Elena Ashwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The werewolf lowered his head. He did not speak, but he stepped aside from the doorway. Elena took that as a yes. By dawn she had her answer to the harder question. The house could stand. But standing was not enough. Wind poured through broken windows. The roof sagged over the top floor. The porch steps had rotted through. Twelve people would freeze here in a week. Elena walked the rooms with her lantern. She counted the holes. She counted the gaps in the walls. Then she counted the days. Two left before winter. She could not rebuild a house in two days alone. She found the werewolf crouched in the front room, watching her. In daylight the fur had thinned. His jaw looked more like a man's now. But his eyes still burned, and her chest still tightened when she met them. "I can't do this by myself," she said. "You know this house. You've kept it standing this long. Show me." He rose. He crossed to the far wall and pressed his clawed hand to a beam. Solid. Then he pointed to the broken windows, and to a stack of split boards in the corner. He had been gathering wood. He had a plan already. They worked. Elena nailed boards across the windows while the werewolf hauled beams she could not lift alone. He braced the sagging roof from below. She stuffed the wall gaps with rags and mud from the yard. Her fear did not vanish. It shrank into the work. Each time he handed her a plank, her hands shook a little less. By the second night the wind stopped whistling through the front room. Elena lit a fire in the old hearth. The chimney drew clean. Heat filled the space for the first time. She sat on the floor and stared at the closed windows, the braced roof, the sealed walls. It would hold. Twelve people would not freeze. The werewolf sat across the fire from her. On the wall behind him hung the strange metal disk, its carved stars catching the firelight. Elena looked from the disk to him. "Thank you," she said. He did not answer. He tilted his head toward the door. Elena listened. Footsteps crunched outside. Voices. Many voices, low and afraid. Someone knocked hard on the broken frame. Elena's stomach dropped. The refugees were not due until morning. She had left them at the mill. She crossed the room and pulled the door open. Her twelve people stood on the ruined steps, blankets over their shoulders, breath fogging the cold air. Behind them the fire at the mill had gone dark. And they had come early, straight into the house she shared with a werewolf they did not know was here. Elena turned. The werewolf had risen. Twelve pairs of eyes found the shape by the fire. Someone screamed.