Disclaimer:  The estate of J.R.R. Tolkien owns all the characters in this story, no copyright infringement or profit is intended by the writing and circulation of this story. 

I wish to acknowledge the fanfiction stories of Shirebound, Ariel and Frodo. I have not consciously copied anything, but I loved their fanfics.

Note:  Frodo and Sam are closer in age than in the book.

"Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, finished. If you could say that of a Tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt and guessed, and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the Tree, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. ‘It’s a gift!’ he said."

Leaf by Niggle   J.R.R. Tolkien

“He felt a delight in wood and the touch of it, neither as forester nor as carpenter; it was the delight of the living tree itself”

Fellowship of the Ring  J.R.R. Tolkien

“Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost forever now.”

The Two Towers   J.R.R. Tolkien

In That Moment

Ten years had passed since Frodo had left Middle Earth and Sam still missed him greatly. Oh, he was happy enough. He had Rosie and the children, and he was well respected and loved throughout The Shire; but still The Shire seemed so drab and empty without his friend. Lately a feeling had been growing in his mind, an urgency he couldn’t explain. He had to go; he had to know if it was still there after all this time.

 “Sam, where’re ye off to so early in the morning?” Rosie asked sleepily, standing in the doorway. 

“Mr. Merry needs me over at Buckland to oversee the baling and I thought best make an early start,”  he replied as he kissed her gently. He hated to lie but it was his secret, his and Frodo’s, and after all, he had promised.

The last signs of summer filled the air as Sam made his way through the village and headed off towards the North Farthing. The sun was high in the sky when he sat down beneath an old apple tree, leaned his back against the twisted trunk, and lit his pipe.

As Sam drew on his pipe, he thought about those carefree days when he was young.  Suddenly the barrier of time slipped away and the years ran back through the pattern of his mind to a day in September and a familiar voice calling . . .

“Come on, Sam. Hurry up”

“But where’re we going, Mr Frodo? ” replied Sam. He was beginning to wish he had never let Frodo talk him into this.  

“Shhhhh!  Quiet, Sam.  Gaffer might hear,” Frodo whispered, helping Sam climb out of his bedroom window.  Bright moonlight cast long shadows and all around was quiet and peaceful; no one noticed the two little Hobbits as they slipped through the gap in the hedge at the bottom of the garden, passing into the darkness beyond the confines of the village. 

They followed the lane for a little way, then turned left at the milelong stone and took to the fields.   Through the gate and on to a narrow path that hugged the side of a stream, they went in single file heading northwest towards Bywaterhead.  The stream like a thin black thread stretched out ahead of them, cutting its way through the rough moorland.   Shadows danced like demons crisscrossing the path in front of them and Sam felt uneasy; he didn’t like the dark and wasn’t quite sure where they were going, suddenly the voice of  Ted Sandyman came back to him.

“No good will come of that young Baggins, Gaffer,” Sandyman said. “He’s cracked, he is, just like that Mr. Bilbo. Ought to have stayed in Buckland along with them there cousins of his. Old Marrick Bolger was just a saying how he’d been filling young  Buttercup’s  head full of daft stories ‘bout Elves an all.  Queer he is, most unnatural for a Hobbit, if you asks me”.

“Now,  now, Sandyman, don’t you go calling Mr. Frodo,” Gaffer Gamgee replied. “He’s a fine young Hobbit. Gentle he is, like his mother. Here, my Sam likes him, don’t ya Sam lad? 

Sam was beginning to wonder if Sandyman was right.  No decent Hobbit goes trudging about The Shire in the middle of the night.

"I reckon we should be turning back, Frodo," Sam  said. "We’ve come a fair ways  already and  we shouldn’t come this far.  My old Gaffer says it’s ain’t safe wandering about  the Old Forest.”

“Sam, we’re no where near the Old Forest, ” replied Frodo. “That’s in the other direction.”

“Well, all the same, Mr.Bilbo won’t like it either. You’ll catch it  if he finds out.”

“He won’t find out, Sam,” said Frodo. “Anyway where’s your sense of adventure? I thought you liked Adventures.”

“I do, I do, but -- oh well.” Sam resigned himself to trudging after Frodo. “No use arguing once his mind’s set. He won’t turn back now,” he muttered softly to himself. 

A mile or two further on, they turn left and crossed Farmer Goodbodie’s field following the hedge line. Soon they reached the edge of Bindbale Wood and entered. Sam was feeling uncomfortable. The wood seemed to close in all around them, dark and foreboding. A feeling of unease began to nag at Sam’s mind. The trees were silent, watching, waiting. Sam glanced at Frodo and said, “We shouldn’t be here. There’s something about this place I don’t like.” 

“Don’t worry, Sam.”

Frodo pushed his way through the entwining branches and thick underbrush. Sam followed behind wishing he was at home in his nice warm Hobbit bed.   The wild trees cast dark shadows, which seemed to creep closer. Sharp twigs pulled at Sam’s clothes and scratched his arms; suddenly long, cold  fingers reached down and brushed his cheek. .

“AAHHH, FRODO! Mr. Frodo!  Get them off me! Nasty, creepy, crawly things!”  he cried, as he fell head long into a thick clump of bramble bushes. Frodo helped Sam to his feet and they started off again.

 “Frodo! How much further? Are we almost there?” 

Sam was beginning to feel hungry, and trudging through the woods in the moonlight did not appeal to his Hobbit sense of fun, especially before breakfast.  

"Sam, stop complaining! It’s not far now.”

Dawn’s slow light was rising when they were confronted with a solid wall of bramble bushes covering the woodland floor. Sam looked in dismay at the tangled net, weaved and knotted into a thousand threads, creating an effective fortress against intruders. Frodo turned right and walked a while around the edge of the deep thicket.  The bushes seemed to get denser and denser and Sam could see no break or pathway.

“Frodo, we’ll never get through this lot,” he said anxiously.

“That’s what I thought ........once,” Frodo smiled to himself.

Sam looked in disbelief as suddenly Frodo pulled back some of the branches to revealed an entrance to a passageway cut in the bramble wall.  

“Come on, Sam. This way”.

Frodo got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside, beckoning Sam to follow.  The air was still and damp and thin pockets of grey mist clung to the ground.  As he groped and fumbled his way along in the darkness, Sam wondered what kind of animal had made such a hidden path and to what purpose. The sound of Frodo’s voice calling interrupted his thoughts, “Come on, Sam. We’re nearly there!”

Sam stumbled out of the tunnel and looked around in amazement:  they were standing on a lush green island rising gently to a little hill.  Tall trees like dark sentinels encircled the greensward, and at the centre, alone, rising out of the grey mist black and solemn like a ancient standing stone stood a solitary apple tree.  Around them, a deep silence brooded, and the tree once young and beautiful, now withered, displayed its twisted boughs and aged arms in a threatening way.

Frodo walked towards the tree and stood looking up at its twisted frame with an air of expectation on his face.

“Well, Sam, what do you think of it? Isn’t it just marvellous?” Frodo said excitedly

“But, Mr. Frodo...............” Sam sighed.

“Hmm?”

“It’s a Tree.” Sam sat down and looked at his friend in puzzlement.  “We haven’t come all this way just to look at a Tree!......... Have we?"

“But, Sam, it’s special.”

“It don’t look  so special to me,” Sam muttered.   “There’s plenty of apple trees at Bag End and Buckland.  Look. There ain’t no apples on it, and it looks like there never will be either.”

Being a gardener’s son, Sam had grown up with an appreciation of growing things, but he could see no special merit in the tree, and it seemed to him there were much better trees to be found nearer home. 

Frodo sat down beside him. “But IT IS SPECIAL, Sam. I found it ages ago. It’s mine, but you can share it if you like. It’ll be our tree, our secret. No one knows it’s here, not even Merry and Pippin.  Promise me you’ll never tell them, ever.”

“All right I promise, but I still can’t see why you want to come out here to see this old thing. It ain’t good for nothing,  except firewood maybe,” Sam sighed disappointedly.  

Frodo loved this tree. He had found it one day soon after his parents were killed.  Often he would come to visit the tree just to be alone and get to away from the prying eyes and organised chaos that made up his life at Brandy Hall.

Sam had known Frodo practically all his life, Frodo being Mr Bilbo’s nephew and in and out of Bag End all the time. Most of the other boys laughed and tormented Frodo, calling him Crackpot Baggins and  Barmy Bucklander, but Sam found himself drawn to him.   He was always kind and thoughtful, no airs and graces like some: but mostly Sam just like to listen to Frodo’s stories, tales of  fire dragons and treasure but best of all elves. Sam loved to hear about elves.

“It IS special, Sam. You’ll see,” insisted Frodo but Sam wasn’t convinced.  For all his love of Frodo’s tales, he was after all Gaffer Gamgee's son, and the Gamgees were notoriously practical hobbits, no nonsense, and Sam was no exception.

“Maybe he is cracked after all,” he thought.

“Climb up here, Sam,” Frodo said as he continued his ascent of the apple tree..“Come on.”

 Sam followed reluctantly, “Ain’t no use complaining, best go along with it.”

Finally they reached a wide branch at the centre of the tree and sat down.

“What’d we do now?” Sam asked.   Frodo had a strange far away look on his face as if he was waiting for something to happen. Sam had seen that look before. “Rare Elvish like” the Gaffer called it.

“Listen ,Sam, it’s coming! Can you hear it?”  Frodo said enthusiastically.

“I don’t hear nothing, Mr Frodo.”  Sam looked around him apprehensively but couldn’t see or hear anything.

“There, Sam!  It’s singing. Can’t you hear it?” Frodo glanced at Sam with an expectant look in his eye.

Sam was starting to feel uncomfortable. It was obvious to him that Frodo could hear something, and he wanted to hear it too. He hated to disappoint him but being an honest hobbit he couldn’t lie.  He shook his head and said anxiously, “What, what’s singing?”

“The TREE, Sam, our TREE. There............ listen.............. Do you hear it? It’s singing for us.”  Frodo whispered nervously trying to keep his voice even, “Just sit still and listen and you’ll see.”   He suddenly felt disappointed. In his heart he was sure Sam would understand but maybe he had been wrong to share his secret with Sam after all.

Sam looked puzzled, but he decided to play along and sat quite still by Frodo’s side. Time passed slowly. No bird sang nor leaf stirred the brooding silence. Then suddenly something changed; to Sam it was as if the very air was alive with expectation.

“There! Sam, do you hear it?” Frodo whispered.

Sam pricked up his ears. THERE.................., he could hear it, a faint far off sound of the wind rustling through long grasses. The tree stirred to embrace the oncoming breeze and as the wind caught the branches it shuddered and moaned. Just then the morning sun broke over the horizon. Rose hued rays ran towards them and hit the tree, surrounding it in a blaze of diamond-patterned  light.  Suddenly the air was full of whisperings and sighing from an unseen host and sunlight and shadow formed a tangled web of enchantment around them and in that moment..............................

The leaves turned towards the waking days and it seemed to him that where once was dew dropped leaves, a thousand rain glass jewels danced, golden against the sun. 

And in that moment...............................

The swaying boughs turned towards the fair flung easy days and it seemed to him he heard the running laughter of the years in the footsteps of the young turn to summers meadow flowers.

And in that moment...............................

The leaves turned towards the unforgotten ways and it seemed to him, as the leaves fell red and gold, he heard the soft echoing voices of long ago, speaking of Elven glades and ancient days, of summer evenings past and winter’s snow to come. 

And in that moment............................

The swaying boughs turned towards the untrodden ways and it seemed to him, as the last leaf fell into the sleeping grass, soft beneath where others had gone before and passed into that deep sleep when darkness calls, he knew then the song the nightingale sings of evening stars and solitude. 

And in that moment, Sam heard the song of the tree and it seemed to whisper for him alone.

“They will come, Sam. The tree, the leaf and the flower, they will come, for nothing is certain save the spring.”  And the young Hobbit knew them all, spirits of trees, leaf and flower, of rain glass curtains and shimmering sun.

And there beneath their chosen bough, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee lingered long into the day:  they talked of many things, of bees and flowers, the way of trees, and the strange creatures of the forest, about the evil things and good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things and secrets hidden under brambles.

The evening sun started to dip under the horizon before their thoughts turned to home and like untroubled vagabonds they walked along the old road happy and content in each other’s company.  

“Sam, when you grow up, will you go on adventures?” asked Frodo, humming to himself.

“Me go on adventures? I don’t rightly know, Mr Frodo,” Sam replied.  “Gaffer says best leave adventures to the big folk.  We’ve got The Shire. Though I would dearly love to see the elves one day.”

“I never want to leave, Sam,” Frodo replied softly.  “I can’t think of a better place than here.”

Finally they reached the old iron gate that heralded the parting of their ways.

“Goodnight, Sam. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight Fro.......................”    Suddenly the barrier of time slipped away and Sam awoke beneath the tree just as the last diamond rays of the evening sun started to fade and in that moment he thought he heard a familiar voice whispering: “ They will come Sam, the tree, the leaf and the flower, they will come, for nothing is certain save the spring.”

End.