Chapter 9: The Stone in the Woods

I woke on the study sofa under Torin's wool coat.

The coat smelled like pine smoke, and for a minute I lay there and let myself have it.

Then I sat up, and the room was empty.

A grey dawn showed in the window, and the desk lamp was still on.

On the blotter there was a note in square handwriting. Back by noon. Don't leave the lodge. T.

I read it twice.

Then I put on my boots, because the wolf in me had already decided, and I went out the kitchen door into the snow.

Her nose led. She knew the way.

Past the training yard, through the pines, up a long white slope where the drifts came to my knees.

I didn't need anyone to tell me where I was going.

The Moon Stone stood in a clearing at the top of the ridge.

It was a flat slab of grey granite as wide as a truck, with snow drifted against its north side.

My grandmother had told me about it my whole life.

A refusal is answered there, by the one who was refused, standing on the stone under the full moon.

It was three weeks away.

A huge black wolf lay curled on the granite with his head on his paws.

He had been there for hours. There was frost on his back.

His ears came up when I stepped into the clearing, and his amber eyes met mine.

He didn't move.

"You left a note," I said. "It said noon."

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