Page 64 of Her Wicker Guardian

An old blue hatchback pulls in behind my car, music thumping through the closed windows. The driver’s door opens, and Ben Calhoun climbs out wearing jeans and a Hollis Springs High T-shirt. He opens the back door and pulls out a cardboard box.

My stomach drops before my brain catches up. The cardboard box reminds me of the lamp Mrs. Calhoun said her son would deliver. I completely forgot.

He shuts the car door with his hip. “Ms. Rachel?”

“Hi.”

“My mom told me to deliver your lamp.”

“Right. Thank you.”

I start toward him, already reaching for the box because getting the lamp inside and getting him off the property is job number one.

Behind the cottage, the axe comes down.

Crack.

The boy’s head turns.

I stop. So does he.

Another round thuds against the stump.

“Is somebody back there?”

My mouth opens, but he’s already started around the cottage with the box in his arms.

“Wait.”

He glances back without stopping. I move faster, but he reaches the corner first.

Locke is beside the chopping stump in Tom’s blue T-shirt and jeans, the axe resting against one shoulder while he picks up a piece of split wood with the other hand. Sunlight catches the living willow of his face and the small green growth along his forearms.

There is no possible way to mistake him for a sculpture.

Locke looks at the boy. The boy looks at Locke.

The cardboard box slips from his hands and hits the grass with a muffled thump.

“What the fuck?”

Locke’s gaze comes to me. “Rachel?”

Ben makes a strangled yelp I have never heard come out of another human being. Then he runs.

“Wait!”

He doesn’t.

He rounds the cottage so fast one sneaker slides in the gravel. His car door slams. The engine catches, music blasts through the open window, and gravel spits behind the tires as he backs toward the road.

I make it to the corner in time to see the blue hatchback disappear between the trees.

For several seconds, all I can hear is the engine getting farther away.

Locke comes up behind me but doesn’t touch me. “Who was that?”

“Mrs. Calhoun’s son.”