The Luna Vote

The council put my name on the Luna ballot as a joke.

I knew because Councilor Ames told me while I was replacing the meeting hall’s broken exit light.

“You’re always complaining that outsiders need a voice, Tessa,” he said. “Now they can vote for you.”

The other councilors laughed. I stood on the ladder with a screwdriver between my teeth and read the chalkboard.

**LUNA CANDIDATES: VERA AMES. TESSA WREN.**

Vera was his daughter. She chaired the feast committee, owned three fur coats, and had been expected to marry Acting Alpha Eli Ward since they danced together at sixteen.

I repaired rental cabins. My mother had been rejected by her mate before my birth, which left us pack-adjacent: welcome to pay market fees, forbidden from voting on stores, schools, or winter shelter.

“When is registration?” I asked.

The Luna had once been only the Alpha’s mate. After the last Luna died and her widower retired, Eli persuaded the territory to separate the office from mating and fill it by vote. The Luna would oversee welfare, mediation, and internal law. The council agreed because they expected Vera to win and marry him anyway.

The rules said every resident wolf over eighteen could vote.

The council’s roll listed 612.

My repair invoices listed at least 770.

I spent the next morning at the laundromat with a yellow pad. Ruth Calder, whose mate rejected her after a mill accident scarred her face, brought twelve names from the river cabins. Two brothers expelled from North Pack brought nineteen. By lunch, rejected wolves were lining up between humming dryers to check whether they existed.

Most did not.

The registrar, Councilor Ames, had classified them as guests, dependents, or temporary labor, even when they had paid territory dues for years.

Eli found me feeding quarters into dryer six.

He was thirty-one, careful with power, and irritatingly handsome in a plain work coat. We had spent six months arguing over unsafe porches. He usually listened after the second argument.

“Ames says you are disrupting registration,” he said.

“Registration is closed.”

“It closes Friday.”

“For people on his private roll, perhaps.”

I showed him twenty-seven dues receipts. He crouched beside my plastic chair, reading each one while a dryer thumped somebody’s boots behind him.

“These people are residents,” he said.

“Say it at the council table.”

“I will.”

“Not enough. Open the roll where people can see it.”

Eli looked toward the fogged windows. “They will claim I’m helping the candidate who opposes Vera.”

“Are you?”

His mouth tilted. “I haven’t heard your platform.”

“Count everyone. Fix the clinic rule that requires a mate’s household seal. Stop using ration access to punish rejected wolves.”

At Thursday’s council meeting, Eli proposed a public roll review. Ames defeated it four votes to three. Then the council moved registration from Friday evening to Friday morning and posted the notice at 9:05, after labor crews had left.

Territory law required election notices to be read at the sawmill horn, the school entrance, and the market. I borrowed a plumber’s van with roof speakers. Ruth drove. I read the changed hours at every job site while rejected wolves followed in pickup trucks.

At the registry, Ames had set one table and one pen.

We brought eight pens, folding chairs, coffee, and a photocopier powered from the van. Each applicant submitted a dues receipt or twelve-month lease. Eli ordered the clerk to stamp a written reason on every denial.

By noon, we had registered 103 residents.

Vera watched from the hall steps. When Ames went inside, she approached me.

“My father thought you would be embarrassed,” she said.

“Are you?”

“I’m furious.”

She handed me a stack of clinic complaints from women denied treatment because their records lacked a mate’s seal.

“I asked him to fix these,” she said. “He hid them in my campaign cabinet.”

Vera was not stupid or cruel. She was a daughter being used as a ribbon around somebody else’s control.

At the candidate feast, she promised expanded childcare and transparent food contracts. I promised resident appeals, elected ward stewards, and an end to household seals. We debated without insulting each other.

Then Ames asked whether an unmated, rejected woman’s daughter could embody Luna dignity.

The hall went quiet.

I took my mother’s old eviction notice from my folder.

“Dignity is what your office demanded while she carried our mattress down three flights alone,” I said. “I’m running on doors that open, records that include us, and heat that stays on after a man leaves.”

Ruth started clapping. The river cabins followed.

Election day began with sleet.