The Last Chair

The cabin was only marginally warmer than the outside.

It was a one-room shack clinging to the side of the mountain, smelling of dried sage, damp wood, and poverty. Bundles of drying herbs hung from the rafters like sleeping bats.

Elara had managed to drag the wolf inside and onto the rug in front of the wood stove. He took up nearly half the floor space.

She bustled around him, lighting the last of her kindling. The fire caught, a weak, flickering orange tongue that seemed afraid of the draft coming from the window.

Elara knelt beside the wolf. She peeled back the blanket.

His back leg was bent at a wrong angle. The impact had snapped the bone.

"This is going to hurt," she whispered to the unconscious animal.

She went to her cupboard. It was bare, save for a box of tea and a single, small glass jar sitting on the top shelf.

The jar glowed faintly in the dim light. It was her masterpiece. A healing salve infused with goldenseal, arnica, and a month’s worth of moonlight chants. She had been saving it to sell to the tourists in the spring. It was worth fifty dollars—enough for a week of groceries.

She didn't hesitate. She unscrewed the lid.

"For the guilt," she muttered, scooping out the shimmering green paste.

She worked quickly, her hands glowing with a faint, violet light—the only magic she could ever seem to summon reliably. She set the bone with a sickening *click*, coating the leg in the salve and binding it with strips of an old t-shirt.

The wolf whined in his sleep, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through the floorboards.

Elara sat back, wiping sweat from her forehead. "There. That's the best I can do."

She looked at the stove. The fire was dying.

She checked the wood box. Empty.

She checked the porch. The storm had buried her reserve pile under three feet of drift. She couldn't go back out there.

She looked around the room. Her eyes landed on her dining chair. It was a sturdy oak thing, scarred and wobbly, the only piece of furniture she owned besides her bed.

"Well," Elara sighed, standing up. "I usually eat standing up anyway."

She smashed the chair against the floor. It splintered with a loud crack.

She fed the legs into the stove. The fire roared to life, grateful for the dry wood.

The cabin warmed, just slightly. The frost on the inside of the windows began to weep.

Elara sat on the rug next to the wolf, pulling her knees to her chest. The adrenaline was fading, leaving her exhausted and hollow.

"You're a big one, aren't you?" she said softly, stroking the fur between the wolf’s ears. It was softer than it looked.

The wind howled outside, rattling the tin roof.

"I'm sorry I hit you," she confessed to the sleeping beast. "I shouldn't have been driving. But I needed the money. I'm... I'm not very good at this. Being a witch. Being an adult."

The wolf released a heavy breath.

"My mother used to say magic provides," Elara continued, her voice thick with tears she usually held back. "But tonight, magic just cost me my last chair and my rent money."

She shivered. The floor was cold.

She looked at the wolf. He was radiating heat like a furnace.

Hesitantly, Elara lay down. She curled her back against the wolf’s side, burying her face in the thick ruff of his neck. He smelled of pine needles and deep, wild earth.

"Just for tonight," she whispered, closing her eyes. "Don't eat me when you wake up, okay? I taste like failure and instant noodles."

Under the roar of the blizzard, enveloped in the heat of the beast, Elara finally fell asleep.

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