Chapter 150: The Spark in the Storm

The vote was thirty nine to one.

Arthur counted it and wrote it in the book with the date and the hour and the woman with black hair read it out loud and the whole of the hall went up.

And then the storm came in off the sea at four in the afternoon and the whole of the harbor went white and the whole of the village was rain and the whole of the nine stood at the windows and looked at it.

“There is a thing about a full moon and a storm,” Declan said. “The pack was going to shift in this hall at moonrise and the moon is going to be behind a wall of cloud and there is not a wolf in this hall who is going to be able to say when moonrise is.”

The whole of the hall was quiet.

“There is a thing about a shift in a hall,” the woman with black hair said. “It does not need a moon that a wolf can see. It needs a moon that a wolf can feel. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been in a pack for a month and who has been on a headland and on a shore and on a slip and in a hall. She is going to know when the moon is over the water and there is not a cloud in the world that is going to stop her.”

The storm went on all afternoon and the whole of the village came into the hall because there was not a roof in the village that was not leaking and the whole of the hall was forty wolves and a fire and a lamp and the whole of the nine.

At eight o’clock the rain stopped and the whole of the sky was black and the wind was still going and the sea was loud on the shore.

And then the moon came through.

It came through a gap in the cloud and the whole of the hall was silver and the whole of the pack lifted their heads and the pull came up through the floor and into the whole of us at once.

It was not the thing I had felt in the hotel in Galway and it was not the thing I had felt in the ring of stones at dawn. It was the whole of the pack and it came up through the flagstones and into the whole of me and the wolf in my chest came up with it and it did not take my body. It stood in the middle of the hall and the whole of the pack was around it and there was not a wolf in that room who was alone.

The woman with black hair put her hand on the table.

“There is a thing about a shift in a hall,” she said. “The whole of the co-op is going to shift and the whole of the nine is going to be in the room and there is not a wolf in this building who is going to be on the headland. And there is a thing about a wolf who is going to be in the middle of it. She is going to be the wolf who has been chosen and she is going to be the wolf who has not yet been given the ring.” She put her hand out. “Arthur. The ring.”

Arthur came down the floor with the ring in his hand and the whole of the hall was silver and the whole of the pack was on its feet.

“There is a thing about a ring,” he said, “that I have been in this hall for sixty years and that I have never once put on a wolf’s finger. It is the seal of the seat and it came out of a fire and it has been in a shawl for thirty six years and it is the thing that the whole of it has been about since 1961.” He put his hand out. “Niamh. Give me your hand.”

I gave him my hand and he put the ring on my finger and the whole of the hall went up.

And then the pack shifted.

It came in a wave from the back of the hall to the front and the whole of it was the sound of bone and the tearing of cloth and the whole of it was forty wolves on the flagstones and the whole of the nine standing at the table with their hands at their sides and the whole of it was the smell of a pack.

I shifted last.

It was the eighth time and it came up through me like the tide and the whole of the hall was close and warm and full of the smell of the whole of the pack. And then I was a golden wolf in the middle of the hall with the ring on my finger and the whole of the pack around me and the whole of the nine at the table.

And Declan was beside me.

He was a grey brown wolf with his shoulder against mine and his head down and the whole of the pack was around the two of us and the whole of it was the thing that I had been feeling since the first night in the kitchen in the cottage on the shore road and that I had not had a name for.

The woman with black hair came round the table and stood in front of the two of us.

“There is a thing about this hall,” she said, “that I have been in since Friday and that I am going to say in front of the whole of this pack. The whole of the file has a false bond in it that was made on a boy of nineteen in 1994 and a broken mark and a woman in Athlone who was told a lie. And there is a thing about a false bond that was made with the scent of a willing wolf and broken with a false marking. It leaves a mark that is wrong. And there is a thing about a true bond. It leaves a mark that is right and it answers when a healer puts his hand on it and it goes two ways.” She put her hand out and put it on the mark under my jaw and then on the mark under Declan’s. “That is a true bond. I have seen three in my life and that is the fourth and there is not a wolf in this room who is going to be able to say it is not.”

The whole of the pack lifted their heads and the smell came off the two of us and went out over the whole of the hall and the whole of the nine smelled it and did not move.

And then the whole of the pack said a thing that was not a word.

It went out over the whole of the hall and out through the green door and down the shore road and into the village and the whole of the village heard it.

Declan put his head against my neck.

And then, from the door of the hall, there was a sound that was not a wolf and not the wind.

It was a boot on the flagstones and it was a voice I had not heard since the shop.

“There is a thing about a shift in a hall,” Kern said from the door, “that I have been trying to say since the lights went out. It is a thing that a court in Galway is going to be able to say was not lawful because there was not a wolf of the Court of Alphas in the room when it happened.”

The whole of the pack turned round.

Kern was standing in the door with his spectacles on the end of his nose and his case in his hand and two men behind him in good coats and caps.

“There is a thing about a shift in a hall,” the woman with black hair said, “that the whole of this room is going to hear before any wolf in it does another thing. There are nine wolves of the Court of Alphas in this hall and there is not one of them who is going to say it was not lawful. And there is a thing about a man in a good coat who comes into a hall in Dún Aonghasa on the night of the fourteenth of July with two men behind him and a case in his hand. He is not a Keeper of the Rolls. He is a man who has been in a room in Galway since Friday and who has been released into his own recognisance and who has walked out of a building and got in a car and come down this coast.” She put her hand out. “Declan. There is a wolf on the door of this hall and there is a wolf on the road and there is a wolf on the pier. And there is a thing about a hall with a wolf on the door. It is a hall that a man in a good coat is not going to be able to walk into.”