Chapter 24: The New Banner

The first Silver Creek table I held was on a Saturday morning, in the pack hall, with the doors open.

The long oak table stood where the stage had been.

Someone had taken the stage out overnight.

I sat at the head of it in jeans and a green sweater.

The thirty thousand dollars lay in its brown envelope in front of me.

Lucan sat at my right hand, a guest at my table, with his coat on the back of his chair.

He had asked that morning if he should stay out of the way.

I had told him to sit down and be useful.

Hazel sat at my left with a mug of tea.

Tobias stood behind her, pretending he had not been invited.

Two hundred wolves filled the hall.

They looked at me the way they had looked at me at eighteen, all at once, and every one of them was waiting.

I did not look at the floor.

"First item," I said. "The Ardmore cottage roof."

A low laugh went around the room.

"It leaks over the kitchen, and it has leaked since I was a girl."

I slid the envelope down the table to the elder.

"This is the bet money. Every dollar of it was meant to pay for my shame. It goes to the roof."

"The pack will match it," the elder said at once.

"We'll do the labor," a big man in the third row called out, the same man who had covered his eyes. "Give me a hammer."

"Hazel will supervise," I said.

"Hazel will do no such thing," Hazel said. "I'll be up there with the hammer."

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