Chapter 157: The Alpha's Fall

The whole of the shore was silent and Mairéad stood at the top of the slip with her hands at her sides.

The woman with black hair came up the slip with the nine of the Court behind her and stood in front of her.

"There is a thing about a wolf who has been in a chair for fourteen years," she said, "that the whole of this shore is going to hear before the guards put a hand on her arm. The Court of Alphas has heard the whole of it and it has made a decision and the decision is not a thing that a court in Dublin is going to be able to set aside. The woman Mairéad has signed a sentence of the headland in the name of a wolf who was not in this village. She has called the hunters and paid them out of the co-op's account and she has put a woman in a boathouse with a rope round her neck. And there is a thing about the whole of it that the court has to say and that no wolf on this shore has said out loud. She did not do it alone and she did not do it because she was a wolf who was born bad. She did it because a pack let her and because a village was frightened and because a man in a good coat put a paper in front of her in 1961." She put her hand out. "The Court of Alphas is not going to put her in a room in Dublin. That is a thing for a court of men and it is going to happen and there is not a wolf on this shore who is going to be able to stop it. The Court of Alphas is going to do the thing that a Court of Alphas does. It is going to banish her from every territory on this island."

The whole of the shore was silent.

Mairéad looked at her.

"There is a thing about a ban," she said, "that I have been in this village since 1942 and that I have been in that chair since 1983 and that I have been in every room in this co-op and every kitchen on this shore. And there is a thing about a wolf who is banished from every territory on this island. She is not a wolf who is going to be able to go to Galway or to Dublin or to the north. She is a wolf who is going to be on a boat and on a road and in a room that is not in a territory and there is not a pack in the west of Ireland that is going to take her in." She put her hand down. "And there is a thing about the whole of it that I have to say before the guards take me and that I am going to say in front of the whole of this co-op. I am not going to ask for a thing. Not a room and not a boat and not a wolf to stand beside me. I have been in that chair for fourteen years and I have done the whole of it and there is not a thing in the world that is going to be able to say it was not me."

The whole of the shore was silent.

And then Cormac came up the slip.

He was in his coat with his grey eyes steady and his face white and he stood in front of her.

"There is a thing about a wolf who is banished," he said, "that I have been trying to say since the hall and that I am going to say now on this slip in front of the whole of the co-op. She has been in this village since 1942 and she has been in the hand of a man in a good coat since 1961 and she has been a thing that a village was frightened of. And there is a thing about a thing that a village is frightened of. It is not a wolf. It is a thing that a village made." He put his hand out. "I am not going to say she did not do it. She did the whole of it and she has said the whole of it and she is going to be in a room in Dublin and there is not a wolf on this shore who is going to be able to say she did not. But there is a thing about the whole of it that I am going to say and that no wolf in this village has said out loud. She was nineteen years old in 1961 and she was in a hall and a man in a good coat put a thing in front of her and she has been that thing for thirty six years. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been that thing for thirty six years. She is not a wolf who is going to be able to be a wolf again."

The whole of the shore was silent.

Mairéad looked at him for a long moment.

"There is a thing about you," she said, "that I have known since 1979 and that I have not said out loud. You were two years old and you were in a house on a hill and you were sick and I was the one who told Deirdre to take you out of it. And there is a thing about a woman who tells a wolf to take a child out of a house on a hill. She is not a woman who is going to be able to say she did not do a thing that was right." She put her hand on his arm. "You are the only thing in the whole of it that I did that was right."

The whole of the shore was silent.

And then the guards came down the slip.

They took Mairéad up the road and the whole of the co-op watched her go and the whole of it was silent and the whole of the sun was over the water.

And then the woman with black hair came down the slip and stood in front of me with the whole of the nine behind her.

"There is a thing about this morning," she said, "that the whole of this shore is going to hear and then it is going to be in a file in Galway before the evening. The seat of Dún Aonghasa is confirmed in the woman Niamh and she is the Alpha of this pack. The whole of it is in the file with the date and the hour and the names of the witnesses. And there is a thing about a seat that is confirmed on a slip at first light. It is not a thing that a court gives and it is not a thing that a pack gives. It is a thing that the whole of it has been about since 1961 and it is going to be in a file and in a newspaper and in a court in London before the year is out."

The whole of the shore went up.

And then the whole of the pack came down the slip and the whole of it was forty wolves and the whole of it was the sound of a village that had stopped being a co-op.

Arthur came down the slip with the ring in his hand.

"There is a thing about a ring," he said, "that I have been in this village for sixty years and that I have never once put it on a wolf's finger until last night. 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." He put it on my finger. "And there is a thing about a ring that is on a finger on a slip at first light with the whole of a pack in front of it. It is not a seal any more. It is a thing that a village is going to be able to look at and say, there is the wolf who did the whole of it."

The whole of the shore went up.

And then the whole of the pack was around me and the whole of it was the smell of the sea and the sand and the whole of the forty wolves and the whole of the ring on my finger.

Declan came through the middle of it.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that I have been thinking about since the ridge. It is the fifteenth of July and the whole of the file is going to Galway and the whole of the co-op is on this shore and there is not a thing in the world that is going to be able to say the whole of it was not lawful. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been the Alpha of this pack since the middle of the night." He put his hand on my jaw. "She is going to have to learn how to be a wolf who is not a claimant and not a woman from Dublin and not a thing that came to a village to bury a sister. She is going to have to learn how to be the Alpha of a pack that has been in a village for thirty six years and that has been quiet."

I put my hand on his chest.

"Then there is a thing we are going to do," I said. "We are going to go up that shore road and we are going to open that hall and we are going to put the table on its legs and the lamp on it and we are going to sit down in it with the whole of the pack. And there is a thing about a hall with a table and a lamp and a whole pack in it. It is a hall that is going to have to learn how to be a hall again."

The whole of the pack went up the shore road.

And then, from the top of the slip, a voice said, "There is a thing about the hall that the whole of you are going to want to hear before you go into it."

It was Nora. She was standing at the top of the slip with her coat on and her face grey and a paper in her hand.

"The hall is open," she said. "It has been open since six o'clock. And there is a thing in it that no wolf in this village has seen since the night of the fourteenth. The frame is off the wall and the press is open and the whole of the file is on the floor and there is a thing on the table that is not a paper." She put the paper in my hand. "It is a box. It is a small iron box and it has a lock on it and it was in the press behind the frame and there is not a wolf in this village who has ever seen it."