The New Moon Mate のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 91 - チャプター 100

We went up to Maeve's cottage at dawn with the letter and the record and the stones in a sack, and Maeve put the kettle on and sat down at the table and read the letter twice."Three days," she said. "The Council has called a meeting in Boise in three days and the first thing on the list is the removal of the seven Alphas who sat on this tribunal.""They are afraid," Ada said. "The Council has been running eleven territories for eighty-five years and in one week a Gamma in a wheat pack has put its register in front of the Alphas and its chief clerk in a cell and its Councilman under arrest. They are going to try to remove the Alphas who heard the evidence and replace them with Alphas who will not.""Can they?" I said."They can try," Ada said. "The Council of Alphas can remove an Alpha for misconduct. It has happened four times in eighty-five years. It has never happened to seven Alphas at once and it has never happened in the middle of a hearing." She put the letter down. "But there

The district officer was tall and young and he had a paper in his hand and two men in the street behind him, and he did not look like a man who had done this before.“Beta,” he said. “I am going to ask you to come with me quietly.”“Read me the warrant,” I said.He read it. It was short and it was in the chief clerk’s hand and it said the Council of Alphas had ruled that the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack was a rogue wolf and was to be taken to Boise and held until the full Council met.“The Council of Alphas has not ruled anything,” I said. “The Alphas who sat on the tribunal are in this territory and they have not ruled. The warrant is signed by the chief clerk and the chief clerk has been arrested.”The young man looked at the paper.“It has the seal on it,” he said.“The seal is a stolen mark,” I said. “It is the founders’ mark with a line through it. The Alphas have the register and the crates and the whole of it and they are in this territory and they will tell you what the seal

We drove back to the territory that night with Ruth in the truck and the box on her knees and the photograph in my jacket.We came over the ridge at dawn and the pack square was full and Harlan was on the steps and June was beside him with the ledger under her arm and Maeve was at the back with her shawl around her shoulders.I got out of the truck and went to the middle of the square.“Pack,” I said. “I have been to Walla Walla and I have come back with a thing you need to see.”I held up the photograph.“This is the founders’ field in 1911. There are three children in it and they are Margaret’s children. And there is a woman at the edge of the field and she is Margaret and she is the founder’s wife and the Luna’s cousin. And there is a fourth child.” I turned the photograph around. “She is standing apart from the others and she is not holding hands with them and she is the daughter of the miller’s daughter. Her name is Clara Renn.”The square was quiet.“And on the back of this phot

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,”

We drove all night.Mrs. Bell drove the truck and Ada Kessler sat in the front with a blanket over her knees and Hannah beside her. June and Arthur Renn and Silas were in the back with the crates and the stones and the record. I sat in the middle of the back seat with Elias on one side of me and the photograph in my jacket and my mother's page from Ruth's box in my hand.The road went south and the sky went from black to gray and the snow turned to rain and the rain turned to nothing and by four in the morning we were on the highway and Boise was still four hours away.Nobody talked for a long time.And then Elias said, "Wren."I turned my head."There is a thing I have not told you," he said. "I have been carrying it since Walla Walla and I have been trying to find a way to say it and I have not found one. So I am going to say it badly.""Say it."He put his hands on his knees."Your mother was not the only one," he said. "There was another one. There was a woman who came to me in th