Chapter 149: The Ring and the Moon

The whole of the hall was silent and my sister stood at the table with her hand on the wood.

"There is a thing about a vote," the woman with black hair said, "that the court is going to put to the co-op before another word is said. It is a vote on the wolf who is going to hold the seat until the heir is ready. And there is a thing about a vote that is taken in a hall in Dún Aonghasa in July of 1997. It is a vote that has not been taken in this hall since 1921 and there is not a wolf in this hall who has been in one." She put her hand flat on the table. "The court is going to ask the co-op one question and the co-op is going to answer it out loud and the answer is going to be written down in a book with the date and the hour. Who is going to hold the seat?"

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then Arthur stood up at the back.

"There is a thing about a vote," he said, "that I have been in this hall for since 1949 and that I have written in a book. It is forty wolves and a long table and a lamp and it is taken with a hand up. And there is a thing about a hand up in a hall. It is a thing that a wolf can see and a thing that a wolf can count and a thing that a wolf can put in a book with a date on it." He put his hand on the bench. "But there is a thing about the whole of it that I have been thinking about since the shop. The ring. The true ring of Maeve came out of a fire and it was in a shawl for thirty six years and it is on this table this morning. And there is a thing about a ring that is on a table and a vote that is taken in a hall. The ring is the seal of the seat and a seat that is held without the ring is a seat that is held without a seal."

The whole of the hall was silent.

"Then there is a thing I have to say," I said, "and I am going to say it and then the whole of it is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening. The ring is the seal of the seat and it came out of the fire and it has been in a shawl and it is on this table. But there is a thing about the ring that the whole of this hall is going to hear before it votes. It is not a thing that a wolf puts on her finger and calls herself Alpha. It is a thing that the co-op puts on the finger of the wolf it has chosen." I picked up the ring. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have been thinking about since the high ground. The ring and the moon. The face of the ring is a crescent moon and the moon is a thing that a pack runs under and a thing that a pack is bound by and a thing that a pack has been in this village since 1921." I put the ring down. "So I am not going to put this ring on my finger until the whole of this co-op has put it there."

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then Mairéad stood up in the gallery.

She had been sitting at the back of the gallery since the whole of the co-op got up off the flagstones and she had not said a word.

"There is a thing about the ring," she said, "that the whole of this hall is going to hear and then I am going to sit down and I am not going to say another word in this village. I have worn a copy of that ring on my finger for twenty years and I have known it was a copy since the day I put it on and there is not a wolf in this hall who has ever asked me a question about it. And there is a thing about a woman who wears a copy of a ring for twenty years. She is not a woman who is going to be able to say she did not know what she was." She came down the gallery steps. "So I am going to do the thing that a woman in a black coat does when the whole of it is on a table in front of a co-op. I am going to give the ring back. Not the copy. The copy is on my finger and it has been on my finger since 1977 and I am going to give it to the co-op and the co-op can do what it likes with it." She took it off her finger and put it on the table. "And there is a thing about a copy of a ring. It is not a seal. It is a thing that a woman in a good coat had made in Galway in 1977 and it has a name inside the band and the name is Eileen."

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then the woman with black hair picked up the copy and turned it to the lamp.

"There is a thing about this ring," she said. "It has a name inside the band and the name is Eileen and it has a date inside the band and the date is 1961. And there is a thing about a copy of the ring of Maeve that has the name of the woman who took the seat inside the band. It is not a copy. It is a seal of a seat that was taken by force and that has never been confirmed and that is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening." She put it down. "The true ring is on this table and the true ring has the name Siobhan inside the band and the date 1921 and it came out of a fire and it has been in a shawl for thirty six years. And there is a thing about the true ring and the true line. They are the same thing and they have been in this hall since 1921 and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to be able to say they are not."

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then the woman with black hair put her hand on the table.

"The court is going to put the ring on the finger of the wolf the co-op chooses," she said. "And there is a thing about the ring and the moon that the court is going to say before the vote. The moon is a crescent on the face of that ring and the moon is a thing that a pack runs under. There is a full moon tonight and the whole of this co-op is going to be in this hall and there is not a wolf in it who is going to be on the headland. So there is a thing that the court is going to do that has not been done in this territory since 1901. It is going to open the door of this hall at moonrise and the whole of the pack is going to shift in this hall under a full moon with the whole of the nine in the room and the whole of the file on the table."

The whole of the hall went up.

And then my sister came round the table and stood in front of me.

"There is a thing about a ring and a moon," she said, "that I have been thinking about since the boathouse. I made a claim in March and I lost it and I was put in a boathouse with a rope round my neck and I have been in a cottage in Athlone and on a boat in a storm and in a court in Galway and there is not a wolf in this hall who is going to be able to say I did not do the whole of it. And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have to say before the vote. I am not the Alpha of this pack and I have never been the Alpha of this pack. I made a claim so that a woman from Dublin would come and pull a safe out of a well and read a book in a cellar and put the whole of it in front of a co-op." She put her hand out. "And there is a thing about a woman who makes a claim so that her sister will come. She is not a claimant. She is a sister."

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then Mary Flannery stood up.

"There is a thing about the heir of Maeve," she said, "that the whole of this hall is going to hear and then I am going to sit down. I have been in Killybegs all my life and I have been a fisherman's wife and I have shifted once in my life on a stone floor with a wolf on the door and I do not know what a pack is. And there is a thing about a woman who has been told she is an heir. She is not an heir. She is a woman who has been in a room in Galway for a week and who has been told the whole of it and who has a mark on her throat that is a broken bond." She put her hand on the bench. "So I am not going to be the Alpha of this pack. Not this year and not next year. I am going to be a wolf in it and I am going to learn what it is and there is a thing about the whole of it that I am going to say before the vote. The wolf who is going to be in that chair is the wolf who has been in this village for a month and who has done the whole of it. And there is not a wolf in this hall who does not know it."

The whole of the hall went up.

And then the woman with black hair put her hand flat on the table and said, "The vote."