will move our boundary back to the trees. The old territory is yours. This is our way of welcoming you.”

“Done,” Aleu proclaimed, “And thanks. Anything else?”

“Lupus, the leader of the Golden River pack, sends his greetings,” Gray Spirit told her, “He wants you to understand his territory begins at a river you reach to the north of this place. He welcomes you, too, and we both hope you can be our ally.”

“Um, sure,” Aleu said, feeling a little overwhelmed, “Thanks…Is there any way to seal an agreement, to, you know, make it official?”

The faintest hint of a smile came to Gray Spirit’s mouth. “Watch,” he commanded. The gray wolf lifted a huge paw and slammed it down into the dirt, making an imprint. Aleu studied it, taking in its hugeness and the creases in the worn footpads that showed up so well. “Now you,” he explained, “Stamp your seal to the left, overlapping mine.”

Aleu looked at him, then raised a paw up and brought it down, pounding her smaller print into the earth. And there the seal was, announcing peace between them.

“Thank you, Aleu,” Gray Spirit said, dropping back into the grass with his three bodyguards, “May the spirits watch over you.”

“You, also,” Aleu murmured, and watched until the movement in the grass was gone.

A sniff came from behind Aleu, and Aleu rolled her eyes heavenward in annoyance. “Well, this is a divine situation,” Senna complained, “Now every pack in this part of the land will know we’re being led by a mongrel! They’ll see our weakness and take it as an opportunity to declare war!”

“Senna,” Aleu said in a low voice, “Shut up.” She had enough to worry about without someone predicting a future war. She looked around at the silent faces around her, relishing Senna’s taken-aback expression. “Well, we have our boundaries. Let’s go so we can mark them and make it official.” She walked towards the bush and was about to step into it, when she realized no one was following her. She looked back over her shoulder. “Well, c’mon! Let’s go!” No one moved.

A satisfied grin was steadily growing on Senna’s face. Aleu wondered if she had pre-arranged all this, and instantly the hatred she felt injected into her voice and made it as sharp and strong as steel. “Follow me.”

Without a word the wolves began to filter out, and Aleu turned to dash quickly into the bush and continue to walk briskly to her duty.

That night, Aleu sat outside the pack cave and looked up at the black velvet sky, thinking. They had found this cave carved into a large hill near the center of their territory. It had instantly become their new home, and amazingly all twenty wolves could fit inside it quite comfortably. Quicksilver had discovered it when he was on the hunt with the others. Two caribou had been caught, and Aleu had been the first to rip into them, not caring that it was raw and bloody; she was starving. She had had to snap at Senna when the wolf was going to take a bite while Aleu was still eating. Aleu disliked having to growl and snap every other minute, but she had to establish her place as leader. She didn’t know what she would do if Senna managed to get the pack’s trust, so it was important to keep the former alpha at bay.

The remains of the two caribou had been buried in storage pockets outside the cave entrance, and everyone had eaten, but though Aleu’s stomach was full, the rest of her felt empty.

A flash of soft colors above the trees of the Dark Forest released a new wave of sadness in Aleu as her mother Jenna came to mind. She hadn’t even said goodbye to her. She wondered what the rest of her family would think of her now.

A beautiful female wolf emerged from the cave and sat down next to Aleu. “Sorry for disturbing you, but I thought I might be able to help you with the Code of the Wolf. I know you’re not familiar with it, but to be accepted and stand up to Senna you need to know at least some of it.” The wolf looked to the sky. “I really don’t know what’s gotten into Senna. She was really a quiet, gentle sort when Nava was leader. Guess she was waiting for just the right time to take over or something. Or she’s just scared a wolf-dog like you will dishonor the pack. I don’t know.” The wolf looked up. “Anyway, what do you say?”

Aleu stared at the wolf, a white female with a spray of gray on the left side of her head and gray on the tip of her tail. “Thanks. Thanks a lot…What’s your name?”

“Linder,” she said, “After the stone.”

“Is it hard to remember the whole Code? How many laws are there?” Aleu asked.

Linder furrowed her brow. “The whole thing’s been passed down orally for generations, so I’ve probably forgotten some of it, but I think I know enough to teach you the basics. When do you want me to start teaching you?”

“Now would be nice,” Aleu said, just as Linder yawned, “But you’re tired. How about first thing tomorrow morning, before anyone else is up?”

“Is that a question or an order?” Linder said, “I’ll tell you right now, Aleu, you’ve got to get used to giving orders nearly all the time, else no one will know what you want them to do. Now, what was that again?”

Aleu sighed. “Meet me here tomorrow morning before anyone else is awake.”

“Good enough,” Linder approved, getting up and trotting back into the cave, “I’ll see you at sunup.”

Aleu watched her go, relieved she now had two wolves on her side: Quicksilver and Linder. But there were still eighteen others to win over, including Senna. It might as well be one to a billion…but it was a start.

Aleu watched as the Northern Lights seemed to blow into an image of a wolf as they faded away. She thought about Balto and Jenna, and breathed a heavy sigh. “I miss you.” She hoped her words somehow carried on the wind, back to Nome and into her parents’ dreams, so they could hear her.

She stood there for awhile, frozen, then reluctantly slipped into the shadows of the cave.

A few days later, right before the morning hunt, Aleu heard a distressed male voice drifting over from beside the pack cave. She perked up her ears, and quietly padded over to find a black and white wolf backed up against the stone side, surrounded by a group of other wolves listening closely.

“I don’t regret it!” the wolf shouted, “Senna’s right! Every other pack around here laughs at us because we have a dog for a leader! I’m tired of being made fun of! I’m out of here!”

“What?” Aleu said softly. Every wolf turned to gaze, horrified, at her. A path formed as wolves parted to let their leader through until she was face to face with the rebel wolf. “What?”

“I’ve joined the Golden River pack,” he said defiantly, glaring straight into her blue eyes, “You as a leader bring embarrassment to me and a lot of us here. I can’t watch a mutt take charge of wolves. Like I said, I’m out of here.”

Aleu felt two very strong emotions well up at the same time: failure and anger. Failure, because she knew if she was being a good leader he would want to stay with the pack. (Would she always be a failure as a wolf?) Anger, because how could he know how hard being the leader was? She wanted to cry out and strike him down. Couldn’t he see how hard she was trying? Couldn’t he see becoming a good leader didn’t happen overnight?

“Reject him,” someone murmured.

“The Ceremony of Rejection,” someone else muttered. The whispers increased into shouts, and the clamor of the shouts rang through Aleu’s ears.

“Rejection!”

“That’s it, Flint, you’re out of the pack!”

“Reject him!”

The chanting pounded into Aleu’s head as hard as a wooden stake, and she pressed a paw against her forehead. “STOP!”

The wolves fell silent, waiting expectantly. Aleu dropped her paw and looked straight into Flint’s face. His jaw was quivering and beads of sweat were forming on his muzzle. Quietly he told her, “I don’t care if you Reject me. Lupus has told me he will take me in whether I’m Rejected or not. Do what you want; I don’t care.”

Aleu could feel Senna’s gaze burning into her back. She heard the she-wolf’s poisonous thoughts as clearly as if they had been spoken: ‘You don’t know how to do Ceremonies, do you?’ Aleu felt embarrassment in the lengthy silence, but she suddenly decided she would do this Ceremony her own way. If the wolves expected her to know their traditions but didn’t bother to teach them to her, well, their loss.

She straightened and placed a paw on Flint’s shoulder. He flinched, as if expecting her to hit him. She spoke to him these words, “Then go. You aren’t Rejected; you can return and join us again if you feel the need. The spirits will judge your decision, Flint, not me.” His eyebrows furrowed, and Flint looked at her with a confused expression as Aleu lightly licked his forehead and trotted away. She slowed and looked back to see him shake himself and run off to the north. Then, she heard grumbles arising from the pack.

“What was THAT?”

“Strangest ‘Ceremony’ I’ve ever