The Moon That Remembered My Betrayal

Chapter two What the Thread Remember

Tamsin read the letter a third time before folding it. The girl's shadow has started to lag. The words wouldn't leave her head. Someone knew about the Blood Moon and the ninth night and had warned Idris about her shadow. And whatever had happened that winter, Idris had been involved. She thought about his face when the courier had handed him the letter, the sudden fear in his eyes, and the way he'd refused to discuss the north ridge. How long had he known?

Tamsin slipped the letter back into the coat's lining and returned to the button she had been sewing. By the time Idris appeared in the doorway, the needle was moving again. She looked up at him.

He glanced at the coat in her lap. "You're sewing."

"You've lost three buttons. It's a public health matter."

"I've been meaning to get to it."

"You've been meaning to get to it since spring."

He went inside and closed the door behind him. The council fire had left its smell on his clothes: woodsmoke, cold air, and the sour edge of Silverbrook ale. He didn't look at the coat again. Instead, he watched her for a moment, as though trying to work out whether something was wrong. Tamsin lowered her eyes to the needle. Ask me what happened, she thought. She wasn't sure whether she wanted him to ask because she needed to tell someone or because she wanted to know if he would lie to her face.

"Who was the girl with the letter?" she asked.

"A courier. Silverbrook business."

He sat on the edge of the desk, leaving a little space between them.

"Their Beta has opinions about the cabins," he added.

"I gave you the cabin."

"You gave me a leak."

"Only when it rains."

He almost smiled, but the expression faded before it reached his eyes. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Idris turned his father's ring around his thumb, once, then again.

"Tamsin, about earlier. The ridge." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I wasn't fair to you."

"You weren't unfair either."

He gave her a look.

"That's generous of you," he said, "but it isn't true."

She put the needle through the fabric and pulled the thread tight.

"When you sit your Guild examination this winter, you'll come back and tell me I've been a coward about a hundred things. I'd like to have fewer of them by then."

Her hand stopped.

"If I pass."

"You'll pass."

"You don't know that."

"I know how hard you've worked."

Tamsin looked down at the coat. The examination was only nine weeks away, and there were days when she was certain she would fail before she even sat for it.

"Even if I pass, I'll be gone for two years," she said. "The Corrow Guild doesn't let its apprentices return home for harvest."

"I know what the Guild does."

"And you'll just let me go?"

Idris looked at her as if the answer should have been obvious.

"I'll tell you to go."

She stared at him.

"I'll probably be unbearable about it," he continued. "I'll sulk. The whole pack will suffer. But I'll still tell you to go."

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but she could hear the seriousness beneath his words. For years, Tamsin had wanted to become a Master Healer. She had wanted it long before her mother's death, before the strange things began happening, and before she realised how much of her life revolved around Idris. She had never told him how frightened she was of leaving Ashfall. She had been afraid he might ask her to stay. Now she wasn't sure which possibility frightened her more. Tamsin bit off the thread and held out the coat. Idris slipped it on. It still hung open at the throat, where the first button had been missing for a year. She had always hated that gap.

"Hold still," she said.

He looked down at her as she stepped closer and began sewing the loose button into place. Her fingers brushed his collar bone. Idris kept quiet. She could feel him breathing, slow and careful, as if he were afraid that even the smallest movement might change something between them.

"There," she said, finishing the stitch.

"Thank you."

Neither of them moved. Tamsin looked up and for a moment, she thought he might finally say what had been sitting between them for weeks. Instead, he stepped back and adjusted his coat. She returned to her sewing kit. The letter remained hidden in the lining, close to his chest. She had no idea what to do with that knowledge.

Tamsin didn't sleep. She lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling and replaying the words in the letter. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw her shadow moving a moment after she did. By four in the morning, she gave up. She dressed, packed her satchel, and took a lantern from the kitchen. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well gather the herbs she needed for the coming week.

The fog had settled over the meadow, covering the grass in a thin white layer. Tamsin walked slowly, watching the ground as her mother had taught her. Moonwort grew in the damp strip between the meadow and the beech wood. Most people passed it without noticing, but Tamsin knew where to look. She knelt, cut three stems with her bone-handled knife, and tucked them between the pages of her field book. The book was worn at the corners, its cover softened by years of use. She had been collecting plants and recording their properties for nine years. Almost every page contained a drawing, a remedy, or a note written in the cramped handwriting she had inherited from her mother. Some notes were useful. Good for a cough. Terrible with wine. Orla swears by it for burns. Doesn't work. Others were less practical. Ask Mama. Tamsin's fingers rested on those two words. She had never crossed them out. She closed the book and slipped it into her satchel.

The Guild examination was nine weeks away. It would test her knowledge of a hundred and forty herbs, including their appearance, scent, and uses. There would also be a surgical practicum and a written thesis. Only four candidates from the northern territory had been accepted in the previous three years.

Every one of them had grown up in a household with a Master Healer. Tamsin had her grandmother, a cottage with a leaking roof, and a collection of notes that grew messier every year. Orla was a good healer, but she had never studied at the Guild. There were things she could teach Tamsin only through experience, and other things neither of them knew.

Tamsin wanted to pass so badly that sometimes it was difficult to think about anything else

She had never told Idris just how much it meant to her. Part of her feared that saying it aloud would make failure harder to bear. Another part had been afraid he might ask her to stay. The thought brought back his words from the previous night. I'll still tell you to go. She wasn't sure what to make of them. By the time the sun appeared over the ridge, Tamsin had gathered enough herbs for the day. She turned towards home, hoping that a few hours of work might settle her thoughts but it didn't.

Her grandmother was sitting on the cottage step, shelling beans into a wooden bowl. Tamsin stopped at the foot of the steps.

"Have you been here all morning?"

Orla Vey glanced up. At seventy-eight, she was still strong enough to carry a sack of flour across the village without asking for help. Her iron-grey hair was braided down her back, and her eyes missed very little.

"Long enough to know you haven't slept."

"I slept." She responded

"You look like you've spent the night arguing with a dead mouse."

Tamsin sighed and climbed the steps. Orla returned to her beans.

"The Alpha's light was on until three."

"His light is on until three most nights."

"Mm."

A bean dropped into the bowl.

"Idris Thorne is a good man," Orla said. "He's also afraid of something. Have you noticed?"

Tamsin set her satchel beside the door.

"Everyone's afraid of something."

"Not everyone lets it sit at their table."

Tamsin looked at her grandmother. Orla continued shelling beans as if she hadn't said anything unusual.

"Gran, what does that mean?"

"It means you should pay attention to what people are afraid to tell you."

Tamsin thought of the letter in Idris's coat but she said nothing. Orla studied her for a moment before looking down at the bowl again.

"Tonight, you tie your threads."

"I know how the Binding works."

"I know you do." Orla removed another bean from its pod. "I'm telling you to do all of it this time."

Tamsin frowned at her

"All of what?"

But her grandmother had already turned her attention back to the beans. The Binding was one of Ashfall's oldest traditions.

On the eve of the Blood Moon, every wolf brought a length of red wool to the old apple tree in the center of the orchard. The tree had stood there longer than anyone could remember. Its trunk was twisted, its branches thick and uneven, and no one had ever managed to cut it down. Each knot represented someone the pack had lost since the previous year's arrival. You whispered the person's name as you tied the wool to a branch. Then you left the ends loose, so the wind could move them when the moon rose. The elders said the tree remembered the dead, so the living didn't have to carry their grief alone. Tamsin had tied her first thread when she was fourteen. It was for her father, a man she barely remembered. For the past three years, she had tied two. One for her father and one for her mother. She had never questioned the tradition. There was comfort in knowing that the people she had lost were remembered by more than just her. But Orla's words had unsettled her. I'm telling you to do all of it this time. Tamsin couldn't work out what her grandmother meant. She had no third name to tie. At least, none that she knew of.

By dusk, the orchard was crowded with wolves and lit by dozens of lanterns. The Silverbrook delegation had arrived at sunset. Their Beta had been escorted to cabin nine, where he had discovered the leaking roof for himself. Tamsin had watched from a distance, feeling only a little guilty. She was treating a young wolf's burned hand when she noticed Idris crossing the grass towards the old tree. He carried three lengths of red wool. Tamsin paused with the salve jar in her hand.

Ashfall had lost only one member of the pack that year. Idris's uncle had died during the winter, and Tamsin knew the name would be tied to the tree tonight. But who were the other two threads for? She finished wrapping the young wolf's hand and watched Idris from across the orchard. He tied the first length of wool to a branch and whispered something she couldn't hear. His uncle, she assumed. The second thread went higher up the tree. Idris tied it quickly, then stepped back and stared at the knot. He didn't seem to notice the people moving around him. Finally, he crouched near the roots and tied the third thread to a low branch, almost hidden by the grass. When he stood, his face had changed. He looked towards the lanterns, but his eyes didn't seem to settle on anything. Tamsin waited for him to leave before approaching the tree. Orla's words returned to her; they did all of it this time. She took her two lengths of red wool from her pocket. #Vote#!