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“To be irreplaceable.”

“To be necessary.”

“Yeah.” After a moment’s hesitation, she plucked the sheet. “Do you...I mean, do you want to see?”

Excitement and uncertainty rushed out of her, raising the corners of my lips. She wanted to show me her work.

“I’d be honored,” I said.

***

Inside our shared bungalow, Nicu frowned at himself in a mirror, turning his chin left to right, absorbing the wayward features. The puffy green eyes, wide mouth, and protruding cheekbones. He’d grown a slight overbite, and freckles had sprouted on his pixie nose.

I had stumbled upon him like this, my reflection standing behind his.

He spoke, his voice on the cusp of manhood and yet as musical as any silver instrument. “I’m not a blossom like papa...or like you.”

That he invested time in vanity, when he never had before, left me ill-equipped to answer. His father had never given Nicu cause to be self-conscious.

However, Poet was not here to say the right thing.

I hadn’t speculated whether Nicu thought about love beyond friendship and family, about attraction and desire. Until this place, he’d not given me a reason to wonder.

To me, Nicu was handsome. How to express that without him suspecting a bias, was the task.

“No, you’re not a blossom,” a female voice answered.

Nicu winced. I flipped around, about to snap at the lumber maiden, but she passed me and stopped behind Nicu, fixing him with a haughty gaze. As such, I could imagine the superficial girl she had been prior to our acquaintance.

“You’re a sunrise. You’re a song.” She fussed with his hair, styling the layers and tightening the thin braid along his ear. “You’re beautiful.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “You can’t judge the outside unless you’ve seen the inside. And you know what? You exceed in both. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. If they try, send them to me.”

Nicu’s hurt melted into radiance as he hooked on to her forearms. They stood like that for a while, then she flounced off, the feather in her hat bouncing. On her way out, she bumped her hip against mine.

My friend’s chin lifted as he evaluated his reflection again.

“She’s right,” I told him.

In the reflected glass, Nicu smiled at me. “She fancies you.”

***

I saw how she looked at me.

But how did I look at her?

***

Standing my ground, I held up my cupped palm and crooked my fingers twice, wordlessly beckoning her.

Come, lumber maiden.

Come here.

Come.

She flipped both axes in her hands, a dexterous trick that she’d taught herself, the arrangement of her wooden parts making it easier than it would a person of flesh. She charged across the glade, swinging at my torso. I leaped back, my abdomen caving to avoid the strike, then I thrust my sword, pride swelling when she managed to block me. She yelped, stumbling under the force of it, almost clattering to the ground, but she held fast.

I’d long since gleaned this to be an advantage of her woodskin, her ability to root herself. Otherwise, she would have gone down like any novice of her stature.