Mattie thought of telling him that the outhouse was hardly the worst indignity she’d suffered, but decided it wasn’t worth it. He only looked half-awake anyway. She wasn’t sure he’d understand anything she said.
“Look, I’ll get my jacket and the rifle,” he said. “And then we can go out and get some food from the storehouse and I can, erm . . .”
“Yes,” she said quickly, and turned away to get her own coat and boots.
A moment later C.P. emerged from the bedroom dressed for the cold and carrying the rifle. He stopped to check the ammunition before they went out.
“I’d feel like an ass if it wasn’t loaded,” he said. “Now, you get behind the door and open it slowly. If there’s anything outside I want to take care of it right away and I don’t want to shoot you by accident.”
Mattie positioned herself against the door while C.P. stood facing it, the rifle at his shoulder. She pulled the door open, using it as a shield, all the while thinking, He’s taking all the risk on himself. I shouldn’t let him do that. I should be ready to defend us, too.
But she didn’t know what she would defend herself with, or even how.
She felt an unbearable pitch of suspense in her throat, expected William to charge through the open doorway, expected C.P. to fire the rifle. Instead C.P. huffed out a long, relieved breath.
“Nothing there,” he said. “Let’s go out. You stay behind me.”
He didn’t lower the rifle, but stayed ready to fire. He stepped out onto the porch, Mattie close behind him.
The clearing was empty. There were tracks everywhere in the snow. She picked out the prints of her own small feet, and the close three-legged prints of Jen and C.P., Jen’s bad leg dragging.
She saw William’s tracks, too—the large print of his right boot, and the sweep of his left leg. It hadn’t been her imagination, that thunk-drag. William’s leg was hurt, and he was limping.
There were also gigantic paw prints that led right up to the front window, and here and there streaks of blood. The paw prints returned to the trees in the same direction as the stream.
What if the creature is waiting there for us? What if it knows the only way we can get down the mountain is by following the water?
C.P. said, “Do you think it’s still here?”
Mattie shook her head. “I can’t feel it watching us.”
This, she realized, was true. Whenever the creature was near before she’d always felt its presence, even if she wasn’t entirely aware that she felt it.
“But,” she said, looking around, “the heart is gone.”
C.P. looked sick. “Do you think it came back for the heart? Or it was waiting for us to, I don’t know, respond?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not like a regular animal.”
It took the heart back for its collection, she thought, but she wasn’t going to remind C.P. of the cave.
“But you don’t think it’s here now?”
“No,” she said, although she didn’t feel as relieved about this as she ought to.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, lowering the rifle and heading around the side of the cabin.
Mattie stepped carefully off the porch, examining the snow. William’s prints definitely went away from the cabin, toward the woods, and they didn’t return.
Maybe he’s dead, she thought, but she knew she wouldn’t believe it unless she saw his body.
It might be right there, just inside the trees. If you follow the trail into the woods then you’ll find him, his heart torn out by the creature and his ice-chip eyes colder than they’ve ever been.
She was halfway across the clearing before she realized what she was doing, the idea of a dead William calling her like the piper of Hamelin. She couldn’t stop herself, and she couldn’t stop because she wanted it so much to be true. She wanted him to be gone forever, this monster who’d taken her life from her.
“Hey, where are you going?”
She heard the alarm in C.P.’s voice, heard the rush of his boots crossing the clearing, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t answer.
“Hey!” he said, and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to look at him. “Are you nuts? Where are you going by yourself?”
“William,” she said.
He frowned at her. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about that guy.”
Mattie shook her head. “I want to know if he’s still alive. He might not be. He was firing the rifle and then he stopped. I can’t believe he would stop trying to kill the creature if he could.”
Understanding crossed C.P.’s face, and a flicker of pity, too. Mattie didn’t care about his pity. She needed to know if the monster was dead.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll look around, just a little. But I don’t want to go far. I don’t want to leave Jen alone in the cabin.”
Mattie had forgotten about Jen. “Is she better?”
C.P. shook his head. “She’s still asleep, and she’s not as cold as she was, but she didn’t make a noise all night. It’s like she’s in a coma or something, but I can’t figure out why.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t . . .” Mattie began.
“No, you’re right. We should try to find out what happened last night, if we can. But we shouldn’t stay out here too long.”
They followed the tracks into the cover of the trees. C.P. spotted a couple of discarded rifle shells. There were splashes of blood and disturbed snow everywhere, and then suddenly there was nothing. All they saw before them was a smooth field of white, unbroken except for the tiny tracks of a rabbit.
“Where did they go?” C.P. asked. “Did they disappear into a portal or something? A door in a tree?”
It was exactly like when Mattie had encountered the dead fox. The prints in the snow had just disappeared, like the bear—or what they’d thought was a bear then—had taken flight. She looked up, expecting to see claw marks on the tree bark as she had then.
And screamed.
I should have known I should have
