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 C.P. reached down to help pull Mattie up the last few feet over the top of the boulder. Once she was on level ground again she hunched over, taking deep breaths. Climbing that short distance had been more difficult than it should have been. She felt ashamed of the sweat on her temples, the harsh breath that emitted from her mouth. She felt that she was an awkward appendage, something that was preventing the smooth and unimpeded motion of the other two.
If I wasn’t here they could have run right after their friend. I’m making things worse for them, slowing them down, making everything more dangerous.
Mattie was about to open her mouth, to tell them these things, when Jen patted her shoulder and said, “Take your time and calm down. It can’t be easy to climb in that outfit. Did you make it yourself? It looks handmade.”
“Y-yes,” Mattie said.
Something rustled, and a moment later a light clicked on. A flashlight, Mattie thought. It had been years since she thought about a flashlight.
It was C.P.’s, of course. He had the light pointed at the ground and he was moving it around.
“What are you doing?” Jen asked.
“Looking for tracks,” he said. “That cryptid didn’t fall out of the sky, grab Griffin and fly away.”
“How do you know?” Jen asked. “We didn’t get a proper look at it.”
“We’re not looking for the Mothman, Jennifer,” C.P. said, his tone mocking when he said “mothman.” “We’re looking for a large, bearlike cryptid. That’s what all the reports said.”
Mattie wondered again about these “reports,” but didn’t feel it was the right time to ask.
“You know, you’re amazingly close-minded for someone who claims to be the opposite,” Jen said. “How do you know it’s not the Mothman?”
“Please,” C.P. said. “We’ve talked about this before. It’s physically impossible for a creature like that to exist. You’re not doing our field any favors by believing in stupid urban legends.”
Mattie tugged on Jen’s arm before she could argue more. “Griffin,” Mattie said.
Mattie could just make out Jen’s silhouette in the dark, see the other woman nod her head.
“You’re right. This is not the time to engage with a person who claims to be a cryptozoologist but who actually doesn’t believe in the vast majority of the historical evidence of cryptids.”
“It’s too easy to disprove most of the claims. That’s why we’re here. To gather actual evidence,” C.P. said, still moving the flashlight over the ground. “Where the hell did that thing come from? The snow is totally untouched here.”
“Trees,” Mattie said.
C.P. pointed the flashlight up, but the light seemed frail and useless in that direction, swallowed up by the pine boughs.
“How can something that big—and that’s the only sense I had of it, that it was big—move from tree to tree without breaking them? How did it carry Griffin?”
“Griffin,” Mattie said again, to get them moving.
What had happened to their sense of urgency? C.P. seemed lost in thought, trying to solve the problem of the creature. She glanced nervously at the trees above them. There was a chance the animal was still up there, watching them, waiting for its chance to take the rest of the
m.
“She’s right. Come on, C.P.,” Jen said, grabbing his arm and pulling him along.
Mattie couldn’t help wincing, bracing for C.P.’s response to this. If Mattie had done such a thing to William, he would have told her they would leave when he was ready and not a moment before, and there would have been a slap in it for her. But C.P. meekly turned the flashlight in front of them and let Jen pull him along.
The light made the pools of darkness outside its reach behave strangely. More than once Mattie was certain she saw a shape moving on one side of them and then the other, but when she stopped to peer into the shadows, C.P. would also tilt the flashlight in that direction, and there was never anything except the trees.
It seemed they’d been walking a very long time when Mattie heard the trickle of the stream. Her feet felt frozen, and the tips of her fingers had gone numb despite her mittens. She longed for the warmth of the cabin—the fire, a blanket, a hot cup of tea.
And a monster waiting in your bedroom? The cabin isn’t a safe haven for you.
Mattie shook her head from side to side, trying to dislodge any thoughts of William. She wasn’t going to enter the cabin if he was there. And if he wasn’t around she was going to lock the door against him and leave him out in the night, just like he’d done to her.
Maybe the creature will take him then. Maybe it will swoop down from the trees and take him away like it did with Griffin.
Mattie knew that the banks of the stream were bare of trees, and that the three of them would be exposed once they exited the cover of the woods.
“W-wait,” she said.
C.P. swung around to face her and the flashlight beam went right into her eyes. She covered her eyes with her hand and turned away, but her vision was temporarily ruined and all she could see were black spots on an orange background.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I thought I had the beam low enough but you’re a lot shorter than me.”
“Give me that,” Jen said, snatching the light out of his hand. “You can’t be trusted.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
They were going to argue again. Mattie never knew that people could enjoy arguing, but these two seemed to do just that.
They might enjoy it, but it’s making me crazy. Why can’t they just be quiet? Don’t they understand that every time they make noise they’re bringing danger nearer to us?
“Q-quiet,” Mattie said with as much authority as she could muster. It wasn’t a lot, especially given that her voice still resembled something like a mouse squeak, but she’d had enough and she thought they could tell.
She felt their gazes upon her, even though she couldn’t make out their expressions in the dark.
“The . . . creature. William. In the woods,” she said. “Quiet.”
It was so frustrating not to be able to talk like a normal person, trying to cut her conversation down to only the necessary words and hope they would understand.
“Right,” Jen said in an apologetic whisper. “We’re making too much noise. Sorry.”
“Sorry,” C.P. repeated, and he grabbed the flashlight out of Jen’s hand again and started toward the stream.
“Wait,” Mattie said again.
“She wanted to tell us something in the first place, dummy,” Jen said.
C.P. halted and spun around. Mattie heard the quick indrawn breath that meant he was preparing his retort.
“No . . . fighting,” Mattie said. “Listen.”
All three listened to the woods around them—the running of the stream over rocks, the sound of night birds fluttering in their nests, the sway of branches in the wind.
She carefully stepped closer to the other two, trying not to make too much noise as her boots crunched in the snow. She pitched her voice low as they leaned in.
“Stream . . . is . . . in . . . a . . . clearing. No . . . trees.”
“I get it,” C.P. said. “We’ll be exposed. I should shut off the flashlight.”
Mattie thought they ought to keep the flashlight off anyway. If they just let their eyes adapt to the night they’d be able to see more than just the pool of light illuminated by the beam. But this was too much to explain with her throat damaged.
What if it’s permanently damaged? What if William broke you forever?
She couldn’t let herself think like that. She would get better. Her voice would return. It had to. She had to be allowed to have a normal life, a life without hurt, a life without William in it.
Mattie couldn’t let him break her forever, not in any way.
C.P. clicked the flashlight off and the three of them crept to the edge of the woods. Mattie peered out at the clearing, trying to force her night vision along though she knew it took several moments for her eyes to adjust.
“Do you see anything?” Jen whispered, her mouth close to Mattie’s ear.
Mattie started, and Jen patted her arm, whispering, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
It wasn’t that the other woman had scared her, exactly. It was more the way she was so familiar with Mattie—the way she patted Mattie’s arm or her shoulder, the way she came up close and invaded Mattie’s space. The only person who’d come near Mattie for twelve years was William, and it was unnerving to have a stranger treating her in such an intimate way, like they’d known each other all their lives, like they were sisters.
Sisters. Heather.
Mattie wished she knew what had happened to Heather.
“I don’t see anything,” C.P. said.
“Quiet,” Mattie said again. “Listen.”
She wanted to explain that if William or the creature were hiding in the woods on the other side of the stream they might hear. William could be standing there with his rifle, waiting for Mattie or just waiting for the creature so he could take down his demon. If he was, he might shift his weight and they would hear the rustle of his clothes or the slide of his boot soles in the snow. There would be something, some slight noise out of place.
And Mattie knew the sound of William, knew how to gauge his mood by the rhythm of his breath or the way he strode across the cabin floor or even the way he swung the axe when he chopped the firewood. She knew him. She would hear him if he was hiding in the woods. She was certain of it.
Mattie closed her eyes so she wouldn’t be distracted by the shadows she thought she saw around the stream. She listened hard, tuning out the sound of C.P. and Jen breathing, the scrape of their sleeves against their jackets. She felt like she was stretching out her hearing, extending it over the stream and into the woods beyond, like she was a sensing bat.
Mattie opened her eyes. There was nothing. No William.
Was the creature there? She couldn’t hear it, hadn’t seen anything like its gigantic shadow. That didn’t mean anything, though. It could hide in the trees. It could make itself soundless and invisible if it wanted.
It’s not natural, Mattie thought, and she wondered, just for a moment, if William was right and it actually was a demon.
William isn’t right about anything, she told herself. Not a single thing.
“So do you think it’s okay to cross or what?” C.P. whispered. He and Jen had ranged themselves on either side of Mattie, and she felt like a very small book between two oversized bookends.
Mattie’s eyes had finally adjusted to the shadows, and there was a pale cast of moonlight over the clearing. She realized then that they were standing in roughly the same place from which the creature had emerged a couple of nights before, when Mattie was curled up on the bank of the stream. That meant that they were very close to the traps and the path back to the cabin.
We didn’t get very far at all, she thought. I thought we were so far away from William, from the cabin, from the life I wanted to run from.
It had seemed like they’d walked and walked, but Mattie supposed th
at it had only seemed like that because their progress was so slow. They’d been dragging Griffin along at the end.
Griffin. It already seemed like days since the creature snatched him away and disappeared.
“Carefully,” Mattie whispered. “Follow me.”
She stepped out of the trees and immediately wished she hadn’t. She imagined this was how a chipmunk felt, dashing from the cover of one bush to another, always hoping not to catch the eye of a hawk or an owl.
Except the hawk that would catch you has claws the size of your face.
Mattie couldn’t even dash—she was far too weak to run. Her body protested every step, all the bruises that William had inflicted over the past days crying out. She was tired and hungry and none of it mattered because they had to survive. If she was uncomfortable, if she was in pain, then what did it matter? It meant that she wasn’t dead.
Jen and C.P. huddled close to her on either side. She heard C.P.’s breath coming in harsh pants, and Jen gripped Mattie’s arm.
They’re relying on me, she thought in wonder. They think I can keep them safe, that I know what I’m doing.
The idea made her want to shrink away. She couldn’t be responsible for their lives. She didn’t know what she was doing or how they would find Griffin or how they would escape the creature when they did. She wasn’t even sure if they should go back to the cabin. William could be waiting there, secretly, waiting for her to walk through the door so he could grab her and put her in the Box.
She thought of the money she’d hidden under the couch. If she had that money, if she could get off the mountain, then she could use it to buy something like freedom. But it wasn’t worth it to risk the cabin just for that. It was the weapons, and maybe the knowledge she could gain once she opened the trunk.
Maybe inside the trunk there was information about Heather.
Near the Bone Page 17