They Blamed Me for Mama's Death, So I Healed Their Worst Enemy novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Bloom
The rhododendrons bloomed on the bald the week of the Gathering, purple to the edge of every cookfire.
Five packs had come up to Carver's Gap by noon, and the gravel lot was full of trucks.
I carried the ham platter across it in a green dress that Dessie had sewn for me.
Nobody on that bald had ever seen me in anything but an apron.
I did not carry it to Elk Fork's table.
I set it down at the Roan's, between the biscuits and the pickled beans, and a Roan child reached for it before I had straightened.
Across the lot, the Elk Fork table was short two chairs.
The white-bearded elder sat at the head of it, with Burl on the bench at the far end beside the cubs.
The Alpha's chair stood empty.
Loyal Gragg had gone to a sister in Tennessee in January, and the pack had not asked him back.
Royce sat with his head down.
When he saw me look, he got up and walked out to his truck.
The Roan boy from last October sat on the cairn.
He was eleven now, and he was not allowed there.
He gave me a wave, and a stern-faced woman pulled him down by his belt.
I laughed.
Duncan was standing by the Roan fire in a white shirt, with his hands at his sides and no coat.
He had not worn one since Easter.
I walked to him across the gravel with the whole bald watching.
"Now?" he said.
"Now."
I went down on my knees in the grass before the cairn.
I was not shaking and I was not cold.
"Take off your shirt," I said, loud enough to carry.
He unbuttoned it in front of five packs.
The old pale seam lay along his ribs, the last silver trace of two hands, from his hip to under his arm.
It was a thin thread now. It was nearly gone.
I laid both my palms on it.
The heat came into my hands warm and slow and sure, and went into him, and I felt my mother's hands and mine together, finishing.
Under my fingers the last of the silver let go.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of They Blamed Me for Mama's Death, So I Healed Their Worst Enemy are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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