Page 27 of Her Wicker Guardian

Morning light catches every variation in the willow, from pale gold to deep brown, and the green shoots along his shoulders are no longer only shoots. Tiny leaves have opened along several of them, angled toward the sun. His head is tipped slightly upward, and for a few seconds he’s so still that he could almost be a sculpture again. Almost.

I tighten both hands around the mug. Last night I told him he was safe here. In daylight, the promise feels heavier. I made it without having the faintest idea how to keep it. I don’t know what he needs, what can hurt him, whether he slept, whether he needs food, or even whether a man made of willow can safely eat any of the food in my kitchen.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when I leave for my shift at the Blue Plate. I can’t even call his name. He doesn’t have one.

That thought follows me to the kitchen door. I unlock it, step outside, and walk a few paces toward him. “Morning,” I say.

His head turns at once, and the speed of it startles me, although he makes no move toward me. He watches while I cross the damp grass. In daylight, I can see that the green growth along his shoulders really has changed. One little leaf has opened nearly flat against the side of his neck.

“You like the sun?”

No response, obviously, and I take a sip of coffee before I can ask him anything equally ridiculous. His gaze drops to the mug.

“Coffee,” I tell him, lifting it slightly. Then I point toward the porch. “Water.”

He looks through the screen toward the little table, walks over, and retrieves the bottle I left him last night. He remembered what I meant, where the water was, and that the bottle belonged with the sound I made.

“Water.”

His mouth works around it. “Wa.”

Something warm catches in my chest. Last night five women gasped and stared every time he did something new. He shouldn’t have to perform for me this morning too. I point to the bottle. “Water.”

He watches my mouth. “Wa…ter.”

It’s rough and imperfect, but it’s unmistakably the correct word. I laugh, but it comes out softer than I expect. “Yeah. Water.”

The willow around his eyes changes first, then the rest of his face follows into something that isn’t quite a human smile but has the shape of one. My breath catches.

He smiled back. The ridiculous urge to make him do it again arrives before I can decide what that means. Then tires crunch over the gravel drive. He spins toward the sound, arms coming slightly away from his sides, and checks my face first.

“It’s okay. That’s Shannon.”

A car door closes out front. A moment later Shannon comes around the side of the cottage carrying a bakery box under one arm and a duffel bag in the other. She takes him in, then me, then him again. “You’re both upright.”

“That’s our strongest accomplishment so far.”

“I’ll take it.” She puts the bakery box on the folding table we used last night and lifts the duffel. “I brought some of Tom’s clothes. Sweatpants, T-shirts, a couple pairs of jeans. I’m hoping he won’t notice for a while.”

“You stole your husband’s clothes?”

“I prefer repurposed.”

“That’s actually helpful.”

“Try not to sound so surprised.”

Two more cars crunch onto the gravel before she finishes. The wicker man turns toward the sound, then checks my face again. Doors close out front. By the time Blair, Laura, and Janet come around the side of the cottage, he’s backed several steps toward the workshop and has the building at his back.

Laura stops before she gets too close. “Maybe we shouldn’t all crowd him.”

Nobody argues. We spread out without making a production of it. Janet sets down the tote she brings everywhere and stays several steps back.

Shannon glances at me. “What time do you have to leave for work?”

“Soon enough that we need a plan.” I’m scheduled at the Blue Plate for the Saturday lunch shift, and I have exactly zero desire to test whether a wicker sculpture becoming sentient counts as an excused absence.

The four women settle into the practical problem with alarming speed. Nobody outside this group knows yet. Tom still doesn’t, though Shannon’s “yet” carries a whole argument of its own. The larger question is whether he can be left alone for six hours when none of us knows what six hours feels like to him, what he might need, or what he might decide to do with a world that only became visible to him last night.