Chapter 15: The Counting House

Willa's POV

The Hollowmere pack fund kept its books in a brick building on the corner of the market square.

It stood between the bakery and the feed store where I worked nights.

I had walked past it every day for twelve years.

At nine in the morning the square was full. Women with baskets, men unloading crates, children running between the stalls.

I did not go in quietly.

I pushed the door so hard it hit the wall, and every head in the counting room turned.

There were four clerks at long desks.

At the far end, behind a rail, Odette Slocumb sat with a cup of tea and a stack of paper.

She wore her grey cardigan and her pearl studs.

She looked up and smiled at me, kindly.

"Willa," she said. "Sweetheart. You look tired."

"I want the fund books."

"Of course you do."

"All of them. Twelve years."

"They're in the safe, dear. I'd be glad to show you, with your brother's written leave."

She said it loud enough for the room.

The clerks looked at their desks. One of them, a thin young man, was gripping his pen with his whole fist.

"You know who I am," I said. "Everyone in this square knows now."

"I've always known who you were."

I came up to the rail.

"That's what I want to hear," I said.

"You told me at Cairnfell to ask my brother how you know my face. Say it here."

For a moment I thought she wouldn't.

Then she set the tea down, very precisely, and her smile thinned.

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