Chapter 24: Our First

We drove to Cedar Hollow in the first week of the new year, with snow on the pass and the heater turned all the way up.

Torin drove, with his left hand on the wheel and his right on my knee.

His side had healed to a long pink line, and he no longer pretended it didn't ache.

Imogen sat in the back with a cooler of food she insisted we would need.

The pack had put the stone up on the hill behind the clinic, under the pines, where the ridge trail begins.

It was a plain grey boulder from the river, waist high, and someone had cleared the snow from its foot.

Forty wolves stood in a loose circle at a distance and did not come closer.

I got out of the truck and walked up alone.

Torin followed three steps behind, and Imogen stayed at the bottom.

The words had been cut into the rock by the old woman's son, who did stonework in the village, and he had asked me nothing about them.

Our first, it said.

There was a date under it and nothing else.

I put my hand flat on the cold face of the stone.

"I picked a name," I said.

"You did."

"I told you in the window seat that I couldn't say it."

"You did."

"I can now."

He came up beside me.

He didn't touch me, and he didn't say anything.

I said it.

It was one word, and it came out quiet, and the wind took it down the hill.

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