Chapter 37: The Offer

The deputy marshal came up the road at seven with the Director's terms typed on a single sheet.

Abel and the six fence men stood across the yard in a line.

They had steel around their necks and their eyes on the gravel.

Nobody had told them to leave.

Nobody had told them anything since three o'clock except to hold the yard, and so they held it.

Abel's apron was torn at the pocket.

"Abel," I said, going past him with my arms wrapped around myself.

He heard me, and his jaw moved.

He didn't look up.

The deputy waited at the foot of the porch steps with the sheet held out at arm's length.

"The Director's compliments," he said. "She asks for an answer by moonrise."

"Where are my aunts?"

"I wasn't told."

"Then tell her I read it."

"She said you'd say that."

He put the sheet in my hand and went back down the road to his car.

We read it at the kitchen table, where three untouched cups stood in front of the aunts' empty chairs.

Joanne held it flat under the lamp and read it out in her office voice.

"One. At moonrise on the courthouse steps, Ms. Linwood speaks the release words before the packs."

"Those are the words I said in November," I said. "Backward."

"Two. The claim between Ms. Linwood and Mr. Draycott ends. Three. The four elders at Ridge Hall go home the same night."

She turned the page over.

"Four. The Registry withdraws from this house and from the eleven homes."

"She's giving up the homes?" Ronan said.

"She's giving them up on paper," said Joanne.

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