Fuming, Owen stormed out of the kitchen and back into the fairgrounds. The soupy air seemed to press even more heavily than usual, like the weather right before a storm was about to break.
What do they know.
He was so angry he almost ran over a spirit in line at the food vendor. She squawked angrily at him through a hooked beak, a spray of blue-black feathers rising behind her head in agitation. Owen's thoughts went to Bebinn's Fury and he suppressed a shudder before mumbling an apology and continuing on.
Not wanting to return to the funhouse where he was likely to run into the other kids, Owen made his way back to Genzel's. He burst through the door without knocking and saw the old man reclined on his sofa, pipe clenched between his uneven teeth, with a book in hand.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to go breakin' into people's homes, boy?" he growled.
"Can I work?" asked Owen. "I need to do something."
Genzel took the pipe from his mouth, his eyebrows knitting together as he got ready to chew Owen out, paused to reconsider, and hauled himself to his feet. He was still wearing his dusty work boots.
"I'm not lettin' you work in this state. You'll ruin somethin' or cut off a finger." He put his book and pipe on a rickety wooden end table and straightened up to squint at Owen once more. "I got some wood out back you can take an axe to," he grunted finally. Grabbing his cap from a nearby peg, he shuffled past Owen and out the still-open front door.
Down the porch stairs and around the house, the two came to an unkempt yard, half-fenced in by broken horse-rails. Weeds grew haphazardly from patchy dirt with the odd rock or brick poking through here and there. A broken wagon wheel leaned against the house next to a rusted spigot. A little beyond them was a pile of thick logs and a shiny axe.
Genzel pointed a finger toward them. "Go work off whatever steam you need. When you're done, bring the logs inside. Basket by the stove."
"You said your dad left you," said Owen, suddenly remembering one of his first conversations with the old carver. "Did you ever try to find him?"
Genzel's lower jaw jutted forward like an old bulldog. "That what this is about?"
Owen gave a sharp jerk of his head.
"No. Back then people whispered about it behind yer back or talked about him like he was dead. Want my advice? Don't waste yer time on someone who has already proved they're not worth it. Don't waste yer breath askin' why. The answer's never what you wanna hear. People can tell yah what they think about it all. It don't matter.
"No one will understand the burden you carry, even those that got a similar one. What people don't get 'bout family is that each one of them is a bit different. A different sorta crazy. Don' blame 'em for it.
"Everyone's got their reasons, but the reasons are never good enough when you're the one left behind. Learn from it. Be a better man than he was. It's the only way to get back at 'em. Spending yer life in bitterness is a waste. All it does is make you a grumpy, old man."
Owen nodded, still trying to temper the anger boiling through his veins, and walked over to the wood pile. He grabbed a log, set it upright on a flat stone, and swung the axe high over his head. The rhythmic motions, the swish of the blade through the thick air, and the dull thunk of it meeting the wood calmed him after a time.
A light sweat broke out on his forehead and neck and without any sort of breeze in this forsaken world, his t-shirt soon clung to his body like a second skin and veins stood out in his hands and forearms. But he continued, his rhythm occasionally punctuated by grunts of effort, until he had split every log in the pile.
Owen let out a sigh as he bent over and began to stack them, wishing he could take comfort in the musky scent of broken wood, but smelling nothing out here as usual. His mind had become comfortably blank during his physical exertion and he tried to hold onto that sense of peace.
As he began to load his arms with wood, Owen paused and turned his hand, trying to catch an odd bit of light. Spreading from the center of his palm were a dozen dark lines like some weird spiky flower. He thought of Lira's lilac tattoos and Atlas's red marks and inspected his hand again. The lines were straight up until they curved over the edge of his palm. In the muted lighting, they looked no more colorful than dirt against his skin, but as he turned it again, he caught a flash of light that occasionally flared in the air like a cigarette. The lines were a dark orange.
Closing his fist, Owen straightened up and began carrying the wood back to Genzel's.
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Sorry this update is so short, but what do you think of Genzel's advice? What do you think Owen's new marks mean?
Thanks as always for reading! :)