[Nurumaiel]

Nurumaiel crept into the barrow, rather shy as was her wont, but not without a secret hope that someone would take notice of her and speak with her, and not without a secret guilt that perhaps she should be a little less shy. She was altogether satisfied that the party had fallen on the first of May, for it was the same day of a celebration in the family, and she was dressed up for both occasions. Perhaps the long, full, white skirt, trimmed with lace at the neck and sleeves, with one touch of colour where the long red sash wrapped around the waist, was rather out of place in a barrow; but it was what she wore for the family celebration, and she hadn't time to change. Thank goodness it was a party; perhaps she wouldn't be the only one wearing a dress, though, of course, she had grown used to the odd stares that were cast at her every day she went out. She felt secretly very relieved that she had put her hair in pin-curls the night before, though she had agonised over how ridiculous it was to waste time over such wickedly stubborn hair, and other more murderous thoughts.

The travel to the barrow had not been extremely long and strenuous. Spring was perhaps consenting to come to her home at last, for the sun was shining up the breeze-quivered fir branches, and beyond the forest, in the low sloping hills, the grass was green, and little wildflowers of red, blue, purple, yellow, and white sprang up in little tufts and blended together in a hand to make a cheerful bouquet.

Under her arm she carried her fiddle case (and, in her free hand, a guitar which she was quite certain Helen would recognise), wondering if she would have enough courage to play it. To play the fiddle at a little family gathering was not so very hard; but in front of all these people, friend and stranger alike! It was one thing to write Liornung's tunes of myth and magic; it was quite another to play her clumsy own.

As she found a dark, dusky corner to set her fiddle in, hoping that nobody noticed her, but hoping that likewise someone would ask her to play (odd confusion of thoughts!), she looked at her name tag, or rather what was left of it, with a little frown. Of course the two-year-old had wanted to stick it on himself, and naturally it had ripped from the resulting tug-of-war. Now there remained naught but a llonely 'C.'

The first person Nuru noticed in the barrow was LMP, and that was, no doubt, because she had been haunted by guilt for a week because she hadn't yet brought a song, or for that matter any kind of sound, from Liornung.

From her dark, dusky corner she retreated, and shyly advanced towards the center of the room, casting a last glance over her shoulder to make sure her instruments would not fall.