Four Best Friends Forgot I Exist for the New Girl, Bless Their Hearts, I Forgot Them While I Glow Up novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Ring

The elders did not argue about it.

The eldest of them, a small woman who had taught half the pack to read, struck her cane on the floor and said the claim would be tried at the Point before sundown.

By three o'clock both packs stood around the granite ring.

Stonefall had come across the creek when the news ran north, and they stood on the east side in plain jackets.

Kellan was not with them.

I saw a black truck at the far end of the trailhead, and a man leaning on it with his arms folded who did not come any closer.

I had not asked him.

He was waiting to be asked.

I put that away and looked at the stones.

The old dog lay down at the edge of the circle and put his chin on my boot.

"The rule is old and short," the eldest said. "A claimant stands alone in the fifth gap and says the oath through. If the stones take her, the fire lights. If they don't, they don't."

Brianna walked into the ring in a white sweater.

She had braided her hair, and she held her chin high and sad.

She stopped on the blank fifth stone's side of the circle and put her right hand on it.

The ring on her middle finger caught the light.

"I only want to help him," she said to the crowd. "That's all I've ever wanted."

She said the oath.

She said it beautifully, every word in its place, in the clear warm voice that had talked me out of my own house.

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