Chapter 9: The Father at the Door

"Stand over there," I said, "by the wall."

Torin went and stood by the wall.

He did it without a word, and he put his hands flat against the stone.

"Dunne," I said. "Go and get my father."

"Now?"

"Tell him I'm in the archive and I'm holding the black book. Tell him that, exactly."

Dunne went up the steps two at a time.

Hester stayed on her crate with her arms folded.

Torin stayed against the wall and watched me, and the lantern light made the black veins at his temples look like cracks in a plate.

"Don't talk to me," I said.

"I won't."

"I mean it."

"I won't."

We waited in silence.

Then heavy feet came down the stairs.

My father walked into the cellar with his hat in his hand and his face already gone grey.

He saw the book.

He saw the page that was open under the lantern.

He stopped.

"Linnea," he said.

"Read it."

"I know what it says."

"Read it out loud."

"Linnea. Please."

"Read where your name is."

He didn't pick up the book.

His jaw was shaking in his beard, and his big, scarred hands hung at his sides.

"All right," he said. "I signed it."

"Why?"

"The Creek was dying."

"You know that."

"Forty acres on the market."

"The mill foreclosed."

"Three children in the clinic that winter." He took a breath that rattled.

"And the moon keeper comes to my door with Torin Stannard's lease in her pocket."

"She says the Creek gets everything if I let her try something old."

"Try something old."

"She said it would only be a little of you. A loan. Something you'd never use, because you were wolfless."

"I wasn't wolfless."

"I didn't know that!" His voice cracked off the walls.

"God help me."

"Nobody did."

"I thought it was a way to give you a good house, and a good name, and a husband who'd never let you want."

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