Chapter 15 The Snowstorm at the Forest Gate

After returning from the palace, winter arrived sooner than anyone expected. The first snowstorm blew in one night and flattened the trees before the café. Hina piled the oven full of firewood, but the cold wind still slipped through every gap in the wood. Mochi and Toast huddled under the same blanket, trembling slightly.

Around midnight there was a hurried knock at the door. Torhart opened it and found a group of young men clinging together outside. They were travelers lost in the storm, blue-faced with trembling lips. Hina pulled everyone in at once to sit by the oven.

She boiled potato soup and brewed ginger tea with honey until the room filled with fragrance. One young man gulped half a bowl of soup and burst into tears. He said they had left home because they were driven out, and no one had ever given them warm food before. Hina reached over and patted his shoulder gently.

Torhart and Rylen, who arrived later, chopped firewood and mended gaps in the walls all night. No one complained. At dawn the storm quieted, and all five boys slept soundly on the wooden floor under every blanket Hina had taken out of the cupboard. Mochi and Toast were still curled up asleep on their laps.

Hina stood at the kitchen door watching the scene. She had never meant to open the café to help anyone, but she wasn’t surprised at all that it had become a refuge for those with nowhere to go. From then on, she lit a small candle by the window every evening so anyone lost in the forest could see the light and know there was a place to return to.