“Griffin,” Mattie said again, to get them moving.
What had happened to their sense of urgency? C.P. seemed lost in thought, trying to solve the problem of the creature. She glanced nervously at the trees above them. There was a chance the animal was still up there, watching them, waiting for its chance to take the rest of them.
“She’s right. Come on, C.P.,” Jen said, grabbing his arm and pulling him along.
Mattie couldn’t help wincing, bracing for C.P.’s response to this. If Mattie had done such a thing to William, he would have told her they would leave when he was ready and not a moment before, and there would have been a slap in it for her. But C.P. meekly turned the flashlight in front of them and let Jen pull him along.
The light made the pools of darkness outside its reach behave strangely. More than once Mattie was certain she saw a shape moving on one side of them and then the other, but when she stopped to peer into the shadows, C.P. would also tilt the flashlight in that direction, and there was never anything except the trees.
It seemed they’d been walking a very long time when Mattie heard the trickle of the stream. Her feet felt frozen, and the tips of her fingers had gone numb despite her mittens. She longed for the warmth of the cabin—the fire, a blanket, a hot cup of tea.
And a monster waiting in your bedroom? The cabin isn’t a safe haven for you.
Mattie shook her head from side to side, trying to dislodge any thoughts of William. She wasn’t going to enter the cabin if he was there. And if he wasn’t around she was going to lock the door against him and leave him out in the night, just like he’d done to her.
Maybe the creature will take him then. Maybe it will swoop down from the trees and take him away like it did with Griffin.
Mattie knew that the banks of the stream were bare of trees, and that the three of them would be exposed once they exited the cover of the woods.
“W-wait,” she said.
C.P. swung around to face her and the flashlight beam went right into her eyes. She covered her eyes with her hand and turned away, but her vision was temporarily ruined and all she could see were black spots on an orange background.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I thought I had the beam low enough but you’re a lot shorter than me.”
“Give me that,” Jen said, snatching the light out of his hand. “You can’t be trusted.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
They were going to argue again. Mattie never knew that people could enjoy arguing, but these two seemed to do just that.
They might enjoy it, but it’s making me crazy. Why can’t they just be quiet? Don’t they understand that every time they make noise they’re bringing danger nearer to us?
“Q-quiet,” Mattie said with as much authority as she could muster. It wasn’t a lot, especially given that her voice still resembled something like a mouse squeak, but she’d had enough and she thought they could tell.
She felt their gazes upon her, even though she couldn’t make out their expressions in the dark.
“The . . . creature. William. In the woods,” she said. “Quiet.”
It was so frustrating not to be able to talk like a normal person, trying to cut her conversation down to only the necessary words and hope they would understand.
“Right,” Jen said in an apologetic whisper. “We’re making too much noise. Sorry.”
“Sorry,” C.P. repeated, and he grabbed the flashlight out of Jen’s hand again and started toward the stream.
“Wait,” Mattie said again.
“She wanted to tell us something in the first place, dummy,” Jen said.
C.P. halted and spun around. Mattie heard the quick indrawn breath that meant he was preparing his retort.
“No . . . fighting,” Mattie said. “Listen.”
All three listened to the woods around them—the running of the stream over rocks, the sound of night birds fluttering in their nests, the sway of branches in the wind.
She carefully stepped closer to the other two, trying not to make too much noise as her boots crunched in the snow. She pitched her voice low as they leaned in.
“Stream . . . is . . . in . . . a . . . clearing. No . . . trees.”
“I get it,” C.P. said. “We’ll be exposed. I should shut off the flashlight.”
Mattie thought they ought to keep the flashlight off anyway. If they just let their eyes adapt to the night they’d be able to see more than just the pool of light illuminated by the beam. But this was too much to explain with her throat damaged.