Page 134
“What haven’t you decided?”
“Most things. I know what I want to try. That is different.”
“Such as?”
“Reading.”
She nods.
“More ice cream.” I pause. “I want to know where roads go. I want to learn what work I can do.”
“What kind of work?”
“I don’t know yet. Wood. Willow. Repairing things. Making things.” I think of the tool list Ben wrote for me. “I want to know whether somebody will want something I make because it is good, not because the Wicker Man made it. I want tools that belong to me. Money that belongs to me. Friends. Places I haven’t been yet. Things I don’t know exist yet that I may want when I find them.”
A week ago, if somebody had asked what I wanted, I would have said Rachel. At first, there was almost nothing else to want.
She was the first voice I knew and the first face I saw. When she left, I waited because I did not know enough of the world to imagine anywhere else.
Now I do.
My life is already becoming larger than the yard where I woke.
And Rachel.
I turn toward her. She is watching me so closely that I forget Mara and Victor and the camera.
“I want Rachel in my life too.”
I understand now why Mara’s earlier question bothered me.
Do I need Rachel? Once, yes.
Maybe I will always need her in some ways. That is different from needing her because I have no life without her.
“I can have a life when Rachel is not beside me.”
Her lips part slightly. I hold her gaze. “And I want her beside me anyway.”
For a moment, nobody speaks. This time Mara does not fill the silence.
Finally she asks, “One last question.”
I turn back to her.
“People have called you a lot of things this week. Wicker Man. Creature. Miracle. Monster.” She pauses. “If you could choose what people call you, what would it be?”
That answer requires no thought. “Locke.”
Victor switches off the camera. The small light disappears.
Nobody moves until Mara closes her notebook and stands.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Rachel spoke during the interview, but she never answered for me. Every answer that mattered was mine.
