[Primrose Bolger]

Kiera had withdrawn to the safety of the small copse of oak and beech that grew on the western edge of the Inn’s yard. There were too many people; their noise and smell pressed in on her. She felt safe here among the trees. From her vantage point among the leaves she could watch this strange mix of creatures in relative obscurity.

The old man who had spoken to her was sitting astride a log, scraping the tree’s skin away from the inner body. Three of the Little Folk were busy with a log he had already done. Cutting and chipping it into small flat pieces. She wondered if they understood at all the numbers of lives that had passed while that great tree had grown to such a size. Were they grateful that its spirit now passed into smaller forms for their use?

Like some great mountain pushed up from the earth, the Inn was re-emerging. The very bones of the earth were wrenched up and fitted, one upon the other . . . great stones on which the wooden sides would rest secure. She watched as Big and Little Folk climbed like ants upon the structure, driving home the nails that held the body of the Inn together.

She had been helpful in her own way. At night she would set the fish-traps she had woven from slender willow branches that grew along the river's banks, and in the early morning, before first light, she would leave her catch layered in wet ferns, in a tattered basket by the fire pit where the meals were cooked. Other mornings found her checking the small snares she had put out, and a brace or two of coneys would then appear for the day’s meal. The two serving girls had taken to leaving some covered bowls filled with the day’s food and a small loaf of bread out for their ‘helper’. They were always returned the next day, scrubbed clean.

Between times, when she was not sitting among the leaves of the great oak, she sat hidden in the brush by the river. Kiera had ventured into the stable late one night and found a small metal chisel and a stout wooden mallet with which to drive it. With her borrowed tools she was carving a fair sized, grey stone flecked with black. It was half her height, and tapered from top to its more rounded bottom. A sturdy presence that yielded but slowly under her patient hands.

It was to be a present for the new Inn. Something to safeguard it against future dangers.