Chapter 135: My Alpha Wolf

I went up to the circle at dusk with the whole of the pack behind me and the whole of the Luna's line and the whole of the founders' line and the eleven Alphas of the north and the keeper.

The Council was on the ridge road and they were not moving. They had stopped at the gap and they had put up their tents and they were waiting for the moon.

The circle was lit. It had been lit since the night the heart and the piece came together and it had not gone out and the trees were green and the moss was green and the two stones in the round room were warm.

I went down the stair and into the round room and Ada of the north was at the table with the map and the chest and the whole of it.

“Alpha,” she said.

“Keeper,” I said.

She almost smiled.

“You have come for the words,” she said.

“I have come for the words.”

She put her hand on the table.

“The words are not a spell,” she said. “They are a claim. The Luna stands in the middle of the circle with the keeper and the whole of the pack around her and she speaks the words of the old tongue and the land answers. And the words are not a thing you learn. They are a thing you are.” She looked at me. “You have been speaking them since the calf in the combine yard. Every time you stood in front of a wolf and told the truth, you were speaking them. Every time you walked the fence line and put your hand on a stone, you were speaking them.” She put her hand on my chest. “The words are in you. You do not need me to teach you.”

I stood in the round room.

“Then what do I do?” I said.

“You stand in the circle at the full moon and you speak and the land answers.” She put her hand on the table. “And there is a thing about the land that nobody has told you. The land does not answer to a wolf who is afraid. It answers to a wolf who has accepted what she is.”

I looked at her.

“I have been afraid since the calf in the combine yard,” I said.

“I know,” Ada of the north said. “And you have kept walking. And now you have to stop walking and stand.”

She went to the chest and opened it and took out a thing and put it on the table.

It was a cloak. It was gray and it was old and it had a mark on it and the mark was the circle with two lines.

“This is the Luna’s cloak,” she said. “It has been in this room since 1891 and it has been waiting for the Luna to come and put it on.”

I picked it up.

It was warm.

I put it on.

And then the whole of the round room lit up and the whole of the stair lit up and the whole of the circle above us lit up and the light went out of the ground and into the trees and across the east field and up the ridge road.

And I felt my wolf.

She was not pressing at my ribs. She was not down on her belly. She was standing up in my chest with her head up and her ears forward and she was the whole of me.

“There she is,” Ada of the north said.

I went up the stair.

The whole of the clearing was lit and the whole of the pack was standing around the circle and the whole of the Luna’s line was standing behind them and the eleven Alphas of the north were standing at the edge of the trees and the keeper was standing at the top of the stair.

Elias came to me.

“Wren,” he said.

“Elias,” I said.

“You are wearing the cloak.”

“I am wearing the cloak.”

He put his hand on my face.

“I have been waiting for this since 1968,” he said. “I have been waiting for the night when the Luna comes home and puts on the cloak and stands in the circle.”

I put my hand over his.

“And now it is here,” I said.

And then the whole of the clearing went dark.

The light went out of the ground and out of the trees and out of the stones and the whole of the circle was dark and the whole of the pack turned and looked at the ridge.

There was a light on the ridge road.

It was not a lantern and it was not a fire. It was forty lights in a line and they were coming down the ridge road and they were the whole of the Council of Alphas.

And in front of them there was a wolf on a horse with a white flag.

“Alpha,” the herald called. “The full Council of Alphas has come. The hearing will be held in this circle at the full moon.”

I stood in the circle with the cloak on my shoulders.

“Then let them come,” I said.

The forty Alphas came down the ridge road and into the east field and they stopped at the wall and they got off their horses and they walked into the trees and they stood at the edge of the clearing.

And in front of them there was a wolf I did not know.

He was old and he was tall and he had white hair and a face like a closed door and he was wearing a gray coat and he had a staff in his hand.

“Alpha,” he said. “I am the Alpha of the Alphas. I am the speaker of the full Council and I have come to hear the claim of blood and the blood debt and the whole of it.” He put his staff on the ground. “And I am going to hear it in this circle at the full moon and I am going to give a judgment that the whole of the territory will live with.”

I stood in the circle.

“Then sit down,” I said. “And hear it.”

The moon came up at eight o’clock.

It was full and it was white and it came up over the ridge and it went into the circle and the whole of the circle was lit and the whole of the pack was in the trees and the whole of the Council was at the edge of the clearing and the whole of the line was standing around me.

And then I spoke.

I spoke the words of the old tongue and I did not know what they meant and I did not need to know. I spoke them the way Ruth had written them in 1932 and the way Ada of the north had spoken them in 1897 and the way the Luna had spoken them in 1891.

And the land answered.

It came up out of the ground. It came up through the soles of my boots and into my legs and into my chest and into my throat and it went out of me and into the circle and into the stones and into the trees and into the whole of the territory.

And the whole of the pack changed.

Two hundred wolves in the circle and the whole of them were on four legs and the whole of them were looking at me.

And the curse came out.

It came out of the whole of the pack at once. It came out of the two hundred wolves and out of the ground and out of the trees and it went up into the air and it was a gray thing and it was not a wolf and it was not a man and it was the whole of the bargain the founders had made in 1897.

It went up and it hung in the air and the whole of the circle was looking at it.

And then it came down.

It came down into the circle and it went into the ground and the ground took it and the ground held it and the whole of the circle was silent.

And then the land answered.

It came up out of the ground and it went into the whole of the pack and it was not the curse. It was the land. It was the wheat and the water and the trees and the stones and the whole of the territory and it went into the two hundred wolves and into the whole of the line and into the keeper and into me.

And I was the Alpha.

The whole of the territory was mine and the whole of the pack was mine and the whole of the land was mine and I could feel every wolf in it and every tree in it and every stone in it.

And then the light went out.

The circle was dark.

And then the Alpha of the Alphas stood up and put his staff on the ground and said, “The curse is broken. The land is the pack’s. And the blood debt is still owed.”