he kitchen did not reach and the wind came in under the window frame. Mhairi's roo

corner, as if she had got up that morning and would be back. Her hairbrush lay on the dressing table. A book sat face d

e doorframe, then told myself to

med me Luna, and the Luna slept in the Luna's rooms. I would not put a boy of eleven into a cold cottage alo

, her book, her cup, her spectacles and her little pot of hand cream into a drawer, not to throw out

ugh, cold and clean and smelling of birches, and s

me tags and the whole estate's week on it. Everybody in the pack looked at it first thing.

and hers under it, because she always came out with me on the count. Tuesday, the storeroom and the fence repair at the low gate. Wednesday, the chapel and the

ad found her, and the story the pack told was that her heart had given out on the hill. Her heart had not given out. I had tasted th

s on the Thursday. Rabbi

had missed, because the first time I had been looking at the Thursday. On the Wednesday tag, under the name of the elder who took th

un

ne arm and a jug in the other hand, in his shirtsleeves with his red bear

hat room are old and thin, and the water on the stand has bee

You did no

f time on his hands, and a house in mourning needs somebody to see to the

ing at how

er the end of it, and his face was the kindest face in the world. "The healer

not taste what

ngerous thing to say in a mourning house. Dangerous for you, I mean. The pack will not thank

aid anything

it to anyone else." He tapped the board with one broad finger, on the blank days after Thursday. "She was a good Luna. She kept the estate in order an

poisoned,

oisoner is cleverer than the pair of us, and you

ater steaming faintly in the cold passage and thought about what he had just done. He had come t

tag lifted at one corner, and when I pulled it, it came away from the hook, and there was a

was a small mark I did not understand, a crescen

k and went to find Mairi, because the cottage would be c

fire was out, and on the table lay a piece of paper with his writing on it, mostly a drawing of a stag,

fternoon, and I thought about the name on the tag under the tag, and the ghost saying

Isla. Your brother is not with Ewan. Ewan has been in the ch