the table between us, and the lamp cast his shadow long across the wa

self inside out. That is what a first shift is. It is not a choice. It is like a fever coming on. If someone who knows what they are doing is with you

past the border, with the fleet

e for a month that your sister's claim died with her. On Saturday she takes the boat out to prove it. If a wolf who carries your mother's charter number appears on the hea

t would

n." He looked up at me. "There is no taking a challenge back. The Alpha answers it or she forfeits the seat

im. My legs had made the decision again. I w

"I will be in this cottage with the door bolted and the

st shift is stronger than any door. There is not a wolf in this village who c

t do you

you can run with the pack instead of against it, and shift where you are meant to shift, and come back into this village on two legs with the whole co-op having seen

king me to

chair. "And I am asking you to let me help you, because I am the only wolf in t

n, and I felt the pull again, the one that had come when our hands met over the weight, a tug behind the ribs that

I need to think, and I canno

r, and then he stopped with his han

t bo

known her fifteen years and I never once saw her in a second pair. If there are two pairs by that door, then someone else was living in this cottage with her." He

footsteps go down the path and out the gate, and then I

re. The other pair was smaller and newer, black, laced tight, with a heel worn down on the outside in a way that told me the wearer walked with a slight roll to the

s, red mud, the kind you get up on the high ground where the peat is cut, no

ter a burglary, room by room, drawer by drawer, with a notebook and

r things th

oard where no one would look, with the Mary Rose's berth circled in pencil a

e of four thousand and a withdrawal on the twelfth of March for the whole amount, wh

d was th

rmen going back a hundred years. This one was older. The paper was thick and yellow and the writing was a cramped legal hand with flourishes at the top of every letter, and the first page

entirely, about the choosing of the leader and the answering of a challenge and what happened to a wolf who broke the charter. I rea

the binding had come away, and it was in my sister's handwriting, and it was shaky, the letters press

lied about. And if you are reading this, then you are what I was, and you have three nights before the moon takes you. Go to the high ground above the peat cuts on the first night and let it come. Do not let it come in the village. If she finds out wh

names, and I sat on the floor of my sister's kitchen with my back against the dresser and the r

ight foot, who had gone up to the peat cuts. And Siobhan had known about the moon and abou

cret book does not leave it on the table. I put the bank book in my coat. I looked at the ch

ght. The brown ones. The work boots with the tyre mended toe. They fit me. She had bigger feet than me, and I had always teased her abou

e figure on t

the face. It was the tall woman with the grey plaited hair, the one from the wake who had told me to come to her and not to th

t was her name but I knew the shawl and the f

grey light and her face was working like a woman who

up early,

came down the path. "You told me at the wake to come

and then she looked back at me and said, very quietly, "Not here. Not on th

ing and the gulls were already up, and she stopped at the water's

she had made a mistake, and that she had started something she could not stop, and that she was going to try to put it right before the spring meeting." The woman's hands were gripping the shawl.

he going to

r eyes were bright with something that was not quite tears. "You are asking questions about the full moon, and about the boats, and about your sister, and the whole village is talking a

y i

moon, and whatever it was, she died a week before it happened." The woman let go of her shawl and took my hand and her grip was very cold and very strong. "I am telling you this because you have your mother's number and you are

oment. "How does th

grey plait loose and laid it across her cheek. "Because she can hear what the village he

come through the leather and thought about a woman with silver hair who knew things before they were told, and a page of names with a date besi

s going grey and gold behind it and there was something moving up there o

his time I did not have to wonder who it was, because I could smell the p

p there all night, and he had seen the woman with t