Near the Bone(24)

She was certain that he kept his money for buying supplies in the trunk, and she would certainly need money once she escaped. She couldn’t rely on the kindness of strangers—strangers who might know William, who might not believe her, who might deliver her back to him like a naughty child gone astray.

But how could she get into the trunk in the first place? William never left the house without taking the keys. There had to be a way to break the lock, but she wouldn’t be able to try until she was ready to leave forever. If William returned home and found Mattie there and a broken lock on his trunk then . . . well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

When he emerged from the bedroom, Mattie was polishing the floor.

“Just where you belong,” he grunted.

She kept her head down, rubbing the oil into the hardwood. She sensed his sudden flare of interest, the same way a small animal senses the presence of a predator. Mattie knew he was thinking of the previous night, how she hadn’t been home for the nightly ritual to get sons on her.

Just leave. Just go.

She didn’t think she could bear it just then, didn’t think she’d be able to pretend she was pleased by his attention. After what seemed like decades but was probably only a few moments, William huffed out an impatient breath, pulled on his boots and said, “I’m leaving.”

He slammed the door behind him before she even had a chance to turn around.

Mattie spent the morning scrubbing and polishing every surface, not because she wanted to please William (as she might have before he locked her out of the cabin to die) but because it was only sensible to keep from angering him.

If he got angry, he would punish her. If he punished her, she would be weak. She wouldn’t be able to escape if she was starving or beaten half to death.

With one of the sudden bursts of insight she’d had so many times in the last day she realized this was exactly why William did punish her so often. It had nothing to do with her behavior. It was because if she was physically weak she couldn’t run away. Every beating took more of her heart away so that she wouldn’t have the guts to even try.

And every time he told her the memories of her life before were false, he narrowed her world to the mountaintop, the cabin, to him alone.

But I’m not going to stay. I’m going to find Heather. And Mom.

She wished she could remember their faces. She could see Heather if she tried hard, though the image was blurry—round cheeks, a nose covered in freckles, brown eyes with pretty flecks of gold in them, all framed by brown hair.

“Brown eyes,” Mattie murmured, her hand fluttering in the direction of her swollen eye. “Like mine.”

“Pretty little girl with pretty eyes,” she heard someone say, and it sounded like William, a younger William, a William she’d known long ago.

Mattie stopped, her heart pounding.

She’d remembered something—just a flash, not enough to grasp, to take out and examine.

William—he must have been in his late twenties, maybe thirty at most, at any rate much younger than he currently was. He sat across the table from Mattie, but it wasn’t their rough-hewn wood table in the cabin. This table was smooth and white and she was much, much smaller (though she’d never really gotten tall; she might still be mistaken for a child if you didn’t see her face).

Over William’s shoulder was a female figure in a yellow sweater with her back to Mattie (no, Samantha, I was Samantha then), a woman with the same dirty blonde hair as her own, except it was curly and ended in the middle of her neck.

Turn around, Mattie thought, turn around so I can see your face.

But the image slipped away, a cracked and broken thing, and she found herself on the floor weeping, unable to stop.

After a long while she made herself get up and finish her chores. By the end of it her whole body throbbed, but especially her left eye. The swelling seemed worse than the day before, and when she touched it she felt a great pouch of fluid pushing against the top of the eye socket.

I can’t run anywhere until this is better. I’m at a disadvantage with one eye. Especially with that monster out there.

She knew she couldn’t run with William gone to town in any case, though at first that might seem the best time. If she ran down the mountain while he was coming up she could run right into him. The idea of him catching her in the act of escape made her shudder. Who knew what punishment he might inflict if he found her in the woods trying to get away from him?

But trying to leave when he was at home wasn’t the best idea, either. Perhaps she could sneak out at night, when he was sleeping. She’d have to drop a bag of supplies out in the woods somewhere beforehand.

Mattie pressed her hand to the side of her head. She wasn’t sure how she would do it. There had to be some way, but she wasn’t up to considering all the options at the moment. Her eye needed some relief.

There were several long icicles dangling from the front eaves of the cabin. If she could reach one she might break off a piece and wrap it inside a cloth and press it on her eye.

But I mustn’t leave the porch because if I do William will see the footprints in the snow and then he’ll be angry.

Mattie didn’t care that he would be upset, not in the way she’d cared the day before. She only cared that he would hurt her, and if he hurt her she couldn’t escape from him.

She peered out the front window. It wouldn’t do to have him return and catch her breaking his edict. He’d said he would be gone until after dark, but he might only be testing her.