The Spring Between Us

Chapter 18: The First One

Nora got down off her horse and handed the reins to the nearest warrior without being asked.

"You look like a drowned cat," she said. "What happened to your arm?"

"I shifted wrong in the pasture."

"I heard." She walked past me toward the hall with her boots crunching on the gravel and her white hair loose down her back. "I heard the Çöl Alpha carried you up the hill in front of your warriors. I heard it from my own Beta before I had my breakfast. You should know that the story that reached my house had you half dead and my son covered in your blood, so the wolves who told it are either fools or liars. Which are they?"

"They are frightened," I said. "Frightened wolves exaggerate."

"Frightened wolves invent." Nora went up the steps. "Come inside, Luna. I have been riding since midnight and I want tea, and then I want to see this ledger everyone is talking about."

The hall was full. Ruth had got there first and she had got there with purpose. The long table was set for a meeting, benches pulled out, the ledger shelf cleared, my mother's chair at the head. Ruth stood at the near end with her hands folded and Silas beside her with his hat off and his pleasant face composed. The warriors were on the benches. Old Tomas was by the door. Cal was at the back wall with his arms crossed and Berik was on the front bench with his jaw set.

Nora walked to the far end of the hall and sat down in my mother's chair.

The hall made a small sound. Silas's eyebrows went up a fraction. Ruth's hands came apart and then folded again.

"I am the second envoy of the Council of Alphas," Nora said. "I have been appointed to hear two complaints in this canyon, and I have ridden all night to hear them, and I am going to hear them in this hall today. The first complaint is against the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack, for crossing the border into Çöl territory without consent. The second is against the Kızıltaş pack, for the theft of water from the sacred spring. Luna, sit down. You have been standing too long."

I sat down at the near end of the table opposite Ruth. Nora looked at Silas. "Envoy. You have been in this pack for five days. What have you found?"

Silas put his hat on the table. "I have found a pack in grief with a young and untested Luna," he said. "I have found a drought that may or may not be natural and an iron plate that may or may not have been placed on the spring. I have found a dead Gamma in a well and a Luna who has been riding out at night to meet a rival Alpha." He spread his hands. "I have written down what I have seen. The Council will judge."

"The Council sent two envoys," Nora said. "I would like to hear the Luna before I hear you."

Ruth was on her feet before I could open my mouth. "Envoy. Before the Luna speaks, I would like to say something as her Beta." Her voice was clear and her grey eyes were steady. "The Luna is unwell. She has not slept properly in three weeks. She shifted wrong in the pasture two nights ago and the Çöl Alpha had to carry her up the hill. Last night she went down the old ore shaft at midnight with the Çöl Alpha and a young warrior and no one else, and this morning she came up with a ledger that she says proves the Council has been stealing our water. I am her Beta and I have served this pack for eleven years and I am telling you, in front of the pack, that I do not believe her. I believe she is a grieving girl who has been led by a rival Alpha into a story that will get this pack dissolved."

The hall was silent. Nora did not look at Ruth. She looked at me.

"Luna," she said. "Answer her."

I stood up. My shoulder ached and my boots were still damp and the mark on my arm was warm and steady. I put the ledger on the table and opened it to the last page and turned it around so that Nora could see it.

"This is my father's duplicate of the Council's water allotment ledger," I said. "Every month for nine years the Council has taken water out of the aquifer under this canyon and sold it to the uranium company. Every month my father wrote down what they took and who bought it. There is a tunnel under the old shaft with four pipes and a channel cut into the rock, and the channel carries our water east under the quarry and out of the canyon. That is why the spring dried. Not a plate. Not a drought. The plate was put on the welling hole to keep the trickle going so that nobody would go looking."

The hall stirred. Berik leaned forward. Old Tomas had his hand over his mouth.

"The plate is a cover story," I said. "The real theft is under the quarry and it has been going on for twenty years. My father knew. My mother found out and wrote to the Council and died four days later. Elias knew and was killed in the well the night before he could tell me. And the man who has been coming to this canyon three times a year for nine years to keep those books buried is sitting at this table."

I turned and looked at Silas.

The hall went very quiet. Silas's pleasant face did not change. He looked at the ledger and then at me and then he said, "Luna. I am going to ask you a question and I would like you to answer it plainly. Where did you get that book?"

"From the rock room under the shaft. My father built it."

"Your father has been dead for eighteen years. Any wolf could have written those pages and put them in a room and told you they were your father's." He turned to Nora. "Envoy. I have been in Council service for thirty years and I have seen this before. A young wolf with a weak claim finds a book that proves everything and saves nothing. The book is the story. The story is the book."

"It is my father's hand."

"It is a hand." Silas's voice was patient. "Any wolf can copy a hand."

I opened my mouth to answer him and my wolf moved.

I did not tell her to. I did not feel her coming. There was a smell in the hall that I had not noticed until that moment, a smell of dust and iron and something cold, and it was coming from Silas, and my wolf went from quiet to roaring in one breath and my teeth changed in my mouth and my hands curled on the table and the whole hall went white at the edges.

Cal was closest. He came off the back wall and put his hand on my shoulder, and my wolf turned on him.

I heard the snarl come out of my own throat. I felt my body move and my jaw come open and I saw Cal's face go white and his hand come up and I did not stop. I did not stop until Berik was between us and two warriors had me by the arms and my shoulder was screaming and my mouth was full of the taste of blood.

I had bitten him. I had bitten Cal, my Cal, on the forearm, and he was standing at the back wall with his sleeve pushed up and a row of tooth marks on his skin and his face the colour of ash.

The hall was in uproar. Ruth was on her feet with her hands out and her voice clear and terrible. "You see," she said. "You see what I have been telling you. The Luna cannot hold her wolf. She has bitten her own warrior in the hall in front of the envoy and the pack."

Silas sat where he was with his hands folded and his pleasant face composed and did not say a word.

Nora stood up. The hall went quiet around her, the way a hall goes quiet when an old wolf stands up, and she looked at Cal and then at me and then she said, "Get the boy to the healer. Get the Luna out of this hall and into the fresh air before she shifts again and does something worse. The inquiry is adjourned until sundown." She sat down again and picked up her cup. "And somebody bring me a better pot of tea than this. It has been stewing since dawn."

Berik walked me out of the hall with his hand under my elbow and the whole pack watching. I got as far as the porch and then my knees went and I sat down on the top step with my head between my hands and my mouth still tasting of blood.

Mira came out with her bag. "Cal is all right. It is a shallow bite and he is more frightened than hurt and he is already asking whether you are angry with him." She crouched down in front of me. "Derya. Look at me. You bit a warrior in the hall in front of the Council. Ruth has what she wanted. There is only one thing that will save you now and it is not in this pack house."

"What?"

"Your mother's floor." Mira put her hand on my knee. "Go up there now, before the house fills up, and lift the board. And take the boy, because if your wolf goes wrong again you will need someone who can hold you and who will not tell Ruth."

I got up. The yard was full of wolves and the sun was high and the gate was open, and out beyond it on the mesa road a rider was coming up from the south. I did not look at him. I went in through the kitchen door and up the back stairs and into my mother's room and got down on my knees and looked under the bed.

The board was there. It did not match the others, and there was a small iron ring set into it that I had never noticed in my life.