Chapter 104: The Two Bloodlines

The chamber had been cleared and the tables had been moved and the forty chairs had been pushed back against the wall and the whole of the room was empty except for the shaft of light coming down through the skylight and the table in the middle of it.

The chief clerk was in a chair in the corner with two Riverside wolves on either side of him and his folder on the floor at his feet.

The thirty-three Alphas sat in a half circle at the north end of the room and Ada Kessler sat in the middle of them in her chair with a blanket over her knees.

Harlan was there. He had come in an hour ago with Maeve and he was sitting at the end of the row with his hat on his knees and his face gray and he did not look like a wolf who had been carried in a truck for four hours.

I stood in the shaft of light with the crates and the stones and the photograph on the table in front of me.

"Alphas," Ada Kessler said. "This chamber has voted to hear the claim of blood. The claim is made by Wren Halloran, Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack, on behalf of the Luna's line and the four hundred and six Lunas named in the crates before this chamber. The Alphas will hear the claim and the evidence and the witnesses and then the Alphas will rule."

She brought her stick down on the floor.

"The Beta will speak."

I put my hands on the table.

"Alphas," I said. "I have been told that the curse is a story and the Luna is a story and the founders are a story. And I have been told that by wolves who have been telling the same story for eighty-five years and have been taking land and money with it." I looked at the thirty-three Alphas. "So I am not going to tell you a story. I am going to tell you what is in these crates and what is in the register and what is in the ground under the east field of the Palouse territory."

I opened the first crate.

"Four hundred and six trial claims," I said. "Every one of them is a Luna who was claimed by the Council under the trial provision and every one of them was filed and stamped and registered and not one of them was ever signed by the Luna herself. There are fourteen names in the register that are marked as dead. There are eleven packs in eleven territories that lost their land to these claims. And there is one claim in this crate that has my mother's name on it."

I put the page on the table.

"Mary Hale," I said. "Filed in 1954. Claimant Erik Renn. Parcel: the mill land. My mother paid rent on that land for fourteen years and she never knew it was hers."

The chamber was silent.

"The Council has been taking land from Lunas with forged claims since 1902," I said. "And the founders started it in 1891 when they drowned the Luna of the old pack in a pond and forged the boundary deed and buried the heart of the territory under a vault. And the whole of it is in the register in the vault and the register is in this room."

I turned and looked at the chief clerk.

"The chief clerk has been signing the claims for forty years," I said. "And he has been cutting the pages out of the Alphas' register so that nobody would ever know which Councilman ordered the death of my brother."

The chief clerk looked at the floor.

And then Ada Kessler stood up.

"Beta," she said. "There is a thing this chamber has to know before it rules on the curse. We have heard the founders' record and the old Alpha's page and the four daughters and the bargain. And there is a thing that none of it explains." She put her hand on the table. "The founders' page says two bloodlines, one claim, no cure. But the old Alpha's page says the Luna carries the cure and the Luna is the fourth daughter's line and the fourth daughter's line is yours. So the curse has one bloodline. And yet the wolf in the trees carried the curse and the wolf in the trees is the founders' line."

The chamber was quiet.

"The curse is on two bloodlines," Ada Kessler said. "It is on the founders' line through the wolf and it is on the Luna's line through you. And there is no claim in this chamber that can break a curse that is on two bloodlines with one Luna."

I stood in the shaft of light.

"Then it is not one Luna," I said.

"It is one Luna and one wolf," Ada Kessler said. "The Luna and the cursed wolf. The two bloodlines. They have to stand in the circle together and neither of them can do it alone." She looked at me. "You and Elias. Not you and Hannah and Arthur and Ruth and Clara. You and Elias. The two bloodlines in one circle."

I sat down on the chair.

"Then the three Lunas and the five Lunas and the whole of it is a story," I said.

"The three Lunas are the line," Ada Kessler said. "They are the witnesses and the blood and the proof that the Luna's line is alive. But the cure is the two bloodlines made one. It is the founders' line and the Luna's line standing in the circle and claiming the land together." She put her hand on the table. "And there is only one wolf in this territory who is both."

I turned around and looked at Elias.

He was standing at the back of the chamber with his coat over his arm and his wheat-blond hair in his eyes and his amber eyes steady on mine.

"You," I said.

"Me," he said.

"You are the founders' line and the Luna's line. Your father was the founders and your mother was the Luna's daughter and you are both."

"I am both."

I stood up.

"Then the cure is not the three Lunas," I said. "It is you and me."

"It is you and me," Elias said. "The Luna and the cursed wolf. In the circle. At the full moon. Claiming the land together."

The chamber was silent.

And then Ada Kessler brought her stick down on the floor.

"Then this chamber rules," she said. "The claim of blood is granted. The boundary deed of 1891 is void. The four hundred and six claims in the crates are void. The land of the Palouse territory belongs to the Luna's line and the founders' line and the Luna's line and the founders' line are standing in this room." She looked at the thirty-three Alphas. "And the curse is to be broken at the full moon in the circle at the Palouse territory by the Luna and the cursed wolf and the whole of the pack as witness."

The chamber broke into noise.

And then the chief clerk stood up.

"The full moon is in twenty-four days," he said. "And before the full moon there is a thing this Council has to do. It has to vote on the removal of the Alphas who sat on the tribunal and it has to vote on the motion to arrest the Beta and it has to vote on the motion to declare the Palouse territory rogue." He looked at the thirty-three Alphas. "I have been the chief clerk for forty years and I have one thing left to do. I am going to call for that vote tonight."

The chamber went silent.

Ada Kessler looked at him.

"You have been arrested," she said.

"I have not been tried," the chief clerk said. "And until I am tried I am still the chief clerk and I can still call a vote." He looked at the thirty-three Alphas. "And there are thirty-three Alphas in this room who have been signing my paper for forty years and who know that if the register is opened they are all going to answer for it."

The chamber was quiet.

And then one of the thirty-three Alphas stood up.

He was old and he had gray hair and he had a face I did not know.

"I am the Alpha of the Coeur d'Alene pack," he said. "And I have been signing the Council's paper for thirty years and I have never read a page of it." He looked at the chief clerk. "Call your vote. I am going to vote against you."