Chapter 5: The Doctor

The pack clinic opened at eight on Monday, and by ten past I was standing in the waiting room with Bettina and no appointment.

Six wolves sat on the plastic chairs. Two of them were mothers with feverish children.

Every one of them knew who I was.

The receptionist stood up behind her glass.

"Ms. Garrow, you can't just..."

"I'm a patient," I said. "I'd like to see my own file."

"The doctor's with someone."

"Then I'll wait."

I sat down in the middle of the room, with my mother's locket on my chest.

Nobody said anything for about a minute.

Then a heavyset woman by the window cleared her throat.

"You cooked at my sister's wake," she said. "Three weeks ago Tuesday. You brought the lamb."

"I did."

"You were there from morning to dark. I sat beside you."

A few people nodded.

I had not planned for that. I felt my throat tighten.

The inner door opened, and the doctor came out in his white coat, with a folder in his hands.

He was a soft-faced man in his sixties, and he had delivered half of the pack. He had stitched my knee when I was twenty.

He saw me and went white.

"Isla," he said. "This isn't the time."

"It's the time," I said. "You wrote a report about me."

"I wrote a clinical assessment. I can't discuss it in the waiting room."

"Then discuss it here. Everyone in the pack has already heard what it said."

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