NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Repair
Owen cleared his throat. "Moles, most likely. Probably found something nasty in the soil. You know how the tanner sometimes dumps his solutions too close to the stream."
Kyres frowned. The explanation didn't match what he was seeing, but before he could say anything, his father spoke.
"Could be," his father said, in that particular tone Kyres recognized from training - the one that meant 'leave it be.' "Either way, best we get it fixed before it spreads. Kyres, the toolbox."
Kyres retrieved the tools, but kept stealing glances at the twisted wood. There was something about the pattern that nagged at him, like a half-remembered dream. It reminded him of the way water rippled when you dropped a stone in it, except... frozen. Wrong.
"We'll need to replace these bottom boards completely," Owen mused, prodding at the damage with a carpenter's careful touch. "Good thing I've got some treated oak left from that last batch. Should hold better than this pine did."
"Treated how?" Kyres asked, curious despite his father's earlier warning tone.
"Old shipwright's secret," Owen grinned, some of his usual cheer returning. "Learned it from a master carpenter in the southern ports. Oils and resins, mostly, but the trick's in the timing. Have to do it under the right moon, with the right-"
A sharp crack interrupted him. One of the damaged boards had suddenly split lengthwise, without being touched. The sound echoed oddly, almost like glass breaking underwater.
"Speaking of timing," Owen said, standing with a deliberate casualness that didn't quite mask his unease, "reminds me of a storm we weathered off the Glass Coast. Wood started acting strange then too. Something in the salt spray, the old-timers said."
He moved to his workshop's side door, gesturing for them to follow. Inside, stacks of lumber lined the walls like sleeping giants. The air was thick with the smell of fresh sawdust and the sharp tang of Owen's secret treatment oils.
"See these marks?" Owen ran his hand along a particularly dark piece of oak. "Natural grain's important, but it's what you do with it that matters. Out at sea, you learn quick that wood's alive in its own way. It remembers."
Kyres touched the wood carefully. The surface was smooth but somehow different from regular oak. "Remembers what?"
"Shape, mostly. Every tree grows fighting something - wind, rain, other trees reaching for light. Good shipwrights, they learn to read those fights in the grain." Owen's voice took on the rhythmic quality of someone sharing well-worn knowledge. "You don't force wood to bend, you find the way it wanted to grow in the first place."
"Like how Father says not to force a sword stroke?" Kyres asked, thinking of his morning training.
Owen's laugh bounced off the workshop walls. "Sharp lad! Exactly like that. I remember this one time, we were running from pirates off the Trader's Chain. Ship took a hit that cracked our mainmast clean through. Captain was sure we were done for, but our ship's carpenter - old fellow from the northern isles - he knew better."
"What did he do?" Kyres asked, already caught up in the tale. He loved Owen's stories, especially the ones about pirates. His father had moved to examine the treated oak, but Kyres could tell he was listening too.
"Well," Owen grinned, settling onto his workbench like a man preparing to unveil a favorite tale, "this old carpenter, he looks at the crack in our mast and starts laughing. Actually laughing! The captain thought he'd lost his mind from fear, but the old man just keeps chuckling while he works."
Owen's huge hands moved as he spoke, sketching the scene in the air. "See, that mast was made from a lightning-struck tree. Most would've considered the wood cursed, but this carpenter, he knew something special about lightning-touched timber. Said it was already friends with disaster."
"Instead of trying to patch the crack, he reinforced it with these strange diagonal braces, all following the lightning's old path through the wood. Looked like a madman's creation when he was done - but by the gods, that mast held! Even started creaking out warnings whenever storms were coming. Saved us more than once."
He leaned forward, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "The pirates never caught us, of course. But the strange thing was, every time we passed through a storm after that, you could hear the mast singing. Not the normal groaning of wood under stress - actual singing, like a deep humming that made your bones vibrate. The crew started calling it the Storm's Voice. Said that lightning had taught the wood how to talk."
"Right then," Owen said, standing up and breaking the story's spell. "Tales won't fix fences. Let's get that oak cut to size." He moved to the lumber stack, running his hand along the treated pieces. "Kyres, measure the width between those posts for me, would you? And mind those splinters - treated oak bites deeper than regular wood."
The transition from storytelling to work was smooth, practiced. Kyres had noticed that about Owen - he could spin yarns that made you smell salt air and hear rigging creaking in the wind, then slip right back into the solid reality of carpentry without missing a beat.
His father was already clearing the damaged boards from the fence, his movements precise and methodical. The twisted wood came away in chunks, some of them still exhibiting that strange, rippled pattern. Owen gathered these pieces quickly, tossing them into his scrap barrel without comment.
Kyres retrieved the measuring rope from the toolbox, pulling it taut between the fence posts. The hemp felt rough against his palms as he called out the measurement. "Seven hands and three fingers!"
"Good lad," Owen nodded, already marking the oak with a piece of charcoal. "Now, watch this - there's a trick to cutting treated wood. You have to work with the grain, not against it. See how these dark lines run?"
"They're not straight," Kyres noticed, studying the dark streaks in the wood. They curved and twisted like streams on a map.
"Aye, and there's wisdom in that," Owen said, positioning his saw. "Most folk think straight cuts are always best. But sometimes..." He began sawing with slow, deliberate strokes, "...you need to follow the wood's own path. See how the saw barely fights me when I match the grain's flow?"
The saw's teeth seemed to glide through the oak with unusual ease, producing a different sound than Kyres was used to hearing - more like a whisper than the usual harsh rasp of metal through wood.
"The treatment doesn't just protect the wood," Owen continued, his large hands steady and sure. "It learns its ways, makes friends with it. Had a master in the southern ports who used to say: 'Wood's got three lives - one in the forest, one in the workshop, and one in what it becomes.' Our job is to help it through that second life without spoiling its third."
He paused in his cutting, running a thumb along the partial cut. "Feel this edge, lad. Carefully now."
Kyres touched the cut gingerly. The wood felt warm, almost alive under his fingers. "It's... humming?"
"That's the treatment speaking," Owen smiled. "Tells you if you're cutting right. A clean cut hums. A bad one..." He deliberately angled the saw against the grain, producing a harsh, grating sound that made Kyres wince. "Well, you heard it yourself."
"Now," Owen said, finishing the cut with a final smooth stroke, "comes the tricky part." He lifted the cut piece of oak, its dark surface catching the workshop's light in strange ways. "Fitting it to the old posts without disturbing what's underneath."
Kyres' father paused in his clearing of the broken boards. "The ground's still wrong there," he said quietly, more to Owen than to Kyres.
Owen nodded, his expression turning serious. "Aye. That's why we'll need to seat these new boards differently. Not just nail them in place, but..." He reached for a leather pouch hanging from his workbench. The contents clinked softly as he opened it, revealing what looked like ordinary nails - except these had a strange, bluish tint to their heads.
"Iron from the northern mines," Owen explained, seeing Kyres' curious look. "Mixed with something else. Old shipwright's trick for dealing with... troublesome waters."
He handed several of the nails to Kyres' father, who examined them with careful attention before nodding. "These should hold."
"Right then," Owen clapped his hands together. "Kyres, you'll be our eyes. Watch the boards as we place them. If you see any of that twisting starting again - even a hint of it - you sing out. Clear?"