Chapter 7: Forty Wolves

I did not speak to Torin on the walk down the hill.

I did not speak to him at breakfast either.

He sat at the far end of the table with his plate untouched.

He watched me not look at him.

I heard the first of them at nine o'clock.

It was the sound of boots on gravel, a long way off.

A great many boots were keeping the same slow time.

I put down my spoon.

"Someone is coming up the road," I said.

Torin was on his feet before I finished.

"How many?"

"Forty. Maybe more." I stood too. "They're walking. They aren't talking."

I knew that silence.

I had grown up in it.

I went out onto the porch, and the whole lodge came out behind me.

Old wolves came in blankets, and children came with bread in their hands.

The line came around the bend in the road below the gate.

They were all in Saltclaw grey.

The baker was at the back, with flour still on his sleeves.

There were women with babies on their hips and men with their jackets buttoned wrong.

At the front of them, alone, walked my mother.

Her grey knitted dress was dusty to the knees.

Her auburn hair had come loose.

I could hear her heart from a quarter mile away, and it was the loudest thing on the Ridge.

Torin came up beside me and said nothing.

He put his hand on the small of my back, and this time he did not take it away.

I let him leave it there.

I did not have the strength to push.

The gate stood open, because he had opened it.

My mother stopped just short of it and looked up at the porch.

She looked smaller than she had at the table.

She had been walking all night.

Her mouth opened, and for a moment nothing came out.

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