Near the Bone, Christina Henry [best affordable ebook reader .txt] 📗

“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 that 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