Page 73 of Her Wicker Guardian

Music reaches us from the other side of the cottage, not as loud as Ben’s music earlier but enough that I can feel the low sound through the ground. Doors open and close. A few seconds later, four people come around the corner of the cottage and stop when they see me.

They are younger than Rachel and the others, close to the age of Mrs. Calhoun’s son, I think. One boy is very tall and thin. Another wears a red shirt with a white hawk across the front. The third has hair long enough to fall over his eyes. The girl is the smallest of them, with dark hair pulled into a knot and a phone already in one hand.

I have seen surprise before. Tom’s was quiet, Mrs. Calhoun’s traveled through the phone, and Ben ran before I had time to understand his face. This is different. All four of them seem to forget what they were going to do.

The tall boy says, “Holy shit.”

Rachel meets them before they can come farther into the yard. “That’s far enough.”

Nobody argues. I expected at least one of them to.

The girl looks at Rachel. “Is he real?”

Rachel does not answer. She looks at me instead, and the choice comes back to me so clearly that I straighten.

“Yes,” I say.

The girl’s eyes widen. The boy in the red shirt says, “Dude.”

I look at him. He points toward me, then seems to realize that pointing may be rude and lowers his hand.

“Sorry.”

I know sorry. I also know that he means it. The quick correction surprises me more than the pointing did. He noticed something he thought might bother me and changed what he was doing without anyone telling him to.

“It is all right.”

The four of them look at one another. The long-haired boy says, “He talks.”

“I’m standing right here,” I tell him.

Rachel makes a small choking sound and presses her lips together. The boy’s face turns red.

“Right. Sorry.”

The girl is still holding her phone. She lifts it slightly, not to her face but high enough that the flat black circle on the back points toward me. Blair explained that phones can make pictures. I look from the phone to the girl.

She lowers it. “Can I?”

The question helps. I think about thousands of people seeing me before I see them. I think about Ben running from the yard and the words tree man reaching Shannon before he reached his mother’s store.

“No.”

The girl nods and slips the phone into her pocket. “Okay.”

Nothing happens. No argument. No picture.

The tall boy looks at her. “Seriously?”

She turns on him. “He said no.”

“I know, but…”

“He said no.”

The boy shuts his mouth.

“Thank you,” I tell her.