He Never Noticed I Stopped Talking, Until My Wolf Woke novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Jar

Rowena saves the tea for testing and tells Conall one true thing; Adelaide moves to replace her at council and Conall stays silent.

I got out of bed one inch at a time and went down the hall in my socks.

The kitchen was dark except for the light over the stove.

I took the thermos off the counter, opened it, and breathed in once, carefully, through my mouth.

It was monkshood, all right, boiled down with mint and honey to hide the taste.

A cup a week for three years.

I found an empty jam jar in the cupboard, poured the tea into it, and screwed the lid on with shaking hands.

"You're up," Conall said behind me.

He stood in the doorway in a gray T-shirt with his hair flat on one side.

I put the jar behind my back.

He saw it anyway.

"I can't sleep either," he said. "My wolf keeps pacing."

"Conall, I'm going to give this to Penny for a test. I don't know what it says yet. Please don't ask me why."

He looked at the jar, and then at my face.

"All right," he said.

I had been ready for an argument. I had a whole speech.

He pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, and left the other chair for me.

"Can I ask you one thing?" he said. "It's not about the jar."

I lowered myself into the chair, with my back as straight as a plank.

"One."

"What happened at Moonfall? Not what the pack says. What you saw."

I turned the jar in my hands.

Nobody had asked me that in three years. Not him, not the elders, not the healer.

"I was behind you at the crossing," I said. "There was a rogue in the trees with a rifle. I saw the barrel come up."

"You saw him?"

"I saw the barrel, and it was pointed at your back. So I shoved you, hard, into the ditch."

Conall's face had gone very still.

"The shot hit me instead. I remember the snow, and then Bronwyn's voice, and then the ceiling in the infirmary."

"Bronwyn pulled me out of the ditch," he said slowly. "She told me you fell in front of the shot."

"I didn't fall."

"No." His jaw worked. "No, you didn't."

He put both hands flat on the table, and I watched him add up three years.

"I stood at the pack's memorial for the Moonfall dead," he said, "and thanked Bronwyn in front of everyone for saving my life."

"She did drag you out. That part is true."

"And you were lying in the infirmary."

"I was asleep for two days. By the time I woke up, the story was finished."

He didn't say he was sorry again. I was glad, because the word was already worn thin.

He just reached over and took the jar from me, and set it on the table between us where we could both see it.

"What do you need from me?" he asked.

It was the right question, and I had no answer yet.

"Not yet," I said. "I'll tell you."

On Monday morning Penny drove down to the hospital lab with the jar in her purse and a face.

Conall helped me get dressed.

He did it badly. He knew nothing about my back, and he asked at every button.

Then he drove me to the lodge for the monthly council meeting, because I would not miss it.

Nine seats ran round the long oak table in the council room.

Conall took the head. Bronwyn took the seat beside him, with her braid over one shoulder.

Adelaide had no vote, but she sat in the corner chair that her husband's family had kept for former Lunas, with her knitting.

She smiled at me when I came in on Conall's arm.

I smiled back, because I'd had five years of practice and three days of knowing.

"Before the agenda," Adelaide said, setting down her needles, "may I raise something? It's only for Rowena's sake."

Conall frowned. "Mother, this isn't..."

"Rowena has had a major operation. She needs a long rest, and the Winter Solstice is only two weeks away. A Luna has duties."

She looked around the table with her gentle blue eyes.

"I'd like to propose that Bronwyn serve as acting Luna until Rowena is well. Just a kindness. Just so she needn't carry it."

I sat very still.

One of the older council members nodded. Then another one did.

Bronwyn's face went red. "Aunt Adelaide, I didn't ask for..."

"It needs a second," said the oldest man at the table, the pack's elder, in his dry, cracked voice.

Nobody spoke. Nobody on that council had ever seconded a motion before the Alpha showed his hand.

Every head turned to Conall.

If he said yes, I was done.

He sat with his big hands folded on the oak, and he looked at his mother, and then at Bronwyn, and then at me.

He said nothing at all.

The room waited, and so did I.

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