Chapter 116: The Family Meeting

I called the family meeting in the pack house kitchen at noon.

I did not call it a family meeting out loud. I told June to get Maeve and Clara Renn and Arthur Renn and Hannah and Ruth and Ada Kessler and the Coeur d'Alene Alpha and to shut the kitchen door and not to let anyone else in.

They came. They sat down around the long table with the tea and the bread and the cold pie from the night before and they looked at me.

I stood at the head of the table.

"There is a thing I have been keeping back," I said. "And I have been keeping it back because I did not know what it meant and because every time I looked at it I found another thing in it." I put my hand on the table. "It is my mother's papers. The box under the bed. The ledger and the letters and the page in her hand. And there is a thing in that box that I have not read."

I put the box on the table and opened it.

There was a bundle of papers tied with string at the bottom of it and I had known it was there since I was twelve and I had never opened it. It was my mother's hand and it was tied with a blue hair ribbon and it was dated 1970.

"This is the bundle my mother tied up the year she changed her name," I said. "She wrote on the outside of it: for my daughters when they are old enough."

June put her hand over her mouth.

"And I did not open it," I said. "Not when I was nineteen and she died. Not when I was twenty-two. Not when I found the box in June. Because I was afraid of what was in it." I looked at the bundle. "And now I am the Alpha and the whole of the pack is carrying the curse and the eleven Alphas of the north have declared us rogue and the full moon is in twenty days. And I am not going to lead this pack into a circle with a thing in my mother's box that I have not read."

I untied the string.

There were three papers in the bundle.

The first was a letter in my mother's hand and it was dated the twelfth of March, 1970.

It said: I am writing this on my fortieth birthday. I have changed my name this month to Mary Hale and I have done it because the Council came to the co-op in January and asked about the Halloran family and I did not want them to find my children in the register. I have three children. Owen is fourteen and Wren is fifteen and June is eleven. I have not told them what they are and I am not going to tell them until they are old enough to keep it.

The second paper was a page from a journal and it was in a hand I did not know and it was dated 1932 and it was signed Ruth.

It was the third Ruth. The one who came home in 1932.

The third paper was a letter from the Luna.

It was old and it was brown and it was written in a hand that was small and close and it was dated 1892 and it was signed Ilse.

I read it out loud.

I am writing this in a house in Walla Walla and I am going to give it to my daughter and I am going to ask her to keep it and to give it to her daughter and to keep it going down the line until the line comes home. The founders took the territory and drowned me in the pond and my mate went into the circle and made a bargain with the moon and the bargain was this. The founders would have the land but never the heart of it. The curse would go to my line in every generation. And the curse would not end until my line came home and claimed the land in public at the full moon.

I know what public means. It means the whole of the pack and the whole of the Council and the whole of the territory as witness. It means no hiding and no secrets and no trees. It means standing in the circle in the daylight with the moon in the sky and the whole of it in front of everyone.

And I know what the Council will do. The Council will never allow it. The Council will send men and orders and companies and it will say the claim is a fraud and the Luna is a rogue and the circle is not there. And the line will have to stand in the circle anyway and it will have to stand in it with the whole of the territory watching and it will have to stand in it with the Council against it.

That is the bargain. The Luna comes home and the Council comes against her and the pack stands in the circle and the whole of it happens in the open.

I read it out loud and I put it down on the table.

The kitchen was quiet.

"She knew," Clara Renn said. "She knew the Council would never allow it and she said it in 1892."

"She knew," I said. "And she wrote it down and she gave it to her daughter and her daughter gave it to her daughter and it came down to me and it has been in a box under my mother's bed for four years."

Maeve put her hand on the table.

"Wren," she said. "There is a thing in that letter that you have not looked at. It says the whole of the pack and the whole of the Council and the whole of the territory as witness. It does not say the pack stands in the circle and the Council stands outside. It says the whole of it."

I looked at her.

"The eleven Alphas of the north," I said.

"The eleven Alphas of the north," Maeve said. "And every wolf in the Council and every pack in the territory. The letter says the claim has to be made in the open with the whole of it watching. And the whole of it means the eleven."

I sat down at the table.

"Then we cannot win this by beating them," I said. "We cannot win it by fighting a company or holding a field or standing at a wall with two hundred wolves. We have to win it in the circle with the eleven Alphas of the north standing there and watching and having nothing to say."

"That is the bargain," Maeve said.

And then the kitchen door opened and June came in with a paper in her hand.

"Wren," she said. "There is a wire from Boise. The eleven Alphas of the north have called a meeting of the full Council in this territory. They are coming here. In three days. They are going to hold a hearing in the pack square and they are going to rule on the rogue declaration and the curse and the whole of it."

The kitchen was silent.

"Three days," I said.

"Three days," June said. "And Wren. There is a thing at the bottom of the wire. It says the hearing will be held at the full moon."

I stood up.

"The full moon is in twenty days," I said.

"The full moon is in twenty days and the eleven Alphas of the north have called a hearing for the full moon and they have called it in this territory and in this square." June put the wire on the table. "They are coming here. The whole of the Council of Alphas is coming here."

I looked at the wire.

"Then the whole of it is going to happen in the open," I said.

And then Maeve stood up.

"Wren," she said. "There is a thing I have not told you. About the journal. About the Luna's journal."

"What thing?"

"The Luna kept a journal," Maeve said. "It is not the letter. It is the journal. She kept it from 1891 to 1896 and she wrote in it every day and it is the only record of what the bargain was and what the circle does and what the pack has to do." She put her hand on the table. "And it is not in this territory. It is in the Kessler pack. It has been in the Kessler pack since 1896 and my mother told me about it when I was nineteen."

I turned around.

"Then we go to the Kessler pack," I said.

"We do not have to go to the Kessler pack," Ada Kessler said.

Everybody looked at her.

"I have it," Ada Kessler said. "It has been in my house since 1896 and it has been in a trunk under my bed since 1954 and I have never read it." She put her hand on the table. "I have been afraid to read it."

The kitchen was quiet.

"Then we read it," I said. "Tonight."

The door opened and Clara Renn's niece came in with her face white.

"Alpha," she said. "There is a wolf in the yard. He came down the co-op road on foot and he is not one of ours and he says he has come from the north."

"What does he want?"

"He says he wants to talk to the Luna." She swallowed. "And Alpha, he says his name is Rourke."