I can’t run anywhere until this is better. I’m at a disadvantage with one eye. Especially with that monster out there.
She knew she couldn’t run with William gone to town in any case, though at first that might seem the best time. If she ran down the mountain while he was coming up she could run right into him. The idea of him catching her in the act of escape made her shudder. Who knew what punishment he might inflict if he found her in the woods trying to get away from him?
But trying to leave when he was at home wasn’t the best idea, either. Perhaps she could sneak out at night, when he was sleeping. She’d have to drop a bag of supplies out in the woods somewhere beforehand.
Mattie pressed her hand to the side of her head. She wasn’t sure how she would do it. There had to be some way, but she wasn’t up to considering all the options at the moment. Her eye needed some relief.
There were several long icicles dangling from the front eaves of the cabin. If she could reach one she might break off a piece and wrap it inside a cloth and press it on her eye.
But I mustn’t leave the porch because if I do William will see the footprints in the snow and then he’ll be angry.
Mattie didn’t care that he would be upset, not in the way she’d cared the day before. She only cared that he would hurt her, and if he hurt her she couldn’t escape from him.
She peered out the front window. It wouldn’t do to have him return and catch her breaking his edict. He’d said he would be gone until after dark, but he might only be testing her.
All appeared still and silent.
Mattie opened the door slowly, half-expecting William to stride out from behind a tree, his ice-chip eyes frosted over.
You’re still afraid of him. This was Samantha’s voice.
Yes, I am. I might always be, Mattie thought.
That was a hard and terrible thing to acknowledge, the idea that even if she managed to get away, that he would haunt her always—the boogeyman in the closet, the monster under the bed, the creature tapping at her window.
Tapping at her window. There was someone tapping at her window and she was rubbing her eyes and there was William, waving at her from the dark.
She stopped, frozen, feeling she was on the verge of understanding something very, very important.
Then she heard the voices. Male voices in the woods, approaching fast.
Oh, god, no, she thought, fleeing into the cabin and throwing the bolt. She hurriedly drew the front curtains and then did the same for the other two windows at the back of the cabin—one in the main room, one in the bedroom.
Don’t come near. If William sees your footprints in the snow he’ll blame me and you’ll ruin everything, don’t come near, don’t.
She wasn’t strong enough to take another beating so soon after the last one, and she wasn’t strong enough to run away on her own yet, either.
Please leave, don’t come near, but of course she heard their voices draw closer and closer, closer and closer, until she could make out the words.
“Do you think your Amish girl lives here?” A man’s voice, young, full of laughter.
“I told you, she wasn’t Amish. It was just some dumb thing I said because their clothes were so old-fashioned.” This was the second voice, also young. And familiar. The stranger from yesterday.
“No, not him,” she breathed.
William had half-killed her because the man had looked at her. If he discovered that the man had actually come to their cabin door—and he would discover it, of this she had no doubt—he might actually kill her.
Kill her and find some other happy, pretty girl to grind beneath his boot, because a man needed sons.
No. No, I can’t let it happen to anyone else.
（If you can’t let it happen to anyone else then you’ll have to kill him, because if you run then he’ll find another girl. You know he will.）
“Go away, Samantha,” Mattie whispered. Her head hurt and her eye hurt and she was so terrified that the men outside would find her that she could barely suck in a lungful of air.
Please leave. Please go.
（But they might help you）
Or they might hurt me. They might be just like William. I can’t trust them. I can’t trust anyone.
She heard the clatter of their boots on the porch. Mattie backed away from the door, crouched down in the middle of the room, made herself into a tiny ball.
I could disappear if I wished hard enough. I could turn into a mote of dust.
A hard knock sounded at the door.
Mattie bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“Nobody’s home,” the first man said. “You can see the footsteps in the snow leading away from the door.”