Flash fiction, Kyla Houbolt

Generation

Like this:

There will be snow, abundant and thick, the branches of huge firs bowed down with its weight. Beneath such a canopy one can find a small room roofed by icy white and crisp green needles. She crawls in there and leans against the trunk for a minute to catch her breath. It is not quite as cold as you might think but still she rests for a little while and then gently, with no force at all, she exhales from her open mouth a prolonged sigh, the vapor crystallizing instantly, and as her breath turns to ice clouds, shapes begin to coalesce, large and furred with the slightly greyed white they need for camouflage, and one by one as she breathes out, they step away from the small room until seven or eight have gathered. Then as a pack they bound forth from that place into invisibility, the forest swallowing them whole.

They will have everything they need. She has seen to it. No other magic is required. Not by the wolves, and not by us.

Later, if you were to look there you’d see she is gone–leaving only her own large paw prints on the snow.