Owen's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Owen knew the camera at his workshop cabin wasn't the only one. If he wanted to rehearse for the TV show, he needed to find a space where no one would watch him fumble through new material. The lodge would have cameras. So would the main paths and gathering spots. He walked north through deep snow, scanning the trees for hidden lenses. There - a camera disguised as bark. Another tucked behind an icicle formation near the weather tower. Owen kept moving, farther from the lodge than he'd gone before. His breath formed clouds that vanished in the wind. Past the northern cabins, past the last stone cottage, the snow stretched white and empty. Then he saw it - a massive formation of icicles hanging from a rocky overhang, blue and white and taller than he was. The icicles created a natural curtain, thick enough to block any view from behind. Owen walked around it slowly, checking every angle. The rock face sheltered the space from wind. No cameras pointed this way. He set his guitar down and played three chords. The sound bounced off the ice and came back changed, richer. He tried a verse from his new piece about frost patterns. The icicles caught his voice and held it. Owen sat down in the snow and opened his journal. He wrote: 'sound returns transformed.' Then he unwrapped the guitar he'd carried all this way - the one with flowers carved into the wood that his grandmother had given him years ago. He'd left it in its case since arriving at Whitehaven, using his plain travel guitar instead. But if he was going to practice for the TV show, really practice, he needed to use the instrument that made him feel like himself. His fingers found the strings and the carved flowers pressed against his chest as he played. The space behind the icicles wasn't just hidden. It was his. He could fail here a hundred times before he got it right, and no camera would capture any of it. Only the performance would matter.