“Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Elladan was shaking slightly, his eyes fixed in the direction that the dreadful yell had come from. “This time, Ada WILL kill me!”
Glorfindel stood up and demanded to know what Elladan was talking about, and once the story was mournfully relayed, he took matters into his own hands. “Follow me, say nothing. Which way is the library?”
Elladan stepped out into the hall and pointed to the right. Glorfindel nodded, and then turned to Erestor. “I will be back very soon. When I return, you and I will discuss how we will go about teaching you to read. Now that I know you are deaf, it makes things easier to plan.” Had Erestor not been aware of the fact that something was very wrong with Elladan, he might have embraced Glorfindel again and clung to him as before. Instead, he nodded, and made a shooing motion.
Walking swiftly, Glorfindel and Elladan took the shortest route possible to the library. “So Erestor really is deaf?”
“You knew that already?” questioned Glorfindel.
“Well, no, but Elrohir kept telling everyone that. No one believed him though,” Elladan explained.
Giving Elladan a curious look, Glorfindel asked, “Why not?”
“Ada said that elves cannot be deaf.” Elladan shrugged. “No one argues with Ada.”
Upon entering the library, Glorfindel firmly patted Elladan’s shoulder. “Thank you so much for helping me this morning. I do not know if I could have finished without you.”
Some of the elves looked up from what they were doing, most of whom were reorganizing books and moving the debris of the shelves out of the way. There were a few who gave Elladan a dark look, but from the master librarian on duty, there was nothing but relief. “Elladan, there you are! We were beginning to worry about you,” explained the librarian sincerely.
“It was my fault,” apologized Glorfindel. “I caught him in the hall this morning and asked his assistance in a project I am working on.”
“Next time, please let me know before you steal him away,” laughed the librarian. “Poor Lindir has been looking for you all morning!”
As if on cue, Lindir stepped into the library. Spotting Elladan, he began to take a step in his direction, until the back doors burst open, and in stormed Elrond, with Elrohir trailing behind his father, bruised apple in hand.
Elladan lowered his head upon seeing the look on his father’s face. Immediately, Lindir reacted. “Elladan, after you have finished this evening, could you come to my office and assist me with that project we were working on.”
The librarian, now baffled, looked from Lindir, to Glorfindel, and back again. “You are all working on this project together?” he questioned. “How intriguing... what sort of project? Perhaps I might be able to assist in some way...?”
Lindir was caught with his mouth open, but for only a moment. “We are teaching Erestor how to read,” explained Glorfindel.
All work in the room stopped, until one of the older scribes burst out laughing. Many joined him, snickering and offering their commentary. The head librarian himself appeared quite amused. “You do know that it is going to be a waste of your time,” he said. “I can understand, my lord, your ambition, but Your Excellency,” he said, addressing the steward, “I can hardly imagine why you have taken on such a project of folly.”
“Well... no one has ever made an attempt to teach him before... so, it might be... possible,” offered Lindir. “Besides, Rocheldir, would it be so bad to have another reader among the Imladrin population?”
“Of course not,” Rocheldir replied immediately. “It just seems a waste of time.”
Elrond, who had silently observed all exchanges, walked directly to Elladan, who had spent the time staring at the floor. Plucking the apple from the air that Elrohir had been tossing up and down and catching, Elrond held it under his son’s nose. “Did you ‘lose’ this?”
Elladan gulped.
“I asked you a question,” said Elrond in a dangerously low tone. “When you passed your brother in the hallway, did you have a dispute with him, and did you throw this at him?”
Shamefully, Elladan nodded his head.
Folding his arms over his chest, Elrond shook his head. “If that is true, I have no reason to doubt that you used some very colorful language as well.”
“Nana says it all the time!” argued Elladan, and then realizing he had raised his voice, he lowered it and said, “I learned it from her!”
“We will discuss this further tonight when you get home. I expect you to work a full shift here before then, whether or not that means you must miss dinner. Do I make myself clear?” rumbled the deep tone.
Elladan nodded, and went right away to the mixed up piles of books to help reorganize them. Elrond handed the apple back to Elrohir, then instructed Rocheldir, “If you do not think he is working hard enough, by all means, keep him longer.” The master librarian nodded and headed back to work. Then, Elrond’s eyes came to Glorfindel and Lindir. “What sort of nonsense was that?”
“It is the truth,” Glorfindel replied with all honesty. “I am- we are,” he amended, realizing the lie he had been caught in, “going to teach Erestor to read.”
“Even if I believed that, which I do not,” added Elrond quickly, “it is impossible. You are both wasting your time – though I very much doubt you have an actual part in this, Lindir, which makes me wonder your motives.”
Lindir looked taken aback. “You doubt me?”
“Yes!” Elrond looked over his shoulder. Though they were speaking low, there was still the chance of someone listening, and he decided it was better to continue in private. “My office. Now.”
Whisking past Lindir and Glorfindel, Elrond left the library. The pair of ellon exchanged looks – apprehensiveness written across Lindir’s face, and frustration on Glorfindel’s. When Glorfindel looked away, he noted Elrohir, still standing there, watching with an intrigued expression. Crooking his finger to the adolescent, Glorfindel waited until Elrohir was standing before him, and in a voice only Elrohir and Lindir could hear, said, “No one likes a tattletale.”
The mixture of surprise, hurt, and confusion on Elrohir’s face made the youth’s bottom lip tremble, and he swiftly ran down one of the long rows of books that was still standing.
Lindir nudged Glorfindel’s shoulder, nodding to the door, and led the way down the hall and up the stairs. Elrond was not too far ahead of them, and this break from the lord of the house gave Lindir and Glorfindel a little time to silently converse to one another.
‘Are you really going to teach him to read?’ mouthed Lindir to Glorfindel.
Glorfindel nodded. ‘He wants to. He is deaf, not stupid.’
‘That is what Elrohir always said.’ Lindir’s face contorted in thought for a moment. ‘Elrond said it was not possible. Why did Erestor never tell—‘ but then Lindir suddenly understood.
‘Because no one taught him how to communicate. That is why he must learn to read. And write,’ added Glorfindel as they reached Elrond’s office.
Once the trio was inside and the door was shut, Elrond took a bottle of some sort of liquor from a cabinet and poured a glass for himself. He offered it to the others, but both elves declined. “Alright. You want to teach Erestor how to read. Why?” Before Glorfindel could speak, Elrond held up his hand. “No, I want to hear this from Lindir.”
Thankful for the few words exchanged moments earlier, Lindir said, “Glorfindel has learned that Erestor is not stupid, as we thought. He is deaf. He cannot hear a thing.” As Lindir said this, Elrond shook his head in disbelief. “I thought as you are thinking now – but Elrond, think about it. It explains so much. It explains, for one, the chess games.”
At this revelation, Glorfindel sat up a little more with interest. “What chess games?” He looked from Elrond to Lindir and back. “Erestor and I played chess last night, and he bested me. Then you tried to brush it off, but you obviously have information you are not disclosing.”
“The last time Thranduil was here,” Lindir said when it was evident Elrond was not going to talk, “he claimed that he taught Erestor how to play chess. Elrond laughed so loud I thought he was going to get a case of hiccups. Thranduil was very adamant about it, but when he tried to get Erestor to play a game in front of Elrond, he froze up and crawled under a table weeping. The king continued to, and still does, insist that Erestor can play chess, and well.”
“He beat me three times in a row,” relayed Glorfindel.
Elrond refilled his glass, and drank it dry once more. “There are no deaf elves.”
“There is at least one, and he is living in your house,” Glorfindel remarked. “And Lindir and I are going to teach him how to read, and how to write, so that someday, he can tell you himself.” Elrond remained silent, then poured himself a third drink. “You should also know, someone raped him.”
Elrond choked on his drink. “What? Here?”
“I get that distinct impression, but it will be difficult to know for sure until he can communicate with us,” said Glorfindel. “That was why he had a fear of beds- he slept in the bed last night, by the way.”
Lindir sighed and looked to Elrond. “We have been wrong about everything.”
“We thought he was rebelling,” explained Elrond before Glorfindel could ask the question. “When his parents left; we thought it was his way of fighting against us. He would pick up the mattress and throw it; he shredded his pillows into piles of feathers sometimes. When Rocheldir made the suggestion that he sleep in the library because he would fall asleep by the fire in peace, we moved what he needed there, placed in a basket beneath a chair. No one bothered him, and he calmed down. In that aspect, at least.”
“Someone did something terrible to him,” corrected Glorfindel. “Multiple times, if I am correct. That is the answer to the riddle. You have a brilliant elf who had no way of telling you any of this, and so he has suffered in silence for many a year.”
Elrond shoved the cork into the bottle. “I cannot believe that. Elves are not born deaf, and if they go deaf, they heal. Perhaps, just maybe, you are right that he was assaulted. Then again, he may just be trying to get you to coddle him. You have a soft spot for him already.”
“Go ask him, then,” implored Glorfindel. “Let us go and see him now!”
“Let us do just that.” Elrond stood up, and made his way quickly around the desk. “We will find out once and for all. If it turns out this has been a waste of my time, Lindir, I will not have you wasting any more of yours in trying to teach him anything. Glorfindel, of course, I cannot make you do anything or not do anything, but I can give you advice. And my advice is that you are wrong, and wasting your time and energy.”
Glorfindel was about to speak again, but Lindir could tell from the anger on his face that it would only make matters worse. Placing his hand on the slayer’s arm, he shook his head. Elrond had already made it to the door, and was heading down the hallway. “We had best follow him,” suggested Lindir.
Into the hall they went, fast catching up to Elrond as he marched down the hall. He stopped before the wooden door that was adorned with every sort of yellow flower that could be found in the valley, and even some made of fabric and paper, for it was evident supplies were running low. Grasping the knob, Elrond opened the door with such force that Glorfindel and Lindir could hear the splintering and cracking of wood as the table was bashed into again. This time, it would not be able to be salvaged.
Erestor was at the table, his back to the door. He was exactly where Glorfindel had left him, sorting through the tiles on the table. Sitting in a little group were the apples Elladan had brought, minus one. Erestor took another bite of the apple with a crunch, chomping on it loudly.
Several doors in the hallway opened in concern upon hearing the loud bang of the door and the subsequent destruction of the table, but Erestor remained perfectly calm, moving the tiles around with one hand and eating the apple that was held in the other.
“Erestor!” Elrond stepped into the room, and clapped his hands twice. “Erestor!”
Nothing. Not even a flinch. Erestor leaned over the table to grab an elusive tile, and bit his apple again.
“Erestor! ERESTOR!” Elrond clapped his hands, snapped his fingers, whistled.
Erestor bit into his apple again.
Desperation seeped into Elrond’s voice. “Erestor, turn around this minute! Erestor, look at me! Erestor, it is Elrond! TURN AROUND!”
Again, nothing.
Approaching Erestor, Elrond stopped right behind the young elf. “Erestor!” he shouted, but he noted that his breath caused a few errant hairs to whip from one of Erestor’s braids across his cheek. Startled, Erestor turned around, dropping his apple to the floor when he noted Elrond was so close.
Taking hold of Erestor’s chin, Elrond said in a stern, wavering voice, “Erestor, look at me.” Erestor nodded. “Erestor, can you understand me?” Erestor nodded. “Erestor... can you hear me?”
Looking down to the floor, Erestor was released from Elrond’s grasp. Sadly, he shook his head.
Shoulders slumping, Elrond turned and walked back to the door. Looking at Glorfindel and Lindir with concern, he said only, “Tell me what you need. It will be provided.”
When Elrond left, Glorfindel pulled the door back a little. The pieces of the table crumpled to the floor in a heap. “Well, at least now I understand where Elladan gets it from.”
