Near the Bone by Christina Henry (the mitten read aloud txt) 📕

very long task, one that required assistance. William usually brushed her hair for her. It was the only time he was anything like tender with her. He liked to sit by the fire with her sitting in front of him, and he would carefully brush the waist-length strands until they gleamed, and call her his little Rapunzel, his princess in a tower.

She felt a deep and sudden revulsion. William had liked her hair this way. William wanted her to have it long, long, long and never cut it because she was his doll to do with as he pleased, a doll he could play with if he wanted or break if he wanted, a doll that only moved and talked at his whim.

Mattie rushed out of the bedroom and to her worktable. There was a very sharp knife there that she used for slicing carrots and potatoes and deer meat, and she wondered that he let her have such a sharp object within reach. He must not have been afraid that she would try to kill him with it.

There were so many times she could have. He slept so heavily at night. She could have slit his throat and he wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it. He might have slept through the whole thing.

Why didn’t I? Why?

(Because he made you think you couldn’t. He made you think that you belonged to him.)

She picked up the knife, pulled her braid taut with her other hand, and sawed through the hair close to her nape.

The knife cut through the thick braid easily, and a moment later she held the long messy rope that used to be her hair. The braid had blood in it, and she felt the cut on her head where William had hit her with the shovel. It was clotted over now.

She swung her head from side to side. Her head felt so light. It almost didn’t feel like her own head. She looked at the braid and a thought came, unbidden and unwanted.

William will be so angry when he sees.

No. She needed to stop worrying about William, what William wanted or didn’t want, how William would feel about things. William didn’t matter anymore.

C.P. opened the cabin door and stood on the porch for a moment, stamping the snow off his boots. Cold air swirled around her feet and she noticed then that she hadn’t put any socks on.

“That sled is a little on the small side—Jen’s pretty tall—but I think we can figure something out. It’s wide so maybe we can lay her on her side and tuck her up so her head and legs don’t hang off.”

He shut the door, looked at her properly for the first time, and did an exaggerated double take.

“Time for a new look?”

She dropped the knife on the table, let the braid fall to her feet.

“William liked my hair long.”

“Ah,” he said. “I bet it got in your way.”

“Yes,” she said.

She felt like new, like an animal shedding its winter coat, fresh and ready for spring. She felt less like Mattie and more like Samantha.

“I found something out in the snow,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out, something that jingled. He held it out to her. “Do these belong to that guy?”

“William’s keys,” she said, her heart leaping. “He always keeps them on him, or near him.”

“They must have fallen out of his pocket last night. Maybe when he was chasing us. The thing is, there’s a vehicle key on here. He’s got a truck or a jeep or maybe an ATV stashed somewhere. You said he goes down to the town and comes back the same day, right? So wherever he had it hidden, it can’t be too far away.”

“But it has to be far enough that I won’t find it by accident,” Mattie said. “He never lets me go very far from the cabin by myself, but he’s very cautious. I’m sure it’s at least an hour’s walk, maybe more.”

“Still, an hour’s walk, or even two—that’s nothing. If we can find it then we’re saved. We can load Jen up and just drive down the mountain. I wonder if there’s an access road somewhere that he’s using. We didn’t see one when we were coming up, but then we followed marked trails from a parking area, and the marked trails pretty much stay away from this part of the mountain. Griffin only drifted in this direction by accident, and then he found the caves, and he was so excited . . .”

C.P. trailed off, and Mattie knew he was thinking about Griffin hanging from the tree, not so far from them. But she was thinking about something else, something she’d wanted to know about for a long time.

“May I have those keys, please?”

“Sure, they technically belong to you, I guess.”

Mattie took the keys and went into the bedroom. C.P. followed her like a duckling. He did that, she’d noticed. Just sort of trailed along in her wake, almost like he hoped she wouldn’t see him there.

She knelt before the trunk, staring at the batch of keys.

“It’s probably that one,” he said, reaching over her shoulder to tap at the smallest key. “The other ones look too big.”

Mattie lifted the key to the lock, hands trembling. She’d been told so many times not to try to enter the bedroom when William opened the trunk. She was to never, ever look inside.

The lock clicked. She opened the trunk.

“Whoa,” C.P. said.

Mattie didn’t understand what she was looking at, and felt a little disappointed. There was a jumble of small packets filled with brown stuff on the top layer of the trunk.

“That’s heroin,” C.P. said. He sounded excited and scared at the same time. “That guy is a heroin dealer. That’s how he has all that money.”

“Heroin?”

“It’s a drug, an illegal drug. But jeez, where is he getting it? He’s not making it, not up here. I wonder if some big cartel does a drop from a plane, maybe,