Chapter 12: The Father at the Gate

I went down to the gate alone, and Torin walked beside me.

Bjorn came behind us with forty old wolves, banging his cane on the ground with every step.

My father waited on the road in his dark suit.

Two hundred of his wolves stood in the field behind him in rows.

Sunniva stood at his elbow with her basket.

She smiled at the whole Ridge.

Nobody said anything.

The silence was thick, because it was the silence I grew up in.

Arne Bostrom looked at me for a long moment.

Then he whispered something.

I heard it.

Nobody else did.

"Speak up, Father," I said, at full voice.

His jaw tightened.

He whispered again, a little louder.

In the field, two hundred wolves leaned forward to catch it.

I understood, watching them, that they had been leaning forward for ten years.

"I can't hear you," I said.

"He said, 'Come home,'" my grandfather shouted from behind me.

"Thank you, Bjorn."

"I'm happy to translate. I've had a lot of practice being ignored."

Somebody in the field laughed, and quickly stopped.

My father's face went grey.

"Hedda," he whispered. "You are ill."

"I'm not."

"She hasn't had her medicine in six days," Sunniva said.

She stepped forward with her warm voice and her warm hands.

"Look at her, Arne. She's trembling. She's pale. She's been taken advantage of in this state."

She turned to Torin with her smile.

"Alpha Hask, I'm sure you meant well."

"But she's a very sick girl, and she isn't in her right mind."

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