, and the liquid hurt her parched throat instead of soothing it.

  Mattie rubbed her hand on her trouser leg to dry it before putting her mitten back on. Then she stared at the water, trying to decide which way to go.

  If she crossed the stream then the deer path would take her directly to the cabin. The cabin was where she belonged. William had told her that every single day since he’d taken her there.

  If she followed the course of the stream it would take her down the mountain. William had told her many times not to do that very thing, for the stream led to a river and there were often strangers by the river, strangers that might hurt her or try to take her away from her rightful place at his side.

  The stream will take me to the river. The river will take me away from him.

  But she couldn’t make herself move, couldn’t make a decision. She was so tired. Now that she’d stopped moving her body didn’t want to cooperate until she’d had some rest. Maybe she could go to sleep on the bank and decide in the morning. Her eyelids drooped.

  William might find you in the morning. Get up, get up, the time to run is now.

  Something else moved in the darkness.

  Mattie heard the crunch of snow beneath huge and heavy paws, a thick snort, the crackle of branches.

  The creature. It’s here. It’s here. It’s going to eat me and I’ll never see Mom or Heather again.

  She turned her head very slowly in the direction of the noise, not wanting to attract the creature’s attention. She was hidden in the shadows of the bank, and the very faint breeze was blowing upstream, away from the sounds.

  The creature emerged from the woods several feet away downstream from where she knelt, barely breathing and hoping desperately not to give herself away.

  She didn’t have any sense of it except that it was huge, bigger even than she’d thought based on the size of its prints. The dark made it impossible to determine any trait other than its size—an enormous silhouette, something powerful barely suppressed by the shape of its skin.

  The creature was seemingly unaware of her presence.

  That’s because you’re upwind. Just keep still and wait for it to go away.

  The animal lumbered toward the stream on its back legs, its movement oddly quiet considering its size. As it bent its head down to drink, Mattie looked away, her heart slamming against her ribs. She did not want to attract its attention by staring. She wanted to fade into the landscape, just another rock or tree or hummock of grass.

  But what is it? the very curious part of her asked. It’s not really just a bear.

  That curious voice in her head didn’t sound like Mattie. Mattie was never curious, because when she was, William made her stop. Curiosity was not a quality becoming of a good wife.

  She thought it might be Samantha. Samantha was a troublemaker. Samantha wanted to know about the creature. Samantha wanted Mattie to run away down the mountain.

  If Mattie ran away then the creature would chase her. She was safer, much safer, going back to the cabin. Going back to William.

  The creature slurped at the stream and every moment it stayed Mattie’s tension ratcheted tighter. When would it go? How could she escape if it just sat there, directly in her path? She didn’t think she’d be able to sneak away quietly in the state she was in, not even if she took a very long way around the animal.

  Even if she chose the cabin she was in danger. Just crossing the stream would attract the creature’s attention.

  Keep still like a little mouse. You know how to do it. You do it all the time, when you don’t want William to notice you.

  Yes, it was a skill she’d perfected—shrinking inside her body, her thoughts receding so they weren’t visible, so that she was nothing but a body and everything about her that mattered was hidden away.

  She did it when William was looking for an excuse to punish her, or when he did punish her, or when she lay in bed with him grunting on top of her, doing her duty as his wife. She took part of herself away and kept it safe where he couldn’t see.

  If she did that now then maybe the creature wouldn’t notice her, wouldn’t sense the spark of something living.

  The animal growled, snorted out several short breaths, pawed at the ground.

  Mattie didn’t know if it was wise or not but she had to look. She had to know if it had spotted her and was preparing to charge. She risked a glance in its direction. She still couldn’t make any sense of it other than size, but it seemed to be settling down on the bank.

  Is it going to sleep there? Mattie thought in alarm. No, it can’t. I have to get home.

  (no, you have to get away)

  It didn’t matter what she wanted or didn’t want. If the animal went to sleep, she’d be trapped until it woke and left the area.

  Her stomach made a long keening sound, as loud as a gunshot in the still night.

  The creature paused. Mattie heard it sniff the air as she hunched over, her face in her knees, trying to make her body as small as possible, trying to make herself invisible.

  After a moment she heard it grunt and resume its pawing and shifting.

  Oh, please go. Please, God, if you’re listening, please make it go.

  But God never listened to Mattie’s prayers. No matter how often she begged God to make William stop, He never listened. He never helped. He never struck William down the way He ought to do.

  Mattie stayed hunched over her legs, trembling, as the animal’s breath settled into the deep, even rhythm of sleep. There was nothing for it now. She would have to go back to the cabin. The plan to follow the stream was impossible with the creature in the way.

  Even if it woke up in an hour or two the plan wouldn’t work. If Mattie wanted to leave William, she needed time, all the time she could manage. She needed a head start, especially now that she was barely able to walk.

  It’s a sign, a sign that you’re not supposed to leave William.

  What else could it be? Why else would every obstacle appear in her way just as she considered (for the first time in years, so many years she couldn’t count them) getting away? God hated her. He must. She must be as bad, as sinful as William always said, or else this wouldn’t happen. Mattie squeezed her eyes tight so the tears wouldn’t come, but this only made her swollen left eye hurt more, and the tears came anyway.

  She stayed there a very long time, weeping, listening to the sound of the monster sleeping a short distance away from her, close enough for it to wake up and kill her if it wanted.

  Mattie slept, though she hadn’t meant to.

  She woke with a start, her breath a sudden exhaled whoosh, her right eye flying open in panic. How could she have slept with danger so near? It was well past bedtime, and William would be furious.

  She checked the place where the creature slept. The sliver of moon was hidden by a bank of clouds, and the stars were, too. The sky was an unyielding field of black.

  Mattie squinted in the direction of the creature and listened hard. She didn’t hear it breathing or shifting in its sleep. She couldn’t make out its deep shadow against the other shadows.

  It was gone. It had gone while she slept.

  Mattie uncurled her stiff limbs, stretching her legs out in front of her and her arms overhead. Everything hurt, and the renewed blood flow after sitting for so long made all her aches worse, made her bruises throb with fresh energy. Her left eye, when she touched it, seemed just as swollen as it had been hours before. The thin layer of snow hadn’t seeped through her clothes, which were wool and sturdy, but the cold had, and her bones felt brittle.

  Mattie didn’t know if she’d be able to stand but she had to try. She couldn’t stay on the stream bank forever, waiting for William or the creature to come and scoop her up.

  After a great deal of pushing and struggling and
wobbling she managed to get on her feet, though she swayed as all the blood rushed out of her head. She was so hungry she thought she could eat anything—even the pine needles looked appetizing. Mattie took a few deep breaths until she felt steadier. While the hunger-weakness didn’t go away, she did feel less dizzy than she had earlier, and she attributed that to rest.

  Just how long did I sleep? she thought, slightly panicky. If it was long enough to feel that much better then it was probably far too long.

  Mattie took a tentative step forward, testing her balance. It was harder to walk when she couldn’t see out of one eye. Her body listed to the right side—the side she could see out of—like a ship with a breach in its hull.

  Slow, slow, she told herself. She had to cross the stream, and she couldn’t see well enough to pick out dry rocks to hop on—not that she had the agility at the moment to do so in any case.

  There was nothing for it. She’d have to wade through and hope it was shallow enough that only her boots would get wet.

  Mattie flinched as she splashed into the water. Every sound seemed magnified a thousandfold, designed to draw the attention of the very creature she wanted to avoid. There was every chance the animal was still nearby. It might have woken only a moment before she did.

  Freezing water seeped through the tongues of her boots and over the tops, soaking her heavy knitted socks. Mattie never did such a good job with her own socks as she did with William’s, for it was a chore that she greatly disliked. As a result there were a great many loose holes for the water to pour through and chill her bare skin. By the time Mattie reached the opposite shore she was shivering all over and couldn’t feel her feet. She still didn’t feel entirely sturdy on her legs, either. They wobbled uncontrollably with each step, the steps of a baby toddling for the first time, not the steps of a grown woman.

  Mattie climbed the bank, using her hands to steady herself as best she could, scrabbling in the snow. After what seemed like a very long time, she made it to the top. She was on the same side with the deer path that would lead home.