Chapter 98: The Sister

The Kessler pack was across the ridge and up the river and it took us four hours in the dark over a road that was not plowed.

Hannah met us at the gate.

“She is awake,” she said. “She has been awake since I told her you were coming. She has not slept in two nights and she has not spoken a word to anyone except me and she has been asking for the photograph.”

I gave her the photograph.

She looked at it for a long time under the lantern and then she turned it over and read the back and her hand went to her mouth.

“Mary’s girl,” she said. “Clara Renn is one of us.”

“Clara Renn is one of us,” I said. “And there are five of us and I have come to ask your grandmother what the numbers mean.”

Hannah took us into the house.

It was a long low building with a stone chimney and a fire in the hearth and an old woman in a chair beside it.

She was small and she was brown and her hair was white and thin and her eyes were dark and they were not the eyes of a wolf who had forgotten anything.

“Sit down,” she said. “I am Ada Kessler and I have been waiting for a Halloran to come to this house since 1891.”

I sat down.

“You are the oldest wolf in the territory,” I said. “You were born in 1885 and you were six years old when the founders came.”

“I was six years old when the founders came,” Ada Kessler said. “And I remember it. I remember the wagons and the men and the deed they had from the Council and the way my mother cried when they put the boundary stone in the ground.” She put her hands on her knees. “And I remember the Luna. Her name was Ilse and she was my mother’s sister and she was the last Luna of the old pack and she was taken out of her house in the night and held in the mill and drowned in the pond.”

The fire moved in the hearth.

“Ilse,” I said. “Her name was Ilse.”

“Her name was Ilse and she had three daughters and she named them all Ruth because she was afraid.” Ada Kessler looked at me. “She had them after she was taken to Walla Walla. She had them in 1892 and 1893 and 1894 and she named every one of them Ruth and she gave every one of them away.” She put her hand on the arm of the chair. “One of them went to Boise and one of them went to the Kessler pack and one of them stayed in Walla Walla. And the fourth one stayed with her mother and died in 1896 and is buried in Walla Walla under a stone that says only Ruth.”

I sat very still.

“Four,” I said.

“Four daughters,” Ada Kessler said. “And the fourth one is the one the old Alpha’s bargain was made with. The old Alpha said the Luna’s line would carry the curse and the cure and the Luna’s line is four daughters and the fourth daughter died in 1896 and the curse went into her and it has been in the line ever since.” She looked at me. “The curse does not go to the founders. The curse goes to the fourth daughter’s line. And the fourth daughter’s line is your mother’s line.”

The fire moved.

“My mother’s line,” I said.

“Your mother was the fourth daughter’s great-granddaughter,” Ada Kessler said. “And she was the one the curse was waiting for. And she knew it and she ran from it and she changed her name and she married a farmer and she had three children and she kept them out of the pack records and she did all of it to keep the curse from coming to you.” She put her hand on the arm of the chair. “And it came anyway. It came to your brother in 1975 and it went to the wolf in the field and it will come to you if you do not break it.”

I stood up.

“What do the numbers mean?” I said. “Eleven, four, seven. My brother wrote them on the wall and Margaret wrote them on the photograph.”

Ada Kessler was quiet for a long moment.

“They are a date,” she said.

“A date.”

“The eleventh of April, 1897,” Ada Kessler said. “That is the day the old Alpha made the bargain in the circle. The eleventh of April, 1897. Not 1891. The curse was not made in 1891. It was made six years later, on the new moon in April of 1897, when the fourth daughter died and the old Alpha went into the circle and spoke to the moon.”

The room was silent.

“Then the founders did not drown the Luna in 1891 and the curse did not come in 1891,” I said.

“The founders drowned the Luna in 1891,” Ada Kessler said. “And the curse came in 1897 when the fourth daughter died. And the old Alpha made the bargain in the circle and the bargain was this. The founders would have the land but never the heart of it. The curse would go to the fourth daughter’s line in every generation. And the curse would not end until the fourth daughter’s line came home and claimed the land at the full moon.” She looked at me. “The fourth daughter’s line is your mother’s line and your mother’s line is you.”

I sat down.

“Then it is not three Lunas,” I said. “It is not five. It is one line and it is my line and it is the line that has been carrying the curse since 1897.”

“It is one line,” Ada Kessler said. “And it is your line. And there is a thing I have not told you.” She put her hand on my knee. “Your mother came to me in 1968. She came to this house and she sat in that chair and she told me she was the fourth daughter’s line and she asked me what the bargain was and I told her. And she sat in that chair and she cried and then she said a thing I have never forgotten.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, then I will not have a fourth daughter.” Ada Kessler looked at me. “And she had three children and two of them were girls and she named them Wren and June and she kept them out of the pack records and she never told them what they were because she was going to end the line herself.”

The fire moved in the hearth.

“She was going to end the line,” I said.

“She was going to end the line,” Ada Kessler said. “And then your brother died and the curse went to the wolf and she could not end it and she could not stop it and she died in 1975 with the whole of it in her hands.” She put her hand on my face. “You are the fourth daughter’s line, Wren Halloran. And the line did not end. And the curse is waiting for you in the circle at the full moon.”

I sat in the chair with her hand on my face.

And then the door opened and a wolf came in with a lantern and his face was white.

“Alpha,” he said to Hannah. “There is a man at the gate. He is from the Council and he has twelve men and he has a warrant for the Beta and he says if she is not out in ten minutes he is going to come in and get her.”

I stood up.

“Let him come,” I said.