Chapter 137: The Family Reunion

The Council left at dawn and the whole of the east field emptied out and the whole of the territory went home to sleep.

I did not sleep. I sat in the kitchen of the pack house with the ledger and the cloak on the back of the chair and a cup of tea that had gone cold in front of me.

And then June came in.

“Wren,” she said. “There is a wolf in the yard. She is old and she has a box and she says she is your aunt.”

I stood up.

“Which aunt?”

“She says her name is Ruth and she is from the Riverside pack and she has been standing in the yard since four o’clock and she would not come in until the Council had gone.” June put her hand on the door. “And Wren. There is a second wolf with her. She is older and she has a cane and she says she is from Boise and she has been waiting for sixty years.”

I went out into the yard.

The two of them were standing by the fence with a box between them and they were old and they were small and they had the same chin.

“Alpha,” the first one said. “I am Ruth of the Riverside pack and this is my sister Ada of the Boise pack and we have been waiting since 1896 to meet the fourth one.”

I stopped.

“The fourth one,” I said.

“The fourth daughter,” Ruth said. “There were four and one of them died in 1896 and one of them went to Boise and one of them went to the mountains and one of them stayed in Walla Walla. And you are the fifth generation and you are the one who came home.” She put her hand out. “We are your aunts. Both of us. We are the two of the four daughters who are still alive.”

I stood in the yard.

“I have met Ruth of the Riverside pack,” I said. “And I have met Ruth of Walla Walla and Ruth of Boise and the whole of the line. But nobody told me there were two of you in the same place.”

“Nobody knew,” Ada of Boise said. “I have been in Boise for sixty years and I have been the Boise line and I have never met my sister until last week.” She put her hand on the fence. “The Council adopted me in 1896 when I was two years old and they gave me a name and a house and a schooling and they never told me what I was. And then in 1954 a Council clerk named Silas came to my house and told me the whole of it and I have been keeping the box ever since.”

I looked at the box.

“What is in it?”

“The fourth daughter’s papers,” Ada of Boise said. “Her letters and her diary and the ring and the photograph and the whole of it. It has been in my house for twenty-five years and I have never opened it.” She put her hand on the lid. “And there is a thing in it that you should see. About the third twin. About the one who was adopted by the Council.”

I put my hand on the box.

“The third twin,” I said.

“The third twin,” Ada of Boise said. “The one in the photograph. The one who was born in 1930 and was supposed to have died and was taken to Boise and raised by the Renns.” She looked at me. “Her name was Ruth and she was my mother and she did not die. She lived until 1971 and she was the one who went to the churchyard in Walla Walla in 1968 and told the cursed wolf to run east.”

I sat down on the step.

“Your mother,” I said.

“My mother,” Ada of Boise said. “And there is a thing about her that nobody has told you. She was not only the third twin. She was the one who went to the Council in 1954 and told them the Luna was alive and the Council put her in a room and told her to be quiet.” She put her hand on the box. “And she was quiet. For seventeen years. And then in 1968 she wrote a letter to the Alphas and the Alphas never answered and she went to Walla Walla and she found the cursed wolf and she told him to run east.”

I looked at the box.

“And then she died,” I said.

“And then she died,” Ada of Boise said. “In 1971. And she was forty-one years old and she had been trying to break the curse since she was nineteen and she never saw it broken.”

I opened the box.

There was a diary in it and a ring and a photograph and a letter and a small piece of stone.

And there was a page at the bottom in a hand I knew.

It was my mother’s hand and it was dated 1968 and it was a letter.

It said: Ada. I am writing to you because I am going to Walla Walla tomorrow and I am going to find the cursed wolf and I am going to ask him to help me. I have three children. Owen is twelve and Wren is fifteen and June is eleven. I have not told them what they are. I am afraid to tell them. I am afraid they will go to the Alphas and the Council will take them. And I am afraid that if I do not tell them the curse will take them the way it took the boy in 1948. I am going to Walla Walla and I am going to find the cursed wolf and I am going to ask him what I should do. If I do not come back, tell Wren. Tell her I am sorry. Tell her I did what I could.

I put the letter down.

“She wrote to you,” I said.

“She wrote to me,” Ada of Boise said. “And she came back from Walla Walla and she wrote to me again and she said the cursed wolf had told her to tell her daughter and she was not going to do it.” She put her hand on the box. “And she did not do it. And she died in 1975 with the whole of it in her hands.”

I sat on the step with the letter in my hand.

And then Ruth of the Riverside pack came and sat down beside me.

“Alpha,” she said. “There is a thing we have to tell you. About the Council. About the rebuilding. About the seat.”

“I have already said no to the seat,” I said.

“We know,” Ruth said. “And we are not here to ask you to take it.” She put her hand on my arm. “We are here to tell you that the Council has voted to open the register and the register is going to name every claim and every Luna. And there is a thing in the register that the Council has never read. It is a page at the back and it is in the founders’ hand and it is dated 1891.”

“What does it say?”

Ruth put her hand in her coat and took out a paper.

“It says the founders made a second bargain,” she said. “And the second bargain is the one the Council has been keeping for eighty-five years.”

I stood up.

“What second bargain?”

Ruth looked at me.

“The founders made a bargain with the Council,” she said. “In 1891. And the bargain was that the Council would keep the land and the founders would keep the curse. And the Council has been keeping the land and the founders have been keeping the curse and the whole of it has been in the register since 1891.” She put the paper in my hand. “And there is a thing at the bottom of the page. It is in the founders’ hand and it says the bargain is void if the Luna comes home.”

I held the paper.

“The Luna has come home,” I said.

“The Luna has come home,” Ruth said. “And the second bargain is void and the whole of it is going to come out at the Council hearing in Boise in a month.”

And then June came out of the pack house with her face white.

“Wren,” she said. “There is a wolf at the gate. He is the Alpha of the Snoqualmie pack and he has four hundred wolves and he says he wants to talk about the alliance.”

I stood in the yard.

“Then let him in,” I said.