Page 13 of Her Wicker Guardian

Shannon turns toward me. “What about you?”

“I said bear.”

“I know. I mean why?”

Blair gives her a look. “Really, Shannon?”

“I didn’t mean…” Shannon winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her, and it actually is. Or close enough.

I look beyond the fire toward the tree line. During the day, the woods around my cottage are just woods. Oaks, maples, brush, poison ivy, and mosquitoes with personal vendettas. At night, everything past the reach of the fire becomes a black wall.

“If it’s a bear, I know what the danger is. I’m not saying bears are safe. Obviously. But if I see one, I don’t have to decide whether I’m being rude by moving away from it. I don’t have to wonder whether I’m overreacting or smile so it doesn’t get offended.”

The others stay quiet, so I keep going. “I don’t have to figure out whether it’s following me or just happens to be going the same direction. I don’t have to wonder whether I should put my keys between my fingers or whether saying no is going to make things worse.”

I look back at the fire. “With the bear, I get to be afraid immediately.”

The words sit there after I say them. Heat presses against my shins, but the back of my neck has gone cold. I wrap both hands around my cup and stare into the flames, fighting the urge to laugh and turn the whole thing into a joke.

Shannon exhales. “Jesus.”

“Sorry.”

Blair’s gaze stays on me. “Don’t apologize for answering the question she asked.”

Janet holds out the pretzel bag without saying anything. I take one.

Shannon stares into the fire. “That’s awful.”

I turn the pretzel between my fingers. The worst part is that none of it feels unusual while I’m doing it. It only sounds like fear when I say it out loud.

Janet crunches a pretzel. “The bear also wouldn’t expect me to make it a sandwich.”

For one beat, nobody reacts. Then Blair nearly spits out her wine.

Janet’s cheeks turn pink. “I was joking.”

“We know.”

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Blair tells her.

“Do what?”

“Make jokes.”

Janet throws a pretzel at her, and Blair catches it against her chest. “Assault.”

“You deserved it.”

“I hear that professionally quite often.”

Shannon is laughing again, and finally I am too.

“So the official answer is bear,” Shannon says.

I look at the wicker bear again. Firelight moves across his lopsided body, catching the pale cut ends of willow along his shoulder. At night, he looks less like failed civic art and more like something that wandered out of a folktale after getting lost on the way.