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Not exactly. Locke’s willow is lighter, with more gold among the brown and more living green at his wrists and neck. He’s narrower through the shoulders, built in longer, leaner lines where my weave is heavier.

Those are differences. Underneath them is recognition.

The fine strands of his face move with his expression. Green life threads through brown structure. Across his chest, the living willow lies in the same warm, interwoven patterns as mine.

I have seen human bodies since I woke. I have never seen another living body made the way mine is.

Locke studies me just as closely. Rachel stays beside him, while Laura stands a little behind my shoulder. For a moment, Locke only stares. Then he takes one step toward me.

“I didn’t know there could be another one,” he says.

Neither did I.

Then he says, “Hello, Kell.” His voice is deeper than I expected.

“Locke.”

A small smile appears. “Yes.”

I move closer. He does too, and when I hold out my hand, Locke takes it without hesitation.

Human hands are warm, but they give beneath mine in ways his does not. Locke’s palm meets mine with the familiar firmness of woven material. His fingers bend around mine exactly where they should, and I can feel the slight ridges where one strand crosses another.

He is warm. So am I. Neither of us lets go immediately.

“You’re real,” I say.

Rachel presses her lips together and reaches up to touch Locke lightly near the elbow. Locke tightens his hand around mine once before releasing me. “So are you.”

I like him already. Laura invites them inside, but she does not move immediately. She looks from Locke to me and back again before Rachel says something about coffee and the two women go toward the kitchen.

Locke follows me into the living room and chooses a chair. I look at the empty sofa, then at him.

“Here.”

He studies the place I am indicating. “You want me closer?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” He sits at the other end of the sofa, and I turn enough to face him.

For a year, there has been one Wicker Man in the world. Now there are two, and I have spent most of the morning expecting the first one to explain the second. “What are we?”

Locke is quiet long enough to irritate me. “People call us Wicker Men.”

“I know. What are we?”

“I don’t know.”

I wait for more. Nothing follows.

“You do not know why you are here?”

“No.”

The answer does not fit. I study the green woven through his hands and the brown and gold at his throat as though the answer might be there even if he has somehow missed it.

“You were first. For a year.” I consider what that means. “And you still do not know why.”