Page 79 of Her Wicker Guardian

I keep looking at the phone. “He did not ask.”

“No.”

My first thought is to go inside the workshop where nobody coming around the cottage can see me. I hate that hiding is still the first answer that comes to me.

I did nothing wrong. I was working.

Rachel looks at me. “What do you want to do?”

The question cuts through everything else. She is worried, but she still asks me.

“I want to finish.”

Rachel’s eyes search my face. “The bear?”

“Yes.”

Tessa asks, “Do you want us to leave?”

I think about that. They came because they were curious. Tessa asked before taking a picture, and when I said no, she put her phone away. They asked questions I did not always like, but they stopped when I did not answer. They are not the person who took the photograph.

“No.”

Rachel looks surprised. I pick up the willow I set down when the stranger appeared and return to the bear.

For a moment nobody moves. Then Connor asks, “Can we watch?”

“Yes.”

They stay near the corner of the cottage. Rachel returns to her folding chair, and I work.

At first, my hands are not as certain as they were before. The picture is still inside my thoughts. Axe Dude. Tree Man. A person I do not know choosing words for me. I pull one length of willow too tight and have to remove it. Then I begin again, letting the familiar work take more of my attention with each crossing.

Cross. Tighten. Test.

The structure answers beneath my hands. Wood is still simpler than people.

After several minutes, Tessa calls from near the cottage. “Locke?”

I look at her.

“The bear really is awesome.”

I look down at the crossing beneath my fingers. “Thank you.”

My hands keep moving.

Another engine slows somewhere out front.

This time I do not stop working.

Chapter Fifteen

Rachel

Another car slows without turning in. Locke listens until the engine fades, then returns to the bear. Tessa, Eli, Connor, and Owen have stopped asking questions. Since the photograph appeared, every engine draws their attention toward the sound.

My phone buzzes again. I finally pick it up to find three messages from Shannon, two from Laura, one from Janet, a missed call from Blair, and notifications from people I haven’t heard from in months. The photograph has been out for minutes, and already it’s gone farther than I could have guessed.