Page 67 of Her Wicker Guardian

“Then everything we talked about last night applies. If they’re standing somewhere they’re legally allowed to stand, we may not be able to stop them.”

His attention shifts toward the road. “Then other people can see it.”

“Yes.”

“Many people.”

“Yes.”

His hands close. I hate watching him learn this part of the world.

“You don’t have to solve everything today,” Blair says.

Locke nods once. “I understand.”

“Good. I’m going to think through the legal side and call Rachel if there’s anything she needs to know immediately.”

I take the phone off speaker. “Thank you.”

“Call if somebody actually shows up.”

“I will.”

“And Rachel?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t scare yourself with things that haven’t happened yet.”

“That is irritatingly reasonable.”

“One of my better qualities.”

We hang up.

For a while, I stand holding the phone after the call has ended. The screen goes dark in my hand. Nothing about the yard has changed, but I’m suddenly aware of how little separates it from everything beyond it.

Locke walks toward the screened porch but doesn’t sit. He stays at the bottom step, looking past me toward the corner of the cottage.

“I wanted people to know,” he says.

“I know.”

“I wanted to choose how.”

That one I understand too well.

For thirteen years, I learned how quickly somebody else’s version of an event could become the official one. I was too sensitive. I misunderstood. He was only joking. Nothing happened the way I said it happened. By the end, half the work of being married was holding on to what I knew before Trent told me I was wrong.

Locke has been alive since Friday night, and somebody else is already telling his story.

“They will decide what I am before they meet me,” he says.

I look toward the road. “Some will.”

He jams his hands in his pockets. “Tree man.”

“Probably.”