“We’re not going back to that cabin with Samantha,” Jen said.
“Yes,” Mattie said, her voice still a strained frog’s croak. “We are.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
It took them less time than Mattie expected to find the stream. The stream was her only geographical anchor—if she found the stream she could find the rabbit traps, and if she found the traps, she’d find the trail that led back to the cabin.
C.P. suggested that they just walk straight north, away from the cliff. Jen and C.P. shed their heavy packs and tucked the packs into the boulders so that they were well hidden from animals. Then they clambered over the boulders until they reached the cover of the trees.
At least, C.P. and Jen clambered—lightly, like goats darting from ledge to ledge—and Mattie struggled up behind them, hampered by her heavy, handmade skirts and her general lack of outdoor fitness. She did a lot of hard, heavy work in the cabin but none of it involved climbing, or walking for hours. The chocolate bar, while delicious, had also not been enough to satisfy the deep gnawing in her stomach. On top of everything, she was tired and heartsore and felt sick every time she thought of William, Heather, her mother.
What she really wanted was to lie down and sleep for several hours, and hope that when she woke her voice would be normal and her mind clearer. Everything had happened so fast. Was it only that morning when she’d woken to find an unnaturally cheery William ready to hunt the creature? Was it only a few short hours ago that she left the cabin and found William in the woods confronting the strangers?
Jen and C.P. reached down to help pull Mattie up the last few feet over the top of the boulder. Once she was on level ground again she hunched over, taking deep breaths. Climbing that short distance had been more difficult than it should have been. She felt ashamed of the sweat on her temples, the harsh breath that emitted from her mouth. She felt that she was an awkward appendage, something that was preventing the smooth and unimpeded motion of the other two.
If I wasn’t here they could have run right after their friend. I’m making things worse for them, slowing them down, making everything more dangerous.
Mattie was about to open her mouth, to tell them these things, when Jen patted her shoulder and said, “Take your time and calm down. It can’t be easy to climb in that outfit. Did you make it yourself? It looks handmade.”
“Y-yes,” Mattie said.
Something rustled, and a moment later a light clicked on. A flashlight, Mattie thought. It had been years since she thought about a flashlight.
It was C.P.’s, of course. He had the light pointed at the ground and he was moving it around.
“What are you doing?” Jen asked.
“Looking for tracks,” he said. “That cryptid didn’t fall out of the sky, grab Griffin and fly away.”
“How do you know?” Jen asked. “We didn’t get a proper look at it.”
“We’re not looking for the Mothman, Jennifer,” C.P. said, his tone mocking when he said “mothman.” “We’re looking for a large, bearlike cryptid. That’s what all the reports said.”
Mattie wondered again about these “reports,” but didn’t feel it was the right time to ask.
“You know, you’re amazingly close-minded for someone who claims to be the opposite,” Jen said. “How do you know it’s not the Mothman?”
“Please,” C.P. said. “We’ve talked about this before. It’s physically impossible for a creature like that to exist. You’re not doing our field any favors by believing in stupid urban legends.”
Mattie tugged on Jen’s arm before she could argue more. “Griffin,” Mattie said.
Mattie could just make out Jen’s silhouette in the dark, see the other woman nod her head.
“You’re right. This is not the time to engage with a person who claims to be a cryptozoologist but who actually doesn’t believe in the vast majority of the historical evidence of cryptids.”
“It’s too easy to disprove most of the claims. That’s why we’re here. To gather actual evidence,” C.P. said, still moving the flashlight over the ground. “Where the hell did that thing come from? The snow is totally untouched here.”
“Trees,” Mattie said.
C.P. pointed the flashlight up, but the light seemed frail and useless in that direction, swallowed up by the pine boughs.
“How can something that big—and that’s the only sense I had of it, that it was big—move from tree to tree without breaking them? How did it carry Griffin?”