The Curse of the Beta

ir and went straight down to the boats, because work was

of them with his fingers going too fast and his tongue between his teeth. He looked

ys a lot o

be introduced to. His hazel eyes were bright. "He says she shifted on the island, right where the old ones are buri

it closed. The cord was rough on my fingers. My fingers had a

is it

shifted there

means s

and let him talk about the catch and the tide and a girl in the village called Ivy who asked too many questions, and when the net was mended I went up to the pack house and made myself busy in the storeroom, counting barrels. Co

my arm beg

edges gone grey, and the grey had spread out from the line in little threads that reached down toward my wrist. It smelled of the metal taste in my mouth. I took a clean rag from the shelf and a jar of Agnes's salve, th

ud sound. It would be under the salve and the wool and my own skin, and anyone who stood close enough and breathed deep would find it. Nina t

e had given me a list of things that were not the reason, in the way she did, and then she had gone back to her cottage and I had stood in the rain and had it out with my wolf, who had wanted to run after her and had not understood why I would

cause I was a fool, or because some part o

me up to mine and stayed there a moment too long. She has a soft face with a small straight nose and long dark lashes, and

rm," sh

thi

li

from her. "It's no

t the grey threads under my skin and her face did not change. That was how I knew it was bad, because Nina's face never changed when it wa

id. "In the bloo

not

y i

s go

at she did. She folded her hands on the table and looke

t. I don't know

put i

n't k

ould w

a grudge aga

eyes were flat and steady, and she

her with a gash from a boar and told her it was nothing. That's not the whole of it,

an't shift, he'll have to make a thing of it,

alread

ed at t

o to a Beta who had too much of it in his blood." She picked up the pestle and turned it over in her fingers. "I told him a wolf would notice. I told him i

der my hand. "Why are

d I am not going to lie to you and say I will keep it from him. I

r my palm and the stone in my ches

silver and living to tell it. There are stories o

way i

very quietly, "Go and see the schoolteacher. Marcus will ask you tod

n in fine weather. There is a smell to the place. Chalk, and wet wool, and the ash from the stove, and something underneath it all that belongs to no one. I stood at the gate with my hand on the latch and

and her strong jaw went tight. She was not a small woman. She was tall and she carried herself like she expected to be argued with. She wore a grey d

ooked at me the way a person looks at a dog they a

Eli

wn. Water slopped over the rim and made a

I caught

lp store, and it went into me and found the rope that had been tied to my ribs that morning and pulled it tight. My hands went cold and then hot. I co

od of knowing, the sense of a place found. There was nothing. There was a rope and a pull and a terrible ache in a place where the wolf used to be, and that was

said. Her voice was

N

he color

thing to say

what you are. I know what all of you are, up at that house on the hill. I came back here to bury my grandfather and I have seen things since t

name like a thing she had been turning over.

know my Al

the boats and the kilns and the magistrate. My fath

hy

Clara said, "and this is the

child inside, and a girl's voice answered her, bright and curious, and then the stove door scraped. I stood in the yard with the r

ne and I looked down and saw a thread of grey light running up under the skin of my wrist, movin

d in the numb place, for on

in came down harder on the green, and I stood at the gate of the schoolhouse with my good hand on the latch and my bad arm hanging usele

nd on the other side of the door, in the warm chalky dark of the schoolroom, Clara was te