Chapter 90: The Luna's Name

The circle was green.

I came over the wall and through the trees and stopped at the edge of the clearing and could not move.

The dead trees were not dead. The branches that had been black were green and the needles that had been on the ground were on the branches and the trunks that had been split were whole. The moss was green and the whole clearing smelled of warm earth and pine and the light was coming up out of the ground.

It was a pale light and it was steady and it came from the two stones in the middle of the circle and it went up into the trees and lit the branches from underneath.

Elias was standing at the edge of the circle with his hands at his sides.

"I put the stones down," he said. "I put them on the ground where the standing stone used to be and the light came up."

"Did you say the words?"

"No." He looked at me. "I did not say anything. I put them down and the light came up."

I walked into the circle.

The light was warm and it was not hot and it came up through the soles of my boots. The two stones were in the middle of the circle where the standing stone had been, the heart and the piece, and they were lying side by side with their marks up and the light was coming out of the marks.

I put my hand on the heart and the light got brighter.

"Wren," June said from the edge of the trees. "What is happening?"

"I do not know."

"The trees are green. It is the middle of the night and the trees are green."

I took my hand off the stone and the light dimmed but it did not go out.

"It is the stones," I said. "It is the heart and the piece. They have been apart for eighty-eight years and now they are together and they are doing what they were made to do."

"Which is what?"

I stood in the light and looked at the two stones.

"The old pack made them," I said. "The old Alpha said the stone was the heart of the territory and that the two of them together were the territory. He put the heart in the round room and the piece in the tunnel and he told the old pack that the two of them together were the territory." I looked at the light. "It is the territory. It is the ground and the trees and the water and the wolves. It is waking up."

And then Clara Renn came into the circle.

She had come up the ridge with the rest of the pack and she was in her coat with her white hair down and she walked into the light and stopped.

"My mother told me about this," she said. "She told me the circle would wake when the two stones came together and the Luna was in it." She looked at me. "The Luna is in it."

"Hannah and Arthur are not here," I said. "I am one and they are two and the three of us are not in the circle."

"The circle does not need three," Clara Renn said. "It needs the Luna. The three of you are the Luna's line but you are one line and the circle knows the line." She put her hand on my arm. "Say your name."

"What?"

"Say your name. Out loud. Into the circle."

I stood in the light with my hand on the stone.

"Wren," I said.

Nothing.

"Say your whole name," Clara Renn said. "Say the name your mother gave you and the name her mother gave her and the name the Luna gave her daughter in Walla Walla in 1892."

I did not know the name.

I had never known the name.

And then I heard my mother's voice.

It was the way it had been in the courthouse, the way it had been in the room with the bars on the window. It was behind my own thoughts and it was not a dream and it was not my wolf. It was my mother and she was saying a name.

She said it once and it was not my name and it was not June's and it was not Owen's. It was a name I had never heard and it came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"Ruth," I said. "Ruth Halloran."

The stones lit up.

They lit up the way they had lit up when Hannah touched them and the way they had lit up when Erik put the piece beside the heart, and this time the light went up and it went out of the circle and it went across the field and into the trees on the north line and up the ridge and down the co-op road. And the whole of the territory was lit and every wolf in it could see the light.

And the trees.

The trees on the north line were green. The trees on the ridge were green. The dead trees in the clearing were green and the moss was green and the snow on the ground was melting and there was a warm wind coming out of the circle.

The pack came into the clearing.

There were fifty wolves and then there were more and they stood at the edge of the circle with their mouths open and the light on their faces.

And Ada came through them with her stick in her hand and stopped.

"Beta," she said. "What have you done?"

"I said a name," I said. "I said Ruth Halloran."

Ada looked at the stones.

"Ruth Halloran was not the Luna," she said. "The Luna was taken in 1891 and her name was not Ruth."

"Her daughter was named Ruth," I said. "The daughter was born in Walla Walla in 1892 and her mother named her Ruth. And Ruth came home in 1932 and she brought the stones and she put them in the wall and she gave the box to my mother." I looked at Ada. "The circle does not want the Luna's name. It wants the name the Luna gave her daughter. It wants the line."

Ada was quiet for a long moment.

"Then the circle is not a court," she said. "It is a house. And it has been waiting for the family to come home."

I stood in the light with my hand on the stone.

"Two days," I said. "The new moon is in two days and I am going to stand in this circle and claim the territory in the old way."

And then Elias came and stood in front of me and put his hand on my face.

"Wren," he said. "There is a thing I have to tell you before the new moon. About your mother. About the churchyard. About the name you just said."

I looked at him.

"Ruth was my mother's sister," he said. "And I met her in Walla Walla in 1968 and she told me to run east. And she told me the name of her mother. She told me the name was Ruth and that it had been Ruth for three generations and that it came from the Luna herself." He took a breath. "And she told me there was a fourth Ruth. She told me the Luna's daughter had a sister and that the sister was born in Walla Walla in 1893 and that she was taken east and that her name was Ruth too."

The circle was quiet.

"Two Ruths," I said.

"Two Ruths," Elias said. "The Luna had twin daughters in Walla Walla and one of them was my mother."