Chapter 19: One Bag

Nobody spoke for a long time after Beatrix said it.

Alaric got up from his knees by the torch. He walked across the circle and stopped in front of her.

She lay in the snow and looked at his boots.

"I held your head," she said again, in case he had missed it.

"I know," Alaric said. "I felt your hands."

He crouched, slowly, until their eyes were level.

"I've hated you for ten years, Bea. Some nights it was the only thing that got me to morning."

"I'm not going to say it's over. I can't."

"But you said it out loud, in front of everyone, when you didn't have to. I'll remember that part."

She turned her face into the snow, and her shoulders began to shake.

He did not touch her. He stayed there until the enforcers came with a blanket.

Then the elder struck the ground with her cane, and the pack gathered.

It was the gathering she had promised, held in the circle by torchlight.

The moon stood high above the pines.

The three old regents had not left.

They stood at the gate of the stones between two enforcers, because the pack had decided to hold them there.

The vote was quick and loud.

Every hand in the clearing went up, and the elder did not bother to count them.

They were stripped of their coats, their seats and their names on the council rolls.

The heavy one tried to curse the elder.

The thick-necked enforcer put a hand over his mouth, politely, and walked him out.

My mother was next.

She stood in front of the stones with her cardigan buttoned right again, and she did not look at the pack.

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