Near the Bone

by Christina Henry

  “First thing is to set up that trap on the trail between here and the stream. If it comes down for water and decides to head up this way again, the demon will walk right into it.”

  I don’t think so, Mattie thought. The creature seemed too smart to step into a trap, but she didn’t tell William this.

  “Then I’m going to take some of those grenades up to the caves and toss ’em inside,” William continued. “If it’s in there when I do, all well and good. If it isn’t, then I’ll have blown up its home base. It won’t have anywhere to hide, and if it doesn’t have anywhere to hide, it will be easier for me to shoot.”

  He gestured toward the rifle leaning against the wall. “And that gun, Mattie my girl, is strong enough to take down an elephant. It will take down that demon for sure.”

  “What’s the knife for?” Mattie asked, as she placed his food in front of him.

  William shrugged. It was such an uncharacteristic gesture that Mattie had to stop herself from staring at him. He really was not acting like himself today.

  He’s lighter, freer than he has been in years. He’s more like the old William, the one who used to laugh and play board games with me and Heather.

  For what felt like the millionth time her brain came to a halt, caught on a memory that had just surfaced. William used to play board games with her and Heather. She could almost see his hand holding a red gingerbread man, moving it over colored squares on a board and stopping when he reached a candy cane.

  This recollection in addition to the one she’d had of her mother standing behind William in the kitchen made her wonder. She wondered just who William was to her, because she had a feeling that he wasn’t just her husband. Something roiled in her stomach, something that burned and bubbled like acid. She stared at the man she’d lived with for more than a decade as he picked up the knife on the table, weighed it in his hand.

  Who are you?

  “The knife is a last resort, you might say,” William said.

  Mattie started. She’d completely forgotten she’d asked him about the knife. She’d even forgotten for a moment where she was—no, when she was. These memories that surfaced piecemeal were dangerous. They stopped her clock, made her drift away. When she drifted, she made mistakes. When she made mistakes, William got angry. Mattie was determined not to let him get angry at her again, especially not when he was in such a strangely cheerful mood.

  “A last resort?” she asked, giving all of her attention to him. She couldn’t afford to think about anything else right now.

  “In case it gets close,” William said.

  William would never be able to kill the creature that way. Never. She hadn’t been able to see its body clearly in the darkness but she knew it was enormous. The chances of William, say, slashing its throat were practically zero. He wouldn’t even be able to reach the creature’s throat. And then it would rip him up with its claws and that would be the end of William.

  The end of William. Her heart leapt when she thought of it. The end of pain. She almost couldn’t imagine it, a life without pain.

  But should you be thinking thoughts like that? Should you be thinking about William dying?

  (Yes)

  William placed the knife back on the table and frowned at her. “That eye looks bad, Mattie girl. Does it hurt?”

  This was sometimes a trick question. Sometimes he wanted to know for certain that he’d hurt her because she deserved it. And sometimes he wanted her to say her wounds didn’t hurt because it was insulting that her own husband would harm her. She studied his face for a minute, tried to divine the correct answer in his eyes.

  “Yes,” she said, pretty sure this was what he wanted to hear, and it was also true. Her eye hurt so bad it was getting difficult for her to move around. It throbbed constantly, and the fluid under the lid seemed hard now, like it had taken on a new form.

  He grasped her chin with his fingers, turned her bad eye toward the light. Her stomach muscles tensed, braced for a sudden change in mood. Occasionally the sight of his handiwork would increase William’s fury.

  “Going to have to drain it,” he said. “Sit down.”

  Mattie waited while William collected two clean cloths from the small basket under her worktable. Then he took out needle and thread from her sewing kit. Finally he took his small knife—the one he always carried at his hip for little tasks throughout the day—and the needle, and heated up the tips of both in the fire.

  She knew what would happen next, because he’d had to do this before. That had been many years ago, and it had been the other eye. Mattie had a little scar on her browbone from the stitches. It had mostly faded.

  How old was I? Twelve? Thirteen? It was before I started having my courses, I remember, because he was angry about that. He said I looked like a woman and it was about time I started bearing children, but I hadn’t started bleeding yet and that meant he couldn’t touch me. And I didn’t really understand about having my courses, my “woman-time” as he called it, and when I asked him about it, he hit me and later my eye swelled up, though not as bad as this time. He’d seemed sorry about it, too.

  (Just like he seems sorry now but don’t you fall for it, Mattie. You know what he’s like, what he is underneath the skin.)

  William cradled the back of Mattie’s head with one hand and raised the knife with the other.

  “Don’t you move,” he warned.

  Mattie wouldn’t, knew she wouldn’t, because she was afraid of the knife coming near her eye. For a moment she even thought it was all a trick. She watched the knife descending, the sharp blade coming closer to her face, and thought, He knows. He knows about Griffin and C.P., he knows they came to the house and he’s going to cut out my eye in retribution.

  Then the tip of the knife slashed across the top of the swollen mass. Fluid gushed out and ran over her eye and down her cheek. Mattie whimpered.

  “Hold that cloth underneath it,” William said, shoving one in her hands. “Let all that stuff come out.”

  She pressed the cloth against her eye, underneath the wound, which felt like a flowing waterfall on her face. More and more fluid ran out, a deflating balloon. Her eye, relieved of the intense pressure, already felt better.

  William had taken the other cloth and was dipping it in cold water. He returned to the table holding a sliver of soap and the wet cloth.

  When it seemed like Mattie’s eye was mostly done running, he gestured for her to take the cloth away. He dabbed at the cut with the wet cloth, then rubbed the sliver of soap over it. Mattie cried out as the soap touched the open wound.

  “I know it stings,” he said. He almost seemed gentle then, almost like he cared about her. “But we’ve got to get it clean or else it will get infected. And what will I do if my girl is sick?”

  William hated it when she got sick. He hated it when she couldn’t take care of herself, when she couldn’t cook or clean or look after him. He never hit her when she was ill—she thought that some part of him considered it unfair to strike her when she was already weak—but he would stomp around the cabin growling like an angry bear until she was back to normal.

  He rinsed out the soap by holding the wet cloth over her face and squeezing water into it. Mattie bit her bottom lip hard while he was doing this. Then he fetched a fresh cloth to dry it.

  “Press that against it,” he said, and started preparing the needle.

  William had big hands, and he was often rough with them, so Mattie was always a little surprised that he could do careful, delicate work like stitch up her eye. He could have been cruel about it, could have tugged the needle through any which way, but she could feel him neatly and precisely stitching the thread in an orderly line. She tried not to think about the needle going in and out, pushing through her skin, pulling the thread along behind it.

  It seemed like forever, but she knew it was only the work of a few
moments. Finally he said, “That’s all done.”

  “Thank you, William,” she said, because she knew that she was supposed to.

  Then she collected all the dirty cloths and the needle, which was bright with slicks of her own blood, and took everything away to clean it.

  William moved around the room, sorting all of his new gear and adding some of the old. Then he sat down at the table to clean and check over the new rifle he’d bought.

  As Mattie washed the dirty cloths and hung them up to dry, she wondered where William had gotten the money to pay for all of those things. She knew he must have money in the trunk in the bedroom, but how had he earned that money? He didn’t work any kind of job that she could see, and they didn’t make anything on the mountain that he could sell. Could he really have years and years of money to support them in that trunk?

  I have to get inside it. I have to, without William knowing.

  The keys that he always took with him when he left the cabin were hanging on a hook near the door now. They seemed to call her, to tempt her.

  If you touch the keys, he’ll know. You can’t do anything that will make him angry, that will make him hurt you so that you can’t escape.

  She wondered if there was a way for her to jimmy the trunk lock without using a key. She’d have to be careful, though—so, so careful. If there was a scratch on the lock or any sign that she’d been inside it . . .

  She put thoughts of the trunk away. There was laundry to be washed, which was always a tiresome task in the winter as the clothes would have to be strung near the fire to dry instead of outside in the sunshine.

  Her eye no longer throbbed, but it hurt where William had made and stitched the cut. The lid was slowly peeling back, however, and she could see faint, cloudy shapes again. This was slightly disorienting, as one eye could see clearly and the other couldn’t.

  William put on his boots and then took one of the bottles from the table, tucking it in his pocket. “Going to take that trap out and lay it now.”

  Mattie glanced at the heavy-looking metal object. “Do you need me to help you carry it?”

  He snorted a little laugh. “You’ve got no muscles to carry something like that, Mattie my girl. I bought a sled when I was in town, in any case. How do you think I carried all those things up the mountain by myself?”

  She didn’t answer, because that little laugh had made her pause. When was the last time she heard William laugh? Years. It had been years.

  He’s never been so happy as he is right now, preparing to go out and kill an animal he’s never seen and doesn’t understand.

  He opened the cabin door and pointed out into the snow so Mattie could see the sled he’d bought. Its runners were shiny and clean. William lugged the trap out and placed it on the wooden platform. Then he waved at her and went off, pulling the sledge behind him, whistling as he went.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mattie watched through the front window until he disappeared into the woods. Then she abandoned the washtub and hurried into the bedroom, kneeling down before the trunk to examine the lock. It looked like an ordinary lock to her, but she couldn’t imagine how she might get it open.

  You have to pick the lock.

  Pick the lock—a strange phrase. It meant something, something just out of reach, but she couldn’t grasp it. It wasn’t something she’d ever done, she was certain of that. No, it was something she’d seen, but the person she pictured in her mind wasn’t familiar and appeared distant—physically distant, like Mattie was watching the person from a long way away.

  In her mind’s eye Mattie saw the person—a woman—inserting a pin from her hair inside the lock. The woman moved the pin around carefully, her ear pressed against the door so that she could hear something.

  The pin catching the lock.

  Would that work on this trunk? Mattie thought it might, but whether or not she was skilled enough to actually open it was another matter.

  She decided to leave the trunk for the moment. William had only gone out to lay the trap and would return soon. She was supposed to be washing the laundry.

  Mattie collected the pile of dirty clothes from the corner of the bedroom and carried them out to the washtub. She pushed up the sleeves of her dress and used a cake of soap to scrub one of William’s shirts against the washboard. After she completed washing and rinsing each item, she squeezed out the cloth and then clipped it on the short line of rope that William had strung in front of the fire for her.

  She checked the pockets of William’s pants for any forgotten items. He was always leaving things in his pockets and then blaming her when they were ruined by the wash water. She felt a thin roll of paper in one and pulled it out.

  It was a roll of money.

  Mattie hadn’t seen money for a long time but as soon as she saw the tightly wrapped bills she recognized them for what they were. The bill on the outside had a “100” printed on it.

  Her mouth went dry. She should give this to William the moment he came home. She was afraid to unroll the bills and see exactly how much was there but it appeared to be a great deal. He’d surely notice that it was missing. He might even have left it in his pocket to test her.

  The idea made her heart gallop in her chest. Could William know—could he suspect that she wanted to leave him? He always seemed to know things about her, secret things that she tried to hide in her heart. Had he looked into her eyes yesterday morning, after she emerged from the outhouse where she’d hidden all night, and known that she was going to escape?

  No, no. You’re being ridiculous. You’re crediting him with powers he doesn’t have. If William thought you were going to leave him, he never would have left you alone yesterday.

  Mattie took a deep breath to calm herself. She needed to stop panicking, stop acting the way she used to act around William. If she was scared or if she acted like she was guilty, then he would know that she was up to something. It was so important that he not know. It was so important that he was perfectly happy with her right up until the moment she slipped out the door and into the night.

  With money I could go far, far away. I could pay someone to take me far from this mountain and William would never find me no matter how hard he looked. I would change my name—

  (change it back, change it back to Samantha)

  —and he’d be furious but he wouldn’t be able to reach me.

  But what to do with the money in the meantime? These were the pants William had worn the day before, so he’d simply forgotten about the roll of bills. But he wouldn’t forget forever.

  Mattie’s hands were damp and the water from her fingers was seeping into the top layer. She put the roll down on the kitchen table and wiped her hands dry with a cloth.

  What she needed to do was hide the money, but in such a way that it wouldn’t appear to be hidden in case William came across it. It had to look like the roll had accidentally dropped from his pocket.

  It would be easier if Mattie knew exactly where he’d walked the night before, but she’d been asleep when he came home.

  Asleep in front of the fire. William picked me up and carried me into the bed.

  She grabbed the money and hurried over to the couch, kneeling down in front of it. There was a space of about two or three inches between the bottom of the couch and the floor. Mattie stuck her arm into that space up to her elbow. She felt the thick grime of dust there (I never clean underneath here, William would be so angry if he knew) and carefully placed the roll of bills about halfway under.

  When she pulled her arm out it was covered in dust. Some of the dust emerged in balls, little tumbleweeds rolling, leaving evidence of her crime.

  What if he sees?

  “Stay calm, don’t panic. All you have to do is sweep it away and he’ll never know.”

  She heard William whistling as he entered the clearing.

  Matt
ie dashed to the broom, grabbed it, ran back to the dust on the floor, swept it into the dustpan and dumped the dustpan right into the washtub. Normally she would empty the dust outside but that was impossible with William nearly at the door. The whistling was right up to the porch.

  She leaned the broom in its corner as he stomped across the porch. He kicked his boots against the doorframe to loosen the snow from the treads. She darted back to the washtub, submerging both arms in the water just as William opened the door. When he glanced at her, she was energetically scrubbing his pants along the washboard.

  “It’s all set, Mattie my girl,” he said, stepping out of his boots and closing the door. “If that monster approaches from the river, he’ll regret it.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” she asked.

  Her voice was a little breathless, but she was washing the clothes so vigorously that surely he would only attribute it to work. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.

  Stay calm, stay calm. If you act like something’s wrong, he’ll know something’s wrong.

  “Oh, I’ve got plans for that demon,” William said. “Don’t you worry. If it doesn’t take the trap then I’ve got other ways of making it pay.”

  Mattie thought then of Griffin and C.P. and their friend Jen, the one they were going to meet. What if they were still on the mountain? What if one of them got stuck in William’s monster trap?

  You told them to leave. You warned them. If they don’t go, it’s not your responsibility.

  It wasn’t her responsibility but she worried just the same. They were foolish, those boys—for that was what they were, for all that they looked like men. Tromping around in the woods looking for made-up creatures? They were like children searching for unicorns or fairies.

  You have to make the house just right or the fairy won’t come live in it.

  Heather’s voice. Heather’s hands, carefully arranging tiny pieces of twig and rock and leaf, building fairy houses in the backyard.

  But how will we know if the fairy came to live here?