Chapter 91: The Challenger's Claim

The sun came up over the sea at half past five and the whole village was still on the shore road.

Ahern stood at the top of the pier with his case and the letter from Galway and the whole of it in his hands, and he said a thing I had not expected and that I have thought about since.

“There is a thing about the judgment that I am going to say before the co-op and then I am going to go up to the hall and write it,” he said. “I have the file and I have the pen and I have the book and the ring and the false charter and the letters of my father and the minutes of the cooper and the book of the woman who took children out of this village. And there is a thing about all of it that no one in this village has said out loud since 1961.” He put his hand on the case. “The seat was taken by force in 1961 and the co-op voted to set aside the lease eleven days before the fire and the Alpha was burned in her own house and the woman who burned her took the seat and there was no vote and there has never been a vote. The whole of it is a lie and the whole of it is in the file. But a judgment is not a thing that a man writes in a morning. A judgment is a thing that a co-op accepts. And a co-op that has been lied to for thirty six years is not going to accept a judgment that is written by a man from Galway and read out on a pier at six in the morning.”

The village stirred.

“Then what does the co-op accept?” Tom said.

“The co-op accepts a thing that it has done itself,” Ahern said. “A vote. In the hall. With the claimants in front of it and the whole of it read out and the whole of the file on the table.” He looked at the hall on the hill. “There is a thing in the second charter that I have read and that the co-op has not heard. If the seat is vacant and there is no wolf of the first blood in the territory who can claim it, the co-op may set aside the seat and hold a vote and the wolf who receives the vote is the Alpha until the first blood returns. And the seat is vacant. And the woman who is in that chair is not the Alpha and has not been the Alpha since she resigned it in writing two nights ago.”

“And the first blood?” Hannah said.

“The first blood is in Killybegs and she is on a boat and she will be in this village by eight o’clock if the wind holds.” Ahern put his hand on the case. “And there is a thing about the first blood that I have to say and that the co-op is going to hear. A wolf who has never been in a territory and who has never shifted and who has never been in a pack is not a thing that a co-op can vote for on a morning. She can claim the seat. She cannot hold it. Not yet. Not until she has been in this village and learned what she is and stood on this headland and run with the pack.”

The shore road was very quiet.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” I said. “And I am going to say it in front of the whole co-op and then I am going to go up to the hall and I am not going to say another word until the vote. My sister made a claim in March and the claim was never answered and the seat was never confirmed and she is the Alpha of this pack. Not me. Not the woman on the headland. My sister. And she is in the north and she has been in the north since April and she is going to come down that shore road and she is going to make her claim again in front of the co-op and the enforcer and the whole of it is going to be read out.” I looked at the whole village. “But there is a thing about the morning that Ahern has just said and that I have been thinking about since the moon went down. A co-op cannot vote for a wolf who is not in front of it. And there is a wolf in front of it. There is me. I have been in this village for a week and I have pulled a safe out of a well and I have read a book in a cellar and I have run on that shore with the whole pack behind me and I have stood on that headland and I have not run. And I am the daughter of Maeve’s daughter and I hold the weight of forty one and I am not a claimant of the first blood.”

The whole co-op looked at me.

“Then what are you?” Arthur said.

“I am a wolf of this pack and I have sworn the oath in a garden and the whole of you said aye.” I put my hand in my coat and took out the weight and put it on the top of the pier. “And there is a thing in the second charter that I read last night and that Ahern has just said out loud. If the seat is vacant and there is no wolf of the first blood in the territory who can claim it, the co-op may set aside the seat and hold a vote and the wolf who receives the vote is the Alpha until the first blood returns. And I am asking the co-op to vote. Not on a claim. On a wolf. On me.”

The whole shore road was silent. And then Cormac said, from the back of the crowd, “She cannot ask for a vote. Not on herself.”

He came up the road with his coat open and his hair wet from the sea and his face white and Daniel Flannery behind him with his fair hair and his broad face and a woman in a grey coat.

The woman was tall and she had gold hair going grey at the temples and she had my sister’s face and she was holding onto Daniel Flannery’s arm like a woman who had been on a boat all night and who had never been on a boat before.

“This is Mary,” Cormac said. “She is the heir of Maeve and she is the daughter of Siobhan and she is the first blood. And she has been on the Star of the Sea since half past ten and she has been sick twice and she has not shifted and she does not know what she is and she is standing on this pier at six in the morning because I told her that her mother was in the north and that her sister was a claimant and that the whole of it was a lie.” He looked at me. “And there is a thing about the vote that you are asking for and that I have to say before the whole co-op. You cannot ask for a vote on yourself. But I can ask for one on you. I am the son of the Beta and the grandson of Fionn and I am a wolf of the blood of this pack and I have signed a statement and I have stood in a hall and said the thing that no one else would say. And I am asking the co-op to vote on the woman from Dublin.”

The whole shore road was silent.

“Why?” I said.

Cormac looked at me.

“Because you are the only wolf in this village who has been in it for a week and has not asked for a thing,” he said. “And because my father was wrong on that headland last night and I am not going to be wrong in the same way.”