Chapter 23: The Healer's Warning

Silas drove us up to Maeve's in his car with Elias in the back seat and the coil of silver wire on the floor between his feet, and nobody said anything for the whole ride.

Maeve was awake. She opened the door before I knocked and looked at the three of us on her porch and stepped back without a word.

We sat down at the kitchen table. Silas put the silver wire on it. I told Maeve about the fence line and the lantern and the wire strung low in the grass, and about the hearing that had been moved to the twenty-ninth.

Maeve listened with her hands folded and her dark eyes going from my face to Elias's and back.

Then she got up and went to the tin box and took out the photograph and put it on the table in front of me.

“You have seen this,” she said. “Look at it again.”

It was the picture of the east field in 1911 with the three children standing in the middle of it. I looked at it for a while, and then I looked at the woman standing behind them at the edge of the frame with her hands on the shoulders of the two girls.

I had not noticed her the first time. She was small and dark and she was wearing a long coat with a high collar and her face was turned a little away from the camera.

“The founders’ wife,” Maeve said. “Her name was Margaret. She came here with the founders in 1891 and she was the only one of them who was not a wolf. She was a human woman who married the founder and she had three children by him and she lived in this territory for forty years.” She tapped the photograph. “And she knew. She knew what her husband had done to the Luna and she kept the records that proved it. That is why the founders’ record went to the Council in 1902. Margaret sent it. She wanted the truth to be somewhere safe before she died.”

“She was human,” I said.

“She was human,” Maeve said. “And the curse does not care. It runs through the founders’ blood and Margaret’s blood together, and it has been coming down through her children and her children’s children for eighty-five years, and there is a thing about it that I have not told you.”

She sat down.

“The curse does not only take a wolf,” she said. “It takes a wolf of the founders’ line. Your mother’s line is the founders’ line through Margaret. My mother’s line is the founders’ line through Margaret. That means the curse can fall on any child of this family, in any generation, wolf or human, boy or girl.” She looked at me. “Owen was not the first in this generation. He was the second. The first was a cousin of ours who died in 1948, and the curse passed to Owen when he was born, and it stayed with him until the night he died. And when it left him, it went to Elias, because Elias was in the field and the curse took the nearest wolf it could find.”

I sat very still.

“Then when it leaves Elias,” I said, “it will go to the nearest wolf again.”

“It will go to whoever is standing in the circle,” Maeve said. “That is what the old Alpha said. The Luna’s blood has to take it. But I have been thinking about it since you came up the hill with the stones, and there is a thing I have been afraid of that I have not said out loud.”

“Say it.”

“If you stand in the circle and claim the pack and take the curse, the curse does not break,” Maeve said. “It moves. It goes onto you, and then it goes onto your children, and it goes onto their children after them, and the line goes on and the curse goes on and nobody in this family is ever free of it.” She looked at me. “The founders’ page says the curse will not end until the Luna comes home. It does not say that the Luna comes home and everything is well. It says the curse will not end. That could mean it ends. That could mean it stays.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

“Then what do we do?” I said. “If I stand in the circle and take the curse, it comes to me and then it comes to my children. If I do not stand in the circle, it stays with Elias and Dale marries me in October and the Council gets the land. Either way, someone in this room loses.”

“There is a third way,” Silas said.

We all looked at him.

“The Council of Alphas meets on the tenth of October,” he said. “I have been reading the code for eleven days and there is a provision in it that has not been used in this territory since 1902. It is called a claim of blood. It is a hearing in front of the full Council, and it requires three things. A witness who can swear to a wrong done to a pack. A stone or an object that can prove the wrong. And a wolf of the wronged bloodline who will stand in front of the Alphas and claim what was taken.” He looked at me. “If you do that, the Council does not rule on the curse. It rules on the land. And if the land is returned to the old pack, the curse has nothing to hold it here. It is not moved onto you. It is ended.”

“And the trial claim?” I said.

“A claim of blood outranks a trial mate-claim,” Silas said. “If the Council rules in your favor, the claim is void and Dale has no standing to marry you and no standing to the east field. But it has to be heard by the full Council, and the full Council only meets in Boise, and the next meeting is on the tenth of October, which is twelve days after the new moon.”

“Then it is too late,” June said. “The new moon is on the twenty-eighth and the claim hearing is on the twenty-ninth and the Council does not meet until the tenth.”

“It is not too late if we can hold the curse where it is until the tenth,” Silas said. “The stones in Mrs. Renn’s cupboard are enough to anchor it. If the new moon comes and the stones are in the circle and Elias is there, the curse stays where it is and he changes and he comes back and nothing worse happens. It is not broken but it is held. And while it is held, we go to Boise and we make the claim of blood, and we bring Clara Renn and her mother’s testimony and the photograph and the page from the founders’ record, and we bring the Alphas a thing they cannot ignore.”

Maeve sat back in her chair.

“The Council has had the founders’ record for eighty-five years,” she said. “They have never let it out of the archive. What makes you think they will let it into a hearing?”

“Because I have been the Council’s investigator for nineteen years,” Silas said, “and I know where the archive keeps its copies, and I know who has the keys, and I know that there is one archivist in Boise who has been waiting his whole life for someone to ask him the right question.” He looked at me. “It is a chance, warden. It is not a good chance. But it is a chance, and it is better than a circle and a curse and a wedding in October.”

I looked at the photograph on the table and at the old woman in the long coat with her face turned away.

“Maeve,” I said. “The Luna. The one who did not drown. What happened to her?”

Maeve was quiet for a moment.

“My mother never found her,” she said. “But I have thought about it for fifty years, and there is a thing in the letters that I did not understand until tonight.” She picked up the oldest letter and held it out. “This one was written in 1902 by the Council clerk to Everett, the pack’s record-keeper. It says that the Council has received the founders’ record from Margaret and that the Council has decided the record will be sealed because it contains a claim that cannot be proven. And then there is a line at the bottom, in the clerk’s own hand, that is not part of the official letter.” She put her finger on it. “It says the Luna was seen in Walla Walla in the spring of 1891, alive and well, and that she was traveling east with a man who was not her mate.”

I sat up straight.

“Walla Walla,” I said. “That is where Clara Renn’s mother sent her.”

“That is where Clara Renn’s mother sent her,” Maeve said. “And that is where the Luna went. She went east, and she had a daughter, and the daughter had a daughter, and somewhere in this territory there is a family that does not know what it is.” She looked at me. “I have been thinking about the third twin. The one in the photograph. The one who was adopted by the Council.”

“What about her?”

“What if she was not adopted by the Council?” Maeve said. “What if she was taken by the Council, and what if the Council has been keeping her line in Boise for eighty-five years, and what if the wolf of the Luna’s blood is not in this territory at all?” She looked at me. “What if it is in Boise, and the Council knows it, and that is why they have never let anyone see the record?”

The lamp hissed. Outside, the wind came up and moved the trees.

“Then we are not looking for a stone,” I said. “We are looking for a person.”

“We are looking for a person,” Maeve said. “And we have twelve days before the new moon and fourteen before the claim hearing and one Council investigator who knows where the archive keeps its keys.” She looked at Silas. “Mr. Silas. How fast can you get to Boise?”