Gold arrows and bands on two forearms

The fen has frozen hard enough that Dad drove the cart straight across the dyke, and the ice on the sluice gate rang like a bell when I threw a stone at it. We have had no post since the first week of December, so I am writing this on the back of the seed catalogue and will post it when the lane clears. Mrs Pyke says the road to Spalding is shut under four feet of drift, which I doubt, but she is never wrong about the weather when it suits her to be right.

I have been making arrows in the barn in the evenings, because Uncle Ed asked me to finish the order for the village shoot before the Christmas fair. Ash shafts, cut green in October and left to dry on the rafters, straightened over the stove. I bind the nocks with waxed thread and fletch them with goose feathers from the Hallett boys, who sell them for a penny each and think nobody knows. The heads I file myself. Every one comes out a little different from the last, which Uncle says is the honest mark of a hand that cares, and the sign of a girl who should be sharpening blades instead of daydreaming.

Last night the moon came up over the drain, a thin crescent with the frost round it like a bracelet of sugar, and I stood in the yard until my fingers would not bend. I thought of you counting bands of light on the rigging. I have kept a tally on the barn door since you left, one stripe for each week and a dot for each time the wind took the roof tiles. It is nearly full now, and I will not be able to add the dots much longer.

I am sending you a sheet of the gold leaf Mum kept for the church frames. Press it on the inside of your wrist where the cold gets in first, and when you look down you will know which way home is. Write soon, and tell me the sea has not eaten you yet.

Love, Nell