business, and the second time she looked at me for a long moment and then went back to her patients, and

urn at four, and he had said it pleasantly, the way a man sa

tter into the back ro

in the spring. It said that the clinic's records were to be made available to the Council's envoy in the meantime. It said that the Alpha of the Kenai Pack was to appea

mber whose name I had heard once, at a distance, fro

ter and put it i

tanding in front of the wall by the coat hooks,

this?"

f thing you stopped seeing. It was brass, sixteen inches across, screwed into the plaster. At the top it said TREATY OF KE

aid. "You must have wal

raced the air in front of the brass

he wall. Yo

ar

smelled of metal and old polish. I read it aloud the way it had been r

and finding no profit in it, agreed to set aside the clinic and the land within one hundred paces of it as neutral gr

" Nadia said. "That

nough at

e rest

s no res

he bottom of the plaque. "The letters are small

t of curiosity, and I had not thought about it in years. "It says that the signatories and their heir

t is

t is

t the light and I could smell her, that clean frost and birch sm

at it," she said. "You read the second one lik

am a ba

re leaving s

e read that plaque more times than I have read my own mail. If

mfortable. Then she turned and went to the c

are you

clinic is full of ghosts." She pulled the zipper up with a broken pull. "I will be back before four

in front of the plaque for a long ti

ver cabinet open and her ledger on the counter and a penc

t did you tell

rst par

the s

is about t

. Her auburn curls were pinned up and there was a pen

ked at her. "The

ast in 1958. Silas had it done when he took over. He told me once, late, after the salmon run failed

mary o

at me then, and her brown eyes were flat and serious. "The original is in th

eed to

did you think this building cam

nocked twice a

as keep that f

l again and went back to her ledger. "Ask him. Or do not ask him. But when you show a hunte

another number and turned anothe

swered it because it was ringing and b

clinic,

if you would do me a small favor before four. I would like to see the silver

ward the back room and the c

at you are talkin

the hook behind the desk. It has a piece of red tap

before I co

the hook behind the desk, and the k