(Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I make no money from this writing.)

(A.N. Humble apologies for letting this slip. One thing and another and all that. I am hoping there will be more at some point in the not too distant future.)

Estel takes up the story again

I go with Papa and we bury the people. I hold his hand, and stand with him and watch the old man as the coffins go into the ground. I've never seen such sadness in anyone. Never.

It is a very beautiful place, a grove, Papa calls it, with trees that reach their fingers right up to the blue sky and there are little flowers all over the ground, little white flowers with feathery leaves. I pick some of them and put them into the hole with the coffins. The two people and the baby are together now, and I think they are happy somewhere, though I don't know where. The trees are very quiet while we sing for the family, then as we turn back to the house the wind blows, and the leaves rustle together. It is a happy sound in that sad place.

The old man and his friends break their fast with us and everyone is very quiet until Papa speaks.

"Be comforted," he says. "Death does not separate those who love one another. They will always be with you, and with each other."

The old man nods, and gives Papa a gift, a small box.

"For the boy," he says, then he takes his leave.

Papa looks inside the box and smiles.

"Come here, Estel. Look. It is for your future." He holds the box out. Inside, a golden bracelet, the gold twisted round and round. It is too small even for me and my wrists are still little sticks. I so want them to be strong but they're just knobbly.

"But it's too small for me. I'd have to get smaller to wear it."

Papa smiles. "Not for you, Estel. For your children. And until that happens, I'll keep it safe for you."

I can't think of anything to say. I wouldn't mind a baby brother, or a sister, even, but children? Me? A hundred questions come into my mind all at once but as soon as Papa speaks I know I won't get any answers today.

"Now, do you want to learn to dive or is it not the right thing to do today?" He looks at me, and he's smiling and his eyes are smiling too.

I suddenly see in my head the river and that deep, mysterious hole. I want to conquer my fear of the surface of the water. I have still too many bad thoughts about rivers and swimming. It is time I stopped thinking about them.

"Yes, please! It is warm today and I want to dive and swim and everything!"

So we go, and I learn not to notice too much the change from air to water, the way my face feels and my lungs, and finally, just before we go back, I learn to open my eyes underwater.

But as we walk back to the house, Papa speaks to me of the morning.

"Estel – if ever – and I mean ever – you keep a secret from me again, whatever it is, whatever you may have done or not done, I shall – Estel, I don't know what I shall do. We must have no secrets. If those young people had spoken to their grandfather, or to their friends, or to someone who could have helped them, then all would have been well. Nothing good can come from holding such secrets."

I suddenly want to tell him everything that has been on my mind, every single little thought I have ever had. I promise it, lightly, too easily for him I think, for he makes me sit, with my blanket wrapped round me, and promise it again. Never, never to keep secrets from him. I say the words he wants me to say, and I am happy to say them and mean to keep my word forever. I've done some silly things and I'm not going to do them any more.

As I go to bed, and try to lie still, I plan all the things I am going to do tomorrow

xxxxxxxx

"No! Please – can't it go there?" I wave my hand at Papa, and he moves to check the branch I have chosen. I like it because it's the one that is on the side of the main roadway to the house, so I can watch people as they come to visit. It is also higher than the one he was showing me first.

"The trunk is suitable," Papa says, testing it carefully. "But it is too high. Perhaps this one?" He shows me one that I can almost touch if I reach up.

"But flets are high up in trees, aren't they?" I ask, trying to think why mine has to be nearly on the ground. I can climb trees. Right to the top. Why can't my flet go there?

"This is your first. It will be a little closer to the ground. The next will be higher."

"Can you help me up there, so I can have a look?" I say. I'd climb it myself but there's nothing to hang or step onto as far as I can reach up.

"There'll be a ladder there soon," he says, putting his hand to the trunk of the tree again. "Be patient."

I sigh and sit down on the grass. I don't much like being patient. Papa looks and looks, tests, then he sits on the branch and closes his eyes!

I know I sound a bit cross when I ask what he's doing, and I know I still look cross when he ignores me and I know I shouldn't have walked away to see how my tree was doing. So I don't quite hear him when he calls me, and when he comes over to stand near me I don't notice him, or I don't want to notice him.

"Estel?" he asks, and he's very quiet. "Do you still want me to make this for you? You know I can't make it just as you want, don't you?"

I look up at him. He's still very tall. "Yes," I say. "Please. But what do you mean, it won't be just as I want?"

He puts his arm round my shoulders and guides me to sit on a bench in the shade. He takes a leaf from the ground. "A flet is like a leaf, just settled against a tree trunk. It can be the work of an hour to build, or of much careful thought and artistry. This will be the first built for you, and it must be right. It must be safe, too. Not too high."

"But Papa!" I say, but he doesn't seem to hear me. He's just looking at the leaf.

"A simple railing, I believe. And ropes, here, and here. And a good sturdy ladder. Perhaps a curve in the flet, like this," he says, pulling the leaf into another shape.

"A railing?" I say, my heart heavy. "And ropes?"

"Oh yes. It should be easily accomplished, though it will take another two days to build. But all will be well! If we start small and low, you will soon accustom yourself to the feel of a flet. Not in a wind, though. When you are older …"

I hate those words. I want to be older but I can't grow big any faster, can I? And now I have to have a baby flet, not a proper one, high up in the tree, like I thought I would. And I'm going to be tied in. I just know I am.

"Shall we go and see the carpenter now? I have all the measurements I require."

I think about my promise not to keep secrets and wonder if telling him I don't want the flet now is a secret. But he's walking so fast now I can hardly keep up and I don't get a chance to say anything.

The carpenter's workshops are full of the most interesting things. I can smell pine and sawdust and, well, lots of things without names too. I'm not allowed in here on my own in case I damage something and it's a long time since I was here. There's a big carving at the back, near the biggest window, half covered with a cloth. The carpenters are hard at work at lots of benches and I want to look at everything they're doing. I watch but try to pretend I'm not watching in case it's rude.

"Do you want to try, young master Estel?" one of them asks. He stands, holding out the woodworking tools in his hand.

"Yes, please!" I say. "What's this?"

He has given me a hammer thing, made of wood. It's a beautiful shape, a big block of wood with a handle through it, and it's smooth and worn so that I can feel where a hand has held it.

"A mallet," the elf says. "I have had it a long time."

With elves, a long time could mean a really, really long time. Like hundreds of years. At least.

"How do you use it?" I ask, trying to use it like a hammer but in the air. I don't want to hit anything it with in case I do it wrong.

"Here," he says. He pushes me forward and I settle on his round stool. I can barely see over the top of the bench.

"A moment, young master," he says. I stand again, and he turns the seat round and round. It moves up until it's the right height for me.

"Oh!" is all I can say. I want one of these!

"Now, take this chisel – be careful. The end is sharp, to cut the wood. There, hold it tight. Try on this piece of wood here. I'll put it in the vice for you. Tap it gently. Gently!"

I follow the instructions as carefully as I can, though I want to make something straight away. The wood shavings curl up from the wood if I hold the chisel right, and I try to keep the cuts straight but they're very wobbly to start with. When they're a bit straighter I'm so pleased I start laughing and I know some of the other carvers are staring at me. So I try to concentrate.

When my hand starts to get tired, the carver takes the piece of wood out of the vice and gives it to me. I think it might be a – well, you could use it as – it looks a little bit like a spoon, so long as you don't turn it upside down.

"Thank you," I say, looking at the place where I've been working. "Look, Papa!" I dodge between the tables and search my father out.

He is talking to someone who is even taller than he is and he hardly notices me. I turn my spoon around in my hands and wait a little while before I ask him again.

"Look!"

Even then he doesn't stop talking, so I tug on his sleeve.

"Wait a moment," he says, looking at a large piece of paper they have spread out on the high desk. "I shall show you the plans and you may choose a design to carve onto the flet, if you wish."

I slip the spoon into my pocket and frown. Father does not seem to be listening very well today.

"Come and sit up here, then."

I have to climb up onto the high stool. There, in front of me is the most beautiful drawing I have ever seen. High in the trees, the leaf flet is just there, and it doesn't seem to be held up by anything, not even a stem or a twig or anything. It is green and gold, and it has lines in it, just like a real leaf.

"This is going to be mine?" I say, quietly, in case it isn't true.

"It won't look exactly like this," Papa says. "It will be a little lower. And you know already that it will have railings."

"And ropes, my Lord," says the tall elf.

I slip off the stool, and put my hand in my pocket, feeling the spoon there.

"I'll just go and – and make something else," I say.

Papa nods and begins to draw railings on the beautiful picture. He's spoiling it. But he must be right. He knows everything, so he must be right. So I must be wrong.

I wander outside, across a yard which has one really big yew tree growing over it, then into another big workshop. There's only one person there, and he is working slowly, chipping away at a grey piece of stone. I wander closer and he looks up.

"Greetings, little master," he says.

"Hello. What is that going to be?" I ask him.

"Look." He is kind, I can tell that from the way he looks at me. I go to the piece of stone and find it is a grave marker. He is working on a carving and I can see the outline of a boat. It is very beautiful and I go to run my hand over it.

"It's for them, isn't it. For the people who came down the river."

"It is. I will take special care with it."

"Could you put some of those white flowers on it? The ones that grow by the grave?"

"Anemones? Yes, master, I will put anemones on it. I hear Master Elrond is making something for you."

I watch as the stone carver goes back to work with the chisel, making little chips of stone fly into the air.

"Everything that is made here is beautiful," I say. "Isn't it?"

"We try to make it so," he says, dusting the surface with a soft brush. Already, the shape of the flower is there in outline. Just a few cuts of the chisel made it so.

I nod and sit, leaning my head on my hand.

"Estel?"

It is Papa, and I must go back to the house now for lessons. Everything here is beautiful. So how is it that I know my flet will be not beautiful? It will be killed, somehow. It's a silly way to say it but I don't know how else to describe what I feel. Its beauty will be killed by ropes and ladders and railings. All because I am too little and edan.

I must learn how to do things for myself, as quickly as I can. I must grow up but I am not going to have babies, not even to wear that bracelet. Because I'd be a Papa then, and I'd have to be right all the time. And that is not ever going to happen.

No babies for me. Well, at least I'm right about that.