𝓢𝓱𝓸𝔀𝔂's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The travelers left at dusk, mugs empty, cheeks warm. Showy waved from the door until the last boots faded down the packed path. Then she fed the stove its final split log. It hissed. Steam curled off the wood instead of flame. She grabbed the next piece from the pile. Soaked through. The blizzard had buried her woodshed, and the thaw had ruined every log. Within minutes the fire shrank to coals. Cold crept back across the floor. Showy shoved her hands under her arms. Her fingers had gone white and stiff. She could not feel two of them. If the fire died tonight, she would too. No traveler would find a frozen shopkeeper welcoming. She needed dry wood now, and she had none. A knock rattled the door. Showy opened it. Luna stood on the step, black hair dusted with snow, her white sweater bright in the dark. She had given Showy the forge stove itself, hauled it here the day before opening and bolted it in with her own hands. Now she carried a sled stacked with split logs, and a smaller girl and two boys trailed behind her, bundled and pink-cheeked, dragging more. "You look half-frozen," Luna said. She caught Showy's white fingers and pressed them between her palms. "How long has your fire been dying?" "An hour. My wood's all wet." Showy's voice shook. "I didn't know who else to wait for." "You didn't wait. I saw your chimney stop smoking from the ridge." Luna nodded at the children. "They were building a snowman by my cottage. I told them there was a cafe that needed rescuing. Turns out kids like a rescue." The children hauled the logs inside and stacked them by the stove. Dry logs, seasoned, split thin. Luna knelt at the stove door and raked the dying coals forward. She wedged a slim log against them and blew. The coals brightened. A flame licked up the bark and caught. Heat spread. Showy sank onto a chair and held her aching hands toward it. Feeling returned to her fingers in slow, stinging waves. She flexed them. They still worked. "You can't run a cafe on wet wood and luck," Luna said. She stood and brushed ash from her knees. "This sled won't last two days. You need a real store of dry wood, kept somewhere the snow can't reach." Showy looked at the fire, steady now, then at her ruined woodpile by the wall. Luna was right. The path was fixed. The stove was hers. But every warm night depended on wood she could not keep dry. She had saved tonight. She could not save every night the same way. "Then that's next," Showy said. "A dry place to keep it. Before the next storm buries me."