Austin's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The cold came to Rindhollow overnight, and Austin had nowhere warm to sleep. He wanted one thing more than warmth: a place as apprentice to the kindest shopkeeper in town. But every morning he lost his nerve at her door. He was ten years old, his shoes split open at the toes, his face and hands black with road dirt. A boy like that did not get hired. So he waited, and now the frost had come for him. He spent the night in the ruins of an old cottage. Thick vines covered its walls. Its roof had half fallen in, but the plants had grown so thick they blocked some of the wind. Austin curled against a cold stone wall and hugged his rabbit close. The little bunny had soft fur in purple, pink, and yellow. He had pulled it from a ditch last spring and kept it ever since. Now it shivered against his chest, and he could not stop its shaking. By dawn his fingers would not bend. The rabbit had gone quiet and still. Austin knew he could not wait another day to be brave. He had to find warmth now, or lose the one friend he had. So he carried the rabbit to the greenhouse at the edge of the gardens. He had passed it many times. Warm steam always clouded its glass. Inside worked the gardener who grew the sweetest fruit in Rindhollow. He had watched her hand apples to children for free. He had been too ashamed to speak to her. He was not ashamed now. He pushed the door open. Warm air hit him like a wave. Flora Greenwood knelt among her plants, gloved hands deep in black soil. A strange plant sat beside her in a pot, its leaves bright and its face shifting from a frown to a grin as she worked. A tiny winged hamster hovered near her shoulder, its butterfly wings flashing green and pink. Flora looked up. She saw the dirt, the torn shoes, the still rabbit in his arms. She did not frown. "Bring that little one to the heat," she said. She cleared a space on a warm stone bench near the pipes. "Set him there. Quick now." Austin laid the rabbit on the warm stone. For a long moment it did not move. Then one ear twitched. Its chest rose. Austin's breath broke out in a sob he could not hold back. Flora pressed a cup of hot tea into his frozen hands. She studied him while he drank. "You've slept rough," she said. It was not a question. "Cold's not done with us yet." She looked at his hands, steady on the cup now. "I need help here through the frost. Honest hands. You look like you've got those." Austin stared at her. The warmth, the work, the kindness he had been too afraid to ask for sat before him. He opened his mouth. He had to find the right words, before the chance slipped away.