Near the Bone(21)

She clawed at the doorframe, using it to pull up to her feet again. Branches cracked in the woods that surrounded the cabin.

Mattie heaved herself around the cabin, past her little garden, past the grave of her child and up to the very edge of the clearing and into the outhouse. The door was inclined to slam shut, so she pulled it closed behind her as silently as she could, wincing at the squeal of the hinges.

There was no lock or latch, nothing to make her feel safe even though she knew a creature of that size could tear the door from its hinges. She half-wondered why she was even bothering to hide, except that she felt she shouldn’t stop trying to live—not yet, anyway.

The smell in the outhouse was not as extreme as it would be in summer, but it was still unpleasant. Mattie had a vague idea that it might cover up her scent and the creature wouldn’t be able to find her, though she didn’t truly believe it could be fooled by such tricks. It wasn’t a regular sort of animal.

What an embarrassing way to die, hiding in the toilet. She covered her mouth with her mittens, trying not to giggle. Why, oh why, was she about to laugh when her life was in danger?

It’s because you’re scared, so scared you’re on the verge of hysteria. Then she heard it outside, the huffs and the snorts, its enormous bulk moving slowly toward the place where she hid.

Mattie backed away from the door, but there was nowhere to go in the tiny space. William had put a wooden lid over the hole (“because we’re not animals, Mattie”), and she sat down on the lid very quietly, and made herself as still as possible.

She heard the creature sniffing outside, very close, and thought now would be an excellent time for William to come charging out of the cabin with the rifle. But of course there was no sound of the cabin door opening and closing, no crack of a shot to shatter the night.

There was only Mattie, cowering in an outhouse because her husband refused to open the door to her, and the monster crouched outside.

A few of the boards had small knotholes in them. Mattie could have peered through to see the creature, to know precisely what it was doing, but she was afraid to move, afraid to look, afraid that if the creature felt her eyes upon it that it would strike.

It doesn’t matter. It has to know where you’ve gone. It’s smart enough to follow you through the forest, sneaking all the way. It’s got some plan of its own, one that you could never hope to understand.

The creature roared again, long and loud. It was right outside the door, sure to strike. Mattie closed her right eye and braced for the blow, the way she always did.

The blow never came. After several agonizing minutes, Mattie opened her eye. She no longer saw the shadow of the animal through the cracks in the wall. Had it left? But why would it do that?

The animal had followed her all this way, had known exactly where she was hidden. Why wouldn’t it strike while it had her cornered?

Maybe it has moved away from the outhouse but is still waiting out there, waiting for you to walk out into its arms.

Mattie didn’t hear it any longer, didn’t hear its snorts and huffs or the sound of its claws scraping through the snow. But that didn’t mean anything. She knew that it could sneak, could be silent when it wanted. She didn’t dare go out again, even if she had to sit there all night, her anxiety stretched thin and tight.

But why would morning be any better? It was during daylight when she’d found the fox, and when she and William had heard the noise in the trees. The creature wasn’t limited to nighttime hunting.

Though my discovery of the fox was late in the day. She couldn’t think why this mattered. Her thoughts were going in crazy circles again. It just seemed that the light of the morning should make everything better, that a new day ought to wash away the terror of the night.

I don’t know why you think that, Mattie, it never has before. Every day only brings fresh terrors.

Something broke inside her then, the thing that had kept her scurrying, head bowed, anxious to please a husband who never wanted to be pleased but only hunted for faults to correct.

William had locked the door against her, chosen his pride over her safety. He’d been awake—Mattie was certain of that. He must have heard the roar of the creature outside. He’d know she wasn’t lying, that her life was in danger, and he didn’t care.

He didn’t care what happened to her as long as she learned a lesson—his lesson. If she survived then William would consider it divine providence, a sign that God had preserved her for the benefit of her husband.

As soon as she thought this, she felt the second string that held up her life snap, the empty threads falling away inside her. There was no God. There was only William, and the stories he told to control her.

Something flailed inside her—the terrified little mouse that she had been. It scrabbled for purchase, grasped desperately for those broken strings.

No, Samantha said. You don’t have to be that mouse anymore.

Mattie remembered standing on the edge of a picnic table in her mother’s yard, leaping into the air, absolutely confident that she could fly if she just believed that she could do it. She’d do it over and over, and every single time she’d feel something—a push, a lift of air under her feet—and know that she was nearly there, that the next time she’d fly for sure, soar away like a beautiful falcon.

Who do you want to be? Samantha whispered. A falcon or a mouse?

Mattie didn’t know if she could be a falcon or not, but she didn’t want to scurry along the ground any longer.