Chapter 159: The Morning After the Moon

The run on the sand ended at the slip and the whole of the pack came up the stones in the gold light and the whole of the village was on the wall.

There was a thing that no wolf had thought about and that Arthur said out loud on the pier at seven in the morning.

"There is a thing about the twenty boats," he said. "They have been in since the full moon and the full moon was on the fourteenth and this is the fifteenth. And there is a thing about a fleet that has been in for a full moon since 1961. It goes out the morning after and there is not a wolf in this village who has been on the water since March."

The whole of the pier was quiet.

Tom came down the shore road with his coat open and his red face and his grey moustache.

"There is a thing about the boats," he said. "I have been on the Kathleen since three o'clock and she is fuelled and she is sound and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say she is not. And there is a thing about a fleet that has been in for a month. It has nets that have been mended and engines that have been looked at and there is not a boat on this wall that is not ready."

The whole of the pier went up.

And then the whole of the co-op went down to the wall and the whole of it was the sound of engines turning over one after another along the harbor and the whole of it was twenty boats going out on the morning tide with the whole of the pack on the pier.

I stood on the wall with the ring on my finger and Declan beside me and the whole of it went out past the point and into the bay and the whole of the village watched it go.

"There is a thing about the morning after the full moon," Declan said. "I have been in this harbor since I was nine years old and I have never once seen the whole of the fleet go out on the fifteenth. There has not been a fifteenth in this village since 1961." He put his hand on the wall. "And there is a thing about a wolf who is standing on a wall and watching twenty boats go out. She is not a woman from Dublin any more. She is the Alpha of a pack that has a fleet in the water."

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

There was Cormac at the end of it with Mary beside him and his coat over his arm and his face turned up to the light. There was Tom's brother on the Kathleen with a rope in his hand. There was Hannah with the baby on her hip and Nora and the woman from the post office and Arthur with his stick and the whole of the eleven and the whole of the nine and the woman with the grey plait.

And there was a woman with gold hair going grey at the temples standing at the top of the slip with her grey coat over her arm.

My sister came down the pier.

"There is a thing about the morning after," she said. "I have been in this village for fifteen years and I have been in a boathouse and in a cottage in Athlone and on a boat in a storm and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say I did not do the whole of it. And there is a thing about a woman who has done the whole of it and who is standing on a pier with the fleet going out. She is not a claimant and she is not a thing that was put in a hall. She is a wolf who is going to be in this pack." She put her hand out. "And there is a thing I have to ask you. Not as a sister. As a wolf in this pack. I have been in that cottage on the shore road since April and there is not a thing in it that is mine. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been in a village for fifteen years and who has not a thing in it."

I took her hand.

"There is a thing about the cottage on the shore road," I said, "that is going to be a cottage with a fire and a boat and a man who comes in at six o'clock and a boy who is going to need a room and a door that shuts. And there is a thing about a cottage like that. It has a second room and a second bed and there is not a wolf in it who is going to be able to say the sister is not welcome."

My sister looked at me for a long moment.

"There is a thing about a sister," she said, "that I have been in Dublin and in Athlone and in the north and I have not been in the same room as you for a year. And there is a thing about a year. It is not a thing that a word is going to be able to pay for." She put her hand on the wall. "But there is a thing about a cottage on a shore road with a fire in it. It is a thing that a wolf can come back to."

The whole of the pier was quiet.

And then Ahern came down the shore road with his case in his hand and his coat over his arm.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that the whole of this pier is going to hear and then I am going to get on the bus to Galway and I am not going to be the enforcer of this region. The Court of Alphas has put the whole of it in a file and the file is in a press in London and there is a thing about a file that is in London. It is not a file that a man in a good coat is going to be able to burn." He put the case on the wall. "And there is a thing about a coast that has been paying the tenth since 1890. It is a coast that is going to be in a court in London before the year is out and there is not a pack on the west of Ireland that is not going to be in it. So there is a thing I have to say to the whole of the co-op and it is the last thing I am going to say as the enforcer of this region. The tenth is over. The Council is not going to be taking a tenth out of Dún Aonghasa and there is not a wolf in Galway who is going to be able to say it is."

The whole of the pier went up.

And then the whole of the co-op went up the shore road to the hall.

The table was on its legs and the lamp was on it and the frame was on the wall and the whole of it was a hall and not a burned room and the whole of the pack came in and stood along the walls and sat on the benches and crowded the door.

The woman with black hair was at the head of the table with the nine of the Court behind her and a paper in her hand.

"There is a thing about this morning," she said, "that the whole of this co-op is going to hear and then it is going to be in a file in London and in Galway and in a newspaper in Dublin. The Court of Alphas has declared the woman Niamh the Alpha of Dún Aonghasa and the whole of it is in a file with the date and the hour and the names of the witnesses. And there is a thing about an Alpha who has been in a village for a month and who has been in a church and a cellar and a hold and a cove and a court and a hall and a slip and a shore. She is not a wolf who is going to be able to be told what she is by a paper." She put the paper down. "The court has said the whole of it. The pack is going to say the rest of it."

The whole of the hall was silent.

And then Tom came down the floor with a thing in his hand.

It was a pendant. It was silver and it was a crescent moon on a chain and it had been in a box in a drawer in the shop since 1961 and there was not a wolf in this village who had seen it.

"There is a thing about this pendant," he said. "It was my grandmother's and she was the Luna of this pack before Maeve and it has been in a drawer since 1961. And there is a thing about a pendant that has been in a drawer for thirty six years. It is a thing that a pack is going to put on the wolf who is going to be beside the Alpha." He put it in my hand. "It is not a ring. It is not a seal. It is a thing that a pack gives to the wolf who is going to stand beside the Alpha and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say it was given by a court."

I put it on.

The whole of the hall went up.

And then the whole of the pack came down the floor 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.

Declan came and stood beside me with the whole of the pack behind him.

"There is a thing about this morning," he said, "that I have been thinking about since the slip. It is the fifteenth of July and the fleet is out and the ring is on your finger and the pendant is on your neck and the whole of the file is in London. And there is a thing about a wolf who has been the Alpha of this pack since the middle of the night and who has a pack that has stopped being a co-op." He put his hand out. "She is going to have to learn how to be a wolf who is not in a fight."

I took his hand.

"Then there is a thing we are going to do," I said. "We are going to learn how to be a pack that is not in a fight. And there is a thing about a pack like that. It is going to have to learn how to be a thing that a village is."

The whole of the hall went up.

And then, from the door, Nora said, "There is a thing about this morning that the whole of this hall is going to want to hear before it does another thing. The shop has been open since six and there is a thing on the counter that no wolf in this village has seen since the spring. It is a fish pie and a pot of tea and there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to say it is not the first thing that the shop has put out since the fire."