Shoot Like a Girl by Kari Bovee

Author:Kari Bovee [Bovee, Kari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781947905030
Publisher: Bosque Publishing
Published: 2019-11-24T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

“Wake up!”

Mrs. McCrimmon’s voice boomed in my head. I opened my eyes to darkness and a chill that felt like a slap in the face. Draughts of cold air whistled between the slats of the poorly built cabin, and the fire had gone out.

“You’ve slept the whole day away!” she scolded.

Mr. McCrimmon came through the front door, bringing with him a burst of frigid air. “Why’s it so dark in here?”

Mrs. McCrimmon’s voice washed over me like nails on a blackboard. “This dumb fool girl’s been sleepin’ all day, and she’s let the fire die. I’m lyin’ in my sickbed, close to dying, and she’s in here asleep. The baby’s going to catch his death from the cold! Get up, you damned girl! Get some wood.”

I got to my feet, and a spasm of coughing hit me with such violence that I doubled over. Mrs. McCrimmon shoved me toward the door. “Get goin’!”

“But I need my boots. . . .” I struggled to get the words out, my throat feeling as though I’d swallowed a thousand splinters.

“You need your boots? Here are your boots!” She picked them up from the corner of the room where they stood by the door and threw them at me. One of them hit me in the head.

I stopped cold and turned to her. “I hate you, you she-wolf!” The words came out deep and guttural, as if my voice didn’t belong to me at all. “I hate you and your lazy husband! I hate living here! You are cruel and horrible and a blight to God!”

Mrs. McCrimmon’s eyes opened wide, and her face turned red as a burning coal. She raised her arm to hit me, and as it came down, I caught her by the wrist.

“Don’t you touch me,” I said, squeezing her wrist as hard as I could. But then I succumbed to more coughing. Taking advantage of my weakness, she grabbed hold of my hair, opened the door, and threw me out. The door bolt slid into place behind me with a thunk.

I tumbled down the step into the snow, the dampness soaking my sackcloth dress and the thin blanket I had draped across my shoulders. I gulped from the shock of the cold and forced myself to my feet. I stumbled up to the door and flailed my fists against it.

“Let me in! You can’t keep me out here! I’ll freeze to death!”

Images of my daddy’s face clouded my mind—his purple lips, his frozen eyebrows, the ghostly paleness of his face. I wouldn’t die this way. I couldn’t.

I pounded on the door again. “Let me in! You have to let me in!”

The cold sliced through the soles of my feet, but I tried to ignore it. Mrs. McCrimmon wouldn’t keep me out here for long; she just wanted to scare me into not talking back.

Didn’t she?

She wouldn’t actually leave me out here. . . .

“Please!” I called. “I’m sorry. Let me in.”

The silence on the other side of the door was deafening.

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