Like the fox, except it didn’t take the fox. I wonder why.
She wondered, too, how part of her was still wondering about the fox when she was about to meet its fate.
“William,” she called. “Please, wake up. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please let me in.”
She thought she heard movement in the cabin—the creak of a floorboard, the faint rustle of clothing.
“William, please, I’ll be good, I’ll do anything you say, only let me in because the monster is out here with me, it’s been following me, please, please let me in.”
She scraped at the door with her mittened hands, slumping to the ground. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, please.”
Another creak. Mattie was suddenly certain that William stood on the other side of the door, perfectly awake.
He never went to sleep. He was sitting there in the dark, waiting for me, waiting to punish me no matter when I got home.
“William,” she said, but she couldn’t yell any more, or try to. She didn’t even know if the word actually came out of her mouth.
A third creak. She knew he was deciding whether or not she deserved to stay out all night for coming home later than he’d said to do.
I’m going to die. Everything I’ve done to get here has come to nothing, because William is not going to open that door.
She knew it with the same certainty that the sun would rise in the morning. He wanted to teach her a lesson, and he probably didn’t believe her when she said the creature was following her.
William was not going to let her into the cabin. Mattie should save her energy, stop banging away at the door. She needed to find somewhere to hide. But where?
The storehouse was just as bad as the cabin—William locked the storehouse and kept the key hanging on a special key ring, the one Mattie was never allowed to touch. The only other shelter was the outhouse, and “shelter” was a hopeful word at best.
The outhouse was much less sturdily built than the storehouse and the cabin, being, as William once said （with uncharacteristic crudity）， “Only a place to shit out of the wind.”
It wasn’t falling apart, but Mattie had much less confidence in her safety if she hid inside it. On top of everything else, there was the ignominy of hiding for her life inside an outhouse.
The creature roared, and it was as if Mattie had never heard the sound properly before. The deep strangeness of it, the sense that it was many animals’ cries merged into one—those qualities were magnified by the closeness of the monster and the open clearing. Mattie couldn’t wait for William any longer.
He’s not going to let me in anyway. It’s more important that he proves to himself that he’s right about me. If I die out here, it will only be divine punishment in his eyes.
She clawed at the doorframe, using it to pull up to her feet again. Branches cracked in the woods that surrounded the cabin.
Mattie heaved herself around the cabin, past her little garden, past the grave of her child and up to the very edge of the clearing and into the outhouse. The door was inclined to slam shut, so she pulled it closed behind her as silently as she could, wincing at the squeal of the hinges.
There was no lock or latch, nothing to make her feel safe even though she knew a creature of that size could tear the door from its hinges. She half-wondered why she was even bothering to hide, except that she felt she shouldn’t stop trying to live—not yet, anyway.
The smell in the outhouse was not as extreme as it would be in summer, but it was still unpleasant. Mattie had a vague idea that it might cover up her scent and the creature wouldn’t be able to find her, though she didn’t truly believe it could be fooled by such tricks. It wasn’t a regular sort of animal.
What an embarrassing way to die, hiding in the toilet. She covered her mouth with her mittens, trying not to giggle. Why, oh why, was she about to laugh when her life was in danger?
It’s because you’re scared, so scared you’re on the verge of hysteria. Then she heard it outside, the huffs and the snorts, its enormous bulk moving slowly toward the place where she hid.
Mattie backed away from the door, but there was nowhere to go in the tiny space. William had put a wooden lid over the hole （“because we’re not animals, Mattie”）， and she sat down on the lid very quietly, and made herself as still as possible.
She heard the creature sniffing outside, very close, and thought now would be an excellent time for William to come charging out of the cabin with the rifle. But of course there was no sound of the cabin door opening and closing, no crack of a shot to shatter the night.