Near the Bone

by Christina Henry

  Mattie saw the muscles of William’s back bunch up, his hands tighten on the handle of the shovel. His voice, when he spoke, was low and icy cold as the river in winter.

  “What,” he said, “do you know of my wife?”

  Oh, no, Mattie thought. Panic bubbled up inside her. Why had Griffin said that? William would kill her if he knew that she’d seen two strange men at the cabin and not mentioned it to him.

  “We saw what you did to her,” Griffin said.

  “Griff,” C.P. said, and there was warning in his tone.

  No, no, don’t say anything else, don’t make it worse, you need to run, you need to run now before William hurts you, he’s going to hurt you.

  Mattie knew she ought to run herself, ought to run back to the cabin and grab the money and anything else and fly down the mountain now, before something terrible happened. But she was frozen with fear, with indecision. Should she run, thinking only of herself? Or should she stay, and try to stop William?

  And how are you to stop him? You can’t stop him from hurting you.

  “I don’t know how you could have seen my wife,” William said. “Because my wife has been in our home for the last two days, and if you saw her there then you came onto my private property. And if you came onto my private property and looked at my wife, who is also my property, then I have every right to defend what is mine.”

  Mattie saw it before Griffin did, because she knew it was coming. The flat end of the shovel swung out and connected with Griffin’s ear. Griffin stumbled to one side of the path as C.P. and Jen shouted. William raised the shovel again.

  He’s going to beat Griffin to death, Mattie thought, and then she was running before she knew what she was doing, but running toward the fight instead of away from it as she knew she ought to do.

  “William! William! Stop!” she shouted.

  William turned at the sound of her voice, the shovel ready to swing. His eyes were colder than she’d ever seen them, the deep freeze of winter settled there.

  “Have you come to defend your lover, little whore?” William spat. “Did you let him inside our home to plow your fields while I was away?”

  “No,” she said. “No, that didn’t happen. But William, listen, you can’t hurt them. If you hurt them then the police will come. You don’t want the police to come, do you? You don’t want anyone on the mountain. You told me so yourself.”

  He hesitated for a moment. She saw him thinking, considering. Mattie eased around him, staying out of swinging distance of the shovel, and peered at Griffin. The side of his face was coated in blood, and Mattie was sorry for it, sorry he was hurt.

  Jen and C.P. helped him up and dragged him backward, so that they, too, were out of William’s immediate reach.

  Good, Mattie thought. Run. Run away now.

  “William,” Mattie said. “Please. Let’s go home. Leave these people alone. They haven’t done anything to you.”

  “He dallied with my wife. Is that not an offense?”

  “No, William, he didn’t. They came to the cabin but I didn’t open the door. I didn’t do anything.”

  “She didn’t, man. She only opened the window and she wouldn’t even come near it. She kept telling us we should leave the mountain,” C.P. said, then added in a lower tone, “Now I know why.”

  Mattie knew that no matter what happened, William would beat her. There wasn’t anything she could do to avoid that now. But if the others could get away she would be satisfied.

  Let them escape, she thought. If they escape they’ll surely tell the police what they saw here, and then they’ll come and take you from William.

  For a moment she faltered. William had always told her that no one would separate them, not even the police, so she shouldn’t run away because they would just return her to him. Mattie belonged to William.

  He lied. Of course he lied. He wanted you to stay in the cabin, sweet and good and compliant.

  “You should leave,” Mattie said to the three strangers. Griffin was struggling to his feet, swaying a little. “Just leave now, please. Get off the mountain.”

  “What about you?” Griffin said.

  “She’s my wife,” William snarled. “She’s no concern of yours.”

  “It is if you’re going to beat her to death with that shovel!” Griffin said, starting toward William. C.P. grabbed the cloth of Griffin’s jacket and pulled him back.

  “Please,” Mattie said. “Why won’t you listen to me? Please leave before something terrible happens.”

  “Shut your mouth, Martha. You go back to the cabin and wait for me like you’re supposed to. I’ll deal with you after them.”

  Something snapped inside her, a strand of buried anger that she’d been barely aware existed.

  “I’m not Martha. That’s the name you called me, but it isn’t who I am.”

  William stilled, the muscles in his face rippling under the skin. “Your name is Martha.”

  “Samantha,” Griffin said. “Samantha. That’s it!”

  Everyone turned to look at him, his shout of realization completely out of place.

  “Samantha! Samantha Hunter! I saw a picture of you on the news, one of those aged-up things they do in the computer, because it was the twelfth anniversary of . . .”

  He faltered, a new realization in his eyes as he looked at William.

  “Hey, that’s right!” C.P. said, peering at Mattie. “Now I remember, too. They said you were . . . Oh, shit.”

  “What did they say?” Mattie asked.

  “Don’t say another word, boy,” William said. His fingers were white on the handle of the shovel. “Don’t say another word.”

  “What did they say?” Mattie asked again. “What did they say about me?”

  “If you speak I will kill you,” William said. “I will kill you where you stand.”

  Griffin pressed his lips together. Mattie sensed that he wasn’t restraining himself because of William’s threat, but because he was trying to be sensitive to her.

  William shifted his weight, and Mattie glanced at him. Something had changed in his eyes. She saw realization, then calculation.

  He’s going to kill them anyway.

  These people knew William had done something wrong. He couldn’t have them going away and reporting that they’d found him.

  That’s why he didn’t want anyone on the mountain looking for the creature. That’s why he never let me talk to anyone.

  But something puzzled her. If he was in danger of being arrested for a crime, how could he walk into town like anyone else? How could he shop and speak to people?

  They don’t know he did anything wrong. You’re the evidence. And if no one ever sees you then they won’t know what he is.

  Griffin and C.P. and their thus-far-silent friend Jen knew. They could put William and Mattie together. And they could lead the police right to their door.

  The three strangers were in more danger than they knew.

  “Run, now,” she said. “Run away. He’s going to kill you. He can’t have anyone know what he’s done.”

  “I’m not leaving you here with him,” Griffin said.

  Mattie wanted to scream to the heavens. Griffin Banerjee was a very kind man, she could see that, but he needed to learn to listen when she spoke.

  William moved then, like the sudden strike of a snake. Mattie saw the tensing of his muscles, knew exactly what was going to happen, and she darted in between him and the three strangers.

  The shovel had been raised to strike a taller person than Mattie, so the edge of it only glanced off the side of her skull. It was enough to cut through her woolen hat and send her reeling, though. Blood poured down the side of her face, over her ear and down her neck. She heard Griffin and Jen and C.P. all shouting, their words a jumbled-up mess of noise.

  “You goddamned l
ittle bitch!” William shouted. He was positively incandescent now, his fury brighter than she’d ever seen it. “How dare you stand in my way! How dare you defy me! YOU ARE MY WIFE! You are to obey me in all things!”

  He threw the shovel to the ground and reached for her, his fingers closing around her neck.

  I knew it would come to this. I always knew I’d never be able to get away from him. It was only a dream, a silly girl’s dream.

  His giant’s hands squeezed her throat, his thumbs pressed against her windpipe, making her choke. She scrabbled at his arms with her hands, her small useless hands, her hands that had never been able to defend her from him.

  “I should have killed you, too, long ago,” he said as his hands stole her breath. “Useless little bitch. Couldn’t even give me sons. I should have killed you after you lost the first one and got me a new wife, a better one, but I’d put so many years into you, training you in obedience, and I didn’t want to waste my work. I should have killed you then like I killed your mother.”

  Her fingers stopped their fluttering movements as she stared into his ice-chip eyes.

  Killed your mother.

  I killed your mother.

  William had killed her mother. Killed her mother and . . . stole her? Stole her away in the night?

  What about Heather? What happened to Heather?

  But she could hardly think now, because black spots were blooming before her eyes, black spots covered William’s face and his ice-chip eyes and the truth that she’d forgotten. Forgotten because he’d made certain that she’d forget.

  Then she saw Griffin standing behind William, saw the upraised shovel, saw it coming down on William’s head. William’s hands relaxed and she stumbled away, coughing.

  If Griffin thought that one blow would take William down, he was soon proved wrong, for William turned on the younger man, growling like an animal. William punched Griffin in the stomach before Griffin could hit him again with the shovel. Mattie thought that William would wrench the weapon from Griffin, but just then, Jen stepped into the fray. She held a large rock in her right hand and she slammed it into the side of William’s head with so much force that he staggered.

  “Come on!” C.P. said, suddenly at Mattie’s side, wrapping his arm under her shoulders to keep her upright.

  It felt so alien to have a stranger touch her that she nearly jerked away, but she had barely enough energy to stand. Her body felt like a thing that wasn’t attached to her head. She’d forgotten how to make all the parts move together. She slumped against C.P.’s side and he abruptly scooped her up into his arms.

  “Jesus, there’s nothing to you,” C.P. muttered. He hurried away from William and Jen and Griffin, away from the direction of the cabin.

  “Can’t . . . leave . . .” Mattie said. “Can’t . . . leave . . . them.”

  “I’m not,” C.P. said, a little out of breath. He was carrying her as well as his gigantic pack, and even if she was small, it was still an extra burden on him. “They’re coming right after us. Can’t you hear them?”

  Mattie tried to focus, to pick out some sound besides C.P.’s labored breathing and the rustle of his jacket. There. The sound of boots in the snow, and then Griffin saying to Jen, “I hope to God he stays down.”

  William. They’d hit William and left him there in the snow.

  William killed my mother.

  Killed my mother.

  I lived with him all these years and he’d killed my mother and I never knew.

  Tears flowed out of her eyes, running over her cheeks and mixing with blood on her face.

  I’ll never see her again. I can’t remember her face and now I’ll never see her again.

  “I’m sorry, I have to put you down,” C.P. said. “Do you think you can walk?”

  She nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her—he’d twisted his head around to see how close the others were following.

  “Damn,” he muttered, and released Mattie to the ground.

  Her legs felt like water and she couldn’t get them to prop her up. A second later she was folded up on the ground, her face in the snow.

  “Ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” C.P. said.

  His hands were at her shoulders, pulling her up, but she only managed to get to her knees. He noticed her tears then and she saw his look of alarm.

  “Did I hurt you? I’m such a stupid klutz, I’m sorry. But you have to try to get up because that guy might come after us. I don’t know how hard Jen hit him with the rock but he seemed like the Terminator type to me.”

  Mattie didn’t understand what he was talking about with the Terminator, but she did understand that William would come after them. She’d run from him, so he would pursue. She understood this but she still couldn’t make her body do what she wanted it to do. Every part of her wanted to curl up, to hide, to burrow beneath the snow so she could weep until she had no more tears.

  “He . . . killed . . .” she said, and coughed. He’d bruised her throat again, and she’d hardly recovered from the last choking. She had no idea when she’d be able to speak again.

  C.P. opened his mouth but whatever he was about to say was lost as Griffin and Jen finally caught up with them. Jen was half-dragging Griffin, her arm holding him up. The blow from the shovel looked much worse than the one that Mattie had taken. Griffin’s face was drawn and he seemed to be barely holding on to consciousness.

  “He can’t walk,” Jen said. “I think he might have a concussion.”

  “Her, too,” C.P. said. “Every time she tries to walk she collapses.”

  “That motherfucker,” Jen said, and the vulgarity was shocking to Mattie, who’d hardly ever heard William even say “damn.” “I’d like to go back and hit him with his own shovel a few times.”

  “Was he down when you left?” C.P. asked.

  “I didn’t stop to look,” she said. “I hit him twice in the side of the head with the rock, Griffin kicked him in the balls and then we started running. Well, running as much as we could with these packs on. Then Griffin started stumbling around like he was drunk. We can’t stop here, though. We haven’t gone very far, and once that guy gets up again, he’ll follow us. We’ve left a pretty obvious trail.”

  She gestured behind her at the broken snow covered in their footprints.

  “Go . . . down . . .” Mattie said, and coughed again.

  “Why don’t you give her some of your water, dummy?” Jen said to C.P.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I forgot about water.”

  Jen rolled her eyes at Mattie, like they were sharing a joke. Mattie didn’t really understand the joke but she felt a strange warmth in her chest, unwarranted by the small gesture. For a second it had been like having a sister again, having a person to share secret things.

  C.P. fumbled a bottle off his pack and handed it to Mattie. She stared at it. It was bright red and had a black top and it looked so foreign after the metal cups she’d used in the cabin that for a moment she didn’t know what to do with it.

  “You unscrew this part,” he said, taking it back from her and demonstrating.

  “Thank . . .”

  He waved his hands at her. “Don’t try to talk. Just drink.”

  The water was very cold and it was hard to swallow, but she managed to force some down. She carefully screwed the top back on and handed it to him.

  “I know you’re in pain,” Jen said, “but do you think you could walk a little if C.P. helps you?”

  Mattie wondered why Jen thought she was in pain. Because her face was bloody? Then she realized she was still crying. The tears wouldn’t stop. She swiped at her face with her mitten, but it didn’t do any good.

  “My . . . mother,” she said, and gestured in the direction of William. “He . . . killed.”

  “You didn’t know, did you?” C.P. asked.

  Mattie sh
ook her head, felt the grief swelling inside her, pushing against her skin, making her feel like she would burst. How could she live with this? How could she ever feel whole again?

  My mother is dead. What happened to Heather?

  What if William had killed her, too, killed her smiling sister who built fairy houses in the yard and danced with Mattie—not Mattie, Samantha—to loud music and built forts in the living room out of blankets and pillows? What would Mattie do then if there were no one to go home to?

  You’re not going back to William no matter what.

  But she’d come away without the money she’d so carefully hidden, without any food or clothing.

  “I’m really sorry,” Jen said. She seemed to be feeling the effort of holding Griffin. Her face was tight and her voice strained. “About your mother, I mean. And I’m sorry it was such a crap way to find out about it. But we really have to run—or walk, or stumble, whatever. I’ve got a feeling that guy has a gun, and when he wakes up he’s going to get it and then come after us.”

  Mattie nodded. “He . . . does. Gun.”

  C.P. gestured to Jen. “Let me take Griff. You take her.”

  “She has a name,” Jen said. “Samantha.”

  It was strange to hear that name coming out of someone else’s mouth, to hear someone else claim it on her behalf.

  Jen passed Griffin to C.P. Griffin’s eyes were rolling around in his head. He seemed to be barely conscious, and Mattie wondered how well he could walk even with assistance.

  Jen held out a hand for Mattie to grasp. The other woman had a strong grip and she pulled Mattie up like Mattie was made of air. Mattie held tight to Jen’s hand as her legs trembled. She wasn’t sure if she could walk forward.

  “You’re just a little fairy thing, aren’t you?” Jen said, scooping her arm around Mattie. Jen was much taller, almost as tall as William. The other woman smiled at Mattie to show that she didn’t mean anything rude by her comment, and Mattie again felt that warmth bloom in her chest. She looked down at the ground, though. She didn’t know if she ought to be so familiar with someone she’d just met.