The Neglected Girl Chosen by the Moon Goddess novel · Chapter 2 of 16

Chapter 2: The Keeper's Stone

Tilda confirms the mark before the pack, the family orders Ivy to renounce it for Lottie, and Portia slaps her in front of an open door where the Alpha King stands.

My mother let go.

She did it slowly, and she smiled at the Alpha King while she did it.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty. My daughter has a habit of playing tricks. We'll have this cleaned up in a moment."

"It's not a trick," he said.

He was looking at my wrist, not at her.

The sleeve had slid back up. The crescent was still glowing.

"Keeper," he said over his shoulder. "Read it."

Tilda was already coming.

She leaned her staff against the food table and took my hand in both of hers.

Her palms were rough and warm.

She tipped my wrist into the moonlight and ran her thumb along the curve of the mark.

It didn't smear.

It didn't move.

It only got brighter where she touched it.

Tilda lifted her head and spoke to the whole clearing.

"The Goddess has chosen. Ivy Redfern of Hollowcreek."

Nobody cheered.

Nobody made any sound at all.

Then my father laughed.

It was his big, easy laugh, the one he used at pack barbecues when a joke went wrong.

"Well," he said. "The Goddess has a sense of humor."

A few people laughed with him because he was the Alpha.

"There's clearly been some confusion." He clapped his hands once. "Family matter. Everyone, get something to eat. We'll sort it out inside."

He looked at me.

"Now, Ivy."

The Alpha King said nothing.

He watched me follow my father up the hill to the house.

My mother walked behind me the whole way, close enough that I could hear her breathing.

Lottie came last, crying loudly enough for the clearing to hear.

In the front room, my father shut the door.

The window was still open.

Music was starting up again down on the grass.

"Sit," my father said.

I didn't sit.

Lottie threw herself onto the sofa with her face in a cushion.

Anson leaned in the doorway to the hall with his arms folded.

He hadn't said a word all night.

My mother stood in front of the fireplace and folded her hands.

"Here's what's going to happen," she said. "Tomorrow night you go to the Keeper's stone and renounce the mark."

"Renounce it."

"A Chosen can refuse. The Goddess picks again, from the same blood, at the next moon." She looked at the sofa. "From this family."

From Lottie.

"It should have been her," my mother said. "You know that. Everybody down there knows that."

My father sat on the arm of his chair.

"Be reasonable, Ivy. You've never even shifted. You can't stand in front of the Council like that. It'll humiliate the pack."

"It'll humiliate you," I said.

He looked surprised that I'd answered.

My mother's mouth went thin.

"We're not unreasonable," she said. "We know you've had it hard."

I almost laughed.

"You can have Lottie's old bedroom," she went on. "Upstairs. She's moving to the big one anyway."

"And a car," my father said. "Something used. You can learn to drive properly."

Twenty-one years in the laundry room off the kitchen.

A cot, a crate for a nightstand, and the dryer thumping all night.

Now they were offering me stairs.

"Can I ask one thing?" I said.

"Of course," my mother said.

"What's the date today?"

She frowned at me.

"The fourteenth. Why?"

"The fourteenth of what?"

"October, Ivy. What is wrong with you?"

I looked at my father.

I looked at Anson in the doorway.

Lottie lifted her wet face out of the cushion.

"Why are you asking stupid questions?" she said. "You ruined my whole life and now you're asking what day it is?"

None of them knew.

Not one.

I had been born in this house on the fourteenth of October, and not one person in this room knew it.

"No," I said.

My mother blinked.

"No what?"

"I'm not renouncing it."

The room went very still.

"The Goddess put it on me," I said. "Not on Lottie. Me. I'm keeping it."

My mother crossed the rug in three steps.

The slap snapped my head to the side.

My ear rang. My cheek went hot, then numb.

I tasted blood where my teeth had caught the inside of my lip.

"You ungrateful little nothing," she said quietly. "After everything we've done for you."

I straightened up.

I didn't touch my face.

Over her shoulder, the front door stood open.

I hadn't heard it open.

Nobody had.

The Alpha King stood on the threshold with the cold coming in around him.

He had seen everything.

His eyes were on my mother's hand.

"Luna Redfern," he said. "Do that again, and it's the last thing you do as Luna of anything."

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