Chapter 72: The Mate Mark Grows

I read the paper twice and then I put it down on the table and looked at my sister.

“She is going to stand up in that hall in the morning and say that Declan is a false mate,” I said. “She is going to say she made the bond between us the same way she made the one in December. And there is not a wolf in this village who is going to be able to tell the difference, because she made the false one in December and the whole co-op watched it break and they have no reason to believe that the thing in front of them now is any different.”

Ronan was on his feet.

“There is a way to tell the difference,” he said. “I am the healer of this pack and I have been in this village for eighty years and I have seen a false marking once in my life and I know what it does. A false bond has a mark that does not sit right. It is in the wrong place and it is the wrong colour and it does not answer when the healer puts his hand on it. A true bond has a mark that comes up slowly and sits under the jaw where the wolf puts his teeth and it answers.” He looked at me. “Sit down. Both of you. Let me look at the marks.”

I sat down in the chair by the fire and Declan sat down beside me and Ronan brought the lamp and put it on the table and said, “Show me.”

Declan undid the collar of his shirt and turned his head and Ronan put the lamp close.

The mark on Declan’s throat was not the thin white line I had seen in the cottage on the first night. The old mark had closed and the new one had come up beside it and it was a crescent of darker skin under the jaw, small and neat and the colour of an old bruise, and it had grown since the morning.

“That is a true mark,” Ronan said. “I have seen three in my life and that is a true mark. It sits under the jaw where the wolf puts his teeth and it has come up slowly and it is the right colour.” He turned to me. “Now you.”

I undid the collar of my shirt and turned my head and Ronan put the lamp close and was quiet for a long moment.

“There is a mark there,” he said. “It is faint. It is under the jaw and it is the same colour and it is in the same place. It is a true mark and it has been growing since the night you first came together and it will be as dark as his by the end of the week.” He put the lamp down. “That is the thing that will save you in that hall in the morning. A false bond leaves a mark that does not sit right. A true bond leaves a mark that does. And the two of you have marks that sit right.”

“And there is a thing about a false bond that I have not told you,” my sister said. She was sitting by the fire with the blanket round her and her cup in her hands. “The false bond in December was made with my scent and the Alpha’s power and it was made in a hall with the whole co-op watching and it took an hour and it left a mark on my throat that never healed. And there is a thing about it that I did not understand until tonight. A false bond can only be made with the scent of a wolf who is in the territory and who is willing. Eileen made the false bond in December and she made it with the scent of a wolf who was in this village and who was willing.” She looked at Declan. “Whose scent did she use? Not mine. She could not have made a bond on me with my own scent and made me believe it was with you. She used the scent of a third wolf. A wolf who was willing. A wolf who was in this village.”

The fire ticked.

“Bridget,” Declan said. “The Bridget who came back in the spring. The woman in the black boots.”

“The woman in the black boots was in this village in the spring and she was in the hall on the night of the claim and she was in the car with the men from Galway and she is dead in the harbor tonight,” my sister said. “And there is a thing I have not told you about her. In March, when she came back to this village, she came to my cottage and she sat at my table and she said, Siobhan, I have been banished for nine years and I have nothing and I will do anything to get my name back. And I said, then help me and I will get your name back. And she helped me. She dug on the high ground and she found the cache and she brought it to me.” My sister put her cup down. “And then she went to the Alpha and she gave her the ring and the book and the page and she was paid for it. And she came back to my cottage and she sat at my table and she cried and she said, I am sorry, I did not know what else to do. And I said, get out of my house. And the next day I made the claim.”

“Then Bridget was the willing wolf,” I said. “Eileen made the false bond in December with Bridget’s scent. And Bridget was in the hall in March and she died in March of her heart and she is in the deep water with a weight on her feet. And the other Bridget came back in the spring because my sister wrote to her and she is dead in the harbor tonight.”

“There were two of them,” my sister said. “There was a Bridget who was banished in 1988 and who went to Dublin and who came back in the spring because I wrote to her. And there was a Bridget who was in this village in March and who died in the hall and who was the willing wolf. And they had the same name and the same hair and the same way of walking and they were cousins. They were cousins and they came back to this village at the same time and one of them died in the hall and one of them died in the harbor and the Alpha has been using the both of them to make false bonds for nine years.”

The shop was quiet. Nora had her hand over her mouth. Padraig was at the door with his coat on and his notebook in his hand.

“Then there is a thing we have to do before the morning,” I said. “Mairéad is going to stand up in that hall and say Declan is a false mate. And there is a thing that will prove she is lying. A false bond leaves a mark that does not sit right and a true bond leaves a mark that does. And Ronan is the healer of this pack and he has seen three true marks in his life and he has seen one false one and he is going to stand up in that hall in the morning and say it in front of the whole co-op.”

“I am going to do more than that,” Ronan said. “I am going to take the marks down in the book with the date and the hour and the place and I am going to put it in the file with the rest of it. And there is a thing about a false bond that I have not told you and that Mairéad does not know. A false bond can be broken. It leaves a mark that is wrong and a hole in the chest and it hurts. But it can be broken and the hole can be filled. And there is a thing the healer of this pack can do on the night of a full moon in front of the whole co-op. It is called the asking and it has not been done in this village in a hundred years. The healer asks the wolf if the bond is true and the wolf answers and the answer goes into the book and the co-op hears it.” He looked at me. “Tomorrow morning, in that hall, in front of the whole co-op and the enforcer and the Alpha, I am going to ask you and Declan if the bond between you is true. And you are going to answer. And it will be written down in the book with the date and the hour and the whole village will hear it. And there is not a thing Mairéad can say after that.”

I looked at Declan.

“The asking,” I said. “What does it cost?”

Ronan was quiet for a moment.

“It costs the truth,” he said. “The healer asks and the wolf answers and the answer is not a word. It is a thing the whole co-op can smell. And a wolf who lies in the asking is a wolf who is never believed again in this village for the rest of his life.”

I sat in the chair by the fire with the shop around me and the mark under my jaw and the whole of the morning in front of me.

“Then ask,” I said.