Chapter 81: The Memory That Wasn't Mine

The mind-link opened again on the shore road and this time I did not fight it.

It came through like a tide coming in over the slip and it was not Declan and it was not me and it was my sister. It was my sister in the north in a cottage with a fire and a woman with grey hair across the table from her and a map between them, and the woman was saying, "The claim is mine. I have been in the north for twenty years and I have a pack and a record and a claim and you are a woman with a broken mark." And my sister was saying, "Then take it. Take the claim and the pack and the record and the north and the whole of it. I am going to Athlone." And the woman with grey hair was saying, "You are not going to Athlone. You are going to the coast and you are going to be the woman who came back from the water and you are going to stand in that hall and make the claim in front of the co-op and I am going to be behind you." And my sister was saying, "I am not going to be a thing you put in a hall." And the woman with grey hair was saying, "You are not a thing. You are a claimant of the line of Maeve and you are the only wolf on this coast who can stand in front of a co-op and be believed and you are going to do it because I am asking you and because you have nothing else."

The memory went on. There was a boat and a man in a hood and my sister in a grey coat with the wind in her hair. There was a cottage in Athlone with a white gate and a red shed and Margaret at the door with a lamp. There was a road and a bus and a man in a hood in the seat behind her. There was the shore road at Dún Aonghasa at dawn and a woman with grey hair waiting at the top of it with a coat over her arm.

And then there was the hall and the package on the table and the whole co-op looking at her and the woman with grey hair standing at the back of the hall with her hood down and her grey hair loose and her grey eyes on my sister's back.

The link closed.

I was on my knees on the shore road with the fog around me and Declan's hand on my shoulder.

“She was not killed for a secret,” I said. “She was running a rival pack. She has been running a rival pack since April and the woman with grey hair has been running her.” I got up. “Eileen did not take my sister north to protect her. She took her north to be a claimant in a hall. She wanted a woman of the line of Maeve to walk into this village and make a claim in front of the co-op so that the co-op would believe her and so that Eileen could stand behind her and take the seat through her.” I put my hand on my chest. “And my sister did it. She went north and she let Eileen put her in a hall and she let Eileen put a woman in her place on that shore road this morning and she is not in Athlone and she has not been in Athlone since April and the whole of it has been a lie.”

Declan stood in the fog with his face grey.

“Then the woman who is on that headland tonight is not your sister and she is not a claimant,” he said. “She is a wolf with a grey coat and a claim that does not belong to her and a co-op that is going to vote for her because it has spent two days looking at her and believing her.” He looked at me. “Niamh. There is a thing about the fight tonight. If the woman who is not your sister fights the Alpha on that headland and wins, then the woman who has been in the north for twenty years is the Alpha of this pack and she has a claim that was made in a hall in front of the enforcer and the co-op and it is written down in the file. And there is not a thing anyone can do about it.”

“Then she is not going to fight.”

“She is going to fight. She has been standing in that hall for two days and she has not said a word that was not a claimant’s word and she is going to fight because the whole of it depends on it.”

“Then we are going to stop her.”

We went up the shore road and the fog came with us and the whole village was on the road with lamps and the moon was up behind the fog and the headland was a grey shape in it. And at the top of the road, where the track turns down to the headland, there was a wolf standing in the middle of the way.

It was the old woman. She was in her nightdress and her coat was over her shoulders and her white hair was down and she was standing in the middle of the road with her hand up.

“You are not going up there,” she said. “Not either of you.”

“Aunt,” I said.

“I am not your aunt.” The old woman looked at me and her blue eyes were steady. “I am your grandmother’s sister and I have been in a cottage on that cliff for thirty six years and I have heard every word that has been said on this coast since 1961. And there is a thing about tonight that no one has told you and that I am going to tell you now.” She put her hand down. “The woman who came down that shore road this morning is not the woman who has been in the north for twenty years. The woman who has been in the north for twenty years is standing on the headland now with her pack around her and her grey hair down and she is waiting for the moon. And the woman who came into the hall this morning is the woman who has been in Athlone since April.” She looked at me. “Your sister came down that shore road this morning and put a package on the table and said, I am Siobhan. And then she went up to the room above the hall and she sat with me for an hour and she told me the whole of it. She said, Aunt, I have been in the north and I have been in a pack and I have been a thing that Eileen put in a hall. And she said, tonight I am going to stand on that headland and I am going to make a claim that is mine and I am going to fight a woman who has been Alpha for fourteen years and I am not going to come off it. And she said, if I do not come off it, tell my sister that the ring is the only thing of mine that came back and that she is to take it and go to Killybegs.”