Page 17 of Her Wicker Guardian

There’s no wind. The hair stuck to the damp back of my neck hasn’t moved, and neither have the leaves at the edge of the yard. My hand closes around nothing as another crack splits the silence.

The bear’s crooked left shoulder begins to lower, and my chest locks tight. Willow shifts against willow with a dry creak. The shoulder moves another inch, then another, until the angle we fought all evening is changing in front of us without a hand anywhere near it.

The flames bend toward the bear. Every single one of them. Then a length of willow at the center of his chest pulls tight.

By itself.

Chapter Three

Rachel

The length of willow at the center of the bear’s chest pulls tight again, and this time three other strands move with it. Nobody says anything. I’m not sure any of us remembers how to speak.

The woven body shudders from its crooked ears to its wide feet. One strand slips free, slides across two others, and tucks itself into a new place. Then another follows. Willow scrapes against willow as the entire structure rearranges itself in front of us.

“Oh my God,” Shannon whispers beside me.

His swollen middle, which we spent half the evening making worse, draws sharply inward while the thick woven ends of his forepaws lengthen. Willow separates, twists, and reforms until there are five distinct shapes at the end of each arm.

“Those are fingers,” Janet says, her voice gone very small.

Laura grips the back of her lawn chair. “Those are definitely fingers.”

“I see them,” Blair says, and for once there’s no humor in her voice.

The bear’s head drops forward with a violent rustle. One ear folds into the side of it, then the other disappears into the moving weave. His muzzle shortens while dozens of thinner strands slip over and under one another too quickly for me to follow.

The fire hasn’t gone out, but every flame still leans toward the changing figure. His shoulders widen. His arms hang differently. The angles I’ve been reading as an animal all evening stop fitting together that way, and my mouth falls open before I realize it.

I’m not looking at a bear anymore.

His legs lengthen next. The heavy hindquarters narrow and straighten into thighs and calves while the torso rises, becoming unmistakably human in shape. More willow folds inward across his chest and abdomen, layering over itself until there’s real depth to the body. He isn’t a hollow sculpture anymore. I can’t see through him anywhere.

Small green shoots push through the brown willow along one shoulder, and Janet notices them at the same moment I do. “Those weren’t there before.”

“They definitely weren’t,” Laura agrees.

The figure keeps changing until he stands a little over six feet tall, broad through the shoulders with long arms and a lean torso. He has the proportions of a man, but nothing about him looks like flesh. Brown, honey-gold, and living green willow cross over one another in a weave that has become muscle and joint and the shape of human hands.

His face changes last, and that’s the part I want to look away from.

I can’t.

The first breath I try to take stops high in my chest as the muzzle disappears completely and a human profile replaces it. Fine strands pull into brow and cheekbones. A nose takes shape. Darker willow forms a mouth while narrow overlapping pieces lock into place around his closed eyes. My fingers curl tighter against my palms because I need something ordinary beneath them while ten feet away, a face builds itself out of plant fiber.

Then the movement stops, and the flames straighten at once. The yard becomes so ordinary again that the man standing in front of us seems even more impossible. All I hear is Shannon breathing too quickly beside me and the fire crackling again.

Blair clears her throat. “I’d like to formally withdraw several earlier comments about the cryptid.”

No one laughs. I try to swallow, but find the muscles in my throat reluctant to cooperate.

The man stands with his head slightly bowed and his arms hanging at his sides. Fine green fronds lie flat against his shoulders and upper arms. He’s completely still, without even the small unconscious movements a living person makes.

Laura’s voice is quiet. “Is he… alive?”

“I don’t know.”

All four women look at me, and I turn toward them. “Why are you asking me?”