[Lyra Greenleaf]

OK, I'll put up my post here so you can check it.

“It looks quite nice” whispered Elena quietly, her eyes flicking around the room in which she sat. Despite her brave words her voice held a hint of nervousness and uncertainness. “What do you think?”
Elena paused, as if she was actually waiting for the doll to answer, although she knew she wouldn’t. The room, in fact the whole house, was so different to the house she had grown up in. It all felt very strange to her, especially since she had no-one else to talk to. Somehow, talking to Della felt like she could be talking to her uncle, who had carved her. Elena felt lonely, and she didn’t like it. Growing up there had always been someone to talk to, uncles, aunts, cousins and of course her Papa. He was in the room next door now, speaking to the people who owned this house.

“This is so good of you” she heard him say.
“It is nothing, for a friend” a voice replied, the man.
“His voice is all grumbly and rumbly” whispered Elena. “Just like a bear! I wonder if he eats children?”
She shivered, but it was a fun sort of fear. Really she knew he would not eat her, Papa said he had lots of children himself.
“Lots and lots of children! Maybe about fifty” she whispered to Della.

“How old is your daughter?” asked a female voice.
“She is just eight” replied Papa.
“The same age as our Fiona. That will be good, for both of them I hope. Fiona is so wild, her best friends are her brothers”

Elena shivered again. A wild girl? “Maybe she’ll be the one to eat me!” she told Della wide-eyed.

“I know that Elena misses her cousins. I think that it’s having a bad influence on her.”
Papa sighed. Elena wanted to run through and comfort him, but she had been told to sit still. She sat carefully with her feet together and hands in her lap. Della was resting on her arms.
“She used to be a normal child, running around the farm getting mucky. Then we had the fire.”
He sighed again. It sounded so loud that it might blow all the leaves off all the trees in the village. Elena smiled to think of all the bare trees. “It seemed like something changed then” he continued “now she barely moves in case she musses her dress”

Elena wanted to go and tell him that she just wanted to be good, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her. Ever since she could remember he had had bushy black hair, now it was going grey and he had lots of little lines on his forehead that were not there before. Sometimes when Elena sat on his lap she traced the lines with her fingertip. They were like trails marked on a map.

“Elena?”
The bear voice was in the room now, making Elena jump. She clutched Della closer.
“Hello Elena” said the woman. Elena thought her voice sounded like a princess or something, maybe an Elf. Maybe she was descended from Elves! Maybe she is an Elf princess really and they will come and collect her and I’ll see their shining white horses, she told Della, but silently. Elena wasn’t ready to talk to her best friend in front of these new people yet.
“Hello” she answered softly, her blue eyes fixed on the ground.
“I hope you’ll be very happy here”
“Thank you” Elena replied politely, but inside she doubted it.