𝓢𝓱𝓸𝔀𝔂's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Showy woke to silence. No wind. No hammering snow. She pushed open the cafe door and stopped. A wall of white blocked the path to her steps. The blizzard had buried everything overnight. No traveler could reach her door today, opening day. Behind her, a draft slipped through the window seams. It found the little forge stove and swallowed its flame. The fire winked out. Cold poured back into the room, and Showy hugged her white sweater tight. She grabbed a shovel and dug. Snow filled the space as fast as she cleared it. Her fingers went numb inside her mittens. After ten minutes she had cleared six feet and could not feel her toes. The path ran on for a hundred more. She dropped the shovel and sat down hard in the snow, breath shaking. A point of blue light bobbed over the drift. Then a second, pink and white. Two fairies. Showy had met them once, back when she first bought the cafe. The boy, Brantley, had wiped his muddy shoes on her doorstep and grinned like it was a gift. The girl beside him watered the frost off her window ledge each morning without asking. "You're freezing," Brantley said. He landed on the shovel handle. His blue tunic caught the pale light, silver stars glinting. "That's no good for a cafe." "Nobody's coming," Showy said. "The snow won. My fire's out." Roseabella hovered close, flower headband bright against the gray sky. She frowned at the buried path, then at Showy's blue lips. "We can't melt all this. But we don't have to." She turned to Brantley. "The light. Do the light." Brantley lifted the tiny glowing flower in his hand. Roseabella spread her arms. Sparks lifted off her wings and drifted down the drift like fireflies. Where they touched snow, the surface hardened smooth and firm. The two fairies flew backward, trailing light, and a narrow packed path formed behind them, curving away toward the distant road. "It won't melt," Roseabella called. "But boots won't sink now. They'll walk straight to your door." Showy scrambled up. She followed the glowing trail to the road's edge. Far off, a shape rumbled through the white. A pink and blue truck, chains on its tires, rolled to a stop where the packed path began. The driver leaned out, an old man with red cheeks. "Saw the lights," he said. "Half the ridge did. Is the cafe open?" Showy ran back inside. She stuffed dry kindling through the forge door and struck a match. The flame caught and climbed. This time she wedged a folded cloth into the window seam. No draft reached the fire. Heat rolled out steady and warm. Boots stamped on the packed path outside. The old man came first, then others behind him. Showy pulled the door wide. Then smoke curled off the stovepipe, thick and gray, and pooled against the ceiling as the first traveler stepped in.