The Bunny in the Fox's Palm novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: The Hall
Linden MacMahon stood at the lodge door with his gold watch open in his palm.
He had not knocked.
He looked at the two of us in the firelight, wrapped in a bearskin, and then at the red collar in my fist.
"Good morning," he said. "You've been busy."
Soren stood up.
He put himself between us in nothing but a blanket, and the sight of it would have been funny any other day.
"Get out of my lodge," he said.
"It's the family's lodge, nephew. I've come to be kind." Linden snapped the watch shut. "The Council sits at dawn. I called it an hour ago. A kept one has been caught on my private ground at night, tampering with graves."
"They are not tampering. They are graves."
"Are they?"
Linden smiled.
"Then you'll want to bring your evidence," he said. "Do come."
The Council hall was cold and full.
Every den had come in the dark.
Elders sat on the long benches in their coats, and behind them the families stood in rows.
I saw my grandmother in the back.
She was gripping the bench in front of her.
Soren took the speaker's chair on the dais.
I stood in the open floor with Fenella beside me, and Rue's collar was wrapped in my scarf.
"I accuse my uncle," Soren said.
His voice rang off the glass.
"Of the murder of three kept ones. Their stones are in the old orchard. One of them is the sister of this woman. I have seen them with my own eyes."
A ripple went through the hall.
"Then the Council will go and see them too," said the oldest elder from his bench, leaning on his cane. "At once."
Linden spread his hands, wide and willing.
"By all means."
He sent four cousins running.
They were back inside the hour, muddy to the knees.
"The orchard is bare, Elder," one of them reported. "A few old trees. A cut field."
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