Near the Bone(17)

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 mitten 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.