Chapter 145: The Mark on the Sand

The boat came into the cove with her light going and the whole of the ring of stones turned round and looked down at the water.

She was a small trawler and she was old and she was not one of ours and she came alongside the slip and a man got off her with a lamp in his hand and a bag over his shoulder.

It was the harbor master from Killybegs.

He came up the track with the lamp and the whole of the pack stood aside for him and he stopped in front of me and put the bag down on the stones.

"There is a thing about a harbor master," he said, "that I have been saying to myself since the telephone rang in the shop at one in the morning. He has a log and he has a date and he has a coast and there is not a wolf in the north who is going to be able to say he did not know." He opened the bag. "I went up that hill this morning after the woman in the good coat went up it and I went into the house and I went into the cellar and there was a fire in it that had been lit and put out with a bucket and the whole of it was ash. But there is a thing about a cellar that has been bricked up since 1981. It has a second room behind the brick and the fire did not reach it."

He took a book out of the bag.

It was bound in black leather with a clasp on it and it was the same size and the same shape as the book I had found in the box under the slip and it was full of writing.

"There is a thing about this book," he said. "It is the second book. The one that was in the house on the hill. The one that was in the cellar behind the brick and the whole of it is in the hand of a woman who has been in a house on a road for thirty six years and it has every name in it and every sum and every date from 1961 to 1994." He put it in my hand. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have to say before the sun is up. The last page of it is not a record. It is a letter and it is addressed to a wolf in Dún Aonghasa and it is in a different hand."

I opened the book at the last page.

It was a letter and it was four lines long and it was in my mother's hand.

"I am Deirdre and I have been taking children out of this village since 1961 and I am not going to do it any more. There is a woman in Galway who has a thing on me and there is a woman in this village who has a thing on the both of us and there is a boy in the house on the hill in Killybegs who is three years old and who is sick and who is going to die if he is not brought out of it. I am going to go up to the high ground on the fourteenth of July and I am going to stand on the edge of it and there is a thing about a woman who stands on the edge of a cliff. She is going to be found on the rocks and the whole of it is going to be called a weakness of the heart. But there is a thing about the whole of it that I am going to write down before I go. I did not step off that cliff. I was pushed and the wolf who pushed me was not the Alpha and it was not Tom's father. It was the woman in the good coat and she pushed me because I was going to the co-op."

The whole of the ring of stones was silent.

And then Mairéad said, "There is a thing about that letter that the whole of this ring is going to hear and then I am going to sit down on that stone and not say another word. My sister pushed Deirdre off that cliff in 1981 and I have known it since 1981 and I have been telling the whole of this village for sixteen years that she had a weakness of the heart." She put her hand on the stone. "And there is a thing about a woman who has known a thing since 1981 and who has said nothing. She is the reason that a boy of six grew up in this village believing that his mother went off a cliff because she was weak."

The whole of the ring of stones was silent.

Cormac was standing at the edge of the ring with his hands at his sides.

"There is a thing about my mother," he said. "She was going to the co-op. She was going to say the whole of it and she was pushed off a cliff for it and the whole of it was called a weakness of the heart and there is not a wolf in this village who asked a question." He came into the middle of the ring. "And there is a thing about the fourteenth of July. It is the day she went up to the high ground and there is a thing about the place she stood. It is not the top of the cliff. It is the edge of the stones. It is this ring. And there is a mark on the ground in the middle of it that has been there since 1981 and that no wolf in this village has been able to say what it is."

The whole of the ring turned round.

There was a mark in the middle of the ring of stones. It was a dark place in the grass and it was about the length of a wolf and it had been there so long that the grass had grown over the edges of it and the whole of it was a shape that was not a stone.

"It is her grave," Cormac said. "Not the one on the hill. The one on the hill has a stone and a name and it has nothing in it. This is the place where she fell and there is not a wolf in this village who has been up here since 1981 and there is not a wolf in this village who has said a word about it."

The whole of the ring was silent.

And then the sun came up over the sea.

It came up along the edge of the water and it went across the ring of stones and it lit the whole of the high ground and the whole of the pack standing in it and the mark on the ground in the middle of it.

And there was a wolf in the middle of the ring.

She was golden. Her coat was the colour of my hair and it was long and the sun was on it and the whole of it shone. She was not as big as Declan and not as lean as Eileen and she stood on the mark in the grass with her head up and her tail straight and she was looking at me.

And the whole of the pack went down on their knees in the ring of stones.

The woman with black hair did not go down. She stood at the edge of the ring with her hands at her sides and she said, "There is a thing about a golden wolf in a ring of stones at dawn on the fourteenth of July. There has not been one in this territory since 1921 and there is not a wolf in the west of Ireland who has seen one. And there is a thing about a wolf who is standing on a mark in the grass that is the grave of a woman who was pushed off this cliff in 1981. She is not standing on a grave. She is standing on the place where the pack begins."

The whole of the ring was silent.

The golden wolf turned her head and looked at the whole of the pack and then she came across the ring to me and put her nose against my hand.

And then she was gone.

I stood in the middle of the ring of stones at dawn with the whole of the pack on their knees and the mark in the grass under my feet and the whole of it was quiet.

"There is a thing about the fourteenth of July," I said, "that the whole of this pack is going to hear and then we are going to go down to that hall and put the whole of it on the table. The whole of it has been in a file and a court and a box and a shawl and a book and a garden in Killybegs. And there is a thing about a mark in the grass in a ring of stones. It is the place where the pack begins." I put my hand out. "So I am going to ask the whole of you a thing and I am going to ask it on this ground and not in a hall. The woman Mairéad has resigned the seat and the seat is vacant and the heir is declared and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say the vote in the hall was not lawful. But there is a thing about a vote in a hall and a vow on a headland. The hall is a paper. This is a pack."

The whole of the ring was silent.

And then Tom said, "There is a thing about a wolf who has been in this village all his life and who has said the whole of it on a shore and in a hall and on a slip. He has said the whole of it and there is a thing he has not said. It is the thing that a wolf says to a wolf on a headland at dawn when there is not a paper in the world that is going to be able to say it did not happen." He put his hand on the grass. "I am Tom and I am a wolf of this pack and I am going to follow the woman who stood on this mark in the grass."

The whole of the ring went up.

And then the whole of it came in a wave and the whole of it was the same as the shop and the same as the shore and the same as the hall and the whole of it was forty wolves in a ring of stones at dawn saying the thing that a pack says when it has chosen.

When it was done Declan came and stood beside me.

"There is a thing about the fourteenth," he said. "It is today. It is this morning. The Court of Alphas is going to be in that hall at nine o'clock and the whole of the file is going to be read out loud and the whole of the co-op is going to be in the room and the whole of the list and the whole of the book and the whole of the ring and the whole of the boot." He put his hand on my back. "And there is a thing about a woman who has been in that village for a month and who is standing on a mark in the grass at dawn. She is going to be in that chair by the evening."

I turned round and looked at the whole of the pack.

"Then there is a thing we are going to do," I said. "We are going to go down that track and we are going to open that hall and we are going to put the whole of it on the table and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to be able to stop it."