Chapter 21: What Mom Owes

Mom looked at the mark on my neck.

Her eyes went to it and stayed there.

"So it's done," she said.

"It's done."

"I came to bring you this."

She held out Gran's book.

I didn't take it.

"And?"

Mom's mouth tightened.

For a second she looked like herself again, the soft voice and the steel underneath.

"And Tilly needs the Moonwell. Every full moon, for who knows how long."

"She needs a healer of Gran's blood, and the cottage at the well."

"So you want the cottage."

"I want my daughter cared for. Sign the cottage over to Stonemere and stay through the winter. Then I'll know she's safe."

Behind me, the ladder creaked.

Wylie came down in his jeans with his own new mark showing above his collar.

He leaned on the doorframe of the back room and said nothing.

He didn't need to.

"No," I said.

"Freja..."

"You want something from me, Mom? Ask for it where you told the lies."

"In the kitchen. In front of the women you told them to."

Mom stared at me.

Then she turned and walked down the hill with the book against her chest.

I got dressed and followed her.

The packhouse kitchen was full on a Saturday morning.

Flour on every counter, apples in the sink, the big pots going.

The talk stopped when Mom walked in.

It stayed stopped when I came in behind her.

The old pack mother with the white braid set down her rolling pin.

"Well," she said. "Go on, then."

Mom stood by the stove where she'd stood every morning of my life.

She put Gran's book down on the counter.

She looked at it instead of at anyone.

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