Near the Bone(25)

All appeared still and silent.

Mattie opened the door slowly, half-expecting William to stride out from behind a tree, his ice-chip eyes frosted over.

You’re still afraid of him. This was Samantha’s voice.

Yes, I am. I might always be, Mattie thought.

That was a hard and terrible thing to acknowledge, the idea that even if she managed to get away, that he would haunt her always—the boogeyman in the closet, the monster under the bed, the creature tapping at her window.

Tapping at her window. There was someone tapping at her window and she was rubbing her eyes and there was William, waving at her from the dark.

She stopped, frozen, feeling she was on the verge of understanding something very, very important.

Then she heard the voices. Male voices in the woods, approaching fast.

Oh, god, no, she thought, fleeing into the cabin and throwing the bolt. She hurriedly drew the front curtains and then did the same for the other two windows at the back of the cabin—one in the main room, one in the bedroom.

Don’t come near. If William sees your footprints in the snow he’ll blame me and you’ll ruin everything, don’t come near, don’t.

She wasn’t strong enough to take another beating so soon after the last one, and she wasn’t strong enough to run away on her own yet, either.

Please leave, don’t come near, but of course she heard their voices draw closer and closer, closer and closer, until she could make out the words.

“Do you think your Amish girl lives here?” A man’s voice, young, full of laughter.

“I told you, she wasn’t Amish. It was just some dumb thing I said because their clothes were so old-fashioned.” This was the second voice, also young. And familiar. The stranger from yesterday.

“No, not him,” she breathed.

William had half-killed her because the man had looked at her. If he discovered that the man had actually come to their cabin door—and he would discover it, of this she had no doubt—he might actually kill her.

Kill her and find some other happy, pretty girl to grind beneath his boot, because a man needed sons.

No. No, I can’t let it happen to anyone else.

(If you can’t let it happen to anyone else then you’ll have to kill him, because if you run then he’ll find another girl. You know he will.)

“Go away, Samantha,” Mattie whispered. Her head hurt and her eye hurt and she was so terrified that the men outside would find her that she could barely suck in a lungful of air.

Please leave. Please go.

(But they might help you)

Or they might hurt me. They might be just like William. I can’t trust them. I can’t trust anyone.

She heard the clatter of their boots on the porch. Mattie backed away from the door, crouched down in the middle of the room, made herself into a tiny ball.

I could disappear if I wished hard enough. I could turn into a mote of dust.

A hard knock sounded at the door.

Mattie bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“Nobody’s home,” the first man said. “You can see the footsteps in the snow leading away from the door.”

“Only his. Not hers,” said the second man, the man Mattie thought of as her stranger.

No, don’t think of him that way. You don’t know anything about him. You don’t know if you can trust him. And if you think kindly of the stranger then William will see it in your eyes.

“She must be here,” the stranger said.

Mattie saw his shadow at the front window, knew he was trying to see inside, but she had pulled the curtains tight and she wasn’t moving. He’d never see anything in the cabin that way.

“Come on,” the second man said. Mattie heard impatience in his voice, like he’d already had enough of indulging his friend’s whim. “She’s not here. This might not be where she lives, anyway. There’s something more interesting here. Come look.”

“It’s got to be where she lives,” the stranger said. “Where else could they have come from?”

“Who cares?” The second man’s voice sounded farther away.

Mattie wondered what had caught his attention. Could he be interested in the storehouse? That was the only other building in front of the cabin.

If he tries to break in there, I must go outside, because I can’t just huddle here while someone steals our winter stores. I’ll have to say something, stop him somehow. Though I haven’t the least idea how.

“Obviously I care, C.P.,” the stranger said. He knocked again and Mattie just barely managed to stifle a scream.

“I can’t believe we’re wasting this much time looking for some weird married girl you bumped into on top of a mountain. You could just ask out a girl from work, like everyone else. Or go to a club. Or a bar. Or sign up for one of those singles adventure groups.”

“Stop being dumb. This isn’t about sex.”

“Then what is it about, Griffin? I thought we were up here to investigate a sighting, not hunt around for some girl.”

Griffin. His name was Griffin.

“You didn’t see her,” Griffin said. “She was scared. And . . .”

“I know you think you saw her somewhere before.” C.P. sounded skeptical.

“I did,” Griffin said. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”