Chapter 90: The Silence After the Truth

I went down to the cottage and sat in the wreck of the kitchen with the table on its side and the plates in pieces on the flagstones and the hearth open and the hollow empty.

I did not light the lamp. I sat on the floor with my back against the dresser and the moon came in through the window and made a white square on the flagstones and I sat in it and did not move.

My sister was not my sister. The woman on the headland in the grey coat was a wolf from the north who had been paid to wear a gold head and stand in a hall and make a claim in a name that was not hers. And my sister was in the north and had been in the north since April and she had been in a pack of banished wolves and she had been a thing that Eileen put in a hall. And there was a daughter. There was a daughter called Mary who was in Killybegs and who was a fisherman's wife and who did not know what she was and who was the heir of Maeve.

And Declan had chosen his son.

I sat in the wreck of the kitchen and went through it the way I used to go through a case in Dublin. Not the feelings. The facts. The facts did not lie and the facts did not choose a boy over a village and the facts were all I had.

The first fact was that the woman on the headland was not a claimant and the fight was not going to happen and Mairéad had gone down to the hall to sit in her chair and wait for the man from Galway.

The second fact was that Kern was coming down that shore road in the morning with a letter and a paper and a wolf of his own and a trusteeship and a deed that said the shore was his for ever.

The third fact was that the heir was in Killybegs and Cormac was on a boat with Daniel Flannery and the tide was on the turn and they would be there by four and back by eight if the wind held and the coast was kind.

The fourth fact was that Declan had stood on that headland and told the whole co-op that he was not going to do it any more and had walked away from the only thing that could save the village and had done it because of his son.

The fifth fact was that I had told him not to ask me again.

I put my head back against the dresser and looked at the ceiling.

There was a thing about the fourth fact that I had not said out loud on the headland and that I had been turning over since the wind came up. Declan had not chosen his son over the village. He had chosen his son over me. There was a difference and the difference was the thing that hurt. A man who chooses his son over a village is a man who is frightened for a boy. A man who chooses his son over the woman he has asked to stay is a man who has decided that the woman is the thing that can be lost. And I had been the thing that could be lost since the first night. I had been the thing that could be lost in April when he sat in that office and knew my sister was alive and did not tell me. I had been the thing that could be lost on the rope walk when he told me the whole of it and asked me to stay. And I had told myself that a man who is frightened is a man who can be forgiven and that the bond was true and the man was true and that whatever else was a lie the thing between us was not.

And now there was a boy on a boat in the dark and a man on a headland with his hands at his sides and a woman sitting in a wreck of a kitchen with the moon on the floor.

I got up. I lit the lamp and I picked up the table and put it on its legs and I got the broom and swept up the plates and I put the chairs back and I put the dresser up and I put the flagstone back in the hearth.

And then I sat down at the table with the lamp and the black book and the brown book and the bundle of papers and the ring and I read my mother's book from the beginning to the end.

It took me two hours. And when I came to the last page I sat back and looked at the ceiling and I said a thing out loud that I had not said before.

"My sister was the Alpha," I said. "Not me. Not the woman on the headland. My sister was the Alpha and she was made a claimant by a woman who wanted a thing in a hall and she was put in a boathouse with a rope round her neck and she has been in the north since April and she is not a thing that Eileen put in a hall. She is the Alpha of this pack and she has been the Alpha since the day she made her claim in March and the claim was never answered and the seat was never confirmed and the whole of it is a lie."

The lamp flickered. The moon had gone off the floor and the window was grey.

"There is a thing about the morning," I said. "The heir is in Killybegs and she has never been in this village and she has never shifted and she does not know what she is. And a wolf who has never been in a territory and who has never shifted is not a thing that a co-op is going to vote for on a morning when a man from Galway is coming down the road with a letter. A co-op will vote for the wolf in front of it. And the wolf in front of it in the morning is going to be me or it is going to be nobody."

I got up and put my coat on and went out into the grey morning.

The whole village was on the shore road. The whole of it. Forty wolves with lamps and coats and their faces turned toward the pier where the Star of the Sea had gone out on the tide, and the harbor was empty and the moon had gone down and the sky was going grey and gold along the edge of the sea.

Ahern was at the top of the pier with his case in his hand.

"The boat went out at half past ten," he said. "Daniel Flannery at the helm and the boy with him and the salvage men on the deck with a lamp. They will be in Killybegs by four if the wind holds." He looked at the road. "And there is a thing I have to tell you before the sun is up. The night mail van came in at four and the driver had a letter for me and the letter is from Galway and it is from the Keeper of the Rolls and it says that the man from Galway is not Kern. It says the man from Galway is a wolf called Ahern and that he is already in this village and that he has been in it for three days and that he is to hear the whole of it and make a judgment and send it back to Galway by the evening bus."

The shore road was very quiet.

"Then there is no man from Galway coming down that road," I said.

"There is no man from Galway coming down that road." Ahern put the letter in his coat. "There is a man from Galway standing at the top of this pier with a case in his hand and he has been in this village for three days and he has read the whole of it. And there is a thing about the letter that I have to say before the sun is up. It is signed by the Keeper of the Rolls and the Keeper of the Rolls is a man called Kern. And Kern has written a letter that says the man from Galway is Ahern and that the judgment is to be made by Ahern and sent back to Galway by the evening bus." He looked at me. "He has given me the file and the pen and the judgment and the bus and he has not come himself. And there is a reason for that and the reason is not a kind one."

"What reason?"

"Because a man who owns the shore does not come to a village where a safe has been pulled out of a well and a book has been read out loud in a cellar. He sends a letter and a man and a bus and he waits to see what comes back. And if the judgment that comes back is a judgment he likes, he signs it and closes the file and takes his tenth. And if the judgment is a judgment he does not like, he writes another letter and sends another man." Ahern looked at the road. "He has been doing it for thirty six years. He is not going to stop because a woman from Dublin read a book."