Chapter 168: A New Beginning

The mill was rebuilt by the end of October.

It took four hundred wolves three weeks and a wagon of lumber from Walla Walla and a whole of a keg of cider that Mrs. Pike brought up from her cellar and did not share until the roof was on.

The roof was tin and it was new and it did not leak. The walls were stone and they were the old walls and the whole of them had been cleaned and repointed and the whole of them were straight. The door was new and it was oak and it had a latch that worked. The grain chute was gone and the loft was gone and the whole of it was a house.

And at the back of it there was a room.

It had a door that closed and a window that opened and a bed and a shelf and a lamp. It had a chair by the window and a rug on the floor and a fire in the stove. It had a crib in the corner with a blanket over it and a wooden horse that Arthur Renn had carved out of a fence post.

Elias had built the whole of it himself.

I stood in the doorway on the first morning and looked at it and did not say anything.

“It is not much,” he said.

“It is the whole of it,” I said.

He came and stood beside me.

“The whole of it is the whole of it,” he said. “And the whole of it is warm and the whole of it has a door that closes and the whole of it is ours.”

I put my head on his shoulder.

“And the whole of it is going to have a baby in it in the spring,” I said.

“And the whole of it is going to have a baby in it in the spring,” he said.

The wheat came up.

It came up green in the west line and the east field and the whole of the north field and the whole of it was the whole of the territory and the whole of it was the whole of the pack.

The co-op was rebuilt by the end of November and the loading dock was new and the office was new and the whole of the ledger was copied out by June into a new book with a new cover.

And the mill was not the mill any more. It was the keeper's house and the whole of the line came to it every full moon and the whole of it stood in the circle and the whole of it let go.

And the whole of it was quiet.

On the first quiet morning in December I sat in the chair by the window with the blanket over my knees and looked out at the wheat.

Elias was at the table with the register of the circle and a pencil and he was writing in it. He wrote in it every day and the whole of it was the record of the line and the whole of it was going to be kept for the next keeper and the next and the next.

“What are you writing?” I said.

“The whole of it,” he said. “The whole of the month and the whole of the moon and the whole of the line. And there is a page at the back that I am going to leave for the next keeper.”

“What does it say?”

“It says the whole of it is not a curse and the whole of it is not a bargain and the whole of it is a grief. And it says the whole of it is going to be let go every full moon and the whole of it is going to be held by the keeper and the Luna together.”

I sat in the chair.

“And the child?” I said.

“The child is going to be the next keeper,” Elias said. “And the child is going to read the page and the child is going to know what it is before it is old enough to be afraid.”

The wheat moved in the wind.

And then a wolf came up the mill road.

It was June and she had a paper in her hand and her face was white and she was out of breath.

“Wren,” she said. “There is a thing I have to tell you.”

I stood up.

“What thing?” I said.

“The Council has not given up,” June said. “The whole of the Council has voted and the whole of the east has voted and the whole of it has been answered for. But there is a thing in the register that the whole of the Council did not read.” She put the paper on the table. “It is a page at the back and it is in the founders' hand and it is dated 1891.”

I picked it up.

“What does it say?” I said.

“It says the founders made a third bargain,” June said. “And the third bargain is the one the whole of it has been keeping for eighty-five years.”

I sat down.

“What third bargain?” I said.

“The founders made a bargain with the Council and the Council made a bargain with the east and the whole of it was answered for at the full moon,” June said. “But the founders made a third bargain with the ground. And the third bargain is this. The line holds the whole of it and the ground holds the line and the whole of it is going to be answered for every hundred years.”

The room was quiet.

“Every hundred years,” I said.

“Every hundred years,” June said. “The whole of the line is going to stand in the circle and let go and the whole of it is going to be answered for. And the next hundred years is in 2079.”

I sat in the chair.

“Then the whole of it is not finished,” I said.

“The whole of it is not finished,” June said. “And there is a thing at the bottom of the page. It is in the founders' hand and it says the third bargain is void if the line is whole.”

I looked at the page.

“The line is whole,” I said.

“The line is whole,” June said. “And the whole of it is void.”

And then a wolf came up the mill road.

It was the younger Corrigan boy and he had a wire in his hand and his face was white.

“Alpha,” he said. “The wire is from Boise. The Council has received a petition. It is from a wolf who says he is the founder's heir and he says the whole of the land is his.”

I stood up.

“The founder's heir,” I said. “The founder's line is dead.”

“The founder's line is not dead,” the boy said. “The petition says there is a wolf in the east who is the founder's great-grandson and he has a deed and he has a claim and he is coming to the territory at the next full moon.”

I stood in the room.

“Then the whole of it is not finished,” I said.

“The whole of it is not finished,” the boy said.

And then a wolf came up the mill road.

It was old and he had a gray beard and a hat and he was leaning on a stick and he was not a wolf of the east and he was not a wolf of the Council.

He stopped in the mill yard and looked at the house and then at me.

“Alpha,” he said. “I am the founder's heir and I have come to claim the whole of it.”

I stood in the doorway.

“What is your name?” I said.

He looked at me for a long moment.

“My name is Daniel,” he said. “And I am your father.”

I stood in the doorway and the whole of the room went dark.