Chapter 29: The Fire on the Beach

I went down the hill on foot.

I didn't run, though my wolf wanted to so badly my legs shook.

The four girls came behind me in their best dresses and trainers, holding their shoes.

Paul came last, still in his driving shirt.

He was muttering that nobody had told him there was a dress code.

At the bottom of the slipway the Trevail wolves stood back to make a path down the sand.

Jago's aunt was at the front of it, in a blue frock with a brooch on, crying already.

"Don't," I said.

"I'll do what I like, my love. It's my beach."

Jago was waiting in front of the fire pile.

He'd put on a clean white shirt, because somebody had made him.

The sleeves were rolled up, and his feet were bare in the sand.

He watched me walk the whole way down to him and didn't move.

When I got there he said, very quietly, "You came back."

"I said Wednesday. It's Saturday. Sorry I'm late."

"Three days," he said. "I'm good at waiting. I'm worse at it than I was."

The old Luna was sitting in a folding chair beside the pile.

She had a tartan rug over her knees and her red wool in her lap.

"Well," she said. "Are we doing this or are we standing about? I'm ninety-one."

Both packs laughed.

The Coldwater Alpha struck the match and handed it to Jago's nephew. He'd been promised.

The boy put it to the dry grass at the bottom of the pile with his tongue between his teeth.

It caught.

It went up through the pallets and the oars and the old tree trunk, crackling.

The lobster pot at the top caught last and sat there in a crown of flame.

The heat came off it. Everyone stepped back a pace.

I'd thought there'd be words. A priestess, or the Alpha's book, or vows.

There weren't, in the Trevail Pack.

The old Luna held up her ball of red wool.

"In my day," she said, "in the north, we did it like this. My gran did it. I did it, seventy years back. Give me your hands, the pair of you."

We held out our hands.

She broke off a length of wool with her teeth.

Then she tied it round my left wrist, and round Jago's right, in one loop, with a knot I couldn't have untied with a knife.

Her small dry hands were very steady.

"The Goddess cut your old thread at your end, pet," she said to me. "So we tie a new one. At both ends, this time. Mind you keep it."

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