Page 78 of Her Wicker Guardian

Connor scratches the back of his neck. “A few hundred?”

I go still.

Tessa says quickly, “But nobody believes it.”

Eli glances toward the cottage. “They might now.”

That is not comforting.

Rachel’s phone buzzes twice, but she ignores it.

Owen is already holding his own phone when the screen lights. He looks down at it, then at me, and his expression changes.

Tessa notices. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

He turns the phone away.

Rachel takes one step toward him. “What is it?”

Owen hesitates. I know hesitation now too, and the way he looks at me tells me I am not going to like what he shows me.

“Show me,” I say.

His gaze meets mine. Slowly, he turns the screen. A picture fills it.

Me.

I’m standing beside the unfinished bear, one hand resting against its shoulder. I recognize the angle immediately. The stranger took it from near the corner of the cottage only minutes ago.

Connor stares at the screen. “That was fast.”

“What does it say?” I ask.

Owen hesitates. “They’re saying the tree man is real. That they found you outside town.”

“And?”

Owen looks uncomfortable. “They’re calling you Axe Dude.”

I look at the picture again. “There is no axe.”

“No,” Owen says.

Rachel comes closer. “That part must have come from what Ben told somebody.”

Someone saw me with an axe earlier. Someone else took this picture now. The two things have already become one story.

There is no axe in the picture, but people have added it anyway.

I understood Blair when she told me pictures could travel. I didn’t understand this part.

I want the picture to stop existing. It won’t.

Rachel says my name quietly. “Locke.”