Chapter 5: The Jar

Ellis locked the guesthouse door from the outside and stood there for a long time.

I heard him through the wood, breathing.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I don't want to do this."

"Then don't," I said.

"Dad gave an order."

"I know," I said. "Go on, I'll be fine."

His boots went down the steps slowly, and he stopped twice on the way.

The guesthouse was one room at the back of our land, with a cot, a sink and a window above the cot.

It was where we put visiting packs' cousins.

I sat on the cot with my knees pulled up and made myself think.

A hundred and forty people had forgotten me, all at once, in the same night.

That was too big to be an accident, and too neat to be a curse.

It had to be something we all did together.

I went through the party again, minute by minute.

We ate cake, and we danced, and my brothers carried me around.

Then Lester climbed on his chair and the cup went around the room.

Every wolf in the pack drank from it.

I was the only one who hadn't, and I was the only one who remembered.

I stood up on the cot.

"That's not a coincidence," I said out loud to the empty room.

The window above the cot was small, but I'm small too.

I had been climbing out of windows since I was six.

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