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she’s going to lift you right up!”
    “We’re not going to let her go, are we, Father?” Ranon asked.
    Willow worked the small hand free. “Looks more as if she’s not going to let us go!”
    “May we take her with us to the fair tomorrow?”
    “Certainly not! There’ll be crowds. Animals. Besides, it’s going to be hot. Quite hot.”
    “But what will we do? We all want to go. Who’ll stay and look after her if we don’t take her?”
    “I will,” Kiaya said, setting supper on the table.
    “But Mother, the prize for bread! The prize for weaving!”
    “They can wait another year. Come for supper, now.”
    “But Mother . . .”
    “I’ve decided, Ranon. We won’t talk about it anymore. Come now. Your supper’s getting cold.”
    Willow laid the child in the cradle and wrapped around her the beautiful newly knitted blanket. She was looking intently at him, and again Willow was drawn into her gaze. Again he felt himself beginning a long and fearful journey. He stepped back and held up both hands, palms out, and again the child laughed.
    She kept gurgling as the Ufgoods ate their supper, until at last she fell asleep.
    “Doesn’t she cry?” Willow asked. “Most babies cry.”
    “Maybe she doesn’t know how,” Ranon suggested.
    Mims shrugged, finishing her cake. “Oh,” she said, “she knows how. She just won’t do it.”
    Kiaya smiled. “Why not, Mims?”
    “Because she doesn’t need to right now. And besides, it would only be for herself.”
    Kiaya and Willow looked at each other. They looked at the sleeping child. They looked long and thoughtfully at their own small daughter.
    A light rain began to fall and continued all night, conspiring softly with the river at Ufgood Reach, germinating Willow Ugfood’s freshly sown fields, whispering promises into the thatched roof of the little home.

I I I

NELWYN FAIR
    E veryone loved the fair. Everybody came. They came in their boats from the north end of the valley, and from the Copper Hills, and from the broads in the south. Some traveled half the night in order to be present for the ceremonies at sunrise, and some, like Willow and his children, had less than an hour’s walk.
    The fair was held in the meadows on the outskirts of Nelwyn Village, near the ruins of the first settlement. There the ancestral Nelwyns, escaping down the Freen from persecution in the north, had landed and settled and begun to build. The ruins of their old brochs and wheelhouses still stood in the meadow, and in preparation for each fair these ancient walls were garlanded with flowers and blessed by friars. In the fields around, the ceremonies were held, the competitions judged, the races run. Children gamboled, old friends met and gossiped, and young lovers strolled off together to quiet places on the riverbank. It was a time for much merriment, the fair, and a time also to reaffirm the vigor of the Nelwyn people and the health of the great Freen and the valley which it nurtured.
    The symbol of that health was the Wickerman, a majestic woven statue to which each Nelwyn contributed a festive decoration—a ribbon or a garland or bouquet or a beaded necklace. When it was raised in the center of the common, all musicians played, all Nelwyns cheered, and the Wickerman presided over the fair and the community, a large and bountiful emblem of Nelwyn spirit.
    By noon the fair was in full swing. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, the dancers whirled to sprightly Nelwyn reels, the honey wine flowed abundantly, and laughing children raced in all directions. Old friends embraced, clapping each other on the back. Farmers traded livestock. Merchants spread their wares on the long deal tables before their tents. Even Vohnkar, stern chief of the Nelwyn warriors, strolled through the crowds and smiled. It was a scene of great high spirits and conviviality.
    No one had any hint of terror approaching. No one except Mims. Twice during the morning, the little girl had stopped running with her