Chapter 8: The Sitting Supper

Nils's father joined the Sitting Supper on a pillowcase.

The lodge projector screen had been missing since the Fourth of July.

So Ulla had stretched a clean pillowcase over a frame of curtain rods and aimed a laptop at it.

The retired Alpha of Pine Lake appeared on it in a golf shirt, sixteen hundred miles south.

His chin was slightly too large, and a palm tree grew out of his ear.

"Can everybody hear me?" he said.

His mouth moved a little before his voice did.

"Yes, Father," said Nils.

"Is the sound on? Ulla, is that you? You look tired."

"I'm well," said Ulla.

"Is that the Loaf girl?"

"Hello," I said, from Table Four.

"She's still doing the rehearsing thing?"

"She's very prepared," said Nils, in the voice he used on contractors.

The Sitting Supper is held on the twelfth night before an Anointing.

It is three courses, and the new Alpha eats them with the Blessing Alpha at the head of the long table.

Ulla had made a seating chart for it.

The chart had three rules at the bottom.

No toasts.

No mention of Item 14.

Aino Laitinen not to sit next to Soren Halme.

I sat between the Elder and Hilkka.

The Elder was ninety-one years old and deaf in both ears.

In the first five minutes she moved six place cards around the table, including mine, without apparent interest.

When the soup came, I was sitting across from Soren.

Ulla's mouth tightened.

She had to count the place cards twice.

I had an index card in my lap.

I had prepared fifteen of them, ranked by safety.

The first said WEATHER.

The second said LAKE LEVEL.

The third said FLORIDA.

"The lake level's down," I said, to the table in general.

"I heard that," the Elder shouted.

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