My Gown Had No Gems, So I Walked Out of My Own Bonding Ceremony novel · Chapter 13 of 32
Chapter 13: The Study Key
My father turned his whole body toward my mother.
"Lorna," he said. "What are you doing?"
"I'm answering the Council," she said.
She walked up the aisle, past Margot and past Cecily, and stopped in front of the elder's table.
Her back was perfectly straight and her voice did not shake.
"For twenty-two years my husband took every box from the courier and carried it into his study," she said. "I signed the receipt at the door, because that is the Luna's duty. Then he locked the study, and he kept the only other key."
"That's a lie!" said my father.
"Is it?"
She opened her hand.
An iron key lay on her palm, black with age.
"I have the one key I was given at our bonding," she said. "I have never once used it. I give it to the Council now, with my apologies for not doing it sooner."
The elder took the key and weighed it.
"Alpha Winslow," she said. "Did you ever open one of the boxes?"
"I never opened one." My father's voice had gone thin. "I put them on the shelf. I assumed Clara would want them when she was older."
"You assumed."
"I swear it on the Moon."
"Then the shelf will show it," said the elder. "The Council will walk to the Lodge now. Alpha Coyle, Miss Winslow, you will come as witnesses."
Four hundred wolves followed us through the dark.
Nobody spoke.
The only sound was boots on packed snow, and the wind off the lake.
The elder opened the study door herself with my mother's key.
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