She carefully maneuvered around the wolf to get to the stove. Once she was on the other side, she forced herself to breathe again and gingerly opened the giant belly of the thick cast-iron.
She cursed. Someone had been responsible and put out the fire, which meant all that was left in the stove was caked ash.
“That’s okay. We’re in a forest.” There were things to burn all over.
She turned back to the kitchen and pawed around the shelves, shocked by the number and variety of spices. Who were these people? It seemed like they had a spice cabinet big enough to cook for every cuisine on earth in this tiny cabin with no running water. There were no obvious lighters or matches, so she started opening containers. They were well-sealed, but she was surprised she didn’t see any rodent activity in the cabin at all.
Bursts of flavor filled her nose, but every jar so far matched what it said on the label, until she got to a tin for tea, which rattled. She opened it to find matchsticks. For a moment, she was almost disappointed, because she could’ve used the caffeine, but she was relieved she didn’t have to go full Girl Scout and try to start a fire with friction.
She put them back and opened the cooler with something like fear, bracing for rotted food, but it was empty.
Okay. They had the possibility of fire, which was huge. She weighed how cold she felt now against the volume of the wind outside. There had to be a woodpile. There just had to be, and if they got desperate, there were trees. Sadly, pine trees grew tall before branching out, which meant getting smaller branches she could break off would suck. Maybe by some miracle, there’d be an ax somewhere. It wasn’t in plain view, but if they left their spice collection, they had to have left the ax, right?
All of that took light. There were stories of people who died in storms five feet from their house because they couldn’t find it.
She stepped carefully around the stove to examine the bed and then under the bed, the only other place to store something. There were drawers pulled from a dresser haphazardly stackedon the floor, in which she found men’s clothes. They look to fit a pretty big man. If he ever shifted back, that would be nice for him, but right now, she saw a chance for defense.
First, she put on a flannel shirt, because her best coat was now trapped with her space blanket under a wolf. Then she grabbed the rest of the clothes and the sheets off the bed to create a net. She could tie it to the leg of the stove. That wasn’t going anywhere. She was less certain about the bed, but it was made of solid wood, so it was her best bet. She worked for half an hour, trying to ignore how stiff her fingers were, before she gingerly placed it over the wolf and tied down her anchors.
She desperately wanted to wedge clothing into the door, but it was the only way out, and that would slow her down, so she just put on more layers and collected the knives, the cast-iron skillet, and the kettle from the kitchen area and parked herself next to the door, knife in hand.
She chafed her hands together, not liking how numb they were or how tired she felt. She jumped in place to keep her blood circulating to her toes as well. She’d been out a long time. Though it was better out of the wind, a permanent chill had settled in her core, along with the conviction that she would never be warm again.
She felt her eyes close and woke with a start when her back hit the door.
“Stay awake. Stay awake. You’re fine.”
If she repeated it enough times, would it be true? Maybe if she were a spellcaster, and her words actually held any power.
Visions flickered at the edge of her eyes, all to do with ice, and she rolled her eyes. “Got it, thanks.”
She didn’t have to be a divination witch to know she was in trouble.
The wind roared faster, and the light faded until she could barely see a hand in front of her face, let alone the wolf on the floor.
Something mighty crashed, and she screamed as a monster burst through the kitchen window. It took her eyes a few seconds to focus on it, and she realized a branch had hit the window above the kitchen.
The wolf snarled, and the knife tumbled from rigid fingers. She scrambled on the floor and got her hands around the cast-iron through.
In seconds, he ripped through the net meant to keep him down and stood with splayed legs, teeth and eyes gleaming in the dim.
She braced for pain and readied to swing with the last of her strength when the wolf flowed away, and the man crouched on all fours in its place.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” he said and took a step toward her. She jerked back into the door, and he stepped back, hands up. “I’m not going to eat you!”
The sentence struck her as completely absurd, and the bubble of hysterical laughter that had been trying to escape all day finally let loose. She giggled like a maniac, and he stopped moving.
“Sorry!” she said, but she could not stop laughing.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” the guy said as he wrapped his arms around himself. She glanced at the window. They had to block that up, which meant she had to put down the frying pan.
She couldn’t make herself do it. The enemy she’d been taught to fear her entire life stood before her.
“So I would guess you have a question or two?” the guy said. “Surprise, we’re real? Please don’t ever tell anybody, or we’ll have to kill you.”
Cat frowned. In all of her scenarios, she hadn’t dreamed the wolf would try to explain the existence of werewolves.
She gasped. He didn’t know she was a witch.
