Page 76 of Her Wicker Guardian

“What is an iron giant?”

“You have to watch it,” Connor says. “I’m not gonna ruin it for you.”

That makes all four of them laugh, though not at me.

Connor looks at the bear again. “Are you bringing it to the festival?”

“Yes.”

“You’re coming too?”

The question changes the air. Rachel does not answer.

I think about wanting to see where the bear goes, about people seeing me in a place where I have chosen to stand.

“Yes.”

Tessa smiles. “Good.”

The simplicity of it surprises me. “Why?”

She looks confused. “Because you made it.”

I wait.

“And because…” She gestures toward me, then stops herself before the gesture becomes pointing. “I don’t know. If you live here, you should get to go.”

If you live here.

Nobody has said it that way before.

“I live here?”

Tessa looks toward Rachel.

Rachel’s eyebrows rise. “Don’t ask me.”

Tessa looks back at me. “Do you?”

I turn toward the cottage and the workshop. I woke here. Rachel gave me water here. I repaired the workshop door. I took a shower here. I learned my name in this yard. I built the bear here. I wait for Rachel to come back here.

“Yes,” I say.

Tessa nods. “Then yeah. You should get to go.”

Connor laughs. “Excellent legal argument. She’s going to be a lawyer.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You argue with everybody.”

“That doesn’t make me a lawyer.”

Rachel says, “Blair would disagree.”

I know Blair would. Talking with them feels easier after that.

Then another engine turns into the driveway.