Chapter 12: The Kitchen Door

The procession of the gifts began with the canoe.

It came down the aisle on the shoulders of eight volunteers and cleared the antlers by an inch.

Behind it came the taxidermy trout, carried by a very small boy who needed both arms.

Ulla stood at the stamp table and said "RECEIVED" aloud for each item, and signed, and stamped.

By the thirtieth, the stamp had begun to land with a slightly louder thud.

Then the stove came in.

Six volunteers started it up the slope on the dolly.

Halfway up, their hands slipped, and the Long Hall drew one breath.

Soren stepped off the dais and set a hand on the stove's shoulder.

He walked it the rest of the way uphill, at a steady pace, with one arm.

He parked it next to the Alpha's table and stepped back.

The hall applauded the stove.

Item forty-one was last, and I had left it for the end on purpose.

It was a wolf's-tooth pendant on a leather cord, the traditional mating gift, which Nils had given me on the day of the bond.

I had worn it every day for eight years.

I took it off my neck in front of everybody and held it out.

"Pack property," said Ulla.

She did not stamp it.

"It's on the ledger."

"The bond gift belongs to the line. It is not a personal item."

"It's mine to return," I said, "so I'm returning it."

I turned to the hall.

"Item forty-one. One pendant, returned to the Alpha. Counted," I said, and set it on the table in front of him.

Nils looked at it.

Then he looked up, and for a moment he was nineteen years old in the bakehouse and I could see all of it.

Then the choir rose.

The Parting Howl began with the rise, forty-one voices, now shifted and in the wolf.

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