Page 26 of Her Wicker Guardian

I push the door wider and step across the threshold. The wood beneath my feet becomes earth, and open air moves around my whole body instead of entering through cracks in a wall. I stand here for several breaths, feeling the difference.

The fire has fallen low, red light buried among black wood. A light glows from the cottage where Rachel went. An engine approaches somewhere beyond the cottage. I stop with one foot half-raised and listen as it grows louder, then fades again without turning into the drive. Slowly, I lower my foot.

The animal calls again, closer now. A branch cracks somewhere beyond the yard, and every part of me goes still as I face the trees. The sound came from ahead. Behind me, one of Rachel’s windows remains lit.

Then I hear the kitchen door open and turn immediately. Rachel steps outside into the yard. Something warm moves through me at the sight of her.

Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders now, and she has changed into softer clothes. She looks toward the trees first.

“Coyotes,” she says.

The word means nothing.

She points toward the darkness beyond the yard. Another distant chorus rises almost immediately.

“Coyotes,” she repeats. “That’s what you’re hearing.” She touches her ear.

I look toward the trees. Coyotes. The sound has a word now.

Rachel steps a little farther into the yard. “They do that at night. They sound worse than they are.”

Most of the sentence is beyond me, but her voice isn’t. Another howl rises, and she glances toward the trees before looking back at me.

“I heard them and thought you might be scared.”

I don’t understand every word, but her gestures are enough. Cottage. Trees. Me. She came outside because I was here.

Then Rachel notices the open workshop door. “You went in there? The workshop?”

I point toward it, then toward myself.

“You can go in there,” she says. She points toward the screened porch and sweeps one hand toward the yard. “Or stay outside. Wherever you want.”

Go. In. Stay. Outside. Enough of the words make sense. I look from the workshop to the porch and then back at her. My hand goes to the dense weave at my center. Rachel’s gaze drops to my hand, and she goes very still.

I remember that stillness from when I first opened my eyes, her hand against my chest. She lifts one hand as if she might touch me again, then stops and lets it fall.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “That’s where I touched you.”

She stays where she is. I try her name.

“Ra…”

Her eyes widen, but the rest of the word will not come.

“Rachel,” she says, touching her chest.

I know. Rachel.

Another wavering howl rises beyond the trees. She glances toward it, then back at me, but she doesn’t go inside. We stand in the yard together and listen.

Chapter Five

Rachel

I sleep badly enough that calling it sleep feels generous. Every time I drift off, something pulls me back: the coyotes, the texts, the knowledge that there’s a living man made of willow sleeping on my back porch wearing my sweatshirt because yesterday he didn’t own a single thing in the world.

By morning, coffee is less a preference than a requirement. I carry the mug to the kitchen window and stop before I take the first drink. He’s standing in the side yard with his back to me.