Stories of Arda - Lord of the Rings Fan-Fiction Archive

Disclaimer (which covers this and all subsequent chapters): The background to this story is not mine. The Lord of the Rings is owned by the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate, praise it with great praise, and also in part by Saul Zaentz. But since this tale is set some time after the events therein, I can lay claim to the plot (certain elements of which are arguably evidenced by elements of The Lord of the Rings), as well as most of the characters. However, I cannot lay claim to these characters’ ancestors, the setting, the race of hobbits, characters’ last names, or any references to the Quest at the End of the Third Age, the last of which there are many. I have also borrowed quotes from The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and make references to material in The Silmarillion and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Most of the quotes are fairly self-evident, and have been italicized to ensure minimal confusion. The exception to this rule is a set of quoted material directly at the beginning of the eleventh chapter, which is woven in and out of original text (for reasons that will become apparent on reading) and thus is not italicized.

Throughout the tale I have tried my best to follow Tolkien’s vision and the “canon” he laid down, though as an author I have used some artistic license in my interpretations of that canon. I have added to the stories; I have tried my best not to subtract from them or change them. First names were chosen because they sounded like good hobbit-names; last names were almost entirely borrowed from the canon. Only the name “Grimwig” is not from Tolkien; it is from Charles Dickens, whose British surnames are seldom excelled and thus very often sound “hobbity.”

This story is not written for monetary profit; however, if you believe I can profit by encouragement and constructive criticism, then please encourage and criticise me as much as you wish.

“Do I have to, Mum?” They stood on the front porch of the Green Dragon Inn, so strange and far from home, waiting for the cart to pull around from the stables.

“I don’t have to go all the way to Buckland, though. I could stay with the Brownlocks—or even the Proudfoots out in Westmarch—at least that isn’t on the other side of the Shire!”

“Sweetheart, you know the pest has hit the Brownlocks as hard as it’s hit us—and you’re not staying with the Proudfoots!”

“Tom says a lot of things. Bucklanders may be queer, but your aunt had enough sense to marry one of the ones that isn’t, and if you keep your senses about you you’ll do well. Why, even you’ve got a bit of Buckland blood tucked away yourself, and you haven’t turned out queer, have you? And you haven’t seen Aunt Penny and her folk in years.”

“Kira! That isn’t the case at all, and you know it! Besides, it won’t be long if the weather holds up and the pest passes through quickly. I’ll send word through the Post as soon as it’s safe for you to come back, and then everything will be well.”

“Then your aunt and I have both wasted a journey. You’d best stop complaining, dear; you’re going with your aunt and uncle as soon as the cart’s ready.”

Too soon—just then the cart pulled up, with Kira’s uncle on the block driving the horse. In little time (or so it seemed to Kira) they were off, rolling down the East Road, Kira staring out the back and ignoring Aunt Penny’s attempts to talk with her. Her mother waved her handkerchief from where she stood at the front of the inn, until all that Kira could see against the brown of autumn was a speck of white.

They went around a bend in the road, and all sight of Mother was lost. It was the first time Kira had been parted from her, and she did not know why.

The November sun had set over Buckland, and one by one, Elbereth called forth her lights to shine on the party. A breeze carried the smell of the Brandywine River to the feast, where it mingled with the odour of woodsmoke and pipeweed. Hobbits were everywhere—gossiping, laughing, dancing, drinking, eating. Near the fast-darkening image of Brandy Hall, the children were dancing to the rhythm of a tambourine; in the ale tent that had been pitched in the centre of the merrymaking, gaffers sipped at their tankards and reminisced. More than one teen was caught trying to sample his first beer, for rumours that the Master had brought forth and tapped one of the Hall’s rare kegs of 1420 were abundant. Around the tent were trestle tables creaking in delight under the weight of all the food laid upon them—mutton pasties, savoury mushroom-and-onion pies, trifles made with pears and apples dredged in spirits. Seated round them were hundreds upon hundreds of hobbits, most of them Brandybucks, either filling up the corners or giving up all pretence of being full and having a seventh (or eighth) meal. And there were bonfires, so bright they blazed across the Brandywine, had there been anyone to see them. All those who were able were at the feast, and altogether, the celebration was a success.

And alone, on a hillock apart from the bonfires and the feasting and the music, sat a hobbit lass, plaiting the autumn’s last flowers into a garland and gazing east at the emerging stars. It was a pleasant thing, to sit away from the party and listen to the chatter of the feast blended together behind her in an indistinct buzz, even if the wind was blowing smoke at her back. She might have thought of that old adage that gammers loved to say: Smoke follows beauty. But she was busy with her garland, and with trying to remember the names of the constellations. There’s the Hunter, she thought. One could always see that in the fall. And the Plough should be out, too, when it gets darker. She turned her head around, but the Lonely Star was still obscured by the last traces of the Sun. Once someone had told her its true name—the old Mayor’s son, she thought—but she could not remember it now.

She was a child, no older than fifteen; and she sat with her legs tucked to the side, hidden under her party dress. Her rich brown curls were tied back with a green ribbon; and the only thing, apart from the flowers, that lay beside her was a long, stout stick, wide and flat at the top.

Kerry Brandybuck rose from the ale tent: he was bored. The feast seemed less splendid to him than it had in the days of his early childhood, back when his granddad was the Master. Perhaps it was all this work his father was making him do—it seemed, he reflected, to be the fate of all heirs to have work foisted on them well before they came of age. He had finally managed to get away from all of his duties and all of those pesky relations, only to discover that all his friends could talk about was food, ale, smoking, and lasses. Taking a few breaths of fresh air, he glanced towards the East, where the stars had begun to shine. To his surprise he found the solitary child.

Very strange, this—a hobbit not revelling in her late bedtime? Who could it be? He ran through the names of the children of the Hall. It was certainly not Merina—he had seen his sister only five minutes ago, and she was far too social a girl to stare off into starlight when there was food to be had. One of his many cousins, then, but he could not tell which from behind. Curiosity piqued, he made his way to where the girl was sitting.

The girl turned and looked up, clearly startled. “Yes,” she said, “very much. The food is delicious.”

He studied her features, but did not recognise any of his cousins in them. A visitor, perhaps? “Forgive me, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. What is your name?”

“Oh,” said the girl, and she coloured. “I live on the White Downs—just south of Michel Delving. But there’s a pest over there, so my Mum sent me here for a couple of weeks. My aunt married a Brandybuck, so that’s why I can stay here. Who are you?”

Kira looked down at her work, then after a moment’s thought set it aside. “Does that mean you’re the heir?”

“You did a wonderful job.” She fell silent for a moment. “I must sound something silly for saying this, but it sounded… I don’t know—magnificent. I think my heart stopped beating a moment.”

“No, no. My heart stops every time I hear it, even though I’ve heard it all my life, and have gotten to blow it these past few years. But,” Kerry added, seating himself next to her, “it is rather interesting that you should call it magnificent. Old Merry the Magnificent—my great-grandfather—was the first to blow it in the Shire, and that is the exact reason we celebrate today. If I remember aright, it was one hundred twenty years ago, to the day. You know, of course, that Big People tried to take control of the Shire once?”

Kira nodded. “Sometimes on a fall’s evening my friends and I go into the storage tunnels in town, and pretend that they’re the Lockholes.”

Kerry smiled, remembering his own midnight excursions to the stone posts still standing at the Brandywine Bridge where the gates had stood, and to Crickhollow, where he had warned the countryside of Black Riders. “Well, when Merry had been off Outside adventuring with his friends, he had gotten a horn from the Kingdom of Rohan because he had helped them in battle; and the lady who had given it him said it would set joy into the hearts of his friends and that they would come to his aid. When Merry returned, he must have been very grateful, for he was able to use the horn to rouse all the Shire, and send the ruffians packing.”

“I’m supposed to carry it with me all night. Here.” Kerry removed the horn from the green baldric (Kira had originally supposed it a sash) he wore and handed it to the girl. “Be careful with it—it’s very old.”

Kira set the horn in her lap. It felt warm, from being near the bonfires. She ran her fingers along the galloping horses and riders that had been engraved on the burnished silver, then the strange marks that had been set upon it. “What are those?”

“Letters, but for engraving. I don’t know what they say—probably something in Rohirric. I’m sure it’s recorded somewhere.”

Kira fell silent as she gazed at the relic: it was an awesome sight, and the feeling she got reminded her of the Lockholes, though she was not frightened. She handed the horn back to Kerry, who replaced it on the baldric. “It’s beautiful.” After a while she added. “Funny how something so great could come out of a few odd adventures Outside. Though I suppose you’d have to get something from there or no one’d believe half the tales you came back with.”

Kerry frowned. “If it’s something great, it could hardly have come from ‘a few odd adventures.’ Merry did great things Outside to earn that reward.”

“If you go by the Travellers’ Tales, I suppose. But I’m too old for those.”

“Oh, hardly much at all. Old Sam Gardner, of course, and Peregrin Took, and then Merry. And another left, too—I can’t quite remember his name. He didn’t do much, I suppose.”

Kira thought this over a moment. “No; it never occurred to me. I suppose I had always guessed that they were bored with life here.”

“Ah—that’s the name!” Kira paused to digest the other information Kerry had told her. “Wait, they left for him? You’re pulling the hair from my toes!”

“No, I’m not,” said Kerry. “Frodo was the reason Merry and Pippin—and especially Sam—left the Shire. And believe it or not, he did the greatest deeds of all of them. Men celebrate his birthday abroad, I’ve heard, and accord him the highest praise.” He looked back towards the feast. His stomach rumbled a little, but he hated to leave the child alone, so ignorant! “Didn’t you ever hear the stories the Mayor used to tell? The old Mayor, I mean.”

“No. I was only eight when he left, and I never went to town at all till I was seven. One of his sons stayed around for a year or two, but no one really got to know him. Why?”

“I was just curious.” Kerry sighed. Most folk believe those stories are rubbish anyway, he thought, and you know it. You can’t do anything to change the stubborn necks of hobbits, so stop fretting yourself like a Fairbairn about it! Best to leave the girl alone, he decided. “Why don’t you go find some of the children your age?” he said. “My father will be wondering where I am.”

“Yes, I suppose I ought to.” But Kira showed no sign of moving. “How do you know the Travellers’ Tales so well—or so differently, I should say? And at your age? No one ever said anything about Frodo Baggins or celebrating birthdays back home.

A broad smile spread across Kerry’s features. “My grandfather told me everything, and his father told him. But I have read all the stories myself in the library we have started at Brandy Hall.”

“I’d be a horrid heir to the Hall if I couldn’t. You really shouldn’t be alone like this. Where are all the other children?”

Kira drew back the hem of her party dress, revealing her woolly feet. The right one was shrivelled, and bent at an odd angle. She gathered her garland and, leaning on the stick she had set beside her, arose. “It doesn’t hurt that much,” she said. “And I can walk and run well enough. But I can’t dance.”

Kerry offered a steadying hand in case she should fall, but the lass did not so much as totter. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know about your infirmity. Do you need my help?”

“I’ve had this foot as long as I’ve lived, and Mum started me on my crutch before I was a faunt. I do know how to walk.”

“I know,” said Kira. “It’s just that you don’t know me. No one does here.”

“Well, I should like to know you better, Miss Proudfoot, if you’ll permit me and your time here allows it. But I really must get going. Thank you for talking with me.” Kerimac walked away to the bonfires as the party continued through the night, thinking about the poor girl.

Kira took one last look at the stars overhead, pondering that strange hobbit and the stranger interest he had taken in her, then saw the circle of children dancing and made her way towards it. She wondered how late it was—probably too late. Aunt Penny would likely have a few harsh words for her.

But halfway there, she had to stop and rest by one of the bonfires. She could run well enough—that much was true, even if it was an ungainly, hopping kind of running—but she tired so easily. And her foot had started hurting again tonight, more than usual. It meant, she had learned, a major change in the weather: winter was coming; and, by the feel of it, a rough one again. And, she thought ruefully, with winter came hours upon hours stuck inside, with naught but a little handiwork and a hurting foot to keep her company. Maybe, just maybe, she thought, if the pest didn’t die out before the first snows, a winter in Buckland would be better than one back home. Almost immediately she chided herself for the thought. For that would mean spending far more time away from home and away from Mother than she had ever wanted, and among those sick were her friends back home—Daffodil, Roly, and Tom. She did not want them to stay ill.

She had started to miss them sorely, even though she had been in Buckland for only a few days—sometimes Daffodil would come to her while she was stuck inside for the winter. The hobbits over here, with their queer obsession with water and their funny accents—well, she didn’t know how to make friends, did she? And they already knew one another so well; what would she have to do with them? It was just like the parties back home, when she and her friends would get a chance to converse with the children who lived in town. But now her friends were not with her, and she was alone, and only one Brandybuck (aside from her relations) had so much as talked with her.

Kira began to walk again. Her thoughts had taken her back to Kerry. Very odd, this—why would a stranger talk to her? Ah, she remembered, but he was the Master’s heir. Of course he would want to make sure all of his guests were well. He had to be in his late tweens, if not already thirty. And yet, she realised, he believed in the Travellers’ Tales, and thought it odd that she knew they were myth. Could he really believe them? Silly Brandybuck, she thought. They really were strange outside the Shire.

Kira hastened on to where the children were dancing. The instant she saw her aunt, hands planted on hips, she groaned.

Kira winced. “I was bored, Aunt Penny,” she said. “I wanted some time alone, away from all the heat and noise. I lost track of time.”

“Kira, I told you to say here! Your mother wanted you to be in no later than an hour after sundown, and you know I can’t keep an eye on you and my own at the same time!”

“There are no ‘buts’ about it, Kira. Your mother is very concerned about your health, and if you don’t do as she says—and as I say—you might catch cold and get a fever. Winter is just around the bend, and the nights are getting colder.”

Kira bit her lip, knowing her aunt was right. But she could not help but ask the fated question: “Then why do all my cousins get to stay out so late?”

“They’re older than you are. And as for the children your own age…” Penny sighed. “I’m sorry, love. I know it’s hard for you, but you’re different from everyone else. You take ill more easily, and there’s your foot, too. I promised your mum I’d take good care of you. If something happened to you… well, I don’t know what she’d do without you. Come on, now, let’s go inside—there’s a good lass.”

Kira sighed, knowing she was defeated. If only the rules could be different, now that she was away from home. Casting one wistful look back at the children, she submitted to her aunt’s nudges, took her crutch, and hobbled towards the darkened form of Brandy Hall and to bed.

Kira’s foot had been right—winter was approaching. Only a few nights after the bonfire party snowy winds swept in over Buckland and the land was blanketed in snow. There was no return home now.

On the other hand, there was no venturing outside, either. Even once the snow had settled enough for the other children to play outdoors, Kira’s aunt would not permit her so much as a whiff of the outdoor air.

A few times, when she was feeling audacious, Kira climbed atop her bed, gripped the headboard, and peered outside through the cracks in the shutters that covered the window above her. Her face always got a little cold, then, but she could see some of the children building snowhobbits or re-enacting the Battle of Bywater with one another. Then, when Aunt Penny came in with some soup or something, she never failed to comment on how red Kira’s face was, and asked if her foot hurt more than usual. And Kira had to reply that yes, it did, for her foot never did like it when it was cold out, nor if she used it in any way during the winter months. But Kira thought that the sights were worth it.

And at mealtimes, if she was quiet, she could sometimes hear the excited chatter of the children of Brandy Hall as they went indoors, where their mothers made sure they washed their hands and their fathers wrapped their feet in warm rags. And in the evening she could hear them get hustled to their separate beds in various parts of the Hall. She wished she could be a part of them, but it was impossible.

In truth, Kira initially had more companionship at Brandy Hall than she had ever had during the winters back home. Every few days her aunt assigned one of her three cousins to sit with her for a few hours and talk. Fanny, who was closest in age, was rather nice, although she talked to Kira as if she were nine. She usually came in with a basin of hot water for Kira’s foot to soak in, and she would receive a temporary respite from her pain. Andric, the eldest, was rather amusing to watch—clearly dragged into his task by force, he would do nothing but sit at her bedside and glare. Sometimes Kira poked him just to see him react.

But Kira dreaded the days that Delphie came in to sit with her. She had just turned twenty-one, and twittered with the pride of one newly called to the duty of tweenhood. All she ever did was talk about some lad she half-fancied (not that she could do anything about it for another six years), or what dresses looked good on her, or which lasses her best friend had coerced her into being friends with. When Delphie abruptly stopped visiting Kira (though Kira suspected her aunt knew nothing about it), she was very grateful. Andric’s visits stopped soon after.

Once only Fanny was left to visit, Kira’s chief companion was her mind, and that tired as the days wore on. Unlike home, when Daffodil had visited her almost daily and her mother had always had a few skirts in need of hemming, Kira suddenly had nothing to do but think. All too often, she mused, nobody thought of her.

Eventually someone must have thought of Kira, however; about three weeks into winter she had a visitor knocking who was not Fanny. It was Kerimac, who apparently had learned in his spare time that the little cripple from the White Downs was still at Brandy Hall.

“Good day, Miss Proudfoot,” he said as he entered. Kira motioned for him to sit on the stool beside the bed where Aunt Penny or Fanny usually sat. “I heard Andric rejoicing the other day that he had found out a way to make his mother think he was still minding his cousin, and when I realised that you were the cousin in question I thought it’d only be fair to pay you a visit. Has the pest back home not died out yet?”

“I’m not sure,” said Kira, smiling at the thought of Andric happy to get out of the onerous task of seeing her. “I believe it has—it wasn’t very severe—but the snows came down, and Mother and Aunt Penny both are afraid I’ll catch cold if I’m outside. So I’m stuck in bed till the thaw.”

“Why? Can’t you get up and move about, even if you can’t leave the Hall?”

Kira flushed. “My foot doesn’t like winter very much. It gets all stiff and achy, so I’m bedridden every winter. I was hoping this year would be different, but Aunt Penny makes sure I stay in here as much as Mother does back home.”

“I’m very sorry—I was hoping that if you had to stay around longer you could get to know some of the lads and lasses your age. I could pester my sister into visiting you, if you wanted.”

“Oh, no,” said Kira. “That’s quite all right; I’m used to staying in bed. I don’t need that much company.”

Kerry saw how reluctant she was on the topic and decided to drop it. “So, you’re Andric’s cousin, then?”

“I was wondering who you were related to. Let’s see—he’s my third cousin, once removed. Though that doesn’t necessarily make us related.”

“No—Aunt Penny’s my mother’s sister, and she married into the Hall. Mum said I have some Bucklander blood in me, though, on my dad’s side. My father’s mother, before she married, was a Brandybuck.”

“Let me see…” murmured Kira. “What was her name? Hallie, I think—yes, Haleth Proudfoot. She died two years ago.”

“That was her name? She was Merry the Magnificent’s youngest daughter! And that would make us second cousins!”

Kira sat up in bed. “Are you sure? Mother never told me anything like that!”

“I’ve studied the genealogies; I should know. It can’t be anything else—you’re a Traveller’s descendant.”

“My, that’s odd,” said Kira. “I wonder why nobody told me.” She rubbed her head a moment, then laughed. “Probably thought I’d get the harebrained notion of travelling myself—as if I’d ever want to! Or as if, even if I wanted to, I could! And we’re second cousins? That means I’m more closely related to you than my cousins are, and they’re Brandybucks by name! How strange!”

“Very strange. But that makes me wonder why I’ve never seen you before now, if we’re related.”

“I don’t know,” said Kira. “I’ve never spent much time with my father’s relatives, though. We usually just see them for a few minutes at parties, or sometimes at a birthday or a wedding.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re much too busy for that sort of thing, especially with your position and all. You don’t need to visit me.”

“Actually, I’m not that busy. Father likes to do everything by himself these days. And I’m sure when everyone gets tired of all the snow they’d love to come and visit you. We could hold a Yule party in here for you, when the time comes.”

Kira shook her head, curls bouncing off the headboard. “No, please don’t do that—if they talk to me at all, they’ll just ask me why I’m stuck in bed. And what could I give them for gifts? No, Mother tried that one year with all the children in Michel Delving, and nobody spoke a word to me but Daffodil anyway.”

“Well, it was an idea. But may I still come to see you? I assure you, I can’t talk to anyone else if we’re the only two people in the room. And, to tell the truth, I get bored rather easily myself during the winter. I could tell you more of the things I told you at the party, if you’d like—or even read to you. Will you let me?”

Kira was silent for a moment. “Tell me, Kerry—is reading a good way to pass time?”

“I mean—Mother always had some sewing or something for me to do over the winter, when I was alone, but Aunt Penny seems to have forgotten, and I don’t want to trouble her. Four or five months of nothing to do is a dreadfully long time, and I wouldn’t be half surprised if this winter lasted that long. And back when the old Mayor’s son still lived in town, I used to see him reading for hours upon hours outdoors, and I thought at the time that it would be an awful waste of the day, but you see, the winters were a lot milder then, and…” She broke off, suddenly conscious that she was rambling.

“Kira,” said Kerry, “reading is one of the best uses of time I’ve ever found. And time does pass more quickly when you’ve got a book. Why did you want to know?”

“Well, since I’ve been getting so bored lately, I was wondering what it would be like, and now you’ve just said you’d like to visit me again…”

For about the two hundred fifty-first time that winter, Kerry Brandybuck wondered just what he had gotten himself into. He had only wanted to see how the poor crippled girl was doing—he pitied her, really—and he thought it was wrong that she should be all alone (he would have chided Andric if he’d thought it would do any good). So it was just a brief conversation, a few white lies (ones that would have been true if he had thought them possible), to comfort her and give her hope—and he had landed himself in the position of a private tutor.

So here in late November, Kerry had to find a way to squeeze reading lessons into his already busy schedule. It was difficult to do, from the precious sleep he lost to depleting the Hall’s supply of tallow candles when he made up the work his father deemed more important; but every day he managed to come to Kira’s room for at least an hour. He was always glad he did.

For one thing, it gave him a sense of authority: it put him directly in one of those leadership roles his dad was always talking about, which was a very important thing if he was to be Master of Buckland one day. That was the practical benefit. But to see the child’s face light up in anticipation of doing something constructive was a joy in its own right.

He had never taught anyone to read before, yet he must have done a decent job. In only five weeks she had learned what it had taken him a year to master when he was young. He had started with the basics—showing her the various letters and demonstrating the sounds that went with each. He had her memorise the consonants from an old primer borrowed from the nursery (which she did in two days), then the vowels, both short and long. Next came vowel combinations and consonant blends, stress patterns—all those rules he now took for granted; and then Kira Proudfoot was reading words. Kerry could not help but feel a twinge of pride when she sounded out her first sentence: “In a hole—in the g-r-ound… there liv-ed… liv— lived… a hob-bit.” Kira had repeated the sentence to herself several times until she could understand exactly what it said, then laughed aloud and declared that she could read.

Kerry had thought the Red Book would be nice to teach with—the first part, the part that Bilbo himself had written, was designed for children. There had been no Yule party, but Kerry had wanted to give her something anyway. His gift, then, was letting her read from the Hall’s copy, after considerable discussion with his father (who Kerry was surprised even let the tutoring continue once the lecture about ‘duty’ was over). She seemed to be enjoying it, which Kerry deemed remarkable considering her earlier scorn for mere ‘Travellers’ Tales.’ If the girl’s passion was genuine and not just a result of being bedridden, the ensuing stories would get progressively harder until she reached the legends and things that had only been copied for Brandy Hall in abridged form. Of course, by then seasons would have passed and Kira would be back in her home on the White Downs. She could get a copy at Tuckborough, or better yet, read from the original…

Kerry looked up at the mantelpiece clock in the library. Fifteen minutes until the lesson, though Kira had said not a minute sooner, as that was when her cousin Fanny visited her. He glanced back at his work: ‘Harvest Records for October 1539,’ and decided it was at least close enough that he could clean up, find the book, and get a bite to eat in the meantime. He stacked the parchment and set it in a corner of his private desk, capped the ink in the inkwell, wiped his quill, and stood up. Walking over to the shelf of histories, he quickly located the section that contained their oldest books.

He started. There was the Red Book’s normal resting place, but the Red Book itself was nowhere to be found.

Kira awoke with a start. It was freezing cold. She gathered the covers back over her and returned to her pillow, only to find the Red Book obstructing her head. The page she had lain on was all rumpled. She laughed to herself as she recalled the night’s events.

She hadn’t been able to sleep at all—having all that new information about sounds and words in her head was too exciting. She was doing something over the winter, not just lying in bed, and moreover silly old Bilbo Baggins was encountering trolls. After five minutes of internal debate she’d sat up in bed, brushed her left leg loose of her sheets and blankets, and set her toes on the cold wooden floor.

It had felt odd, as getting out for the first time after winter always did, and she hadn’t been sure if her leg would support her. As soon as it left the safety of the bed her right foot had started throbbing, making it hard to concentrate with each course of blood. She’d tried to stand up, but her left leg had buckled; and, forced to crawl, she’d crept over to her crutch where it stood dusty by the door. It had taken a few minutes of rest before she could pull herself up, and a few more for the pain in her bad foot to subside enough for her to walk; but she’d managed, finally, to stumble out the door.

The small library hadn’t been too hard to find. Kerry said it used to be the Master’s study, and as such was in the centre of Brandy Hall. Kira’s room was on the edge, so she had simply headed in the direction of warmth and darkness. Once she had located the book, she’d slipped back to her room with no one the wiser.

But then, how could she have experienced the fruit of her labours on so dark a night? She remembered seeing the moonlight filtering into her room through the cracks of her shutters, and, climbing upon her bed, opening them to let the light in. She had lain in bed and read until the moon’s light had left the room. She did not recall falling asleep, but it must have been very late indeed.

Kira was startled out of her reverie with a knock on the door. Hastily she snapped the book shut and hid it beneath her pillow. That would be Fanny with the breakfast, she supposed.

“Kira? Are you awake yet?” Kira’s heart stopped. It was not Fanny; it was Aunt Penny, and she sounded very concerned.

“Yes,” said Kira, trying to sound as meek as possible. Now you’re in for it! she thought.

Aunt Penny slowly opened the door. “My, it is freezing in here!” She entered the room, carrying, Kira noticed thankfully, a tray laden with poached eggs, a rasher of bacon, and several slices of toast. “I was sitting in my own room, knitting a scarf, when Fanny appears and informs me that the shutters in your room are open, your crutch is on the floor, and you are fast asleep with your head pillowed on a book. A book—and the wintry air blowing in! What exactly has been going on?”

Kira sat up, awaiting the victuals, but it became clear in an instant that she was getting none until she explained herself.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Penny. I… I was bored half-mad, but I couldn’t get to sleep—and I wanted to know what would happen next in the story—”

Aunt Penny tapped her foot; Kira knew from Mother’s selfsame mannerism that her excuse was unacceptable.

“Please understand! I was getting so dreadfully restless all winter and I needed something to do, and I had to open the shutters because there was no light to read in!”

“Why in the Shire would you need to read, Kira? Only the finer folk do that.” Aunt Penny pursed her lips, thinking through the rest of Kira’s explanation. “And you should know better than getting out of bed in the middle of night, in the dead of winter—it strains your foot. And the open shutters? I’d ask you what you were thinking, but I don’t believe you were!”

Despite her bluster, however, she seemed to be appeased for the moment, for she set the tray of food on Kira’s lap and moved over to the window to close it. “You have to take care of yourself, no matter how dull it seems! And don’t you have plenty to do as it is? Delphie and Andric have both told me how well you were doing!”

Kira laughed, though she was shocked and dismayed when she wheezed a little. “Delphie and Andric?” she said. “I haven’t since those two since November!”

Penny’s jaw dropped. Then she stiffened. “They told me they were making their visits as usual.”

“No, no—they stopped visiting long ago. I daresay they were glad to—neither one wanted to be here, and both were irritating when they were.”

Penny huffed out a sight. “Well, I shall have a number of harsh words with them. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well…” Kira blushed a little. “I didn’t really want them to come back. And then the reading lessons started, so I wasn’t as bored, and I didn’t really want you to find out…”

“Kira, you need to tell me everything that happens; I’m too busy for you to go around keeping secrets. But just how are you learning to read?”

Just then Kerry appeared at the open door. He was about to speak, but Kira stayed him with her hand. “He’s been teaching me.”

Kira’s aunt turned around and saw Kerry. Kerry saw her as well and his eyes widened. “Oh, dear,” he muttered.

“Would you care to explain why you have been teaching my niece how to read without my permission?”

Kerry paused before formulating his response, hands raised in peace. “Forgive me, Mrs. Brandybuck. I was not aware that I did not have your consent to instruct your niece. She wanted to learn, and I saw no problem in teaching her.”

“I told my father as soon as she was able to read from a book, and I assure you that he approves.”

“Well, I suppose I shall have to speak with him, too, and inform him that, Master or no, he does not decide what is suitable for one girl who is a guest here from the Westfarthing and not even related to him!”

Kerry continued to breathe steadily; Kira wondered if such calm was inherited or attained through years of practice. “If you will forgive me for correcting you, ma’am, Kira Proudfoot is related to me, and to my father. She is my second cousin on her father’s side, and thus my father’s first cousin, once removed. Moreover, she is the great-granddaughter of Meriadoc Brandybuck himself, who certainly would have been pained to see one of his own flesh and blood illiterate and ignorant of the Histories in which he and many other worthy hobbits played a part. I do not see why there should be any objection to letting her learn.”

“Kira herself was unaware of the fact, but she knew the name of her father’s mother. If you’d like to discuss genealogies we have plenty laid out matter-of-fact in the Library, but for now you may have it on my authority that she is directly descended from him.”

Penny’s voice dropped so low that Kira had to stop eating to listen. “Kira’s father died before she was born. Her mother does not associate with that side of her family, and I have found it best to follow suit. Had I known what was taking place, had I known that you were even related to her, I would not have let you so much as meet her.”

“Please, Mrs. Brandybuck, if you have any concerns about my side of the family or whether Kira may or may not talk with me, take them to my father. All I am concerned with is this lass’s welfare, and whether or not she should be able to read. So far you have raised no clear objection.”

The room went silent. Kira resumed her meal, casting a hasty peek at her aunt to ensure that she had not noticed Kira’s interest in the conversation.

“We do not want any foreign ideas put into Kira’s head,” said Aunt Penny, finally.

“If you are worried about the off chance that Kira will take it into her head to go off on some ‘adventure’ just because she can now read, I assure you that she is aware of her own condition, and that her odd fancy, fleeting as it was, would die as a result.”

“No, no—you misunderstand me, Master Kerry. It’s not so much the actions that come from the ideas, it’s the ideas themselves that harm. We hobbits live in the ground—no sense having our heads in the clouds—or our noses in dusty old books.”

“I hardly see how trying to escape, if only in the mind, from a sickbed harms anyone.” He paused and sighed, the first sign of exasperation that Kira noticed. “But all this talk is moot; I came in here to tell Kira that our lesson for today is cancelled. Apparently someone took our copy of the Red Book overnight.”

“That was me,” said Kira, turning red. She set aside her empty tray and fished the book out from under the pillow. “I’m sorry,” she said, handing it to Kerry. “I just wanted to find out what happened next. I got out of bed at night and took it back here—I think I messed up one of the pages; sorry.”

“So you can’t argue that reading did not hurt her,” Penny put in. “Imagine, the cold air blowing in all night! I wouldn’t be surprised one whit if she’s already come down with something!”

Kerry bowed his head. “I must agree with your aunt on this, Kira. There’s nothing wrong with reading in itself, but you can’t put yourself at risk of getting sick when you do. Follow your aunt’s rules for bedtime, and if it gets dark too early I can get you a lamp or a candle.”

“And my rules,” added Aunt Penny, “are still ‘No Reading.’ I shall be having a good many talks with both Kerry and the Master, and unless they can convince me that reading is absolutely harmless, the rules shall not change.”

Kira’s eyes drooped at this. “Really, though, Aunt Penny, this is so much more enjoyable than watching Andric sulk. I’ve never had a winter pass as quickly as this one is, and it’s not as if I’ll keep reading once I’m up and about. Besides, the tales are such fancies they could hardly be real.”

Aunt Penny looked from her niece to the Master’s son; Kerry nodded at Kira’s sentiments.

“And if I do get to finish the story, I’ll follow my bedtime and Fanny’s visits and all, even if I’m at the most exciting part in the whole book.” At this Kira felt a sneeze coming on; she quickly buried her head in her pillow to mask the noise.

“Thank you for your opinions, Kira, but the rules stand fast unless I say so. I do not want Kerry to visit you until I am finished speaking with his father, and I certainly do not want any smuggling of books during that time. I shall keep both my eyes on you: I can’t have you turn ill, especially not after last night. And now, Master Brandybuck, I will request that you leave—I am afraid that however little sleep Kira got last night is not enough to keep her in good health.”

After Kerry left, Aunt Penny rummaged about and found a musty brown cloak, which she draped over the window to keep the light out. Kira noticed that as she left, she took the crutch with her as an added precaution, but Kira was soon too tired to care. Within ten minutes she was sound asleep.

Kira awoke to a piercing light shining directly across her eyes. She shivered and felt for her blankets—they were not there; she must have kicked them off during her sleep. Someone laid them on top of her; she mumbled a “thanks” and turned her face into her pillow to try to get back to sleep.

But, tired as she felt, sleep eluded her. She became aware of a gnawing sensation in her stomach, she could hear faint voices in the background, and, she realised wearily, her right foot was hurting just enough that she couldn’t ignore it. She decided that sleep was futile, and that she could hardly wait till spring when she wouldn’t be plagued with all these problems.

Kira rolled back over and forced her eyelids open. “I’m hungry,” she said to whoever had placed the blankets on her.

“Fanny, go to the kitchens and see if you can’t get the lass some broth and a glass of water.” Kira focused her eyes just in time to see her cousin leave the room. She looked for the person who had told Fanny to get her food and saw near the door a middle-aged hobbit she didn’t recognise. He walked to the bedside stool and sat down.

Kira tried to sit herself up in bed. “Terrible.” She took a ragged breath and looked around for something in which to cough. The hobbit drew a handkerchief from his waistcoat and handed it to her. When she was done coughing he took it from her and looked at the gunk inside.

“Tut, tut,” he said. “Well, the worst is over, at least.” He stood up. “I’ll get your aunt for you, shall I?”

The doctor sat back down. “‘Sick’ is a bit of an understatement, my dear. Your fever has broken, but, even if you were able, I would not have you leave bed for another two weeks. And you seem to have gotten quite a build-up of stuff in your lungs, which will take at least a week to get out.”

“That’s a good thing, and you shouldn’t. Your body is trying to fight off the sickness, and it needs all the strength it can get. Let me go find your aunt.”

“He usually sees me about once every two months,” Kira put in, “or more often if I’m ill.”

The doctor nodded. “That is what I would do as well, for a lass like her. I shall try to see her tomorrow if I have time, but as long as you take good care of her I shouldn’t need to come in.” He went to the stool and set upon it a ream of handkerchiefs. “She should be allowed to cough up whatever she has in her lungs into these, and they should be washed frequently so that she always has some. Give her plenty of liquids, and I’ll ask for the kitchens to make up a tea that will help soothe her throat.”

“Thank you so very much, Dr. Brandybuck,” said Aunt Penny. “You’ve been so very helpful the past couple of days, especially in caring for a guest to the Hall.”

“My pleasure to do so, ma’am. As long as I can help someone to recover, who it is that’s ill doesn’t matter. And you, miss,” he said, turning to Kira and pointing a finger at her, “I don’t want to have to see you for another month at least. Do I make myself clear?”

Penny gave a tired sort of laugh and sat down at Kira’s bedside. “It’s quite all right, now that you’re on the mend. Rosemary will be most disappointed, but as long as you’re safe and whole we’ll manage.”

Aunt Penny shook her head. “Do you truly think that in caring for you I’ve forgotten how you got yourself into this mess? Or that I’d even have had the time to discuss the matter with the Master?”

“Right,” said Kira. “Of course, I don’t know what I’ll do in the meantime.”

“But you shouldn’t be exerting yourself in any way—you’ll feel tired anyhow, if you don’t need a doze right now.”

Kira was interrupted by Fanny, who entered the room with a tray that she set on Kira’s lap. Kira looked at the meagre fare before her, a bowl of chicken broth and a few slices of bread, and wrinkled her nose.

“Now, if you don’t want to eat that kind of food, Kira, you shouldn’t get yourself sick like that,” Fanny explained.

Kira grumbled something expressing her knowledge of the situation and dunked a piece of bread into the broth.

Aunt Penny thought it over a while, then said, “Actually, would you mind watching over Kira for a few more minutes?”

“Good. Make sure she finishes her food, and see if she can’t go to sleep after that.”

Fanny nodded. Kira blew her nose into one of the handkerchiefs and took a sip of water. When she had finished the meal she lay back down in the bed and pulled the covers around her.

When the doctor returned the next day he declared that Kira was healing nicely, and promised to check in the next week. Aunt Penny, having told the doctor that she would let him know if Kira’s condition ever worsened, immediately turned her eyes to the new task looming before her: confronting the Master of the Hall. In her opinion, Kira was far too nosy about the business for a decent hobbit lass, but even had she lost all interest in reading Penny would still have had to go. She had not counted on that lad Kerry to be so forthright about something as obvious as the girl’s well-being, nor that he would ask his father to arrange an appointment with her! He’ll make a good Master, she thought, though as the day drew closer she found she dreaded the meeting.

Kira, on the other hand, was mostly coughing and sleeping, too tired to entertain the idea of reading for more than a few minutes. But after three days it grew boring, and without so much to cough up, her energy began to return and she could sit up in bed for half an hour without wanting to lie back down. When Fanny was in (much more often now) she began to tell Kira stories about a queer old man that lived in the Old Forest, having decided two months late that her cousin might be getting tired of hearing about the exciting routines of Brandy Hall. The tales were new, but they grew old fast, and after a few days of eager listening Kira found herself wanting to find out about the Lonely Mountain, and trying to imagine what would happen next, and being ever so bored with sitting, and sitting, and sitting, and being unable to do a thing till at least March.

After an Age the doctor returned, saw she wasn’t coughing nearly as much, and said that she should be completely well after ten days at the latest.

He left for a few minutes and came back, saying that she wasn’t nearby but Andric had told him that she was seeing the Master of Buckland for a few minutes.

Kira chewed on her lip. “I think so… I think he’s trying to convince her to let me read while I’m here.”

Garminas Brandybuck raised his eyebrows high. “In that case,” he said, consulting a gold pocket watch, “you may tell her I said your progress was satisfactory and that she may see me when she has the time to do so.” And with that he left the room.

As the minutes crept by Kira realised why the doctor had not waited for her aunt. It was a full two hours before Aunt Penny returned to Kira’s guestroom, and she returned looking exhausted.

Aunt Penny heaved a sigh. “Oh, that,” she said, as if there were anything else Kira was talking about. She was silent for a few moments, perhaps hoping that that look of expectation on Kira’s face would diminish. “Well, my dear, it seems that you and Kerry have won in this case. You may continue your lessons, and you may read as long as you do not exert yourself, or go past your bedtime, or read while Fanny is visiting you. Do you understand?”

Kira nodded; she wondered if Aunt Penny’s expression meant she shouldn’t have looked so happy. “Sorry,” she added.

Aunt Penny shook her head. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said. “Kerry asked me to tell you that he’d like to recommence the lessons on Monday.”

“All right,” said Kira. “Oh, and Dr. Brandybuck says I’m getting better just fine. He came to see me two hours ago and when I told him where you were he asked for me to tell you. You can see him whenever you have time.”

“It seems as if he’s had delays like this before. I’d better stop by.” Penny turned to go.

Monday morning Kerry came in with a big smile on his face and a red book in his hand, and Kira began to read again. They started where they had left off, as if none of that fever business had ever happened, but the lesson was shorter than normal.

“I don’t see how mental activity could make one bodily tired but we can’t take any chances,” Kerry said with a rueful smile when he snapped the book shut. But the lessons soon grew back to their natural length, and Kira found herself going to sleep at regular times, not dozing off intermittently as she had been wont to do after her fever had broken. In another two weeks she was as well as could be expected of one confined to bed.

On the sixth of February Kerry came into Kira’s room carrying a bag. “Tomorrow is my birthday,” he said, “and since I’m the heir and all we’re having a party, and I have to be there all day.”

“I realise that means I won’t be able to see you, much less hold the scheduled lesson, so I thought I should give you your present in advance.”

Kerry put his hand in the bag, and drew out the copy of the Red Book from which she had been reading since Yule. “You’re far enough along that I don’t need to see you as often, and you certainly don’t need me looking over your shoulder as you read. I spoke with my father and he said it’d be all right if you read from it. Just don’t read it while you’re eating or drinking—it’s an old copy—and make sure you follow your aunt’s rules and stay out of trouble.”

Kira burst into a smile. “Oh, Kerry, thank you so very much! This is the best birthday present I have ever received!”

“There’s no need to thank me; you’ve earned it. Just… you know, don’t read too much. We can’t have any notions entering your head.” He winked.

“Thank you,” said Kerry, and he left the room. He must have been very busy. Heart beating just a little bit faster, Kira opened the book. “Bilbo had escap-ed…escaped the goblins, but he did not k-now… k-… know where he was…”

All throughout the rest of the winter (and it was a long one—a fact which would have disappointed Kira had she not had the book) Kira read. Kerry still visited from time to time, but soon the visits trickled to a halt so that he had only seen her once during March, and thus far into April (though she was to leave Buckland soon) had not seen her at all. Perhaps now that he was thirty he was just busier.

Yet Kira did not mind. She was reading, and time was sweeping past her, faster than she had known was possible. By the end of February she discovered that she did not have to repeat words or sentences to understand them, and by mid-March she had learned to read silently.

Just as the last snows were melting away, Kira finished Bilbo’s narrative. Her foot had stopped hurting, which meant that as soon as she was fit she could go home. With Fanny on one side and Delphie (drafted for the task by Aunt Penny) on the other, she risked getting out of bed. It was typical—at first she collapsed, hardly able to keep herself off the ground. Then, when she could she tried standing, then walking, for short intervals of time. Soon everything would be back to normal. On the eighth of April Aunt Penny and her mother had made enough arrangements that Kira knew when they would depart. They were leaving at dawn on the tenth, and by the night of the eleventh Kira would be back home.

She wondered if home would be any different, if the long winter had affected it any. She had never been away for so long, and it seemed as if an Age had passed. Of course not, she chided herself, that was the purpose of home: not to change. Yet she knew she’d miss her little room in Brandy Hall, and the book that had kept her company.

On the evening of the ninth, Kira walked over to the library on stiff legs and replaced the red leather-bound tome on its shelf, in the same spot that she had found it during that evening in January. Then she set out to find Kerry—it would be nice to talk to him before she left.

She found him working on some sort of paperwork in a little room adjoining the library. He set his quill down when she knocked, and turned to face her.

“Yes,” replied Kira. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow for home. I wanted to thank you for everything—for teaching me to read. I finished the first part of the book this morning.”

“It was... astonishing. And very, very good. I liked reading it, very much. I wonder how long it took Bilbo Baggins to think it up.”

“Real?” Kira laughed. “How could it be? The story had a dragon in it, for heaven’s sake! And elves! Everybody knows elves don’t exist.”

Kira rubbed her head. “You’re a strange fellow, Kerry, you know that? Believing in elves, and then such a mad tale as that one. I shan’t believe it until I get some proof that it really happened.”

“How should I know? Something from that journey, that would show that it was real. Like the Arkenstone, or Bilbo’s armour, or that magic ring he got. And no cheap tricks, either. It’d have to turn you invisible and everything.”

Kerry blinked for a moment and then laughed. “Well, if it’s the Ring you’re after, you can’t get your proof. Something happened to it after—you’ll find out if you read on.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t keep you from your work,” said Kira. “And I have to get ready to leave. But I did want to see you before you left, and thank you.”

Kira turned towards the door, but did not leave. “You didn’t have to do this much work before you turned thirty, did you? I should hate to have kept you busy teaching me.”

“Good. Goodbye—maybe if you’re ever nearby you could visit or something. Mother always loves company.”

The fields outside had a moist air to them, smelling of soil and grass and flowers sprouting up in the retreat of the snow. The spongy turf lent a bouncy air to the atmosphere, even though it was still cold in the early light. Andric, who was to drive the cart to Bywater, was stamping his feet on the dewy grass and grumbling to himself. Kira laughed.

She had to use care in getting to the cart—her crutch got stuck in the soggy earth more than once. It took considerable discipline not to caper about in jubilation at being outdoors, but Kira’s muscles were weak and she knew from experience that she had to build up her strength if she did not want problems later on.

Most of the time on the way back she rode in the cart, but periodically she got out and walked beside it for fifteen minutes, getting used to her leg, crutch, and arm again.

Mother would be on her way to the inn in Bywater, where Kira could finally see her again and they would spend the night, and then next morning they would make the rest of the trip back in the horse and cart that the Burrowses were always so kind to let out to them. And the Burrowses themselves (well, Daffodil and Roly, at least), under the malignant influence of Tom, were probably playing in the mud, like the children she saw along the road. Kira felt a wave of homesickness, which reading kept from her mind while she was in Buckland. Some of the children waved. But all that Kira had for company was Andric and the great outdoors.

She thought again and again about the conversation she had had with Kerry—who still thought that the tale she read was true, even though he was thirty. Who believed in elves and dragons and things no hobbit had ever seen. Why did he? Why would he? But Kerry had said that there was no “how” to it.

The sun was low in the sky when they passed the Three-Farthing Stone, where folk said spring came to the Shire first. Already it was surpassingly green, and some of the flowers had opened their heads. Kira released a pent-up breath, knowing that she was now back in the proper Farthing.

Kerry’s strange belief, she thought, must have had something to do with the Eastfarthing, with Buckland itself, which was after all not part of the Shire proper. She could have sworn that she had seen someone wearing boots—boots—when they had crossed the Brandywine Bridge. And, she recalled, Kerry was going to be Master of Brandy Hall when he was older—an odd thought—and he was prepared for it. She remembered back to November, when she had heard that clarion note on the horn that Merry the Magnificent had received Outside—and Kerry, he was his great-grandson! Of course he’d believe any sort of nonsense, considering what wild adventures his ancestor had gone on. And he lived so close to the Old Forest, and to the Breelands: she wondered if Kerry had ever left the Shire, and shuddered at the thought.

And then Kira remembered Aunt Penny’s admonition. Could such fantastic ideas simply have to do with knowing how to read? For a winter, certainly, it was fun, but for years and years on end… it was really must un-hobbit-like, now that she thought of it…

Just before dusk the cart pulled up to the Green Dragon Inn, and Mother was waiting on the porch. Kira half-leapt off the cart, her crutch sinking half a foot into the dirt from the impact. Mother ran to her and caught her up in her arms.

“I don’t care;” said Kira, returning the embrace, “I haven’t seen you since last year.”

“Well,” said Mother, laughing, “I suppose you’re right at that—and I’m very sorry that we had to spend Yule apart from one another. I had wanted to join you and your aunt Penny in Buckland, but the snows were particularly thick, and…” she cut herself off. “But look at me, keeping you out here when you’re so clearly exhausted from all the travelling. Let’s get you inside and get a hot meal, shall we?”

When Kira’s few possessions were unloaded from the cart, they went inside to where Mother had booked a private room for herself and her daughter; and within no time they were seated in a nearby dining room, small and snug, and set well apart from the noise of the common room. One of the hobbits who worked at the inn, who could not have been that much older than Kira herself, brought in a few chops of mutton, served on a plate of roast potatoes, and after Mother had respectfully declined the offer of that fine establishment’s ale, a pitcher of the sweetest milk. As the two set to work on the meal, Mother picked up the conversation more or less where she had left off.

“I hope you weren’t too sad over the winter, Kira,” she said. “I know we had hoped that the snows would hold off till the pest died down, but just as it was going they came, and I had prepared you for that possibility but not, I’m afraid, nearly enough. Still, if I’d come along with you I wouldn’t have any of the work on the garden done, and that’d put us in a right jam now, so I suppose it’s been all for the best. Did your aunt and uncle feed you properly?”

“Well, Fanny was, I suppose.” Kira gave a significant look to the door behind them, which led more or less to the common room. Andric had headed there straightaway after making sure the hostler had taken care of the pony on loan from Brandy Hall. “Delphie talked too much and Andric talked hardly at all.”

“Ah,” said Mother. “I remember when your uncle was that age; he had hardly any time for either of his sisters.”

“But I didn’t lack for company at all, Mum. I couldn’t go outside, of course, where all of the other children were, but one of the older tweens—Kerry Brandybuck—befriended me. He’s the Master’s heir.”

“Yes. He’s very nice for most hobbits in their tweens—well, I suppose he isn’t in his tweens now, since he turned thirty over the winter. He taught me how to read.”

Kira swallowed. Of course Mother wouldn’t approve. “I’m terribly sorry, Mum,” she said. “But I was bored all winter long, and I didn’t have anything better to do. It made the months pass by ever so much faster.”

“Kira,” said Mother, leaning forward across the table and talking low, “you have to be careful around some of those Brandybucks. Not all of them, mind, but a number of them are mighty odd in the head—especially the ones in the Master’s line. When I was a lass they every one of them had dealings with Outside, and not just when absolutely necessary, either.” She shook her head and returned to her food. “Why a hobbit would want to live so close to the Wild I haven’t a clue, but that never stopped your Aunt Penny.”

“Mother, why didn’t you tell me that Dad’s mum was the daughter of Merry Brandybuck?”

“From Kerry. I told him I had a Brandybuck connection somewhere, and I said my Grandmother Proudfoot’s first name was Haleth, and so he told me. Why didn’t I know?”

“Oh, Kira, please, let’s not talk about that now. How did you keep up over the winter? Did you get sick at all?”

Kira decided she would try again later. Why Mother had never told her to whom she was related wholly eluded her. “Only once, Mum.”

Too late did Kira realise that she had let her tongue run away from her. “I snuck out of bed at night and opened a window. As I said, I deserved it.”

“It was pretty bad. The doctor said my fever didn’t break for two days.”

“I thought you were old enough not to do something that foolish. Why did you even leave your bed?”

“I said, ‘I’d wanted to read at night and I didn’t have a lantern.’”

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault but mine—certainly not Aunt Penny’s. She didn’t even want me to read at all. And Kerry got angry, too, when he found out I was sick because I’d wanted to read. It was quite miserable, and I’m certainly never going to do it again. Anyhow, that was the only time I got sick, and even if that was bad, it was better than what I normally get over winter.”

“Well, I suppose that counts for something, but I’m still very disappointed in you, Kira.”

The next day both Kira and her mother were in better moods because they were going home. Kira learned that since Mother had been by herself for much of the winter with little to do, she had gone to stay with her brother’s family, the Brownlocks, and then returned home when she could start working on the garden again. But even then it had hardly felt like home without her daughter there.

As they passed through Waymoot, Kira decided to try again on the Brandybuck question. “So, did you know about Grandmother Proudfoot when you married Dad?”

“Kira…” Mother turned and looked at her, but seeing the expression on her daughter’s face sighed and bit back the rebuke on her lips. “I’m sorry I hadn’t told you. But you know that the Proudfoots—all of them—are rather hard to deal with, even though they are your family. They were… difficult… on your dad, and I’d rather we have as little to do with them as possible, even with genealogies. He certainly didn’t have much to do with them when he was alive.”

“And yes, I did know, but only a few weeks before the wedding. But I never told my own mum and dad; I was afraid they wouldn’t let me marry him if they knew. Your granddad still doesn’t know.”

“Goodness, no! He’d disappeared years before. Very strange lot, altogether, him and his companions. None of them died—at least, not in the Shire. They all went Outside and no one heard of them again. Really, I’m glad I had nothing to do with them.”

“Sorry,” said Kira. “I just never knew about any of this and I wanted to find out.”

“One would think you’d wintered in Tuckborough, Kira, for all your questions.” Mother sighed. “Your father was always one for common sense, and that’s part of what drew me to him. Neither of us ever believed those farfetched tales, though I guess there are some folk in his family who do. And old Merry believed it at any rate. Your dad told me once that he’d swear by the King that a certain great scar he had on his forehead came from a goblin or some other nonsensical beast like that.” She let out a small laugh. “Cracked in the head, every one of them—even if Merry the Magnificent was Master of Buckland.”

Next day Kira was allowed to sleep in, the journey having been so long; but Mother was up early and outside, transplanting the herbs Kira had vaguely glimpsed the evening prior from their pots to the plot above their home. Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes at ten in the morning, she had hardly begun to break her fast when she heard a fierce pounding at the door.

“Kira!” said a voice outside. “It really is you! Dad said last night that you were back!”

“She did one better than that—said you were sleeping in, but then I saw the smoke from the chimney and I figured you must be up.”

“Bread can wait! I haven’t seen you in five months!” Without any further ado, the door swung open and a hobbit lass with light brown hair ran inside. Kira rose. “Daffodil!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms around her best friend.

Kira sat back down. “Honestly, I don’t know why you couldn’t have given a starving hobbit five minutes to eat.”

“When I haven’t seen you in so long?” Daffodil sat down next to Kira. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how disgusting Roly and Tom have been lately—belching and making all sorts of noises. Sometimes that brother of mine taps me on the shoulder, as if he has some great secret to impart, and then Blaugh! he burps in my ear. I’ve never wanted so badly just to go inside and talk to you, if only to get away from them. And of course, every time we set foot outdoors they throw snowballs at me, never at each other—and I’m so very glad to have you back!”

Kira finished her toast, dumped the crumbs out the window, took her crutch, and stood up, ignoring the fact that she could have done with at least five more slices. “How was the winter here?”

“Oh, Mother and Father say it’s the worst they can remember. One of the old houses—that abandoned one on the way to town that we used to play in—its thatch collapsed under the snow. Fortunately no one was in it at the time, but to think that that could have been ours… If you’d like we can go out and see it.” She walked towards the door. Kira followed. She was supposed to clean up the dishes from this morning, but that could wait.

“See, that’s why holes are better. They’re sturdier—not to mention you can grow herbs on top of them.” Kira shut the door behind her as they left, and looked above at her mother, who was kneeling in the dirt atop the smial. “Mother, Daffodil said one of the houses’ roofs collapsed. May I go and see it?”

Mother looked up from her work. “You may look at it, Kira, but don’t go anywhere near it and make sure you rest along the way.”

“I still don’t see why she doesn’t make you help with the garden, or at least help cook,” Daffodil grumbled as they walked along the dusty little path that led to the road to Michel Delving. “Fortunately Dad gave Roly the day off, so he doesn’t have to help in the fields today, but your mum’s only got you. Even little Flora helps Mother and me on washing days.”

“Oh, I’ll have to do the dishes when I get back—and I help with laundry and bread—but Mother also doesn’t have five mouths to feed. And I do help weed, though it’s too early for that right now. Mum just doesn’t think I have the strength to do all the work she does. And she does a lot of work, Daffy.”

“Kira, if you’re able to engage in a mud fight for a quarter of the hour, you can work in a garden for most of the day.” She walked on for a few more steps. “Oh, I suppose it hardly matters—you get on well enough, even if you don’t have to do an average hobbit’s work,” she sniffed. “But how was your winter? Was Buckland as strange as the tales make it?”

“I did—nearly fell off the cart in surprise. They talk funny, too. But other than that I can’t say much. I guess they’re bound to be a little strange, living so close to Outside. But I didn’t get to see too many people—my relations, of course, but apart from them only a doctor and the Master’s son.”

“The Master’s son? What on earth was he doing seeing you? Do you have an admirer?”

“Daffy!” Kira shoved her friend with her free hand. “He’s thirty years old, and… eurgh! No, he was teaching me how to—”

Kira stopped short as a ball of mud whizzed past her ear and smacked into a nearby tree. The lasses whirled around to see a very rotund hobbit trying to lunge under the hedge beside the trail. In a fluid motion Kira squatted down, gritting her teeth, grabbed a clod of dirt, and returned the hobbit his favour. The mud ball hit him squarely on the bottom, causing him to topple over into the muck. Kira set her crutch on the much firmer ground of the path and pulled herself up.

“Honestly, Roly,” said Daffodil, “you need to remember that you’re not at an advantage with Kira around.”

Roly Burrows lifted his face from the mud to look at the two girls standing over him. “Kira! You’re back!”

“Yes, I am back,” said Kira, “as you must have known, since you were aiming at me.”

“No, I only saw Daffy—you must have been behind the tree. I was aiming for her.”

“Then you must have the worst aim in all the Shire,” said Daffodil. “Of course Kira’s back! Didn’t you hear Dad last night?”

“Don’t know,” replied Roly. “I saw him earlier this morning. I think he was looking for something.”

“A rabbit, to be precise,” said a voice behind them. “And a fine one she is.” The three others rushed over to see Tom and what he had found, Kira only beating Roly because he had been on the ground and he was fat for his age. Under Tom’s arm was a sleek doe. Her heather ears were laid back, but she quivered, and the look in her eyes would have moved a stone to pity.

“I’m going to take it to my dad, and he’s going to show me how to skin and cook it. He said it’s something every lad should know.”

“Yes, I would, and I will,” replied Tom. “And it’s not as if she was entirely defenceless. She led me quite a merry chase.” He turned his gaze from the rabbit to Kira. “Good to see you back, by the by. No notions entering your head after being surrounded by Brandybucks for a winter?” He jabbed at her rib.

“None indeed!” Kira huffed. “I’d object to killing that poor thing anyway. Look at her,” she said, stroking the silky ears as the rabbit gazed on in fright. “Can I hold it?”

“Perseverance and quick hands. I followed her into a thicket. And as I said before, she put up quite a—whoa!”

Tom toppled to the ground as Kira’s crutch whacked him from behind his knees. As his hands went forward to brace his fall, the doe found release and scampered into the nearby shrubs.

He made a grab for Kira’s left foot and she, too, went down into the mud. Kira pushed Roly, Roly pushed Daffodil, and soon all four were playing in the mud.

Soon Kira had to stop a moment and rest. Her friends respected that. But just as easily they could tell when she was ready to play again (whether Kira agreed with them or not), and with a yank on her left foot or a tug at her shoulder she would be playing again. No one ever touched Kira’s right foot.

Spring was well underway and the chamomile was just beginning to blossom when Tom stopped by Kira’s home with instructions to meet him and the others at the old oak on the canal in precisely one hour. Kira sighed and shook her head. Another one of Tom’s schemes, likely to get him, if not all of them, landed in trouble.

Nonetheless Kira finished her chores in time to meet him at the old oak. It was the perfect site for Tom’s plotting, because it had been involved in a plot itself, full of romance for young hobbit minds that wanted adventure, but not too much adventure. Michel Delving, as the closest thing the Shire had to a city, was situated on the Ash River, which twisted and turned through the White Downs on the way to and from town. The old Whitfoot farm lay on one of these bends and during the Troubles at the end of the Third Age its head—the mayor at the time—was outspoken in defence of the Shire. Of course, he was locked up eventually, but the wily Men as a warning dug a channel in the middle of the night, effectively changing the course of the river and slicing off a rather large portion of his property’s value. The silt underneath was rich, and so the next few years the Whitfoots were able to get more than their fair share of crops, but there was also a new course to the river, one which wended by oaks and maples instead of willows. The Men had perhaps succeeded in devaluing the Whitfoots’ property, but they had also taught hobbits a skill that they had never even thought of—canal-building, especially as a system for irrigation and reclaiming rich soil. Of course, hobbit-canals had been adapted for hobbit use: they were shallower and wider so that they could be waded across with ease (the canal the Men had built was so deep that if hobbits wanted to cross it without a bridge they would have to swim!), but the idea came nonetheless from the Big Folk. Since this portion of the canal was not bridged, hardly anyone came there and thus it was a great place to plan secret doings.

Kira arrived at the old oak. Over the years the canal had washed away the soil on one side of the tree so that it leant to and looked ready to topple in; on the other side of the tree great roots had been exposed and she sat down on one of these. Daffodil and Roly had already arrived.

Within a few minutes Tom came up to the tree and also sat down. “We need to get to the Mathom House in town,” he said.

“My older brother has given me a dare, and I have chosen to accept it.” Tom always accepted his brother’s dares. “We need a pipe.”

“A pipe?” said Daffodil. “Tom, you aren’t going to try smoking pipeweed, are you?”

“He dared me to—it’s really not my fault. But we need to go to the Mathom House and get one. Father would be sure to notice if I took one of his.”

“Tom, do you think they’ll even have a pipe at the Mathom House? All I ever saw in there were useless things,” said Kira.

“It’ll have one in there,” Tom replied, “because I said so. And if they don’t… well, I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’ll find something.”

Kira shrugged, took her crutch, and stood up; but she had the sensation that she was being dragged into something that was none of her business.

It took about an hour (with several stops built in for Kira) to get from the oak to town, and another ten minutes to find the Mathom House, which was tucked away in the western end of Michel Delving. Fortunately, it was a Friday, so there was not much work going on to distract the hobbits—not that Tom would have let them be distracted on a mission of such importance. Even he ignored the familiar waves of the neighbourhood children, only letting them halt when they had actually entered the Museum.

The moment Kira took a step inside she was overcome with a fit of sneezing and coughing—the place smelled of must and mildew and who-knows-what. It felt as if the door hadn’t been opened in Ages. She had not been in the house in several years—it never seemed to change—but even if you went in there once a month, as Daffodil and Roly did with their mother, each time you’d notice something you hadn’t really seen before.

While Daffodil, Tom, and Roly were looking for the pipe (Roly did claim to have seen one in there a few months back, but did not recall precisely where), Kira wandered around the place. There were all sorts of things—old rag dolls with the yarn on their feet all fallen out, rusty belt knives, a trinket or bauble here and there. A few of the more interesting items had notes scrawled on little placards placed beneath them: “This portrait, reportedly of Miss Chica Chubb, was painted c. 1284.” Kira was proud she could read the caption, even though the handwriting was hard to pick out. 1284—that was over 250 years ago! Abruptly she wondered how long some of the things in the house had been sitting there.

She looked up; a flash of light had caught her eye. The sun was shining through one of the windows and something was reflecting it. She looked to see what it was—and then she saw it: a silver coat, but of a shade that she had never seen before. Suddenly in awe, as if she were encountering an Elf, she hobbled towards the mysterious thing. Upon closer examination, it was silver, and it was a coat, but one made of mail rather than cloth, studded here and there with small white jewels. Next to it was a belt, clearly made to match. She recognised the coat immediately from the description she had read—the ‘elvish armour’ from Bilbo’s tale! But what was it doing here, wandering out of tales into a dusty room of mathoms? She ran her hand under the links, letting them slide off it like water. They felt cold.

Then Kira noticed the stiff yellow card that had been placed underneath it, with a caption written on it in faded ink. “This coat, purportedly of a substance called ‘mithril,’ was acquired by Bilbo Baggins, Esq., during his time abroad and was brought to the Shire in 1341. It stayed in this house until it disappeared, along with Mr. Baggins, in 1401. It was returned to the Shire with the return of Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and Peregrin Took from abroad; and has here resided to this day.” Strange, she thought.

“Kira? Kira!” Daffodil came running over to her friend. “We found the pipe—we can go now…” She glanced at the coat. “Ah—admiring Mad Baggins’ mail coat?”

“Yes—Mother said he showed up out of thin air one day, right inside this House, just to drop it off—and then vanished again with a flash and a bang.”

Kira spluttered for a moment, not sure whether to laugh or just act shocked. “That’s not what the card underneath says!”

“Oh, I never told you, did I, Daffodil—I learned to read while I was in Buckland.”

Kira laughed, too. “I don’t know. Let’s go out and see what Tom’s going to do with that pipe.”

Kira put her crutch to such work that they made it outside just in time to see Tom take a puff of the pipeweed he had procured from his father’s stock, then double over coughing. Kira and Daffodil rushed over to the boys.

Tom’s answer was punctuated with coughs and wheezes. “I will never… take a dare… from my brother… again!”

When Kira came home all sorts of thoughts were jumbling through her head. Of course, when she was very young she had heard the Mad Baggins tales, about the old hobbit whose time Outside had left him a few sheaves short of a harvest. He seemed to have a thing for materializing into rooms for no reason; then, with a cackle of glee, disappearing again. She had never quite realised that he was the narrator of the tale she had read, though now that she had heard the connection it made sense, even though he did not seem to be mad in the book. But in the story he did have a magic ring that made him disappear, even though there was never any noise or smoke when he did. Maybe he went mad after he came back? But then how could he have written it all down?

And then there was the matter of the coat of mail—the card had said that it disappeared with Bilbo and came back to the Shire with the Travellers. And what precisely happened to that magic ring of his?

Of course, that was assuming that the stories were true, which would mean that elves and dragons and trolls were—or had been—real. It was not part of Kira’s hobbit-sense to try and find out exactly what had happened: after all, she might start believing in such things. But curiosity often overcomes hobbit-sense in children, and the effects of that can be drastic.

Chapter Four

Trying to slip a discreet question about libraries and their locations into conversation, especially conversation with Mother, was very difficult. Indeed, as soon as Kira tried she was found out.

“Well,” said Kira, who was herself still puzzling over that very matter, “I had a question about something in the Mathom House and the Travellers’ Tales, and besides it’d be handy to know so that I could read over the winter. I just wanted to find the answer quickly, is all, and I don’t think anyone around here would know it.”

“Well, the only library I know of is at Undertowers all the way over in Westmarch, and that’s over a day’s journey away; so you shan’t get it answered any time soon.”

And so Kira put the matter out of her mind, hoping that strange things like the mail-coat wouldn’t keep popping up in her life every now and then with no way to get to the bottom of them. And that probably would have been the end of everything, at least till winter rolled around and Kira needed something to occupy herself. But in a week’s time the Proudfoot smial received a rare visit from the Post Office’s delivery service, which gave Kira’s mind (still niggling over the Mathom House incident, but only feebly) the opportunity it needed. Kira and her mother had received a letter.

As was normally the case when they received any correspondence, Mother requested that the postboy read aloud to them. But before he could start, Kira held out her hand for the letter and said, “May I?” Mother gave her a look, then nodded curtly.

In a trembling voice, aware that both the lad and her mother were looking on, Kira read the note, which was legibly penned in a large hand.

On 30 April of this year, Blanco Proudfoot, father, grandfather, and Head of the family Proudfoot, passed, having attained 108 years in age. He was laid to rest on the 1^st of May in the New Field east of the Tower Hills.

You are cordially invited to High Hole, east of the Tower Hills, for the entering of his death in the Genealogy and the reading of the Will, on 10 May at 5:00 in the evening. Dinner and afters will be provided.

When Kira was finished reading, Mother took the note from her and handed it to the postboy, who looked it over and confirmed its contents with a simple nod. When he had been paid, Kira and her mother went inside and sat down at the kitchen table.

“We’ll have to go, I suppose,” said Mother. “They are your family, after all, and it’d be rude not to. But another journey, after so short a time—we’ll have to hope that the Burrows won’t need their cart and pony for a while. Ah, well. Third time pays for all.”

Kira had been to funerals twice before: once for Grandmother Proudfoot, and once for Grandmother Brownlock. Even then, it had never been for the actual burial: that was only for the nearest family members, who had been called to the hobbit’s bedside as he lay dying. Extended relations and family friends were invited to help pull the mourners beyond their grief a short time later, when the death was made part of the family’s records. It had been a pleasant enough experience with Grandmother Brownlock, who had always talked to Kira for at least fifteen minutes at parties and who had baked sticky buns whenever Kira and her mother visited, and she had gotten to hear a good many things she had never known about her at the funeral. Mother had seemed to like it, too; she had left Kira to stay with the Burrowses when the initial news of Grandmother’s illness came and had not seen her daughter in two weeks.

But Kira had no memories of Grandmother Proudfoot at all, and Mother had said next to nothing at that funeral. They had both sat at supper while talk washed over them, feeling incredibly out of place; and Kira feared it would be the same way again with her grandfather.

Still, she had never been to a Will-Reading before, since both of her grandmothers had been survived by their husbands. Now the joint will would be read, and this, aside from matters of courtesy, was why Mother at least had to attend. Anything left to her husband would by default go to her.

Kira only vaguely understood the legalities of the whole matter, but she knew that they would have to go; so go they did. It was not until they had reached the Far Downs late on May 9^th that she remembered that the towers in “Undertowers” and “Tower Hills” were identical.

They reached High Hole at 4:00 on the 10^th. It still seemed a bit incongruous to Kira to have a named residence, despite having lived at Brandy Hall for the previous winter. At least Buck Hill was more like a town in its own right—unlike the Proudfoot abode, which always had more guest rooms than actual living quarters. Mother had told her once that their own home was where the head of the family used to live, long before Westmarch was ceded to the Shire; but as far as she was aware that one had never had a name. Maybe moving to Westmarch signified moving up in the Shire.

It certainly seemed that way when they were let inside, for the smial looked even more dazzling than Kira had remembered from Hallie’s funeral. As Mother inquired about accommodations for the night, Kira sat down at a polished mahogany table, seating about thirty, and stared at her reflection.

After a few minutes Kira could hear the pad of feet on the cobblestone floor, then see a face reflected across from her. She looked up.

“Hullo,” said a lady whose dark brown hair was tied in a bun. Kira remembered her somewhat from the few other times she had seen the Proudfoot family together, but could not think of her name. “Are you Kira?”

“I’m one of your aunts—Lagro was my youngest brother. He was a good hobbit.”

“My name is Foxglove. You may not remember me, but I did talk to you a little last—”

She was interrupted by Mother’s arrival, telling Kira that they knew which guest room they were staying in and that they should go and freshen up before the funeral began. Kira rose and followed her, but she did wave goodbye to her aunt as they left the room. There was something in her expression that made Kira feel odd.

Since she could not focus on the conversation around her at dinner, Kira turned her attention to the meal, which was simple but filling, the way any hobbit meal ought to be. She talked to as few people as possible aside from Mother, because it did not seem like the right time to make new acquaintances and because Mother did not like the Proudfoots that much. There were a few other children, clad in the sombre browns and greys of mourning, at the large table, but they were too far away for Kira to even greet.

Wine and ale flowed around the table as the meal drew on, and continued well after it was over; and before anyone had even thought of leaving for the sitting room, where the day of death would be inked into the genealogy and the will would be read, someone (Kira supposed it was Sancho’s wife, for she sat just to the right of the table’s head) announced that it was getting late and that the children should go to bed. After casting an enquiring look at her mother, Kira rose from the table, along with the other children, and made her way to the room as best as she could in the gloaming. By the time she fell asleep, Mother still had not come back.

She woke up shortly after sunrise, but Mother was fast asleep next to her. For a while Kira stayed where she was, not daring to awaken her, but once her stomach began rumbling she slipped out of bed, found a clean shift, and dressed herself for the journey back. Since Mother had not so much as stirred, Kira grabbed her crutch and set forth in quest of breakfast.

After the previous night’s bustle the entire hole seemed steeped in quiet. Two other children were up, and Foxglove was preparing food for them, but apart from that there was no activity. As Kira downed a bowl of porridge she learned that the will had not been read until midnight, and that even though Kira’s mother, at least, had retired immediately thereafter, it was doubtable that any adults would be up in the near future.

“And at any rate,” said Foxglove, “I know that your mother has some unfinished business to discuss with Sancho. So I don’t expect either of you will be leaving till eleven at least.”

Kira quietly thanked her, and when she had cleaned up after herself left to go outside.

The sky had a greyish cast to it, which made the entire land seem half-asleep. It did not quite feel like the Shire, even—at least not the Shire proper (which of course it wasn’t). The matter was not helped by the lofty towers she could see to the West. They looked as if they belonged to stories or songs more than the everyday world of planting and reaping. Kira had heard from someone—she had the distinct impression that it was the old Mayor’s son, though she wasn’t entirely sure—that you could see the Sea from the top of the farthest one. There was no way of knowing that for sure, however, and so Kira rather doubted it was true.

But to think—at least, going by the name “Undertowers”—that there were hobbits living beneath such items of legend, or at least storing their books there! Mind, the very fact that they kept a lot of books there did not speak well of their hobbit-sense, but neither did living on the far reaches of the Shire—just like the Brandybucks, as a matter of fact, Kira realised. The more she thought about them, the more the thought formed in her mind: it could not be later than eight o’clock in the morning, and Foxglove had said she and Mum would be leaving at eleven. She was going to visit Undertowers.

Even though the towers were clearly visible from High Hole, the walk took twice as long as Kira had thought it would and eventually she was grateful for a lift from one of the local farmers who was going almost, but not quite, that way. It was not until after nine that Kira found herself in front of the massive wooden door of the farthest tower. The knocker had been moved down to suit a hobbit’s height, but that did little to still the apprehension that swelled in Kira as she stood there with her hand poised upon it.

After a good two minutes she finally summoned the nerve to knock at the door. The boom of metal echoed around her. She waited. It felt as if whole minutes were ticking by, and Kira was about to turn around back when the door was opened. On the other side was a fair-haired hobbit lass, quite young but nonetheless in her tweens. “Hello,” she said, “and how may I help you?”

What little courage Kira had fled, and she mumbled something about towers and a library.

“Well,” the girl replied, a smile spreading across her face, “you’ve come to the right place. Undertowers has the largest library in the whole Shire. Come in and I’ll show you. Would you care for any refreshment?”

Though it had been over an hour since Kira had last eaten she remembered that she and Mum were to leave at eleven and decided not to risk any delay. “No, thank you,” she said as she stepped inside.

Her hostess shut the door behind her. “What is your name, and where are you from? There are really so few visitors here these days—most of them old learned folk that just want to see the Red Book or look at the pedigrees we have. I’ll admit we’ve never had anyone as young as you come, not without an adult pushing them. And are you injured?”

“No. I was born lame. My name is Kira Proudfoot, and I come from the White Downs, but I’m here visiting my relations at High Hole.”

“I’m Sandra Fairbairn. My dad’s the Warden here. Normally I’d have to show you to him and ask him if you were allowed in, but he and my brothers are out on business, and my mum and grandmother are at market, and I haven’t any sisters. So for the moment, I’m in charge.” A glint came to her eye, and she led Kira down the central hallway of the tower. “Not that you wouldn’t be let in, of course. Dad always likes it when the younger folk come in—though that’s such a rarity now. And that’s nothing to how Grandmother feels. She is, you know, the last of the people from the Red Book that’s still alive. Well, at least the last in the Shire—the King’s still alive, and Legolas and Gimli, and of course all the elves that sailed West—”

“But that’s absurd! How could you read the Histories and not believe in elves?”

“But I haven’t read the histories. That’s why I came here: I had a question about the Travellers’ Tales, and I was hoping that one of your books would have an answer. I learned how to read this past winter, all the way over in Buckland, and the fellow that lent me the book I was reading from said it had Travellers’ Tales in it later on. But that’s all I know. I don’t even know if that book would answer the question I had.”

Sandra grinned. “It was probably the Red Book, then, though it sounds as if you didn’t get very far in before you stopped. What was the last thing that happened?”

“Bilbo Baggins returned to the Shire just as they were trying to auction off everything he had.”

“That’s the book—the bits about the Travellers pick up right after that. But there are still elves in Bilbo’s tale—lots of them!”

“I know. But it’s such a wild tale, I didn’t think it could be real—especially the elves.”

“Well, if it’s the Red Book you want, I know no one will mind if I show you the library. We all love it when someone reads it for the first time.” She led Kira to a stairwell leading down to a cellar, grabbing a lantern and a set of keys.

Kira got down with some difficulty, and then Sandra unlocked the library door and let her in. It was roomy and well kept, though the torches that lit it were so far apart that it would be difficult to read anything without a lamp.

“Usually one of my brothers is down here, but as I said I’m the only one in today. Besides, we’re taking a break in copying and editing and things like that,” said Sandra. “Which gives us free rein.” She cast the light of her lantern over a portion of the shelves. “These are all the copies my family has made. It takes a very long time—at least a year—to make one, and still keep up with regular tasks. It’s a good thing my family’s so large; otherwise we shouldn’t have had the time.”

Sandra sighed. “Oh, we always hoped that there’d be a lot of people reading them—and there used to be a decent number of them, before the Falling-Out. We didn’t put everything in them, though—it took long enough to make a copy as it is—and only Grandmother really liked reading the elvish legends, anyway, back before her eyes went bad. But we never left a single word out of the true story in there, which was after all the reason we got the books to begin with. We always figured that if somebody really wanted the old legends they could just read the original. And here it is!”

She pointed to a book to the left of all the others, almost four times larger and bound in a darker shade of red than the rest, and bearing no inscription. Standing on the tips of her woolly toes, Sandra slid the book out of the shelf and set it, with the lantern, on the floor.

“When I was younger I used to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and look at this,” she said. “I love it so because it’s genuine. It wasn’t even supposed to be a history at first—just a diary.” She opened it to the first page. “Just look at how long it took them to select a title!” Kira looked, and saw indeed that there were many titles, one crossed out after another. “The Tale of the Great Ring?” she said. “What Great—”

Sandra promptly closed the book. “I forgot you haven’t read all of it yet,” she said. “But look! You can see how it came together—there’s Bilbo’s writing,” opening it to one of the beginning pages written in a spidery script that Kira could not read to save her life, “and then Frodo’s,” flipping ahead to a section written with bold, flowing letters, “and finally, my great-grandfather—Sam Gardner!” Here she showed a page written in a somewhat clumsy hand; and Kira saw that originally the book had ended there, but someone had sewn on three more volumes!

“He’s the one who gave us the copy! My grandmother was his eldest daughter. Anyway, yes, he had to finish up the story after Frodo left.” She closed the book again. “Are you staying here long?”

“Mum and I are supposed to leave sometime before noon. But that’s all the way back at High Hole. Really, if you could just answer the question I’d be—”

“If you don’t believe in elves I shan’t be able to answer it to your satisfaction, Miss Proudfoot,” said Sandra. “Best if you read it for yourself. Can you take good care of things?”

Kira nearly stumbled under the weight, but was able to shift the load to her hip before she could topple over. “What?”

“You don’t believe the stories yet—and you should. If you take one of the copies, I’m afraid it’ll just waste your time.”

“Kira, if you’re going to try reading the tales, I want you to read them from this one. Maybe it’s because it’s old, but nothing makes the stories come to life the way this one does. Hardly anyone comes to the library these days, and none of them are even close to being my age. You’re a special visitor, and you deserve a book this special.”

“I’m sure Grandmother will agree with me, at least. If they have a problem with it, I’ll talk to them. You’re leaving, anyway, so you can’t get in any trouble. Just keep it for as long as it takes you to read it, and then you can return it here and we’ll have a nice long chat about it. We’ll see if you believe in elves by then.”

“You came here on your own, to find out more about a book you’ve never read. Of course I trust you. Just don’t place it anywhere dangerous, and put it away when you’re done. Tell you what, when we go back upstairs I’ll get you a bag you can keep it in, just to keep it safe. I’ll help you up the steps.”

She led Kira into one of the pantries, where a number of sacks were strewn on the floor. She rummaged around in the back and found hanging up an old leathern bag with a wide shoulder strap on it, brought it back, and held it open so Kira could heave the book inside it. She then found a bit of bread and cheese to give Kira “for the journey.”

The girl with the golden hair took Kira’s spare hand in both of her own and looked her in the eye. “I am sure and certain, Kira. Now go, and read your book; and when you bring it back you can talk elves with me and Grandmum. Good luck!”

Kira made her way back down the road towards High Hole. Just as it was about to dip behind a hill, she turned back to see Sandra lingering at the doorway.

“Do try and be careful with it,” she called out, waving farewell. “There is only one of it, you know.”

Much to Kira’s frustration, there was no assistance from any well meaning-planters along the way back. The sheer length of the walk, along with the additional burden of the book, meant that she had to rest very often, but Kira did not know what else to do. By the time she reached the Proudfoot residence the sun was high in the sky, and she was sweaty, dusty, and exhausted. For a few minutes she leaned against the front door and panted, but finally opened it and stumbled in.

The foyer was empty, and so was the dining room. She did not feel comfortable enough in this setting to call out, “I’m home!” so she went back to Mother’s guest room and found it, too, empty. Even their bag was gone.

It was only on the way back outside that she even saw another hobbit. She recognised him from the dinner the previous night; he had sat at the table’s head so she supposed he must be Sancho. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“Er…” said Kira. “Foxglove told me that Mother wasn’t going to be ready to leave until eleven, so I visited the Towers. I didn’t realise they were as far away as they are.”

He sighed heavily. “I suppose I’ll have to call off the search party, then.”

“There’s a search party? But Mum lets me come and go from home as I please!”

“Unfortunately this isn’t your home, and since you didn’t tell a soul where you were going we didn’t know if you’d dozed off in a meadow or fallen down a well.”

“I’m sorry!” cried Kira, but Sancho had already turned around to go back outside and alert the searchers that the missing hobbit had been found.

Mother was not pleased. “If this is how you think you can conduct yourself when you’re a guest at someone else’s home, in a land you don’t know, then I’m quite glad you were cooped up all that time you were in Buckland. You could have gotten hurt, and nobody would have known!”

“I didn’t stray from the road, Mother. And I didn’t think I’d be back until you were ready to go! It’s just that you said the only Library you knew of was—”

“You mean to tell me,” said Mother, “that you wandered off into the blue to find a Library?”

“I had a question, Mum, and otherwise it wasn’t going to be answered. And they gave me a book, too, so it’s not as if the visit was fruitless.” She hefted the book before her, in case Mother had not already noticed.

Here Sancho, who had been passively observing the entire exchange, stepped in. “If you try returning the book, you’ll have to travel in the dark, Rosemary, or you’ll be another day on the road. Maybe if Kira has to take care of this book she’ll learn something of responsibility.”

Mother looked between the two of them, and sighed. “Very well. I suppose we should leave now, since we’ve had such a delay. But this means no luncheon for you, Kira.”

They did not speak for most of the journey back. Kira got so bored that she wanted to look through the book, just for something to do, but she did not think Mother would like that.

“All that trip for a book?” said Mother, eventually, just to relieve the monotony. “And when are you going to find the time to read it? You do have chores, you know, and your friends to play with.”

“Maybe I’ll put it off till I’m stuck in bed over the winter,” said Kira. “But even then, I don’t play all the time. Sometimes I have to rest, even though no one else is resting. I don’t really see what the harm is.”

Mother sighed. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, lass. Back when I was young we used to hear about folk that read tales, and then disappeared into the unknown without so much as a ‘goodbye.’” She shook her head. “Not that you’d ever do that, but they’re still a very dangerous business if you ask me.”

“Ah, well. I’m sure it’s only a passing fancy anyhow.” She laid her hand on her daughter’s head and patted the curls a few times. “And even then, what can I do about it?”

After they had returned home and eaten a sizeable meal together, Kira excused herself and went to her room, wanting to see precisely what kind of book she had acquired. She flipped through it, not even trying to decipher Bilbo’s handwriting, until she found something that she could read. “When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton…”

And though Kira had only planned on looking at it briefly, just to see what it held, somehow the words on the page pulled at her, drew her into them. Instead of doing her chores, instead of walking down the lane to see what Tom was up to, she read. She read for a long, long time, longer than she had ever intended or even believed possible, stopping only for meals and sleep. There was something queer about it—either a shadow across the words, or else a feeling that she, Kira Proudfoot, was touching a piece of living history—after all, she told herself, the Travellers were historical—that would not let her put the book down for long. She told herself to stop, but then a part of her wondered why she couldn’t stop, what the strange mystery was about this book that made her want to keep reading, even though after all it was a fantasy. It made her feel as if she were by the Sea, even though she had never thought of the Sea in her life, dipping her hand into the surf, and feeling the tide, calling, calling her away. It frightened her. And the strange force that compelled her onward eluded her, no matter how hard she sought it, until it finally presented itself on the pages.

“‘There is only one way:’” she read, “‘to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy forever.’” Heart pounding, she closed the book and set it down. She thought she heard something click, like two objects sliding together.

“So… so that was why they left the Shire?” she said to herself, and although she could not explain why, Kira shivered.

“Oi!” Kira heard a remarkably clear voice outside her window. She looked up to realise that somebody had actually opened it, pushed in the panes of glass, and that that very somebody was staring in at her.

“I might ask the same question. What’s been going on? Roly and Daffy are back today and I haven’t seen you since Friday!” On the same day that Kira and her mother had come back from Westmarch, Daffodil and Roly had left for a trip (planned long prior to the unexpected funeral) to Little Delving to see their grandparents.

With a sudden twinge of guilt she realised that Tom had been without any of his country friends for the past three days. “Well, if you wanted to talk to me you could’ve just come in the front door!”

Tom shook his head. “Your mum wouldn’t let me. She said you weren’t to leave the hole until you’d done—oh, let’s see… three days’ worth of dishes and a small amount of hand-washing, and then you could leave to weed your part of the garden. Odd behaviour, that. I thought you could get away with a fair amount of mischief around your mother. But odder still that there’d be something in your room that could keep you entertained for three days straight, leaving fun and work behind. I started to worry about you.”

Tom ignored her. “Tell you what, though—I’ll strike you a deal. I’ll help you do your chores if you’ll help me pull a trick on the Burrowses, and then you can tell me what’s been going on with you.” He hoisted himself up and held out a hand through the deep window-hole.

Kira sighed and yanked on the hand. Tom came through, but so did a considerable amount of grass and dirt. “Mother will wonder, of course, where all this came from,” she said as Tom picked himself off the floor. Hastily she covered the book and bag with her quilt, before he could notice it. “If I’d known I was to have company today I’d have tidied my room.” She sighed. “I’m going to be in such hot water after this, I’ll have you know.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be your friend, then,” said Kira. She stuck out her tongue.

“I’ll tell you when we’re all outside together. No sense in saying it twice. Now, can I trust you not to break Mother’s dishes?”

It turned out that Tom could be a good worker if he truly wanted to. They finished the household duties in thirty minutes, and would have done the garden as well if Mother had not been out working there herself.

“We’ll have to try the window again,” said Tom. “Say, do you have any water pails about?”

Kira nodded, suppressing the urge to groan, and found a bucket. Tom tossed it out the window, then, standing on Kira’s bed (thankfully not near the book but still dirtying the sheets), wriggled out of it himself. Kira handed her crutch to him and he pulled her through. “How much would you bet that Roly couldn’t fit through here?” he said.

“You couldn’t make me bet a farthing for that; I’d lose,” said Kira. She shut the window behind her. “How did you know how to open the window from outside?”

From atop the smial, Rosemary Proudfoot looked down on the pair and smiled. She did not know what kind of mischief her daughter was getting into, but at least she was acting like a regular hobbit.

After a reunion that was rather soggy to say the least, Kira, Daffodil, Roly, and Tom sat down for a small snack in the Burrows’ pantry.

“That was not a very nice welcome you gave us,” said Daffodil, placing a dripping tendril of hair behind her ear.

“It wasn’t a welcome,” said Tom brightly. “It was a warning not to leave for so long.”

“Tom,” added Daffodil, “if this is how you treat your friends I should think our family would remove itself to Little Delving and stay there permanently. And you, Kira—I’d expect something like this out of Tom, but you…”

“What could you have been doing with Tom that was so important? It’s not like you, not to do your chores.”

“She didn’t do anything with me,” said Tom. “She was inside for three full days, and I wanted to find out what was going on, and she promised to tell me. Didn’t you, Kira?”

Roly dropped the biscuit he had been eating, compelled back into the conversation. “You were what?”

“I got the book while Mum and I were in Westmarch. The funeral wasn’t very far from Undertowers, and they have a Library there.”

“She learned it off one of the Brandybucks,” said Daffodil. “I thought you weren’t going to read except when you were stuck in bed, Kira.”

“I’m sorry,” Kira said, bewildered. “That was the plan, but then I wanted to learn more about that mail-coat, because I knew that was true, but then I suppose I just got carried away and kept on reading…”

Judging by her friends’ expressions, Kira was not making sense, much less garnering any support from them.

Daffodil remained pale, but she shook her head. Roly surreptitiously picked up his food and resumed eating. Finally Tom spoke. “No, nothing wrong, Kira. I was… I was just shocked, is all. My dad can read, of course—you need someone in the house to look at the post—but it’s still a queer thing.” He broke out into a sudden laugh. “I knew some notions had entered your head, Kira.”

Kira did not read again for several days. She needed to get her mind off the book, to sort things out and not get caught up in that frightening fever as before. She played outside with her friends in the fine weather, and she carried out her chores as mistress of the smial when Mother took the first clippings of parsley and savoury to the market in town. When she was doing neither, cautiously she puzzled out what she had read.

Many of the questions that she had had were answered to an extent. If Bilbo Baggins had been fool enough to use his ring in front of 144 people, of course they would think him mad! But no, she countered, for that would mean that the ring was real. But how else could those tales have been created if he couldn’t disappear? Or did the story arise from the older Mad Baggins tales; did Frodo want to include a bit of folklore in his own attempt at a story? Why, this tale was even wilder than the first! And so frightening…

Maybe leaving the Shire did something to your heart, made it dark and come up with all sorts of strange ideas that no ordinary hobbit would dream of. That such an evil thing could come to the Shire was unthinkable. It was too preposterous to be true, but where on earth did he get his ideas? You think too much, Kira, she decided. Just read and enjoy them—they’re only Travellers’ Tales, after all.

A few days after Kira had resumed reading the book, firmly determined to put any questions that entered her head out of mind, came Dr. Grimwig’s regular visit. He was the practitioner for Michel Delving chiefly these day, since he was now well into his nineties, but he had long been friends of the family and had a special agreement with Mother to visit Kira every other month—for free, in return for getting whatever medicinal herbs he needed at a reduced rate.

Mother usually offered him tea whenever he came over, and prepared the tea and accompaniments while the doctor examined Kira. This occasion was no different, as the doctor, complete with a medicine bag and a bald spot, sat down on a stool across from Kira and had her stick out her right foot. He drew out of his bag a small metal rod and began to poke at various places, asking how it felt.

He prodded at her little toe; Kira shook her head. She could feel nothing. A few of the other toes could feel the cold of the metal, but hardly.

He laid the rod across the flat of her foot and pressed in. Kira gasped in sudden pain. “So sorry,” said Dr. Grimwig, “do tell me whenever it hurts too much.”

“It’s all right,” Kira said. It had only hurt for a second. As he worked his way back to the heel the ball felt almost as bad, the heel only somewhat. He took out a bit of charcoal and a bit of paper, and wrote some notes that Kira suddenly wanted to read.

Then he took her foot in both hands, feeling as carefully for the placement of bones as he could. Finally he began to rub the toes, trying to stimulate a little feeling in them. When he placed the rod on them again, she could feel it a little better than before. Again he made notes.

“Kira’s foot is making as much progress as it can. The bones near her toes are growing normally, but the rest…” He shrugged. “There are some things, Mrs. Proudfoot, that doctors can’t fix.”

“We aren’t asking you to fix Kira, Doctor.” The kettle whistled and Mother took it off the stove.

“Much the same as usual, Doctor. Light enough that I can ignore it, unless I’m tired or sick.”

“Good. And I received a letter from the doctor at Brandy Hall detailing your condition over there. From what I understand you became quite ill, did you not?”

“No. I haven’t felt anything other than the occasional tired spell I get when I’ve been playing too long or walked too far.”

Mother spooned some tea into the teapot and filled it with water from the kettle. “Do you think that the fever affected her at all? She usually doesn’t get that ill over the winter.”

Dr. Grimwig shook his head. “Not at the moment, especially since she’s been in good health for about four months now. I have yet to check her heart, though, and I don’t know how energetic she’s been. If you would please sit up straight, Miss Proudfoot?” He drew forth a peculiar-looking wooden column that flared out at both ends, and laid one end over Kira’s heart. He pressed his ear to the other, listening intently. “If anything, Kira’s heart seems to have improved since I last saw her,” he said when he was finished. “And if that is the case, I should like to think that her energy has improved as well. What do you normally do in a day, Kira?”

“It’s not that much—well, Daffy doesn’t think it’s enough, certainly, she complains to me without end—let’s see—I usually have to wash the dishes, and I’ll make some of the lighter meals. Mother lets me weed a small plot of the garden by myself. And I help on washing days. When I don’t have chores, and I’m not eating, I’m out walking or playing. I have to sit out after twenty minutes, though.”

Kira thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I suppose I have managed to go for longer.”

Mother set out cups and poured the tea, then set out a tray of sandwiches and another of biscuits.

“Where’s the farthest you’ve walked?” Dr. Grimwig said, taking up his cup and blowing on it to cool the tea down.

“Oh, we never go further than town—and we’ve managed to get there only stopping twice, now. They are awfully kind to wait for me, you know.”

“Oh, and I also managed to walk whatever the distance is from Undertowers to High Hole out in Westmarch, all by myself, just this past week. Though that was awfully tiring and I shan’t do anything like it again for a long time, certainly not alone.”

The doctor raised his eyebrows at whatever story was behind this. “Have you been doing anything differently from last year?”

“Oh,” said Kira. “I learned to read over the winter. I had only meant to do it to pass the time, but all the lettered people I know have been trying to convince me that the Travellers’ Tales are real. So I’ve been reading some of that in my spare time.”

“Well, I shan’t try to convince you,” said the doctor. “But reading can be beneficial at some times, for some patients. It exercises your mind, and, more importantly, it lets your body rest while you’re doing it. I’ve known some people—hobbits who, say, broke an arm—who were actually able to forget they were hurt while they were reading. I haven’t the foggiest what they were reading, what could be so good as to distract them from pain, but those folk did recover faster than normal.”

“Are you saying that reading is good for Kira?” Mother sat down and took a sandwich off the tray.

“No, I’m just setting out an idea. She certainly is doing better, but whether this is just because she’s older or because she’s doing something differently I don’t know. If reading makes her happy, I don’t see why she shouldn’t read—it may actually help her. I once knew a fellow in town—a Bunce, if I’m not mistaken—always complaining, rarely content with anything. Most unnatural for a hobbit.” He paused to take a sip of his tea. “He was my most regular customer for a time, and I’ve often wondered if it had anything to do with his outlook. Besides, I like it more when folk are happy.”

“Now, now,” put in Dr. Grimwig, “I wouldn’t suggest that you read all the time, Miss Proudfoot. In fact,” he added, turning to Kira’s mother, “I suggest that you put all of this lass’s extra energy to use. Our goal, after all, is for Kira to lead as normal a life as possible. Let her bake some of the bread, from start to finish, have her help you in the garden more often. Has she ever accompanied you to town on market days?”

“Let her mind the stand, then, if you need a break from selling. Teach her how to haggle.”

“If the doctor says so, which he does. And if you really think you’re up to it.”

“Just let me tell Daffy and Roly and Tom!” Kira stood up, grabbing a biscuit and stuffing it into her dress pocket. “That is, if it’s all right with you, Mum, and the visit’s over.”

“Yes, I do think we’re finished, Kira,” said the doctor, holding out his hand for her to shake.

“Marvellous. Thank you!” And with that, Kira Proudfoot picked up her crutch and was out the door in a wink.

“Yes, and no,” ask Kira. “It’s not as if I’m suddenly cured, Roly. And I’m sure,” she added, poking him in the stomach, “that you need those rests as much as I do.”

“Just wait till Tom gets wind of this. He’ll want to give you the royal tour.”

“I can imagine. But I will have a job to do, at least some of the time. Marjoram, parsley, chervil, basil, sage, chives, comfrey, lovage, borage… I haven’t any idea how I’ll keep them all apart, much less remember their uses or prices.”

“That’s when they’re plants, not clippings. And then I have to argue for them.”

“The haggling only gets bad when you get to livestock,” said Daffodil. “You should’ve seen the time Dad got someone all the way from Nobottle to part with his dairy cow at half price. Poor chap was red to the ears by the time they settled on a price, but he couldn’t do a thing about it. No one barters like our dad.”

“More likely tearing up the pasture,” said Roly. “His family’s behind on the fields, so it’s likely he won’t escape from his duty today.”

Daffodil snorted. “Serves him right.” Kira recalled the number of times he had suddenly turned up, soil caked on the hair of his feet, begging them not to tell a soul that he was out there.

“Well, hide-and-seek is rather boring with only three,” said Roly. “And with Kira, tag’s out. And before you ask, we are not playing any game that puts me as the baby of the smial that you two mother hens have to take care of.”

“There has to be something we can do,” said Daffodil. “It’s too fine a day to waste.”

“We could try to catch butterflies. You still have your net, don’t you?” Kira said.

“Yes, but we are certainly not going to do that. Last time Roly and Tom took the one I caught—the one I caught—and tied it, with a piece of their own hair, to a tree. They wouldn’t let me set it free, either. I had to sneak back in the middle of the night.”

“And a fine surprise that was in the morning, looking for our fine piece of work and finding it fled.”

“I’m out of ideas,” said Kira. “With your permission, I’ll just go back to my hole and get that book out.”

Kira smiled, but she wondered how she was going to get any time to read with all her new chores, if Roly was willing to suffer the indignity of playing the baby just to keep her entertained. She dreaded to think of the measures Tom would take.

Monday was market day in Michel Delving. Mother had a small handcart with little holes in the board across the top, in which the herbs were displayed. There was a method to it: the greenest ones with the largest leaves in front, the stems poking out on the bottom into a tray of water. The pleasant smelling herbs, the chamomiles and bergamot, were placed in the front, while the more bitter ones went to the back. That made it easier for Kira to remember which one went where. They had spent the previous day tying little bunches of herbs together, and they were priced according to their general use: a farthing for cooking herbs; a halfpenny for medicine. There was no haggling at this stand, it turned out, but later in the day, when Mother went about with her shopping, Kira would get to see it firsthand.

Normally Mother walked to market, having no pony, but since Kira was along they rode with the Burrowses. Daffodil and Kira talked all the way down, a basket of cuttings in Kira’s lap. When the Proudfoots alighted Mother led Kira to one of the smaller storage tunnels and opened the door to one of the rooms. Kira gasped at what she saw in there—it was a small room, but it was larger than she expected, for it did not just house the cart. There were, inside, a great number of objects caked in dust, that she could barely make out in the morning light. A chest of drawers, a baby’s cradle, a huge double bed—a set of five tarnished spoons. It was like a second, smaller Mathom House, but with no captions and no visitors. She craned her head in for a better look, but Mother motioned her to follow her out, wheeling the cart with both hands. She set Kira’s basket on top, and closed the door without a word of explanation.

Kira reluctantly left the building, following her mother, and took her basket back. They set up the stand next to a grocer’s stall; across the lane through the stream of passing hobbits she could see meats hanging up. Kira shoved bunches of herbs into their slots as she watched the butcher’s first customers walk up.

Mother was all geniality today, knowing that her own disposition affected sales as much as the quality of her produce. Kira was quite the conversation piece: “Why, hello there, Mrs. Diggle—yes, I do have a helper today. This is Kira, my daughter—you remember her from the Free Fair last year, perhaps? Kira, if you would hand this fine lady two bunches of healall and one of sorrel? That’s a good lass—and will you be wanting anything else?”

It went on like this, as Kira’s mother conversed with countless hobbit wives whom Kira had never heard of or barely remembered from some distant party Ages ago. They all could remember her, though—oh, that poor little crippled girl. She could distinct hear a few of them sighing and shaking their heads as they walked away from the stand, muttering something about “that hapless family.”

Kira did little besides hand out herbs and refill any slots that were starting to look empty. Rosemary Proudfoot, herb seller, did get quite a bit of business, especially from midwives and mothers—or children sent by their mums on errands. At one point in the morning a hobbit with dark brown hair walked up to the stand, blushing furiously as she asked what kind of herbs went best with chicken. As Mother talked with her the story became clear—she had gotten married only last Friday and hadn’t the faintest idea how to prepare a meal her husband would truly enjoy.

Mother laughed. “Well, he’s a hobbit; he can’t be too hard to please.”

The customer laughed as well, but she couldn’t shake the worry from her face. “But supposing he—”

“Well, surely you know his favourite foods if you’ve gone and married him.”

Mrs. Proudfoot silenced her with a look. “I’ll keep my advice short because I know you’ve already received too much. Whenever you cook, no matter who you’re cooking for—even if it’s the King himself—make sure that your dish is delicious without herbs. Only then should you try adding things: the cook who needs herbs, or sauces, or anything else to cover up the flavour of the food can’t cook well to begin with. And if your husband doesn’t like your cooking, which I can assure you will not be the case, you can always have him cook for you and show you how he likes his meals.”

“Now, as far as chicken goes, you can’t go wrong with sage. And I’d try adding a little summer savoury to that and some thyme—thyme always goes well with poultry.”

“Thank you,” said the customer, but she was at a loss as to what the herbs looked like on the stalk. Kira smiled, having gotten the sense of herb placement a couple hours back, and handed her the bunches. Mother accepted the payment and the hobbit moved on.

“Do you do this sort of thing every week, Mum?” said Kira once she was out of sight.

“Not always, dear, but fairly often. There’s always a fresh face or two in a town as big as Michel Delving.”

“Lawks,” said Kira. She wondered how she was ever going to manage being a grown-up.

Mother saw the look of awe and apprehension on Kira’s face. “All in good time, love, all in good time.”

Not long after noon an all too familiar face peeked over the top of the stand, demanding to give Kira a “grand tour of the market.” Mother had been expecting this, fortunately, and let Kira join Tom, with a parting admonition that they were to be back in no more than two hours, and that Kira was to be permitted to rest if she grew tired. Tom nearly dragged Kira out from behind the stand. “I don’t believe I was asked if I wanted a ‘grand tour,’” she said.

“But this is your first time to a market. How could you not want a grand tour?”

Kira felt him tug at her left hand. “I want to start by finding our friends. No use in having you get me into all sorts of trouble alone.”

“Oh, we’re saving the trouble for next week. No need to give you a bad impression of town, not yet.”

Suddenly Tom was shoved from behind; forgetting to let go of Kira’s hand he nearly pulled her over.

“We had wanted to get to you before Tom found you, Kira,” said Daffodil. “We didn’t want you two haring off without us.”

“I wasn’t going to let that happen,” replied Kira, “although I can’t say the same for Tom.”

“Well, that’s settled, then. I’m sure we’ve all been looking forward to this tour of yours, Tom. Lead the way!”

It was all too much for Kira to take in on a first visit. Certainly she had been to town before, and to parties and a few fairs, but this was quite different. This happened every week, and while the fairs always had at least seven times the stores and merchants, they came from all over the Farthing and beyond. Besides, Kira had spent so little time at the fairs that she had hardly seen anything. Now she could actually take her time.

Traditionally everything would have been set up on the green in the centre of town, but Michel Delving was larger than that. Long ago hobbits had begun to build houses and sheds alongside what had been paths leading between family tunnels, and eventually this had spilled out onto the green as well. Out of tradition they had saved the green from total domestication, but it was now too small to house any events other than the occasional family picnic, and all the parties were held in the event field just north of town. The market was spread out throughout the streets of the village.

And oh, the things there were to buy! The Grocer’s Lane, where Mother’s herbs were, was only one of the many places to purchase food. There were poulterers with live hens for sale, butchers with freshly-made country sausage, cress, spinach, rocket, young peas, dried beans of all varieties, and giant plump fruits that Kira had not seen since the fall. There was freshly milled flour for bread. There was a stand where pipes were sold, and all manner of leaf up from the Southfarthing. There were even a few stands of something called “im ports” where one could buy tea and coffee and salt and blue paper cones of fine white sugar. It was very difficult to keep Roly away from a particular stand that sold hot berry tarts, especially since the smell carried far on the wind.

But there was not just food at the market. There was a smith mending someone’s teakettle. There was a carpenter’s table, displaying a few chairs and coat racks and other useful items. There was a tanner selling gloves, saddles, and harnesses. There was rope for tethering livestock. A gardener had chosen a few select blooms and was selling them to the townsfolk, for some of the houses directly in town had no gardens at all.

The dry goods, as well as a number of the other inedible commodities, were accessed by crossing the Ash on one of its three bridges, and here was Kira the most amazed. There were lace and ribbons, and there were needles and pins and brightly coloured floss, and there were straw hats and bonnets. There were bolts of cloth—ordinary muslin and linen in the usual creams and greens and browns and yellows hanging outside, but inside one of the stores she could see finer fabrics that looked soft even through the glass panes. There were all sorts of shades of green and gold in there, more than Kira knew could be dyed, but there were also other colours, colours that Kira had only seen in flowers or on party dresses—and even then, worn only by a few. There was a blue the shade of forget-me-nots that, while pretty, Kira doubted she (or anyone else she knew for that matter) could ever look good in, and a lavender that was even more beautiful and even less practical, and there was a beautiful shade of pink just the colour of clouds at sunset. And far in the back, like the distant memory of a dream, there was a bolt of fabric of the purest white.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” whispered Daffodil from Kira’s right. “Mum says when I turn twenty-seven we can get the fabric for my party outfit from here.” And turning away from the fabric shop, the lasses caught up with the boys who had long since moved ahead.

They were arguing about something. “No, I’m not going in there with you!” said Roly.

“It doesn’t matter how nearby it is! That isn’t the problem! The problem is that you’re sixteen—”

“—and you won’t make it two steps into the door before someone calls you out!”

“No, I won’t! Only you’d be so stupid as to try and walk in the Oak Barrel!”

“I thought,” said Kira, “that there wasn’t to be any trouble this week, that you’d save it all for next Monday.”

“Not for us, there won’t. But why would you even want to go in, if there’s no trouble?” Roly knew Tom very well.

“I don’t know… I’ve never been in the common room of an inn before. I don’t even know what it looks like!”

“Well, at least you’ve realised that you’re going in alone.” The three children, as if by mutual consent, began to walk towards the building at the street corner

Tom naturally followed them. “What? I never said—what, isn’t anyone interested in the Oak Barrel?”

They were at the door of the inn. “Don’t go in water deeper than you can wade, Tom,” said Daffodil.

“I’ll bet Kira’d go in. She’s inquisitive enough to spend hours staring at a book!”

“No, Kira would not go in,” replied Kira. “Inquisitive or not. I’m a lass, and I know when things are stupid.”

Tom walked up to the door, mumbling something about the loyalty of friends, and opened it. Fifteen seconds later he came out, red in the face.

“I’ve only spent hours staring at a book once, and I don’t intend to do it again.” They turned away from the inn, ready to head back to Mother’s stand, when the shop across the street caught Kira’s eye. It was one of the few that bothered to have a sign with words, though it appeared more shops and stands had them on this street than the others. “Stationery,” it read. Kira had no idea what it meant. She went to the window, ignoring where the others were trying to walk, and peered in. There was paper—beautiful creamy white paper, and glass bottles of what had to be ink. Black ink, brown ink, several bottles of red, and far away at the end of the line, gold! And on top of the sheaves of paper there was an inkwell, with a spotless white quill resting in it.

Daffodil was calling her name. She turned to go, but ran face first into a fat belly covered with a silk waistcoat. “Sorry!” she cried and ran to catch up with her friends.

Daffodil just shook her head as they walked back to the Grocer’s Lane. A few more hours and it would be time to head home.

The next day was a rest day for Kira; market had truly worn her out. She spent most of the day sitting in the kitchen reading, her right foot in a pail of tepid water. After returning to her mother’s stand yesterday she had helped for a few more hours, then Mother had made her purchases of flour, meat, and produce and they had gone home with the Burrowses, whose shopping was also over. On the way back Mother had asked her if she had enjoyed the market; Kira had smiled and nodded. It was such a bustling, exciting place—how could one not enjoy it?

Even if it had made her want to collapse in bed when she got back. She wondered how most hobbits managed to go to market every week. Ah, but you are not like most hobbits, Kira, she reminded herself. She returned to the book, which she had been falling behind in over the past few days. At least she could do something, now, when she was tired. How strange that a bit of paper and ink could make her well enough to go to market!

Daffodil came over for afternoon tea, bringing two cloth dolls so that they could have company. “So, how’s that book coming along?” she asked, noticing it was carefully placed beside the table in its bag.

“Where, all the way out on the Barrow-downs?” Daffodil suppressed a shudder. “How in the Shire did they get there?”

“Of course—it’s about how you shouldn’t venture off into the wild on your own. Flora knows it by heart.”

Kira sighed and tried her best to put on a wry front. “They were being chased by scary Men cloaked in black on horses all throughout the Shire, and they didn’t want it to get worse Outside.”

Kira laughed, too. “You can’t expect much else from Travellers’ Tales, I’m afraid. And of course, they didn’t think they would get caught when they entered the Downs. It’s a lot scarier than anything I ever heard when I was little.”

“Does this book of yours try to give a reason for it all? It never made any sense to me, to have them leave the Shire on a lark.”

“Yes, but the reason’s as preposterous as the idea of horsemen in the Shire. At least reading keeps me from getting bored all the time.” Kira blew on her tea before taking a measured sip. She added another drip of honey, then offered the bowl to Daffodil.

She shook her head. “I’m all right. I do believe Daisy Doll would like a little more, though.” She pretended to put a spoonful into the doll’s cup.

“Is there anything else you’ll be needing, girls?” said Kira’s mother from the next room.

“Your mother certainly does a lot of work, Kira,” Daffodil whispered the moment Mother had left.

“I am starting to help her more, I’ll have you know. But that reminds me, Daffy—you won’t believe what I saw in town.”

“Mum has a room in the storage tunnels, you know—I thought it was just for the cart for market—but there were a lot of things in there. I didn’t even know we had them. I should like to have another look at them, but I don’t think Mum would let me, or even tell me what they were, if I asked. Do you have any idea what they’re doing in there?”

“It’s as if there’s another smial in there—I could have sworn I saw I double bed, and a clothes press—maybe even a plough.”

“How strange! Maybe we can have a look at it when the lads are playing Lockholes next Friday—well, you can, at least, if you have a mind. I’m still not sure if I’m going.”

“The Lockholes next Friday? Has Tom got another scheme?” Tom only set dates down when he had a scheme.

“Well, apparently yesterday morning Tom ran into the Hornblower brothers at market, and they got into a bragging contest, and the Hornblowers made some sort of preposterous claim that they had been to one of the rooms where someone had actually been locked up—at midnight. So Tom said that he could do the same if he wanted, and they said that he probably wouldn’t have the nerve for it, being from the country and all.”

“And he told Roly about the whole affair and Roly said he’d like to have another look at them, and they might as well go there at night, seeing as the honour of all good country scamps was at stake. I’m half tempted to join along just to see they don’t get into any mischief.”

“But Daffy, you know that never works. They’ll just get you into mischief as well, even if you don’t want to. Isn’t sneaking out of bed at night mischievous as it is?”

Daffodil threw up her hands. “I don’t know. You always had more of a head for adventures, Miss Reader, than I did.”

“I don’t know,” said Kira. “I’ll think about it. Let’s wait to hear what Tom has to say.”

As Kira expected, Tom debriefed her on the whole matter next day. The Lockholes had been scary enough at daytime; at night they would be terrifying. Ah, but you’re older than you were the last time you were there, Kira, she thought. And she remembered how horribly ill she had gotten the last time she had sneaked out of bed at night, though it had been winter then and she had been fool enough to try and sleep with icy air streaming into her room. Now she would be going outdoors—in warmer weather, true, but at night—and walking into town, all because some stupid town boys had done something Tom hadn’t.

But she remembered, too, that sense of awe that had come over her the last time she had been at the Lockholes, the same awe that Kerry’s horn and to an extent the Red Book had instilled in her. And she kept on thinking of that room with the morning sun coming in from behind and casting a shadow on the dust-caked objects of home life.

So Friday night after Mother had tucked her in bed, Kira dressed herself, and, remembering the way Tom had opened it, slipped out the window, dragging her crutch after her. It was marvellously cool outside, it still being early night. She decided that she may be a little tired the next day, but certainly not enough to fall ill and be discovered. Mother would have her head if she did.

She knew the way to the old oak well enough to find it by night, and there was moonlight, too, hazing in through a thin layer of clouds. She was the last to arrive. Tom had procured some lanterns and was pacing by the tree; Daffodil and Roly were just beginning to nod not too far off. In spite of herself a thrill ran up her spine. The Lockholes… at night! How dreadfully frightening! She and Tom shook the others to wake them, and without a word the children set out towards town.

The Lockholes were on the same side of the road and the river as the hobbits’ homes, so they bypassed most of Michel Delving. The little that they did see, glancing off to the right as they slipped by, looked like a ghost at this hour. They could see, glowing through the windows of a few houses and holes, fires burning down; in the morning they would be revived again. But there were no lights outside; everyone had checked in for the night. The road leading to the storage tunnels was illuminated only by the haze of moon and the light from their lanterns, and the only sound Kira could hear was the thump of her crutch and the pounding of her heart.

Tom pushed the main door to the tunnels open and they filed inside. Most of the rooms were in use, but she could still see the holes in the doors, long since painted over, where huge locks had been driven into them. Only a few rooms had had locks on their doors to begin with; the contents would have had to be valuable indeed for anyone to think of stealing them. But as Kira paced the main tunnel she imagined hobbits behind every one of the doors and the lantern in her hand a set of keys. Instinctively she looked behind her, though she knew she would only see Roly bringing up the rear of their odd little procession. How strange that her fancy ran so free during the night!

One of the tiniest rooms, far down at the left end of the tunnel and so inconspicuous that Kira would not have noticed it had Tom not pointed it out to them, was still empty. This was where they had gone previously, but suddenly Kira did not want to enter, not now! Tom was impervious to fear, however, and he led the other three hobbits within.

It was a tight squeeze for four children, so tight that Kira now doubted it had really been used as a prison cell—a full-grown hobbit could hardly stand within it! But no, the same holes had been pounded in this door as the others, though she wondered who possibly could have been locked up in here. They sat down on the cold stone floor, their backs to the wall, and set the lanterns in the middle like a campfire. Kira shivered.

After a few minutes of uneasy silence they broke out into whispers. “Now what?” said Daffodil. “We’ve seen the Lockholes at night. That’s all we have to do, right?”

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I’ll bet the Hornblowers haven’t spent the night here.”

Tom shrugged. “It was only an idea. You were near snoring before we came here.”

“What’s that?” said Roly. He pointed to the door, where the lantern light was playing with Tom’s shadow. Tom turned around and looked, Kira looked as well. There were other shadows there, formed by a few odd grooves in the wood. Kira let out a shriek.

Kira looked again—they were faint, they were weathered, they had been painted over several times, but they were definitely there. “Letters. Someone carved his name in the door! Someone was locked up in here!”

“Well, they weren’t called the Lockholes for nothing,” said Tom, but Kira could see he was shaking. Knowing that someone had been jailed in a storage room for several months was one thing; seeing direct evidence of it was something else entirely. He got up and held the lantern to the door. “Well, Kira, what does it say?”

Kira stood and peered at the shadows in the door; they were easier to read now that the light was at a better angle. “Fr—Fredegar Bolger, 1419.” She tried to back up and nearly knocked over one of the lanterns with her heel.

“Oh, nothing,” said Kira, sounding very quiet, “only I read about him rather recently and it’s unnerving seeing his name here.”

“It really does say it’s Fatty?” said Roly. Not all the children’s tales of the Shire were about the Travellers.

Though what lies before you’s black,
Never let your spirits slack.
Even if the Sun should fail,
Still will Beauty e’er prevail.”

“Yes, but surely he knew the Troubles couldn’t last forever. The Sun failing? That’s… absurd!”

“I’m not so sure,” said Kira. “If he believed the Travellers before they left…”

“Er… well, the book I’m reading says he did… It says they thought the world might end, which maybe could explain the Sun…” Kira broke off. “Never mind. I don’t quite understand it myself.” Stupid book, she thought.

“I think I know what he meant about beauty, though,” said Tom, who was being unusually thoughtful and examining the stones surrounding the door. “Look!” He cast the light about the walls.

What had originally appeared to be rough stonework was now illuminated by the lamp, and the shadows revealed something that they never would have noticed by day. Fredegar Bolger had not just carved his name; he had etched an entire outdoor scene into the walls of his prison! They were faint, but the outlines of objects were there—the rolling landscape, the silhouettes of trees, even a few animals nosing among the rock. They gazed upwards and saw curved lines for clouds, and a disc for the sun. “I wonder why no one else has found this,” said Kira.

“Well, he was locked up,” said Roly. “Couldn’t exactly have told the ruffians about it, could he? I’ll bet he’d have done a real sculpture if he thought he could get away with it.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” she said. She trailed her hand along one of the lines separating the sky from the land, and then sat down again. She thought about that poem, and decided that whatever Fatty wanted to do with his art was up to him. How awful it must have been, to be locked up like that!

They talked for a little while, but not long. Kira felt a sudden drain of energy; somehow seeing the scene carved on the walls made the place less fearsome, even though at the same time it felt ten times as real.

Silence reigned throughout the cell. Kira watched the candle in the lantern opposite her sink to half its original height. Tom was still examining the rude carving, his hands tracing the strange signs on the door every now and then. Daffodil had apparently found a stone floor bearable to sleep upon; Roly was already snoring. Tom was too engrossed in his study to notice. Kira got up again and took a lantern with her. If Tom saw that she had left the room, he gave no sign.

The clouds had cleared outside, and she could now see the rising moon glimmering through the passage window. As she had sat gazing into the lantern’s flame Kira had remembered her other reason for going out into Michel Delving late at night, and the excitement of the evening’s discovery now fuelled a curiosity so intense that she knew it could be up to no good. She had to see what lay in her mother’s storage room.

While she was walking down the main tunnel she had to restrain herself from looking back, from seeing if she was being followed by her friends or by the ghost of some long-dead hobbit doomed to roam these halls. She had never realized that she was this afraid of the dark before, and she wondered how long it would take people to notice if something horrible happened to her just then. At one point she almost ran back to Fatty’s cell, where the glow of the other lanterns was issuing from under the door, calling her back to light and companionship. A bird trilled outside and she jumped.

It did not help, either, that she did not quite remember where the room was, and thus had to turn aside each time she encountered a door, open it, and look in at the fanciful shadows the objects cast upon the wall. At last she opened a door and was coherent enough to recognize the herb cart directly in front of her from among the visions of dragons and trolls and wights. Letting out a pent-up sigh she set the lantern upon it, taking one last glance down the corridor before she closed the door behind her and leaned against it, gasping as if some great beast had been chasing her.

The stars were shining through the small window opposite her, and the light of the lantern let her look at the dust-covered things lying about. Directly behind the cart was a small stack of tableware, the same kind of simple crockery that she ate from daily, and on top of that lay the wooden rack of spoons that she had noticed previously. She picked one up off the rack and tried to rub off some of the blackish stuff that covered it with her fingernail. After a minute she gave up with a slightly smudged finger to pay for her efforts, and held it before the light. On the end of the spoon were engraved two letters, delineated by the pitch-black of the tarnish which Kira had been unable to rub off. L.P., it read. How very strange, thought Kira. Why would you engrave something if no one could read it?

She picked up the lantern and moved on to survey one of the corners, and gave a cry of shock as she realised she recognised some of these things, from long ago. Here were the toys she had outgrown—a wooden pony, a very old stuffed dog missing an ear, a knitted blanket whose colour had turned from cream to yellow. It lay folded in a cradle that she now realised must have been hers, though she could not remember it. She picked up the plush dog, holding it under her arm, and moved along.

Against the back wall she saw the shadow of a pitchfork, looming before her, but since she could now see the fork itself it did not seem so scary. There was also a flail and a plough, and a scythe. More peculiar was the presence of a saddle and halter. They had never owned a pony, had they? She moved towards the back of the room, intent on seeing the farming things better, but she got distracted along with way.

For one thing, there was the bed, a large, beautiful, unmovable thing with dust caking the coverlet and pillows. Why would Mother have gotten rid of this? The headboard was richly carved with branches and leaves of trees, and despite its years of disuse she could see the gloss on the wood. What in the Shire was it doing here? She dusted off a spot and sat down, dog on lap and head in hand. What was any of this doing here? She could understand some of her childhood things—she no longer used them, after all—but the other things, the spoons and the pottery, why? And what about the plough and the saddle?

Opposite her was a side table, with a vase on it and a small clock that had stopped. She lifted up the vase and saw a fine white plate beneath, with a slip of parchment underneath that. She unfolded the parchment and held it before the light next to her. It was a letter. It read,

I hope you enjoy this little plate that your darling sister has painted for you. Perhaps it can rest on the mantel of your new home, so that every now and then you can look up and remember the love that your family has for you. I know it is but a pale reflection of those two fine hobbits it attempts to depict, but since you two will always be together now I suppose it hardly matters!

Best of luck to you on your wedding. You are always in our thoughts. Anyone who looks at you and Rosemary together can tell that you will be very happy together.

Kira set down the letter and picked up the plate. Painted on it were, as the letter had said, the faces of two hobbits, looking at each other and encircled in a border of roses. On the left was clearly Mother, though her cheeks were rosier and her eyes brighter than Kira had seen them. The face on the right she did not recognise, though there was something about his features that was disconcertingly familiar.

She reread the letter, and all at once the meaning of this room came crashing down on her. She stood up, suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that she should leave, but she turned back and picked up the plate again, staring at her dead father’s features. Her hands began to shake, so badly that they lost their grip.

The plate shattered on the floor. Panic gripped Kira’s heart. She clenched the handle to her crutch and set it on the floor, preparing to run out of the room and never look back until she was safe with her friends. But rather than the floor, the crutch landed on one of the shards, and Kira in her terror fell forward. As she fell her right foot came into contact with something, and pain shot up her leg. She screamed as the stone floor rushed up to meet her, and all went black.

The scream woke Daffodil. “What’s wrong?” she said. Tom was fumbling with the doorknob. “Where’s Kira?”

“Wake up. Something’s happened to Kira.” Daffodil grabbed a lantern and led the boys out of the cell.

Down the hall Tom was vying with her for the lead. “Honestly, how was I supposed to know? It’s not as if she said anything!”

Daffodil elbowed him out of the way. “It’s the middle of the night, it’s near pitch-black, and in case you hadn’t noticed, Kira’s not the most sensible of hobbits!”

“I’m not entirely sure—her mum showed her this storage room, and there were lots of things in it that Kira wanted to see. I said that if I went to the Lockholes I’d go along with her, but then I fell asleep. I thought she’d wake me up if she still wanted to look.” They reached the room, easily identified because of the light pooling out from under the door. Daffodil opened it.

At first they saw nothing out of place. Then they moved farther back in the room, near the dusty old bed, and found Kira, lying face-first on the floor. Daffodil knelt beside her and turned her over, calling her name. She made no response. Blood was leaking out of a small cut on her head.

“What happened?” said Tom, who was examining the ceramic shards on the floor.

“I’m sure she can tell us that when she wakes up. Roly, do you know where the town doctor’s house is?”

“Give Roly directions so he can find it.” Tom looked ready to protest, but Daffodil cut him off with a glare. “You,” she said, “are going to Kira’s smial so that you can find her mother and explain to her exactly what kind of scrape you’ve gotten us all into.” Tom gave her a mutinous look. “Do you want to help Kira or not?”

“Fine,” he said. “Just make sure Roly tells the doctor to bring a lot of cloth.”

Tom pulled back the edge of the bedskirt, which had been covering most of Kira’s legs. Its hem was touched with blood, blood which was flowing out of a gash in her crippled foot. Daffodil blanched and turned away. “Somebody, please get the doctor—quickly!”

Roly ran out of the room, glancing behind at Tom to see if he would help show him the way. Tom nodded, but before he left he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and tied it over the wound. Daffodil settled herself on the floor and took Kira’s hand in hers, keeping vigil over her friend until help arrived.

In fifteen minutes Roly returned with Dr. Grimwig. “Tom went off to tell her mother,” he said, panting for air.

Daffodil nodded. The doctor knelt down next to her and looked Kira over. “Is she all right?” said Daffodil.

“She should be. The cut on her foot isn’t too deep, though it’ll hurt a lot since it’s on her bad foot. I’m more concerned about her head, actually; though judging from the bump she didn’t hit it as hard as she could have. I will have to sew her up, though.”

Dr. Grimwig smiled. “You won’t have to watch it, dear. Just help me get her up on this bed and tell me if she wakes up.” He cleared off the scattered objects lying on the bed, placed some clean cloths upon it, and then all three of them lifted Kira and set her atop it all.

“Good.” He handed a few more cloths to Roly. “If you could please clean up the floor, then.”

As Roly complied he turned to the task of washing Kira’s head and foot. “Do you know why she fell?” he asked Daffodil.

“No,” she replied, “none of us was here when it happened. Tom found something on the floor, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Meanwhile Roly had finished cleaning the floor. All the pieces of pottery were in a neat little pile beside the bed. “Now what?”

“Hold this lantern here,” said the doctor, but Daffodil was looking at Kira’s face, which had been going steadily paler since they had first found her. Her eyes flicked open.

Dr. Grimwig got up and walked to the head of the bed. “Are you feeling well, Kira? How much does it hurt?”

“Good.” He walked back over to his bag and poured something from a flask into a thimble. “Drink this, it’ll help with the pain. You’re a very brave lass.”

Kira took the thimble, stared a moment at its contents, and downed it in one gulp. Almost immediately the strain disappeared from her face and she laid her head back down on the pillow. Within a minute she was asleep.

The doctor had in the meantime prepared to sew the cut closed. Daffodil watched while he threaded a needle and passed it through the flame of the lantern before turning to the work before him. Then she had to turn her head away, ostensibly to watch for any reaction on Kira’s part. There was none, and she was surprised, when it was over, at how short a time it had taken.

The rest of the night passed in a blur for Daffodil. When the operation was done she felt all the excitement and nervousness leave her, and she passed into a light doze. Then Kira’s mother arrived, and she and Roly and Tom were issued out of the room while she talked with the doctor. Then Kira woke up again but Daffodil was not allowed to see her, for her mother was talking with her. They must have spoken for a long time, though, because Daffodil had drifted off again in the interval, and when she woke up the morning light was streaming in from under the door of the Proudfoot storage room. Then she finally was permitted to see Kira, but she, too, had fallen asleep again, her arm curled around her old stuffed dog, and the doctor said it was best not to wake her. When Daffodil finally got home her mother called her a wise, responsible young lass, and though she beamed with pride at this all she could think of was bed.

Daffodil did not get to see Kira for another week, though she tried numerous times. Kira was recovering from her wounding, and her mother kept her under lock and key whenever she was ill. What she was doing in her room no one could say, not even Tom. His part in the injury had not been forgotten, and he was not allowed within sight of the Proudfoot smial.

“I’ll bet she’s tucked up with that precious book of hers,” he said one of the few times Daffodil saw him. Poor Tom, she thought, he never did take failure that easily. And poor Kira.

But then on Tuesday she saw Mrs. Proudfoot buying four plump hens at the market, and knew that Kira had to at least be improving. Then on Thursday Mrs. Proudfoot called on them, requesting her and Roly’s presence at a special dinner celebrating Kira’s recovery and intended to honour those that had both found and helped her. So Daffodil put on her nice frock Saturday afternoon and walked with her brother over to Kira’s home.

And oh! it was a feast. For here were the hens she had seen, all trussed up and stuffed with sage and onion, and potatoes roasted in the oven, and the freshest vegetables one could wish for. And the doctor and his wife were there, and Tom was asking to see Kira’s stitches (which exposure Kira righteously refused), and there was Kira sitting by the kitchen fire, looking wan but quite happy, and when supper was ready her mother served the food with a smile spread across her face. And the food was excellent, even for hobbit fare, and the children were even allowed to try the tiniest sip of wine for the festive occasion. Daffodil tried her best not to make a face at the tartness, and either Tom was a marvellous actor or he had gotten more from his father’s stores than pipeweed.

The Proudfoots were not used to so much company, so the tea table was squashed in next to the dining room table, where the children sat. It was a most peculiar arrangement, but the nicer table seated more people and that was that. At any rate it allowed conversation to flourish among them as they compared their activities from the week.

It was not as exciting as Daffodil had expected, however. Kira said she was recovering and would say nothing more on that subject. Tom had apparently gotten in trouble back at home because of the previous week’s incident, and thus had had no new escapades to brag about. And for Roly and herself it was much of the same work as every other week. So the talk swiftly turned to the muddled events at the Lockholes.

“So, what exactly happened, Kira?” said Tom. “You did say you were going to tell us when we were all seated.”

“Nothing much that you don’t already know. I had wanted to see this room of Mum’s, I dropped a plate that was in there, and then I tripped when my crutch landed on it and I fell. That’s really all I can say about it. What I want to know is how you found me—I know you were there, Daffy, but that’s about it.”

“You screamed awfully loud, Kira,” said Daffodil. “And there was light in the room you were in. It wasn’t that hard.”

“Tom and I went off to find the doctor,” said Roly, “and then I came back with him and Tom went and found your mum.”

“I’d heard that part,” said Kira. “I still wish I could’ve seen the look on your face when you explained to Mother what happened,” she added to Tom.

“Probably tried to blame the whole idea on me,” said Roly through a mouthful of chicken.

Soon after dinner, Kira professed a great weariness and asked if she could retire for the night. Daffodil asked to accompany her to her room and she assented.

“You’ve been doing all right, then?” Daffodil asked as Kira leaned on her for a little more support.

Kira nodded. “A lot better than I would have if this had happened a year ago.”

“I did want to apologise for helping you get in this mess. If I hadn’t fallen asleep maybe I would’ve come with you and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“Thanks.” They walked on for a few more steps before Kira spoke again. “There wasn’t anything terribly important in there, anyway. Just a few old memories that should’ve been kept in the Lockholes where they belonged.”

“Mathoms. Things from before I was born. Mum and I talked about them a little.”

“It’s all right; I’m just a little tired. Busiest day I’ve had in a week.” Kira quirked a smile at her, and together they entered her room. “I should probably go to sleep now. Thanks for staying with me.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” said Daffodil, wondering at Kira’s quiet mood, and she left. But when the dinner was finally over and everyone was leaving for home, she stole back into her room to see if she was all right.

Kira lay on her bed in her shift, covers half cast over her, sleeping. That was not what was odd. What was odd was that her old stuffed dog that had been rescued from the storage room was on the floor, and in its place under Kira’s arm was the Red Book of Westmarch.

When Kira came out to play a few days later, she was lugging around a large, heavy leather bag. Tom looked at her with suspicion. “What’s in there?”

“Er… I hope you don’t mind; I brought my book along for when I’m resting. I’ve found it helps.”

Indeed all of Kira’s friends seemed a bit put out that she now needed to rest more often. But then again she was just barely recovered; they could not expect her to play too much. At least they did not begrudge her rest time.

A little while before they parted ways for luncheon they took a break together in the late spring sunshine. Even Kira surreptitiously drew the hem of her dress away from her crippled foot to let it soak in the warmth.

“We’ll have an Overlithe this year,” said Tom. “Do you think you’ll be able to make it to town more than one day this year, Kira?”

She shrugged. “Depends on how well Mum thinks I am. Do you have something planned already?”

“Maybe. Dad said he’d give me a little more spare change this year. I might be able to bet on ponies.”

“Well, I don’t have any plans yet,” said Kira. “Though Mother did say that if I kept on getting better she might let me manage the cart on my own. Fair days are always so hectic.”

“We’ll be entertaining relations,” said Roly. “They pinch my cheeks.”

“If I can wander around I’ll go with you, Tom, so long as you don’t spend too much time at the races and don’t have anything horrendous planned. Say,” a sudden thought had come to Kira, “do you think the Free Fair gets any folk from Buckland?”

“The fellow that taught me to read. I’d introduce you all to him; he’s a lot nicer than most people his age.”

“Maybe,” said Kira, thoughtfully tracing the binding on her leather bag. Her stomach rumbled. “I think that’s the sign for lunch,” she said. “I’ll see you all this afternoon if Mother doesn’t want me to do too much weeding.” She stood up, heaved the sack onto her shoulder, and walked away.

If Kira was not acting normal, she herself did not realise it. Perhaps she was out of sorts from the stabs of pain that still came from her right foot, but other than that she felt quite settled. Midyear’s day was less than a month away, and she wanted to be in perfect condition for that, so she rested and read more often. It was a wholly marvellous thing, that reading could make her so oblivious to the concerns around her, and could make time pass so well when it needed passing.

The more she thought on it, the more she became convinced that the Free Fair was an important enough affair that the Master of Buckland would attend it and, therefore, so would his son. He would be very pleased with her progress, she decided. She could understand what was happening more easily and envision the Travellers’ adventures as they happened, and she did not need to concentrate quite as hard as she read.

And if reading made time pass by quickly, Kira must have read a lot, for before she knew it tents were being set up around town and outside of it, to the point that she could see them and all the other preparations for merriment from her window. Thanks to her mother’s care and the book, she had completely recovered from the ordeal at the Lockholes—why, she had hardly felt a thing getting her stitches out two weeks prior. And the arrangements for reading outside seemed to work fine, though at times Kira was tempted to “rest” longer than was strictly needed. If her friends did not like that she was reading around them, they gave no sign of it.

In the meantime the Proudfoots had preparations to make. The Free Fair was one of the best opportunities Mother had, with so many hobbits attending and so much food required to feed them all. And there would be many from farther away that might not have as big a market as Michel Delving’s, so in the advancing weeks they made cuttings of herbs and hung them to dry. One day had been spent gathering some of the longer cuttings, weaving them into braids and wreaths, and then tracking them to the kitchen ceiling. One of these bundles would fetch a hefty price at market and could last a family several months. The entire hole was filled with the scent of the outdoors for weeks afterwards.

And as for the fair itself—ah, that was the best part of all! Mother had told her that they could go to the Free Fair every single day if Kira was up to it, which made Tom near ecstatic. And Mother said that she could mind the cart all by herself if she wanted. It was going to be the most exciting fair Kira had ever been to, she decided. Now all she could do was wait.

The Free Fair had turned Michel Delving from a town into a regular metropolis. Tom’s family was making a few extra pennies by renting the land above their home for tents. The entire marketplace had been cleared out for the express purpose of displaying and judging goods, whether handiwork, agriculture, or livestock. The first thing in the morning on Lithe 1, Kira and her mother entered one of their wreaths, as well as a few fresh samples, to be judged among the other herbs. But their own selling was relegated to the hills just outside town on the western side of the Ash, where most of the other food-sellers had taken up shop.

Kira helped her mother all morning in the busy traffic of the Fair, and after a brief luncheon was given a few farthings for extra food and set off to meet Tom in the Event Field. She had forgotten how many hobbits could be crowded into such small streets as she crossed the river on the West Road Bridge and wended her way north.

When she arrived at the field it was ten minutes before the first event, and Tom was skulking around the betting tables. “No tricks today,” said Kira, “or I’m going straight back to Mother. And that includes betting.”

Tom displayed a copper coin. “What if my brother gave this to me and told me to?”

“Your brother also told you to try smoking, and we both know how that turned out.”

“No, he dared me to. And I have Father’s approval anyway. He’s entered one of his, you know—Aster—and if I were a few years older I’d be riding her. This is my brother’s and he asked me to bet it for him.”

Tom nodded. Then he walked up to the nearest table, explaining that he was entering the coin for his brother, and placed the money on his father’s pony. He was handed a little slip of paper in return. “Say, can you read this?” he said when he returned to where Kira was waiting.

She took the slip from him and peered at it. “All it says is that—hey, you placed two pennies on Aster, not one.”

Tom snatched the slip out of her hand. “So what if I did? It’s my own money, after all.”

“You little—” she spluttered. “Fine, then, I’m going back to Mother.”

“Oh, come, Kira! I can do what I want with my money. And besides, Aster’s a good pony. She should win. What does this say the odds are on her?” He handed the slip back to her.

“Oh, you’re hopeless, Tom. Just don’t expect me to share any of my food with you when you go hungry because your dad finds out what you’re doing.”

“Not even—” Tom faltered as he realised the full import of Kira’s question, but was mercifully saved from committing himself by the emergence of the ponies from the stable half-built, half-dug into the hill across the field. All the hobbits milling about either found a seat in the benches behind them, or pressed closer to the ropes marking off the course. “At least watch the first race with me,” said Tom. “You’ve never seen one before?”

“Pah, they’ve entered a Buckland pony this time,” said Tom as another pony and rider went past.

Kira strained her eyes after the retreating animal, noting that, if there was a Buckland pony at the fair, surely there were also Buckland hobbits. “How can you tell?”

“He looks prettier than all the others—horsier, I should say—and he’s got that smug expression on his face.”

As the ponies were lining up, an officious-looking hobbit ducked under the ropes and made his way to a small platform at the centre of the field. Once there, he stood still and held up a hand until the crowd had quieted to something near a lull. He cleared his throat. “On behalf of all the hobbits of Michel Delving and the White Downs area, and as part of my duty as Mayor of the Shire, I would like to welcome one and all to the one thousand five hundred and fourteenth Free Fair of the Shire and the one hundred and twentieth since the Troubles. This is traditionally the part where I am supposed to say something about the sharing of food, farming, handiwork, tales, friendship, and beer. But with so many familiar faces about, and so many folk eager to get to the first event, I do not think I could say anything that any of you have not already heard.” There was much cheering at this. “Therefore, I shall keep this speech short. Let the Fair begin!” The crowd cheered again as Kira heard the blast of a trumpet and the race began.

Tom was the ultimate race spectator, rooting his brother on as the ponies thundered past. After the fifth turn, however, Kira began to get bored. “How many more times do they have to do this?”

“I don’t know; I’ve lost track,” Tom shouted over the din. The ponies went by again; the one from Buckland was leading.

“I’m going over to the stables to see what other animals they have there. You can meet me there when you’re done.”

By the time Kira had reached the stables the race was over, anyway. It was just as well; apparently only competing animals were stabled there anyway. There was not much to see. However, after five minutes Tom was still nowhere in sight. She decided he must have wanted to watch the next race and wandered around the stable hill.

She was sitting on a rock on the hill’s opposite side and looking at some of the wild clover in bloom when she heard two voices below her. Quickly she pressed herself behind the rock and listened.

“…don’t care if it’s tradition; they’re still Outsiders and they shouldn’t be coming in,” said one of the voices. Kira peered up from the rock to see it was the Mayor, wearing the same waistcoat she had bumped into her first day at market. She did not recognise the hobbit next to him.

“I’m sure you understand that the only reason most Outsiders never enter the Shire is because of the King’s good graces. But we’ve always had dealings with the Dwarves, and the King’s laws don’t apply to them anyhow. Why exactly are you so bent against Outsiders? We have hobbits from Bree come in every Fair.”

“Hobbits are a different story. Of course the Breeland hobbits should come in, provided that they leave their outlandish manners behind while they’re here. But these aren’t hobbits we’re talking about—these are Dwarves. And make no mistake about it, Outsiders are the first sign of trouble.”

“I will remind you, sir, that it was Men that started the Troubles, and none of the other races. I do not see why we should not let Dwarves in, when they have always been peaceable and friendly to us.”

“I don’t even care so much about letting them in,” said the Mayor. “We can’t do much about the comings and goings of Dwarves, nor whom they visit. It’s more the matter that they’re all coming to such a large, hobbit-sanctioned festival that’s been around nearly as long as the Shire has, and using it for their own gain!”

“Well, they’re allowed to set up their tents on our land, and they eat our food for free while at the Fair, and—”

“You know full well that the grocers and meat-stands can charge them for food if they wish. And why, pray tell, if you object to the Dwarves, did you not oppose their coming last Overlithe?”

“I did not know that I would be re-elected. Now that I truly know I have the support of the Shire I can make decisions more confidently.”

“So I suppose we’ll have to rely on our local smiths all the time from now on, if you have your way? What if the Town Hole’s clock breaks down? Who will repair it?”

Before the Mayor could answer, the hobbits turned around the base of the hill, and caught sight of Kira out of the corner of their eye. They both watched her while she made every attempt to appear that she was not, in fact, eavesdropping. She got a good look at both their faces.

“What are you doing here?” said the hobbit that was not the Mayor. Seeing his face, taken together with his accent, made Kira realise that this had to be Kerry’s father, the Master of Buckland. “You should be off playing with your friends. If something happened to you here, no one would notice for a long time.”

Kira mumbled something and crawled back to the rock, where she had left her crutch for fear it would make noise. As she was leaving, she heard the Mayor say, “I’ll talk to the Thain about this.”

“You and your Families always agree about these sorts of things. But being descended from the Travellers doesn’t make…”

When Kira got back to the stables, there was still no sign of Tom. However, since a number of the races were over more of the stalls were filled, both with ponies and those hobbits tending to them. A sudden idea seizing her, Kira walked from stall to stall, seeing if she could find the Buckland pony. She knew that chances of seeing Kerry there were very slim, but maybe someone would know where he was.

Indeed, when she found the stall there was someone there, a girl about Kira’s age, brushing down the pony’s fur. For a few moments Kira stood there, unsure of what to say.

“No, I got bored after the fifth lap, so I left. I thought he would, though.” So Tom had lost his money after all. “Did you bring him all the way over from Buckland?”

“I spent last winter in Buckland, and he taught me to read while I was there. Is he here?”

“No, he’s back home. Dad thought it’d be a good idea for him to try and manage the Hall while we were gone. Are you Kira, then?”

“He told me all about you while you were in Buckland, and he asked me to talk to you if I saw you here. Are you still reading?”

“Yes, I’m reading out of the Red Book at Undertowers. They let me take it home. I got hurt about a month ago, and you wouldn’t believe how much it helped get my mind off things.”

“Oh, it’s positively awful! Boromir just tried to take the Ring from Frodo, and Frodo very nearly revealed himself to the Enemy, and now he’s about to leave for Mordor with nobody to look after him!”

“Not unless someone figures it out before he takes off. I don’t know—I knew I should have brought the book with me.”

“Let’s talk about something else, Kira. I don’t want to give away any of the story.”

“Not all the way through, not by myself. Dad’s read all of it to us, though. He used to say it’s the most important thing for a hobbit to know. But are you here all alone?”

“Oh, no, Mother’s selling herbs right now and she gave me the afternoon free. I was supposed to be with my friend Tom, but he’s gotten caught up on all the races. I told him to meet me here when he was done, but he hasn’t yet.”

“Well, I haven’t seen much of the fair yet—most of today’s been for getting our tents set up and readying the ponies. If you’ll help me finish currying this one, and your friend hasn’t stopped by yet, you could give me a tour.”

“Actually, that’s what Tom was supposed to be doing—I haven’t seen much of the fair either.”

Merina was exceedingly helpful and showed Kira how to brush the pony down, and with two doing the work of one it took very little time to finish tending him. Then they walked around the stables once more in search of Tom, but he was not there. Kira looked across the track and thought she could make out his shape cheering on the next event. Deciding that he was a lost cause for now, she resolved that if he wanted to find her, he should have to go looking.

So Merina and Kira explored the Free Fair together. The marketplace was a regular chaos, with knowledgeable-looking hobbits examining fifty different entries of the same variety of wheat. Kira could not for the life of her tell the difference. Throughout the morning more entries had poured in, and she was surprised to see the number of herb samples that her mother was now competing with. She rubbed a leaf off one of the sprigs of thyme and laid it on her tongue. “Mum’s tastes better,” she muttered.

“Well, I suppose you couldn’t remember—but how do you manage? How does your mother? Do you live with family?”

“No, it’s just us. We’ve always managed—I can’t remember anything otherwise.”

“Hum,” said Merina. She looked at Kira and shrugged. “Let’s look at the livestock they’ve entered,” she said, and walked over to the place that had been roped off to keep all the animals that were being judged. Kira had to struggle to keep up, but it was not far and Merina stopped once she got there.

The two lasses held their noses as they passed the cattle and swine, but they spent extra time around the ponies and horses and Merina tried to guess which ones would win. There were some chicks hatching when they stopped by the small animals, and each girl got to hold an egg as the chick broke free. Kira was sorely tempted to buy one, but she knew she couldn’t keep it, and she would need the money for food anyway.

They found the mushroom pie stand set up not too far from the Oak Barrel, and bought and ate one each. Then it was back to the marketplace to look at the lace, stitching, and quilting displays.

“Ah—here it is!” Merina pointed to a patchwork quilt hanging up in the back. “See, look at the centre square. What colour is it?”

“Grey,” said Kira. “No—it’s green. Green-grey, I suppose—how do they do that?”

“You’d have to go over the Sea to find that out—that’s one of the Lórien cloaks—Sam’s, I think. They put a tiny piece of it in every one of their quilts.”

“A Lórien cloak?” Kira looked over at Merina, but there was no sign of mirth in her face. “That can’t be!” Merina returned her look, and Kira turned her eyes away, though from time to time she still sneaked a look back to see if Merina was joking. She had to be…

They toured the various stands set up on the outskirts of town (all the dry goods had been removed to the storage tunnels) next, and by the time they reached the grocers sections Kira was exhausted. She begged Merina’s leave and decided she would stay at her mother’s stand for the rest of the day.

Alas for her when they arrived, Tom was already there, sitting in Kira’s little stool behind the stand and looking none too pleased. Mother also had a frown on her face. After hastily introducing Merina to her family and friend (neither of whom seemed particularly happy when they heard her last name), Kira said goodbye to her newest acquaintance and prepared to face the imminent storm.

“Kira,” said her mother, “I thought you were going to spend the afternoon with Tom.”

“I was. But then he started betting on ponies, and I got bored, and he said he’d meet me. I was at the stables for at least three quarters of an hour, Tom.”

“I only watched two more. Then I went over and looked for you. That couldn’t have been longer than fifteen minutes.”

Kira thought a moment. “Oh. Well, I was still at the stables—just behind them.”

Mother stepped in. “Children, please stop squabbling a moment. Kira, what exactly were you up to?”

“I was waiting for Tom, but I got bored and decided to have a look around. And then I saw the Mayor and the Master of Brandy Hall come up from behind the hill, talking, and I had to listen. Do they let Dwarves into the Shire over the Fair, Mother?”

Tom started and glared at Kira. Mother ignored Kira’s question. “And after that?”

“Well, when I got back to the front of the stables there were more ponies stabled, and I wanted to see the Buckland one, and I met Merina.”

“And you decided to spend your afternoon in the company of a Brandybuck—and not one of your cousins, mind you—who you’d only met a few minutes before, instead of trying to find Tom and playing with someone you trusted?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Kira, but you still don’t know her that well. You have to be careful around folk that live close to the Bounds.”

“I’m sorry, Mother. I won’t leave Tom behind again. But I can still talk to Merina, can’t I? We are friends—at least, I think we are.”

“Well, you’ve already made her acquaintance, so it’d be rude to cut her now. But do be careful when you’re around her! Now, are you up to helping sell, or did this new friend of yours tire you out too much?”

Tom rose from the stool, and Kira sat down, pulled the heavy tome out of the leather bag, and began to read.

After a few minutes Tom wandered away from the stand, probably in the direction of the Event Field. But his face was troubled, and every few steps he glanced back and Kira, who was lost in the world contained on her lap.

Kira continued reading long enough to learn that Frodo was not going to gallivant off to Mordor alone, and then decided she was rested enough and helped her Mother until the stand closed around five o’clock. They had made more than enough money for a Lithe 1, and market activity was dying down in anticipation of the dancing in the Event Field that night. Mother did not wish to attend, as much because Kira was tired as because she did not want her daughter to cement her friendship with Merina just yet.

Mother had said only one night at the Fair, anyhow, and they had decided that that would be tomorrow, Midyear’s Day, when the Mayor provided a feast for all the hobbits attending. Roly and Daffy had already told her that they were going to be there, so Kira would not lack for company. And hopefully there would be enough lantern light after the late sundown (if Mother permitted her to stay that late) that, should her friends want to dance, or socialise with any of the children they normally did not see, Kira could continue reading. When Kira got home, she and Mother had dinner, and then Kira went straightaway to bed and did not awake until well into the next day’s morning.

“We’ll set up at noon,” said Mother on Midyear’s Day, “so you’ll have enough energy for tonight. That’s when the Burrowses are heading in, anyhow.”

So at noon Kira and her mother walked across the field behind their smial to the Burrowses’ house, and climbed into the crowded cart along with Roly, Daffodil, Mrs. Burrows, and Gammer and Gaffer Burrows (the relations who pinched Roly’s cheeks so).

“You can let Tom do the grand tour this time,” Kira told Daffodil as they rode up the path to town. “I think he’s miffed that he never got the chance to yesterday.” And she explained the events of the day before.

“Another Brandybuck?” said Daffodil when Kira had finished. “What sort of a hobbit are you turning into, Kira?”

“She is a nice person, Daffy. And be careful who you’re talking about—I have Brandybuck cousins, you know.”

As the cart neared town, Kira could see there was evidently some sort of bustle along the western end of Michel Delving. Several hobbit children, most of them younger than Kira, were hurrying towards the West Road, and a few adults as well. Most of the grown-ups, however, were trying to catch their young ones before they were lost in the melee. Mr. Burrows, who was driving the cart, took no notice of the commotion.

Just as they entered town, Kira thought she could hear to her left singing, a sort of singing she had never heard before, coming from voices deeper than a hobbit’s could go. The sounds were rich and rolling, with a steady rhythmic beat to them, but before she could make out any words they were drowned by the hubbub of the Free Fair. “Do you know what that was all about?” she asked Daffodil.

“You don’t know?” Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t have been allowed to the Fair four years ago.”

“Well, every fourth Free Fair they let Dwarves into the Shire for Overlithe. Not that anybody particularly likes them or anything, but they’ll fix anything you’ve got, and even make a few simple things, for any hobbit that asks—for free! Roly still has a metal puzzle of some sort; he gave up on it long ago. Anyhow, I guess the whole thing’s worth the bother of putting them up, and everyone finds them likeable for at least a day. That’ll be them entering and setting up tents, so that they can have all day tomorrow.”

Kira looked back in the direction where the singing had come from, but they were too far ahead to hear anything more, much less see a Dwarf.

“Oh, you’ll have chance enough to see them tomorrow, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” said Daffodil, seeing Kira’s anxious look. “It’s nothing too special, though the last two times Roly and Tom couldn’t wait to get out of the house on Midyear morning. They’re interesting and all, I suppose, with their beards and those great big metal boots of theirs, but they’re a little frightening for my tastes. Are there any Dwarves in your tale?” She thumped the leather bag that was resting on Kira’s lap.

“Only one in this one—or I should say, in this part, since I guess the whole tale is really a continuation of the one I read in Buckland. He’s best friends with an Elf.”

“Well, then, I suppose it’s unlikely he was ever real, if his best friend’s imaginary. Takes out all the fun of having a Dwarf in there at all, doesn’t it?”

During the first few hours of the afternoon there was a good deal more commotion than there had been yesterday, and word came round that the Dwarves were setting up camp east of Michel Delving, instead of north beyond the Town Hole and Event Field as usual. Further word indicated that they were not to share in the night’s feast, but would be dining in their own camp. Kira wondered if this had anything to do with the conversation she had overheard yesterday.

Once the excitement died down, business was usual, and around teatime Mother asked Kira if she thought she could mind the stand. Kira readily agreed, and Mother went off to do some shopping at the fair.

Things were pretty slow, as Mother had probably intended. The first couple of customers were regulars, and all Kira had to do was hand them the herbs and put the bits of coin she received in the moneybox as they remarked how wonderful it was that she was selling on her own and giving her mother a break. Tom only showed up once to bother her, dawdling as if he were going to make a selection but never actually doing anything. Finally Kira had to get all business-like and order him off the premises if he wasn’t going to buy anything.

There were a few people who required advice, as well. Kira knew all the culinary uses of herbs by now, but when one desperate-looking lad asked for something that would relieve his mother’s splitting headache she had to admit she did not know.

About half an hour into her foray at selling, Kira heard a sizeable amount of noise entering the market from the direction of the Road. She leaned her head out and peered around to see what was causing it—a number of Dwarves had entered the market! Instinctively she shrank back, but at the same time she felt compelled to see what exactly these strange creatures looked like. She poked her head out again, trying to get a good look at them while remaining as inconspicuous as possible. Daffodil was right about the great big metal boots (though in truth at least half of them were shod in leather that had been decorated with metal, not metal itself)—no wonder they clanked so much! That, and they all had some sort of armour on, from chain vests to plate mail (which reminded her of nothing so much as a dragon’s hide). One, she even saw, had a small but very dangerous-looking axe tucked into his belt. She shrank back again, but when she could no longer bear her curiosity, looked out once more.

She had heard a lot about beards—they seemed to come up in every story from her youth that did not involve hobbits—but it was still very strange to see hair sprouting from all the Dwarves’ chins. And it was not just a small amount of down, either—they were long, glorious locks that had been plaited at points, and some even had gold or silver beads on them. She dimly remembered from some old tale that a Dwarf’s beard was his glory, and she could see that, in that respect at least, the tale was right. Getting the sudden notion that she was probably staring by now, and was being very impolite, she withdrew as quietly as possible and tried to pretend that this was nothing out of the ordinary.

Alas! Too late, for not less than two minutes later one of them walked right up to her mother’s stand. Suddenly stricken with images of vengeful Dwarves defending their pride, she ducked down behind the stand, hoping that whoever her assailant was, he would leave and leave quickly.

“Pardon me,” said a gruff voice from the other side of the stand. It did not sound as wrathful as she had imagined it would.

Reluctantly Kira got up, prepared to meet her doom. “Yes?” she said, trying her best not to tremble. “May I help you?” she added.

Through the crags of eyebrow she perceived a look from the Dwarf, one almost of disappointment. “As a matter of fact, yes—since this year we are asked to do our own cooking for tonight’s feast, we thought we would at least take advantage of the fine produce your people have to offer.”

“Oh.” Apparently he had not noticed her staring. “All the cooking herbs are up front. Just choose whatever you wish.” She hoped he would not ask her for advice.

There was no need, however, as the Dwarf rubbed off a few leaves of each bunch and laid them to his tongue. Silently he chose two bunches of sage and one of basil.

“Three farthings, please,” said Kira. When the Dwarf did nothing, she repeated her request a little louder. Again she was given that look—this time, definitely of disappointment, as he fished around in a leather pouch for one copper penny and placed it in her hand. She rummaged in the cash box for change, but he shook his head. “Thank you,” she said, and the Dwarf turned to go, herbs in hand.

As he was leaving she remembered something. “Sir?” she called out after him. The Dwarf turned. “I know the Master of Buckland—and a great deal of the Brandybucks, too—really wanted you to come. Maybe if you talked to them they’d cook for you.” The Dwarf gave her a quizzical look, then nodded and continued on his way.

Apart from that there was nothing interesting in the rest of Kira’s sales venture, and Mother returned at the end of the hour. They continued selling until just before sundown, at which point they wheeled the cart back to the storage tunnels, dodging many other exhibits along the way. Then it was off to the Event Field for the Midyear Party.

Kira was quite famished, and was glad to see that the feast was in no danger of disappearing yet. Her friends had already arrived, but were not (especially Roly) about to finish eating anytime soon. The table they were sitting at was already crowded with hobbit children, but Daffodil scooted over so that Kira could have a seat.

Indeed, Tom was quite engrossed with the Hornblower brothers, which was good because he could not bother Kira about yesterday. Unfortunately it also meant he could not hear about today’s little adventure, and he was probably the one that would take the most interest in it. Kira decided not to worry about it and concentrated on the greater matter of Food.

While she was eating Kira scanned the table and the surrounding area for Merina, but there was no sign of her. But the party was large, and surely there were other people from the Eastfarthing, or maybe just other bookish people, that she was with. Ah, well—the Fair still had two more days.

Gradually the table emptied itself of inhabitants as children finished eating and went off to play or dance to the music that was welling from one of the pavilions. Kira was still eating, and so was Roly, and Daffodil stayed behind to accompany them both, but Tom had left.

Kira sighed and decided that now was as good a time as ever. “Did Tom tell either of you that I got to manage the stand by myself today?”

“Well, I was a little scared—and I think I was staring, too—so I thought he had come to chide me for my misbehaviour, or something worse! I’m afraid I offended him or something, though; he gave me a very queer look when I asked him for the money.”

“You did what?” said Daffodil. “Kira, you’re not supposed to ask the Dwarves for payment! That’s what we do in exchange!”

Kira turned bright red. “No wonder,” she said faintly, and wondered how badly she had insulted the Dwarf. Then she felt a little ill as she realised what this had meant. “I’ll have to return it to him, won’t I?”

“Are you mad?” said Roly. “Nobody gets in the way of a Dwarf, especially an angry one!”

“Well, he didn’t seem angry—just… well, disappointed, I suppose. But I don’t want him to stay upset at me.”

“Kira, they’re leaving tomorrow. I hardly see how one Dwarf’s good opinion of you matters.”

Tom had sauntered back to the table, finding whatever pursuits had previously engaged him boring. “What happened?”

“Oh, not much,” said Daffodil. “Kira had a Dwarf come up to the stand while she was managing it all alone, and not knowing any better she asked him for money. Now she thinks she should return it to him.”

“Oh, Dwarves?” said Tom, peering closely at Kira. “They’re nothing special. They won’t be angry with you, though, Kira. Last time they were here I tried aggravating them in every possible way, and got next to nothing in return. They all think we’re incredibly slow, is all. Just keep the money and be glad they didn’t chop your head off. Say, what’s gotten into you lately?”

“Look, Master Adventurous, I don’t see what’s wrong in dealing with a Dwarf that walks up to your stand. And I don’t see what’s wrong in trying to give him back his own money if I wasn’t supposed to ask him for it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have at least three more butter rolls to eat before I’m finished.” She took a bite from one of the rolls. “You’re still upset about Merina, aren’t you? Look, I told Mother I wasn’t going to let that happen again, and I’m sorry it did. But you did stay for more races than you were supposed to.”

“Well, then, I’m sorry for that, too. Just no more of this Dwarf nonsense.”

“I’m sure, Tom,” interposed Daffodil, “that all of the Dwarf nonsense will disappear along with the Dwarves. And if you two will stop fighting for a moment, I’m going off to see if they’ve done the Springle-Ring yet.”

And with that, Daffodil got up and left. Roly, cramming a last bit of chop into his mouth, soon followed. “Are you coming, Kira?” said Tom.

Tom shrugged and hovered over her a little bit, the better to make her finish. When she was done, Kira thanked him for staying, and picked up her crutch and bag as they walked over to the music tent. She began to feel a twinge in her right foot, the first one she had felt all day.

Daffodil was in luck; the Springle-Ring was the next song to be played. It was played faster for children (the better to wear them out, the grown-ups said), but the steps were easier, too; and none of the children’s dances were for couples. So Kira sat in a back corner while her friends joined in the merrymaking, and, for the moment suppressing her thoughts of what had gotten into Tom lately, opened the book again.

Whenever any of her friends got tired they would come to sit by Kira, which would have been rather nice had it not interrupted her reading. When she gasped at Boromir’s death, she heard a gentle “What’s wrong?” from her left, and was shocked to see that she had not noticed Daffodil’s presence beside her.

“I tried, Kira. You were too caught up in that silly book of yours to notice, though. I don’t mind,” she added at Kira’s hasty apology, “though it would be nice if you put it away for a bit.”

By the end it was one of the most miserable parties Kira had been to, and she was quite grateful to have her mother escort her away back home. Torn between her book, which was fast becoming her remedy for all ills, and her friends, who were not being particularly friendly, she went to sleep with a headache and woke up with a heavy heart.

It was still Overlithe, however, and any ill feelings Kira had were easily dispelled by the sunshine and the cool breeze that wafted over the fields. Now she supposed she must have been awfully selfish last night with the book, though it was still not quite fair for Tom to go on like that with her. She wondered what on earth could be the matter with him, but put it aside as yesterday’s troubles. Today, she had decided, she would return the money to the Dwarf, somehow, though she did not yet know just how she would manage it. Mother was so pleased with yesterday that she let Kira mind the stand for two hours instead of one today, and then gave her the entire afternoon off to spend with her friends.

They spent an hour or two just rambling the length of the Fair. It became a sort of contest among them, in the shops and the people going by, to be the first to spot any object that was named. At one point, when they were staring into the Ash River from one of the bridges (Daffodil was throwing in some crumbs from lunch for any fish to find), Roly called out, “Tree!” Tom saw one on a rough sketch on display nearby, Daffodil strained her eyes to try and find one down the river outside town, and Kira was thrown out of the competition for pointing to the logs of the bridge on which they stood.

“All right, then,” said Kira, “if you’re going to be that picky. Sausage.”

Roly’s thought immediately went, as Kira knew it would, to the sausage rolls they had so recently consumed. “But they’re not sausages anymore,” he added, a crestfallen light dawning in his eyes. “I guess that just means we’ll have to get more.”

“Too late,” said Tom, who had been looking about at the food markets for a butcher’s stall, and had found a particularly large specimen. “And that means I get to do two, now, since Kira took my last win from me.”

Kira only bought small things for snack. Mother had given her two whole pennies to last her for the afternoon, but she could only spend one. She had not told her mother about the Dwarf’s visit—she didn’t know whether Mother would have her return the money or not. More likely not, Kira supposed, given that she was not even supposed to associate with Brandybucks, and she didn’t want her mother’s injunction to keep her from doing what was right. So when her friends went to yet another food stand and bought some enormous fried batter cakes, she contented herself with an apple. The coin she had retained was not nearly as nice-looking as the shiny one she had gotten yesterday, but she supposed it would have to do.

“Well,” she said, when they had finished eating, “I’m going to return that money. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome.”

“I’m not abandoning you, Tom, so you can’t complain about that. If you don’t want to help me find him, you don’t have to.”

“If no one else will, I’ll help you find your Dwarf,” said Daffodil. “But I don’t really want to talk to him.”

And so the friends split their ways, the lads roaming the town some more and the lasses making their way up to the Event Field.

What had been a racing track on Lithe 1 and a party field on Midyear’s Day was now a workman’s hall. The ponies that still remained in the stables looked a little discomfited by all the clanging and the smoke that issued from small, portable blacksmith’s furnaces, fuelled by some strange kind of black stone that glowed red in the heat. There were Dwarves everywhere, making and mending. There were also a number of hobbits, more than Kira had expected to be there. In one corner was a Dwarf looking at the back of someone’s old grandfather clock, which was full five feet tall and looked very grand. Another area had a number of hobbit wives standing in line with various utensils and stove kettles that needed repair, and five Dwarves at five furnaces taking each request as it came. Near the front entrance were a number of children working out the strange metal puzzles a Dwarf was churning out with astonishing alacrity, and very far in the back she saw one trying to polish the rust off a hobbit-sword that some poor soul had gotten into his head needed displaying.

“I don’t know,” said Kira. “He had a helmet in his hand that had some gold on it.”

Daffodil glanced around. “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be much help.”

“Well, this one was different. It actually wasn’t that much gold, just three bits of it made to look like string that met in the centre along its rim.”

“You saw him,” said Daffodil. “I just hope you can recognise him beneath that beard.”

The girls entered the field and wandered about in search of the helmet, and of the Dwarf. Finally they found the helmet next to one of the furnaces used to do repair work. Kira looked at the faces of all those working, and was fairly sure that, indeed, her Dwarf was there. There was nothing to do but get in line behind all the hobbits that were waiting. Daffodil bid her good luck, and left to find out what the lads were up to now.

When Kira got to the front of the line the Dwarf was still busy, so she stood aside and let the person after her take the next spot. It was another five minutes till he was available, and then it was time. Ignoring the panic which so often grips the heart when there’s no turning back, Kira clenched the penny in her fist and walked up to him.

The Dwarf recognised her, she could tell that much, by the look of “Oh, it’s you again” that greeted her. She swallowed and uttered the apology she had prepared. “I am very sorry for how I acted towards you yesterday, sir. I didn’t know that we weren’t supposed to ask you to pay for the food, and if you please, you can take the money back.” She held out the hand with the money in it, and opened it. “I’m afraid the coin isn’t as nice as the one you gave me,” she added.

The Dwarf picked up the coin, smelled it, bit it, and then oddly enough, broke into a smile. “Thank you,” he said.

“No, no. You didn’t know, and I can excuse you for that. Though if you were not a child, nor a hobbit, it could well have forged a grudge sturdy enough for generations. You may keep the coin, if you wish,” he said, placing it back on her palm.

The Dwarf took the penny. “Thank you, then. You are more considerate than many of your folk, and some of mine. Though if you do not mind the indiscretion I would like to ask you why you hid when I first approached your stand.”

Kira flushed and wondered if it would be a good idea to leave soon. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen Dwarves, and I’m afraid I was staring when you and your people came into the market. I… I thought you had come to punish me or something.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “we are quite used to stares. A pity, that we are such a novelty in your land.” He turned to the forge.

“Yes…” said Kira, not sure if she should wait to speak until he was facing her again. “I am sorry about that. The Mayor didn’t want you to come at all this year. I don’t think he likes novelties very much.”

The Dwarf chuckled as he began pumping at the bellows. “Most hobbits don’t.”

Kira thought about this for a little while, and decided he was right. “Though I will say to you, sir, you’re a lot kinder than I expected. You see, up till now I’ve only had stories people told me, or the things I’ve read. Though, come to think of it, the things I’ve read haven’t said any of you were particularly mean, either. Just terribly stubborn at times. Say, why exactly do you do this, anyway?”

“Oh, we pass through your land more often than that—it lies between the Misty Mountains and the Blue, and we work in both of those. We just don’t take the main roads.”

“Sometimes. There are still a few inns—and a few households—that are hospitable to us. The Brandybucks, for instance—they did cook for us, by the way, and without anyone’s asking.”

“You said you could read, did you not? You can find all your answers there.” He had gotten out a very small hammer and was working on something. “Many of the people in our company fought in the War alongside Dáin and Brand at Erebor, and we will not forget for a long time. I myself was born afterwards, but I have spent many years at Aglarond, which Lord Gimli would not have discovered had he not been part of the Company. All of Middle-earth is in a great debt to your people, though. We are happy to repay it, or at least to express our gratitude, in any way that we can.”

“I don’t think I quite follow you there, sir,” said Kira, “but thank you for it anyhow.”

He laid down the hammer, took up a pair of tongs, and plunged his workmanship into a bucket of water. He then picked up a very fine chisel. “And who exactly are you, Miss?”

“Fírin son of Fólin at yours.” He bent over the bit of craftsmanship for a few minutes with the chisel, working in silence. Then he set it in the bucket again to cool, and wiped the sweat from his brow with a rag hanging at the side of the furnace. Finally he picked up the tongs again, selected another, cleaner-looking cloth, and rubbed it round and round. “Hold out your hand,” he said, and dropped the object into it.

It was a ring, or at least a small, circular, ring-sized band of metal, with strange letters etched into it not unlike the ones she had seen on Kerry’s horn. “What does it say?” she said.

“‘Kira Proudfoot, Dwarf-Friend.’ And do make sure you keep it out of moisture, or it’ll turn green like so many of the other pennies you have.” And Kira realised that this was the self-same coin she had given him.

“Thank you very much, sir, though I wouldn’t consider myself a Dwarf-Friend. Maybe a Dwarf-Acquaintance, but no more. Almost everyone I know would have fits if they thought I was friends with a Dwarf.”

“But you have shown me unexpected kindness, and I would consider you my friend. And ‘Dwarf-Acquaintance’ would not have fit on the space that I had.”

“Thank you for that, then, too, Fírin. It was very nice to meet you, and I shall keep my gift somewhere where I can see it every day and be reminded of you. And I’m very sorry that I was ever scared of you.”

“You are quite forgiven, Miss Proudfoot. May the hair never fall out of your toes!”

Kira blushed at the compliment. “And… may your beard always get longer, or something to that effect, sir!” And with that, clutching the ring in her hand, she took her leave of Fírin, and wondered what Tom would have to say about the matter.

Indeed Tom would have said a lot about it, had he found out just then, or had he seen her all that day. But it was not to be, for Mother found her first. Hobbit children in the Event Field were a regularity; hobbit children in the Event Field not doing errands for their parents slightly unusual; but hobbit children in the Event Field not doing errands for their parents but nonetheless consorting with Dwarves, even talking with them, was bizarre. And when a particular hobbit child was seen talking with a Dwarf for an extended period of time, and that child was easily recognised because she carried a crutch with her, and was seen not to be a Took, nor a Brandybuck, but a regular old sensible Proudfoot right from the area; tongues began to wag.

And so it was that Mother caught Kira, who was still quite unaware that she had done anything wrong. “Kira,” Mother said, “I have just received word from Mrs. Diggle that you were seen talking with one of the Dwarves. Is this true?”

“I didn’t leave my friends, if that’s what you mean. I told them where I was going, and they all left me.”

“And why didn’t you listen to them? Why were you even there in the first place?”

“One of the Dwarves stopped at the stand yesterday, while you were gone, and I asked him to pay for the herbs he bought, not knowing I wasn’t supposed to. And I didn’t want to take any of our money out of the box, so I just used a spare coin from lunch, because it wasn’t right to ask him for money and I wanted to make amends. I honestly didn’t mean to talk with him, though, Mum. Not for that long.”

“You should have told me about the money, Kira. I would have set it right. You must always tell me these things, love—no secrets! Are there any other secrets you’ve been keeping from me?”

Kira handed her the ring. “He made this for me from the coin I gave him. Daffy said that Dwarves usually give presents at the Fair. Mother, I promise—”

Mother shook her head. “No more promises unless you can keep them, Kira. Brandybucks are one thing, but Dwarves are quite dangerous, and you shouldn’t be associating with them. I’m not talking about the stand; you couldn’t help that, but you should have told me what happened at once. I think we should go home, Kira.”

They walked home in silence. Mother placed the book and bag in their storeroom along with the herb cart, and Kira was too despondent to protest. When they reached home, they settled down to a quiet dinner, and Kira spent a quiet evening in her room. The minutes seemed to ebb by, slower than they had ever passed before the book; until she was desperate for sleep just so that time would pass by. But sleep was late in coming, and waking was even worse, for Mother informed her that they were staying home on the last day of the Fair, as much to punish as to prevent. And Kira watched the day creep by, and did her chores, and much more besides, anything to escape from the inactivity, and to keep her pestering thoughts away from her. A month ago she would have wondered at Fírin’s words to her about the debt owed her people. Now all she could wonder was, What went wrong?

For the next few weeks Kira felt as if her heart were frozen in stone, though in body she was more active than she had ever been. Trying to rescue the book was courting disaster: someone would find out, and then her behaviour would be considered dangerous, the book would be returned to Undertowers, and everything would be over. No, something had gone terribly wrong, and any attempts Kira could make to fix it would make it even worse. So all she could do now was the one thing she was worst at doing: wait. At night, if she could not fall asleep yet, she distracted herself from thinking about the book by imagining herself a cat, lying in wait until the right moment to strike, but she knew in reality she was helpless to do anything. Besides, that line of thought had to be wrong, for it made Mother her chief enemy, and that certainly was false. And all this for a book?

At any rate, waiting tried her hardly, even more so because Kira did not know when (or if, though she tried not to think of that) the waiting would be over. So she threw herself into everything she did, and more. There was washing to be done, weeding, baking, eating, cleaning; and when Mother did not have any chores left for her there was always playing with her friends. She shortened her playing breaks down until they were little more than catching breath, so that she was too tired to look at the green fields and flowers around her, much less think. Outwardly her friends were delighted, especially Tom; but if she had known it Daffodil was not a little concerned. And at night she became so exhausted that there was no chance to lie in bed awake, but rather she fell asleep almost instantly and woke up with the sun in her window so that she could get up for another day’s work and play. It went on and on, and during one of the few moments when Thought crept in she realized that even if she were never able to read again it would not matter, because if she kept this up she would never have the time to miss the Red Book and its story. When on the sixteenth of July her mother took her to market once more, she caught sight of it sitting in the storeroom, and it occurred to her that Mother’s anger was waning if she was allowed to go to market again. But then the door to the room closed and she was refilling the herbs for sale and engrossing herself in conversation, and she did not dare to hope.

That day as they rode home from market with the Burrowses, Mother reached out and brushed Kira’s cheek with the back of her hand. “You look pale, love,” she said.

“I would tell you if I wasn’t, Mum. My foot’s been bothering me a little, but other than that it’s nothing. You did say ‘no secrets.’”

“I did,” said Kira’s mother, and she settled into silence as the cart bumped over the dirt road. “But you’ve been very active, Kira,” she added after a few minutes.

Kira said nothing in response to this, so Mother continued. “And I suppose that that’s a good sign, only you’re not resting as much as you used to and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Do I?” There was a hint of bitterness in her tone, but it was washed over with all the weariness that had built on her since the Lithedays.

“I don’t know—you used to be perfectly content with nothing, though I wondered how you could be.”

“Oh, nothing by itself, I suppose. Only I met Fírin because I was thinking, and I met Merina because I was thinking, and I reckon I even met Kerry because I was thinking. And if those aren’t right or safe, how can thinking be?”

Mother was silent for a few moments. “You can still talk, though, with me or with Daffodil or your other friends.”

“But you’re always working and they’re always playing. I’m the only one that has to rest.”

“Well, Dr. Grimwig will be visiting in a week or so, and we shall see what he thinks of all of this.”

Would he let me get the book back? The thought flitted through her mind before she silenced it.

The next week blended so much into the cycle of work, play, and sleep that Kira did not know whether it flew by or was interminably long. She was startled when Mother told her that today was the doctor’s visit either way, and even more startled when Mother told her that she had let her sleep in, and that Kira had done so despite the sudden brightness streaming in through the window. It was now eleven o’clock, and today the doctor was coming at noon.

Hastily she dressed herself and satisfied her growling stomach, hoping that she would look well for the visit.

She did not. The first thing Dr. Grimwig noted as he entered the smial was that Kira looked very pale, very tired, and almost ill. She and her mother hastily informed him that she had not caught anything, but Mother whispered something in his ear as Kira sat down at the kitchen table for her examination.

He started with the customary foot check, making notes on his pad as usual. It did not hurt as much, except for the ball of her foot which throbbed quite horribly, but the doctor thought this was due to numbness rather than recovery. It was not satisfactory.

“That’s very strange,” he said. “You were doing quite well when I removed your stitches.”

“Maybe you just found me at an ill moment,” said Kira. “I was well enough to go to the Fair, after all.”

The doctor just shook his head. “And have your activities since then changed?”

“I’ve been doing a lot more, if that’s what you mean. I think I’m finally becoming an active hobbit, Doctor—or if not active, at least normal.”

“We shall see about that. I’ll have a listen to your heart, now.” He got out the strange miniature column and held it to her chest and listened. “Rosemary?” he said.

“Yes, Mum,” said Kira as her mother left the room with the doctor. His face was grey.

Mother’s expression was also quite solemn when they came back a short while later. “Well, Kira,” she said, “Dr. Grimwig has just explained to me that while you are not ill at the moment, you could be close to getting ill—seriously ill—and that he has arrived none too soon to learn this.”

“I’ve suggested to your mother that you stay abed for the next week or so,” added the doctor. “You’ve been exerting yourself far too much, no matter what you may think of it.”

At this ‘suggestion,’ which she knew Mother would take, Kira sagged over in her chair.

“I don’t understand why it’s so difficult, Kira,” said Mother. “After all, you’ve had to stay put during the winter for most of your life. You do need rest, love, even if you don’t think so.”

And suddenly the folly of Kira’s plan crashed about her. She could crowd out all thoughts of reading during the summer and fall, but come winter she would be rendered inactive and idle, left helpless for the Tale of the Ring to prey on her mind. And if she did not think she could bear one week of nothing to do, how could she possibly manage three months or longer? Her head sank into her hands, and she realized that she was weary, weary beyond reason.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up to see Mother’s eyes looking into hers.

A shadow passed over Mother’s eyes. “Kira, it’s not good for your mind.”

“I know,” said Kira, “because it makes me think. But I can’t do anything unsafe while I’m in bed, can I?”

“No, I suppose not. I could always put your book back when you’re well again.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you see, Mum? It’s the book that keeps me well!”

“Kira thinks that she wouldn’t have gotten in these straits if she had had her book with her.”

“No.” Mother looked at her hand resting in her lap. “She was spending time with a Brandybuck—one of the Master’s children, mind you—at the Free Fair. And later, with one of the Dwarves that had come to the Fair. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, any bad ideas to come to her head. In the old days it used to be queer; now it’s downright dangerous. And I guessed that it all came from her reading.”

“It probably did,” said the doctor. Kira was not entirely sure how much she liked him discussing her behaviour as if it were a rare malady. “But if Kira is right that reading is beneficial to her health—as I would conclude from May’s visit as well as this one—I think that any danger stemming from her reading is far smaller than the danger she is in if she keeps this level of activity up. Reading, as I have said before, keeps the body in a state of rest without boring the mind. If rest is necessary for Kira’s continued health, as we know it is, then she should be allowed to rest in a way that does not aggravate her. And besides, Mrs. Proudfoot, Brandybucks are few and bare between in the Westfarthing, and Dwarves even more so. I believe they are the least of your worries.”

“Very well,” said Mother. “I certainly would not wish to gainsay a doctor’s advice. I will not keep you from reading again, Kira, unless it truly is dangerous to your health. Next time I am in town I will retrieve your book.”

Kira got up and immediately cast her arms about her mother. “Thank you so much, Mum,” she said, “and thank you, too, Doctor.” Turning back to Mother, she added, “And I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want me to reading it—I honestly mean that.”

Dr. Grimwig stayed for luncheon after he had made all the necessary notes on his pad. Kira Proudfoot was certainly an interesting case, even more so now that it seemed she could not rest properly unless she had a book beside her. He hoped she could grow out of it: while Kira, with her several illnesses, was in a delicate situation, he knew from experience that it was perilous to let one’s well-being be dependent on one thing only.

Daffodil reported back to the old oak by the canal. “She’s stuck in bed all this week,” she told her brother and Tom. “Her mother said we could all see her in a few days if we wanted, but right now she wants it nice and quiet.”

“What’s wrong with her?” said Tom. “She seemed well enough two days ago.”

Daffodil sighed. “She looked very tired to me, even if she didn’t want to show it. I don’t know why she didn’t, but I for one was getting worried.”

“Well, she wasn’t particularly ill. Tired’s one thing and ill’s another.”

“I don’t know,” said Roly. “After harvest I know all I want to do is sleep for a week, even though I’m not sick.”

“Well, from what I gathered, Kira was tired to the point of being sick. Her mother said it could have been very bad for her a few days from now. So whatever part she figures in your next plot will have to wait, Tom. She can’t help being bedbound.”

“No,” Tom said. “I’m just remembering how horribly wrong everything went last time.”

Daffodil and Roly exchanged a glance. At the very least, thought Daffodil, this was something that needed to be reported to Kira as soon as possible. Why, Tom giving up on a plan was tantamount to seeing a tree walk!

“Really?” Kira said when she heard this exclamation two days later. Only yesterday she had learned that according to the Red Book, not only could trees walk, but in Fangorn Forest they did so on a daily basis. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” said Daffodil. “He said something about ‘last time.’ Come to think of it, when was the last time Tom had a grand scheme?”

“He did bet at the Fair,” replied Kira. “But that was more stupidity than scheme. I suppose you’d have to go as far back as… Oh…”

“He did seem rather put out after the whole thing happened. I think he had a talk with my mum afterwards.”

“If he does,” added Kira. “I think that was a fearful night for all of us, Tom included.”

Daffodil snorted. “Tom scared. I never thought I’d see the day.” And they moved on to lighter talk.

The end of the week’s time saw Kira outside again, reunited with her book. She ignored the rude stares coming from the lads, and tried to avoid Daffodil’s gaze. She also informed them all that apparently it was very important to her mother that she get breaks from play, even if she herself knew she could put up with them (Kira was in fact in a great deal of doubt over this, but there was no use getting into an argument with Tom at this point). “I trust,” she added, “that it’s still all right that I read during those breaks.”

There was some general shuffling of feet at this, but no one raised an objection. “Just don’t read all the time,” said Tom.

That was fair enough, but Kira knew that eventually there would be some sort of talk about the matter. The Dwarf nonsense had not gone over well with any of her friends, and they all had related it to the book. It was just read, and read, and hope that they said nothing about the reading today.

Eventually they did say something about it, and of course it was Tom who broached the subject. “I can’t tell you’re making any progress in that book,” he said during one of the few moments all four of them were tired.

Kira marked her place with a blade of grass and put the book back in its bag. “I’m not going to read the whole thing,” she said. “The story I’m reading stops about a quarter of the way through. I wonder that they didn’t just keep the four parts separate; it certainly means a lot less to carry.”

Roly tried lifting it. “You carry that everywhere?” he said after a few seconds’ effort and a tentative success.

“That,” said Kira, “depends on how much I read. But I don’t see myself stopping forever, if that’s what you mean. It’s helpful for my rest, especially over the winter when I have nothing to do. And it’s not like this is the only book in the Shire.”

“But what is it you’re reading, Kira?” said Daffodil. “It’s as if you’re in your own little world at times, and sometimes we’d like to know what’s happening in it.”

Kira swallowed. If she said something too strange, it would all be over. “You already know what it is, Daffy,” she said, finally. “Travellers’ Tales.”

“Tales, Tom. I’m very nearly sixteen, so I should think I could recognise them as such. They’re entertaining, and they pass the time, and…”

“They seem to be healthy for me. If you’d like to know more than that, I suppose you can learn to read them yourself. Could we do something else, now?”

“You’re it!” cried Tom, without any further encouragement, and slapped Kira on the knee.

Kira sighed and pushed the book-in-bag as far as she could from the soon-to-be site of various ferocities, got up, and ran after Roly before he could get any more momentum.

The month of August was one of dual marvels for Kira. She had lost the book once, and was determined not to lose it again, or at least not before she had a chance to learn of its wonders. And wonders they were, that seized her heart with an icy cold hand and filled her mind during the night hours, which she was once again able to enjoy. She remembered the pull she had felt when she first received this book from Sandra Fairbairn, and it took every atom in her being to resist it. Elves and Dwarves and Ents and Wizards and Men, and in the centre of it all four Hobbits stranded in the sea of Outside, separated from one another and trying to find the courage to go on. The Shire may have been left far behind, but it was still in their hearts—she could feel that, even if they rarely said anything about it themselves.

Yet there were other wonders, which pulled her in the opposite direction, back towards her beloved home. She could not remember having so much fun with her friends, as if they had all chosen her favourite games or made up newer and better ones, day after day, week after week. And she had her sixteenth birthday to celebrate, too, a small affair with gifts only for Mother and her friends, but joyous nonetheless. She also restarted her chores, though Mother was very careful not to overtax her again. This left her more time to her friends, to her book, and to herself. And this, perhaps, was the greatest pull of all—walking through the fields of browning wheat and listening to its whisper, seeing the wisteria and goldenrod flower along the pathways, and gazing upwards at a sky as blue as fine dyed cloth, embroidered here and there with wisps of wool. At times like these, she could believe that the entire Shire was made for her enjoyment, and that it was putting forth its last efforts of beauty and growth just for her before autumn descended again. She felt that her heart would burst with joy if everything kept up like this. Perhaps she knew that it would not, in the deeps of her heart. Or perhaps it was hindsight, far on into the future, that made her memories of those days so poignant and perfected.

For it did not last, at least not for long. As September approached and the last of the summer flowers began to fade she felt the old pain in her foot returning again. It had been there during her week of recovery, but she had not noticed it in her reading. After being up and about for several more weeks, though, after trying to maintain a decent level of activity and get opportune rest, it came back. It was becoming harder and harder for her to take breaks, but harder still to end them. “Just play a little longer,” said her friends, and how could she not comply? She had managed to go with little to no rest before, and now that they had seen that they were bolder in their requests. But the book—ah, the book—it called her too; and if she could go for long periods without rest, then she felt she should rest long periods as well. Yet even those periods were not long enough for Kira, and so in the dwindling light of evening, when she was supposed to be abed, she would bring forth the book again and read until the light failed.

And so the twinges began, and Kira felt her earlier joy pressing in on her. For she could do both, play and rest, and since she could, she had to. The pain was only slight at first, but it grew. It was not like when she was stuck in bed, for then she could read (and get further in the book!) and at least not think about it; but it was not like when she had no book, for then she could play until the foot grew numb. She found herself wishing she were either sick or well, and not this crippled tension in between. Then she could do one or the other, and not be pulled in two directions at once.

Finally in mid-September Kira got some respite. The fall harvest was at its peak, and with all the pollen and dust of the dry weather Kira caught slightly ill. It was only a runny nose and sneezes, but her mother insisted that she stay in bed for a day.

Kira was reading in bed, then, when she had a visitor. It took several knocks before she realized that someone was there, and several more before she could find a good stopping point. After she said, “Come in,” the door opened to reveal Daffodil.

“That’s good. I was afraid you had decided to abandon us for good and read all day.” She caught sight of the Red Book lying beside Kira’s pillow. “When are you going to be done with that silly thing?”

Kira blinked; it was taking her some time to adjust back to reality. “Silly?”

Daffodil smiled. “Oh, don’t you be giving me any of that ‘this-is-the-most-valuable-thing-in-the-Shire’ nonsense. That thing’s a waste of time and you know it.” She jabbed Kira on the rib.

“Well, if I’m reading just the first volume, I’ll be done very soon. I don’t know if I want to keep reading this yet: I should like to see what all those elvish legends are about.”

“Elvish legends?” Daffodil laughed long. “What on earth has gotten into your head?”

“A lot, I’m afraid,” said Kira, though she was smiling, too. “Stories of wars fought Outside and of two hobbits struggling to get into the darkest land in all of Middle-earth.”

“Travellers’ Tales,” Daffodil said with a snort. “And I suppose you believe in them, too?”

Daffodil looked a little dubious until Kira smacked her on the shoulder. “Have it your way,” she said. “But still, there is something different to you, Kira. Tom was right; something has gotten into you. You don’t just want to play with us anymore; you want to read, too, and you expect that we’ll be perfectly content while you swan off with that book of yours. And even when you’re just resting, you’ve started doing such foolish things—gazing up at the clouds or just sitting there, doing nothing but thinking. I really do think you’ve entered your own world at times.”

Kira decided to sit up in bed; this talk could take some time. “I’d have tried and told you about it all before, Daffy, but the lads were there, and I’m sure they wouldn’t understand. But you know I have to rest for my health, at least for Mum’s sake.”

Daffodil thought about this and nodded. “You did look quite peaked after the Fair. I was afraid something would happen to you.”

Daffodil laughed again, shaking her head. “No, Kira, you enjoy reading far too much for it to be just medicine. I haven’t the foggiest idea why you consider it so appealing.”

Kira took a deep breath. “Well, you see… There’s this Ring. A magic ring. Only, it’s evil and it has to be destroyed, but the longer you have it the more you want it for yourself.”

“Look, it hardly matters. This one belongs to the Enemy, but he lost it long ago, and so Frodo Baggins—he’s the hero of the tale—has to take it to the Fiery Mountain and destroy it. But the Enemy’s trying to get it, and he’s making war on all these kingdoms of Men, and there’s this Strider fellow who’s trying to be King, and they’re all trying to fight the Enemy and help Frodo at the very same time, and—I’m not making much sense, am I?”

“Oh, well—you’ve already heard about Frodo, and Sam’s with him, of course. And Merry helped kill this great big scary creature, a Black Rider, and Pippin—well, I haven’t read about him lately but he came back to the Shire alive so I’m sure he’s all right.”

“Of course I am! If you’re writing a story about something that happened long ago you have to make it fit with the way things are now! Otherwise there’s no point to it!”

For a few moments Kira was silent in sad thought. “I didn’t think you would,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Look, it really doesn’t matter. I just wish I could have the old Kira back.”

Daffodil looked long at Kira before answering. “No, I guess not. But you’ve been acting so selfish lately, wrapped up in that thing and all. You have no idea how hard it’s been to keep you entertained!”

Daffodil coloured at the ears. “You know Tom doesn’t like it when you read. And when Tom doesn’t like something, neither does Roly. Anyhow, I suppose he decided around the beginning of August that he—that all of us—would show you how much fun everything else is. And it’s not been working.”

“So Tom decided you should come and have a talk with me? Daffodil, I can’t believe this!”

“No, I came here on my own. I may have had fun with all the playing, but I don’t have a problem with you reading—or I didn’t, at least.”

Kira just shook her head. “So the only reason we were playing all my favourite games was so I would stop reading? And now you want me to stop, too? You don’t even know what you’d be putting me through! How dare you!”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be a cripple, to have to deal with pain every day, with no rest. You’ve never been woken up in the middle of the night by a bad foot, and had to wait an hour before you can go to sleep because it hurts so much. Most of the time I can pretend it isn’t there, but I can’t forget it. Except when I’m reading, I can, because it takes my mind somewhere else, somewhere wonderful. I can travel, Daffy, to far off places—to Rivendell, or Lórien, or even the Black Lands, where everyone is caught up in something far more important than one girl’s pain. I can lose myself in that, Daffy, and everything else just melts away. And then when I come back to the boring old Shire, where a foot and a heart actually mean something, I can truly understand it, and be grateful. But you can’t understand it, Daffodil, and I suppose I shouldn’t expect it to you. Because as kind and excellent a hobbit you are, my dear, you aren’t lame. And you can’t read.”

For a minute nothing could be heard but Kira’s breathing, which came heavy after such an outburst.

“Only on the off days, really. And I said I could ignore it most of the time.”

“Oh, Kira, I’m so sorry. I never knew it hurt that much, or I wouldn’t have said anything at all. To have to deal with that, day after day…” A few tears slipped from her eyes.

“Well, you can’t do anything about it, except feel sorry for me. But you do understand why I have to read, don’t you?”

Daffodil dried her eyes. “I think so. Still, I wouldn’t read as much if I were you. Roly’s starting to get upset in his own right, and Tom’s going to switch his tack as soon as he’s run this one dry. He thinks you need to learn a lesson, and—well, you know how he plans things…”

“Well, with those two lads I can’t promise anything, but I’ll let you know how it goes. Goodbye.”

When Daffodil left the room, Kira sneezed twice into her pillow, then picked up the book and continued where she had left off. “Now at last they turned their faces to the Mountain and set out, thinking no more of concealment, bending their weariness and failing wills only to the one task of going on…”

In a little under two weeks Kira finished the first volume. It took longer than she wished, because she was trying to follow Daffodil’s advice and so stinted herself. She stopped taking the book outdoors with her and just read at home, hoping thus to appease Tom. Indeed, he and the others did look cheerier when after the hay fever had cleared up she went outside burdened only with her crutch, and Kira had a pleasanter day than she had expected.

But two days later she caught Tom throwing clumps of grass at her window because she was staying in bed all morning.

Kira decided the best course of action was to finish the book first and deal with Tom later. That way she would have nothing else on her mind and could be a little more coherent when she spoke to him.

And so Kira finished the Tale of the Ring, early on a Monday morning on the cusp of autumn. For a full quarter of an hour afterwards she sat there, in her shift, letting the events sink in. Just as Sandra said, the handwriting had changed, and the Ring-bearer had departed this land. No wonder she had hardly heard of poor old Frodo before! For some strange reason, her throat clenched at the thought. But before she could reflect any more on the matter, her mother called her to breakfast.

It was a market day, of course, and so that meant plenty of freedom with her friends. It also meant she would have to talk to Tom soon, and she needed to figure out a way to get the book back to Sandra. Maybe that would stop all this madness. But when Kira and her mother readied for town she found herself packing the book in its bag to take it with her. Realising what she was doing, she decided that one day in town would do no harm. She could not quit the book just yet.

All morning Kira kept an eye out for her friends while she assisted her mother at the stand, but she could not find them. Finally, when Mother said she could go free at noon, she decided to set off without them and see if she could find them about town. Kira rambled through all of the main market, but there was no sign of them. Finally she crossed the Ash on the nearest bridge and decided to check in the other corners of town. Of course she could not help it if she lingered by the dry goods sections. She risked one prolonged glance at the interior of the fabric shop, feeling far too low to enter it. She was planning on doing the same with the stationery shop, but as she looked in she saw, through a second, smaller window on the other side of the door an empty table with a sign hanging over it, saying “Reading Room.” Now Kira’s curiosity was piqued. And she had a book with her at the market, she why couldn’t she enter the shop? She ran, as best as she could, back to her mother’s stand to pick up the bag, then back to the shop and entered it.

A small bell over the door tinkled as she opened it. There was no one in the dimly lit shop except for herself and an elderly hobbit rummaging around in the back behind a counter. She glanced at him to see if he had noticed her entry; when she saw no reaction, Kira walked over, as softly as she could manage, to the nook in the front of the shop where she had seen the sign.

Here, at least, there was light from the window. She set her bag on the table and slid the book out, before thinking better of reading and deciding to have a look around first. Next to the table was a shelf with a few scattered books on it, as well as a placard that read, “Do Not Remove From Store.” Intrigued, she picked up a short, dog-eared volume and opened it to the title page. Herblore of the Shire, as compiled by Meriadoc Brandybuck, it read. She flipped through it, little surprised to see the large number of pages spent on the history and usage of pipeweed. She wondered if any of the pages might have useful information for Mother. There was also a book dedicated solely to genealogies, with a very strange colour system to help track each individual’s ties to different families. Kira had to put that one back quickly; one minute spent perusing the Proudfoot line would turn into an hour without her noticing.

So Kira spent some time perusing the shelves that lined the rest of the store. Oh, it was marvellous; she had never known that so many things were necessary or useful for writing! There was so much paper, paper for writing letters, paper for drawing, paper for laying out plans. One corner of the store had trays filled with pens, both wooden and quill. Her fingers itched to try the feel of one in her hand, and she briefly wondered how much practice it would take to learn writing. But one glance at the prices for paper and ink dashed any fancies Kira may have developed in that short time.

Again she looked and wondered at the stand containing the wide variety of inks for sale. Most expensive was the gold ink, which she reached out to touch. Was that real gold in there? And how did they turn it into ink?

She turned around and saw the storeowner not two feet behind her. “No,” she said, “I’m just looking, thanks.”

“All right, all right. If you need anything, just shout. Normally I’d stay and chat, but today I’m doing an Inventory of the shop.”

Kira did not particularly wish to be bothered while she looked around, so she refrained from asking what exactly an Inventory was and simply thanked the hobbit for his courtesy.

“I’ll be in the back if you need me,” he said. “And don’t break anything.”

Kira turned to the sides of the shop, where she found sealing wax in sticks and pellets. There were also one or two brass spoons for melting it over a flame. And far in the back where the pastes, leathers, and other materials for binding! Was this where people like the Fairbairns went to make books?

Satisfied by her perusal, Kira returned to the book. Now that her mind was off it she could look at what was ahead much better. She flipped to the second of the volumes, written in a hand that was very difficult to read after the script she had grown accustomed to. She turned past the title page to the first of Bilbo’s translations. “Ai-nu-lin-da-le,” she mouthed, tasting the strange word. “The Music of the Ainur. What’s an Ainur, I wonder?” She scanned the first few pages and turned back, quite daunted by the style of writing. Surely this wasn’t written by the same fellow that had penned lines about elves tugging on the beards of dwarves? Perplexed, she flipped back to the more familiar writing. That settled it; she was returning the book to Westmarch the next chance she got, by post if necessary, and she would inform Tom of her decision once she saw him.

She glanced back at the page she had opened to, and was surprised to see Sam’s handwriting instead of Frodo’s. It returned her to her morning’s reverie instantly. The more she thought about it, the more she was unsure how much of the shakiness in the writing was from inexperience and how much was from emotion. “And you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger and so love their beloved land all the more.”

Kira looked around the empty shop, fully stocked in every item necessary for the exchange of words and knowledge, and she realised that before she learned to read, all she had known about the Third Age was that it was not now. “Why didn’t he?” she said to herself. “Why didn’t he let everyone know? Why did I have to get shut up so far away from home to find out? And why doesn’t anyone else know? Why do I have to give this up to make my friends happy?” And she recalled how desperately Sandra had wanted her to take the book, to learn and understand as she did because no one else her age came to the library anymore. A tear dropped on the page. Kira hastily blotted it up, but the greater part of a letter had smeared. She closed the book and left the store, suppressing waves of guilt.

She wandered through the market, not wanting to see her friends just yet but not wanting to go back to Mother either. What could have happened, that Sam would not fulfil his master’s final request?

Whump! She walked straight into someone’s back as she was crossing one of the bridges. The hapless individual turned around. “Hey, watch where you’re goi—what are you doing here?”

Kira looked around and saw Daffodil and Roly, seated against the bridge’s rails for lunch. “I’ve been looking all over for you! Why didn’t you tell me where you were?”

After a few seconds of introspection, Tom answered her. “I guess I thought you had better things to do,” he said with a conspicuous glance at her book.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tom. I have to eat sometime, and I’d never let a book get in the way of good food. Or good friends.”

“Look, Tom, I’m sorry I can’t spend all my time on your schemes. I’m not built for that. I can’t see why, when I have to rest, I’m not allowed to do something I like.”

In the evening she decided that maybe the elvish legends weren’t such a bad thing after all.

The next day Daffodil came over and gave apology for Tom’s behaviour, but when Kira learned that Tom had not asked her to do so she would not accept it.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t be sorry later,” Daffodil added. “I’m sure he’s just concerned about you reading too much.”

“Kira, you know he’s not going to do that. He’s a lad, as stubborn as they come.”

“And I don’t care if it does. I shan’t be seeing him anymore, if I can help it.”

“You know he won’t listen! Kira, for all our sakes, will you please give this up? You can finish your story first if you want, but after that, return that stupid book and don’t read again till winter.”

Daffodil spluttered as she realised that her next words were rendered utterly useless. “Then… then why haven’t you done anything?”

Kira sighed. “I was going to. I was going to say I was sorry for all my neglect, and tell all of you that I was finished with the story, and that I would return the book as soon as I could, but your precious Tom had to step in. He wasn’t going to listen to me, Daffy—what did he say, ‘what are you doing here,’ as if it weren’t right for me even to sit with you? Why didn’t you come and see me at market?”

Daffodil hung her head. “He thought it would be a good idea. We were going to talk to you in a few days, to see if you missed us.”

“Of course I missed you! I was looking all over town for you! Why do you think that just because I read I don’t care about you anymore?”

“No, I don’t think so. I know when I’m not wanted, so I may as well have something to do on my own. And you can tell Tom I said that, too.”

Kira nodded. “And so the best thing I can do is avoid him before he tries anything more drastic. Daffy, I have no objection to you or Roly, though I do wish you two would stop taking Tom’s side all the time. But I’d rather not see Tom, unless he actually comes to me and intends to understand.”

“Kira, I can’t believe you’re doing this. Don’t you think this will only make Tom more desperate?”

“Actually, I believe he’ll try and avoid me, too. I suppose he thinks he’s the one in need of an apology.”

“Probably. But I’d hate to see what happens when he realizes he won’t be getting one. I don’t think Tom will avoid you anymore, then.”

Perhaps Daffodil was right, but if so, Tom must have been expecting an apology for two months. For the first half of October she dreaded what would happen when Kira and Tom met again, but there was no meeting. Instead she had to divide her time as best she could between the two, which was difficult because Tom tried his best to monopolize her company and Kira tried her best to stay indoors. Finally Daffodil gave up and let them each have their way.

Yet her dread was unfounded; when she, Tom, and Roly ran into Kira at the market both of them were curt in their greetings and their replies. She greatly wanted Kira to stay and talk with all of them, but Kira claimed that she was only running some errands for her mother and could not stay long. Daffodil did not like the tension.

Kira, on the other hand, started the legends Bilbo had translated and found them not quite as boring as she had expected, though they were incredibly dry. She, too, had initially shared Daffodil’s fears, but at last it appeared that Tom wanted trouble no more than she did. But she still did her best to stay away from him, even though this meant remaining inside most of the time. So October melted away into November, and November was melting, and Kira thought that if everything went well, she could read most, if not all, of the tales over the winter. Then, when spring came around, she would try to reconcile herself with Tom, who she hoped would come to terms over the winter with the fact that she was a reader.

The day it happened, Kira got a twinge in her foot—a reminder of winter’s approach. It was now late November, and as soon as the snows came down, she would be stuck inside.

This was all very fine in Kira’s eyes—she wouldn’t have to worry about avoiding Tom and could just read—but she wanted to spend her last days of freedom out of doors. She cut across the field to the Burrowses’, but her friends were not there. Likely they were somewhere with Tom—perhaps at the old oak. Kira went back inside, got her book, came out again, and began to read under a neighbouring tree.

After a while, she grew tired; reading all that dry elvish stuff was fascinating but one could only handle so much at a time. She considered going home for a bite of food and then maybe a nap, but eventually settled on napping right there instead. It was such a lovely day out, after all, and it had been some time since she had last slept outside. She laid the book under her head and dropped into slumber.

Kira was roused with a nudge and a “Wake up, sleepy.” She opened her eyes to see Daffodil bending over her. “Are you ready to get cooped up for the winter already?”

“Don’t remind me,” Kira groaned. “I think my body’s ready for it, much as I’m not. Why’d you wake me up?”

“Roly and Tom are larking off on one of their schemes. I thought I’d see what you were up to.” Daffodil pulled Kira up and handed her her crutch from the ground.

“Not much; I was just spending some time outside before it snows. My foot’s hurting a lot again, so I think it’ll be soon. So, what’s their plan this time?”

“Er… some sort of practical joke, I think.” Daffodil peeked back and led Kira off towards her house. “Tom said he thought you’d object, by the by. First time he’s mentioned you in a while.”

Kira sighed. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with him. I was thinking I should try to talk to him again in the spring. Has he softened up at all?”

Daffodil shook her head. “You should try and talk with him anyway, though. It may just get worse over the winter, and I’d hate to see you shut away on bad terms with him.”

“I highly doubt that’ll ruin my winter. I’m only concerned about it because I miss you and Roly—and maybe Tom, too, but only if he isn’t as nasty as he’s been.”

“Nasty? I wouldn’t go that far. He does care about you, Kira, and he would be talking to you still if it weren’t for that book.”

“The book!” Kira turned around. “I was sleeping on it—I forgot—” She looked at the tree in the meadow. The Red Book was not there. “Where did it go?” Her jaw dropped as she whirled back around to face Daffodil. Her face was white. “So that was the scheme, was it? Steal the most valuable thing in the Shire and see how Kira reacts?”

Daffodil took a step back. “It’s not the most valuable thing in the Shire,” she said, slowly. “It’s just an old book. You should know that sitting around reading isn’t going to get you anywhere, and it certainly isn’t going to help your friendships.”

“Kira, I don’t care what happens to that book. I just want everything to go back to the way it was. If you would just go over to talk to Tom, maybe—”

“You don’t care what happens to it? It’s not just any book, Daffodil. It’s the original. The original Travellers’ Tales, the thing we got all our stories from. The Travellers wrote in it. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“And if the things in there hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here! We wouldn’t even have been born, and who knows what would have happened to those before us! The Shire would be a dead land. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Kira ignored her. “And you led me away from the book that recorded all those things just so Tom could take it and use it for whatever horrid plan he has, didn’t you?”

“They’re… they’re at the oak tree. By the canal. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Kira turned in the direction of the canal and started to run, but after a few steps she stopped and looked back. “I can’t believe that they would—that you would do something like this, Daffodil. I thought you were my friends!”

When she reached the old spot at the canal, she was exhausted, but Kira didn’t care. Daffodil had been right—there was Tom, and there was Roly. And there, in Tom’s hand, was the Book.

“If this is your idea of a joke, Tom,” she said, “it isn’t very funny.”

“Yes,” said Tom, “and abandoning us for rubbish like this isn’t very funny, either.”

“Oh, only the past couple of months. And then the whole summer before that, though maybe I should call that desertion instead.”

“If this is about me avoiding you, Tom, I was only doing that because you were being rude. And besides, you avoided me first.”

“You think this is about me? I could care less about me! Kira, this is about you!”

“Kira, this isn’t—this is dangerous stuff.” He waved the book at her as if it were not the most valuable thing in the Shire. “And I don’t mean, trying-pipeweed-for-the-first-time dangerous! Do you know what happens to people that read? They start getting notions in their heads. And do you know what happens to folk that get notions in their heads? They go off to have adventures, and most of them are never heard of again! You’re hurting yourself and you don’t know it.”

“Tom, I’m not getting any ‘notions’ in my head, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“My foot you aren’t! You want me to believe that the fact that you can read has absolutely nothing to do with you staring off into the sky or consorting with Brandybucks or even Dwarves?”

The dirty look persisted, until Tom saw that Kira was truly distressed. He sighed. “Why do you like reading more than you like us?”

“Wherever did you get that idea, Tom? I like both; I just can’t do everything at once.”

Kira opened her mouth for the customary retort, but found she could not answer his question. “Does it matter if I do or not?”

“Does it matter? If all this stuff”—here he waved the book again—“is just someone’s idea of a great tale, then it’s just queer. If it’s real, then that means there are all sorts of adventures to be had Outside, and so hundreds of stupid hobbits leave the Shire, thinking they’ll return whenever they’ve accomplished their great deeds. But almost no one does.”

Kira felt her temper rising hot within her. “You know what? Maybe all those folk left not to return. Maybe they left to get away from people like you. And you know what else? With the way you’re going on, I wish I could leave myself!”

Kira paused, stunned at what had just come out of her mouth. “Of course,” she added, more quietly, “being what I am, I can’t.”

“And that’s a good thing,” said Tom, also levelling his voice. “If you really do want to leave, you shouldn’t ever get this back.” He hefted the book in the air. “But I’ll be nice to you. I’ll give it to you, if you can convince me that you don’t believe the stuff in here happened.”

“Just look me in the eye, and say you don’t believe it. That’s all you have to do.”

Kira looked at him square in the eyes, but she could not bring herself to say the words. It was so simple—just a short sentence and she could get the book back. Surely there was some part in her that was sensible enough to do that. She had told many people before, even when in the midst of reading, that she didn’t believe it. How hard could it be to say that now?

Finally she sagged over on her stick, her energy sapped, and said faintly, “I can’t.”

Evidently Tom had not expected this response, as it took him half a minute and several facial contortions to say anything. “You can’t? You actually believe in all that—elves and quests and mad things like that? I don’t believe you, Kira.”

Kira took a few deep breaths, forcing strength back into herself, and said, “Yes, I do believe in all that. And if you refuse to look beyond the borders of the Shire, that’s your own problem. But I won’t let you keep others from getting the chance to.” Quickly she rushed at him, knocking him from behind the knees with her crutch, and he fell over. The book flew out of his hands onto the ground. “Don’t let her get it!” yelled Tom. Kira lunged on top of the book, hugging it close to her, swearing never to let it out of her sight again; when Roly brought his full weight upon her right foot.

Kira screamed. Tom, recovering himself, snatched the book from her limp grasp. Kira could do nothing. She lay there on the ground, shuddering, weeping as if there were no hope. “Just give it back to me…”

Roly came over to Kira, fear in his eyes, and he touched her on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t realise it hurt that much! I didn’t know or I shouldn’t have done it…”

Daffodil came running over the rise behind them, hearing Kira’s cry. “What happened?”

Roly’s look confirmed her fears. She ran to Kira and sat her up, putting her arms around her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”

Roly faced Tom, who still had the book in his hands. “Give it back to her, Tom. She’s suffered enough for it already.”

Tom shook his head. “Don’t you see what’s going to happen to her if we give it back? She’s going to read it all winter, and then she’ll be even more distant next year, and the year after that, until we finally lose her. It’s already bad enough for her, with her foot and all, but she wants to leave the Shire. Can you imagine what’d happen to her then? We—you, me, Daffy—the three of us have to look after her.”

“Just give her what she wants, Tom. We’ll worry about next year when it comes, and we can do all the looking-after we want then.”

Daffodil meanwhile had helped Kira to stand again. “Are you sure you can walk?”

Tom hesitated, seeing himself outnumbered. “Fine, then. If it means that much to you, go and get it!” He tossed it up into the tree’s branches. It landed on a branch overhanging the water, and rested there precariously. Then he ran away.

Kira, Daffodil, and Roly stared at the book. Kira looked at each of her friends with a mute plea. Roly sighed and shook his head. “If you expect me to go after that thing, Kira, you’re mad.” He turned and walked away.

“You know I’m afraid of heights, Kira,” she said. “And water. I’d help if I could, but… I’m sorry, Kira. There’s nothing I can do.” And Daffodil left.

For a long time Kira stood there, looking at her unattainable goal. She was too afraid to leave it and go for help, too afraid to go after it, and too afraid to let it sit there, waiting for a stray breeze to sweep it into the water. Who in Michel Delving would be brave enough to face the perils of tree and canal for something as trivial as a book? The Mayor? Perhaps—she knew he could read—but going all the way into town to get him would take precious time, and she didn’t even know if he would care enough to help. No, Kira was alone, and there was only once choice left her. She had to climb.

Kira forced herself to breathe normally and rubbed some dirt into her palms to keep them from slipping with sweat. She moved as close to the river as she safely could, set her crutch down, and leaned against the tree. Slowly she placed one hand on a limb that bent towards her, then the other, and pulled herself up, facing the trunk. The book was several branches to the right of her, almost a quarter of the way around, and a good deal higher up. Don’t look down, she thought. Just don’t look down. She set her left foot on the branch and stood, leaning against the tree’s rough bark. With trembling hands she reached for the next branch. She caught it, and held on strong. Then she rested for a minute, heart hammering so hard she could hear nothing else. Don’t look down. But when the wind fluttered the book’s pages, she knew she had to go on. Kira hauled herself onto the next branch. The river was now flowing beneath her—she could hear it under her shaking foot. There was no turning back now; one more branch and she would be directly underneath the book. Don’t look down.

This branch was farther over than the previous one. She stood up again, hugging the tree with her left hand and reaching out with the right. She grabbed the branch and began to edge her left hand over to it, when her foot slipped and she fell forward, dangling over the river with one hand.

Kira looked down. The water seemed farther away than it had when she was on the ground. One slip of the hand and… She screwed her eyes shut and told herself not to think about it. After her mind was cleared she opened her eyes again.

Her whole body was trembling now, and her hand was sliding down the branch. I can’t give up on this! she thought. Not now! Slowly, with all the strength she could muster, she pulled herself up and caught the branch with her left hand. She was facing outward, now, across the canal. With an effort, she lifted herself up again and swung her body over, clinging to the branch as if it was the only thing between her and certain death.

Kira was now thoroughly wearied, yet she knew she had to keep going. She looked up. There was the book, a few feet overhead. If she could just balance long enough on the branch, she could reach up and get it. Then she could work her way back to land and drop the book to safety. She formed in her mind the image of Sam and Frodo, crawling up the Mountain in a task far more grave and far more hopeless, and slowly she stopped shaking. She was calm. She could do this.

Kira manoeuvred herself so that she was squatting on the branch. Slowly, carefully, she stood up on one foot, reaching above for the branch where the book lay. She knew she could not use it too much; tug too hard and the book would come crashing down. She just let it help keep her balance. There. She was up. The book lay a few feet away on the branch. She slid her foot, heel to toe, down towards it, letting her hands be her guide. Now it was only a few inches. If she reached far enough… Her fingers brushed the pages. Just a little farther…

For a moment she grasped the Red Book of Westmarch again, in that final endeavour. But then it fell—out of her fingers, out of her reach, out of the tree. And Kira fell after it, down, down, into the icy river below.

Frodo rose quickly, and stood up and looked away southwards; but when his eyes beheld the Mountain and the desert he quailed again.

“I can’t manage it, Sam,” he said. “It is such a weight to carry, such a weight.”

Sam nodded, fearing if he opened his mouth he would just make matters worse. He, too, looked south toward the Mountain. “It looks every step of fifty miles,” he muttered. “And our water won’t but last us another day, if we don’t find more.” He took another glance at the black land surrounding them. It was empty. “Well, we’d best be getting away while there’s a chance. Can you manage it?”

Once more they started, crawling from hollow to hollow, flitting behind such cover as they could find. From time to time Sam glanced eastward, for it seemed to him that the shadow there was darker, and it was spreading toward them. He would have called it a storm cloud back home where things were bright, but there was no rain here and such thoughts were far from his mind.

After a few weary miles they halted. Frodo seemed nearly spent. He pitched himself down next to a stunted bramble bush and lay there on the black earth, eyes staring blankly through the thorns. Sam crouched down beside him and looked at what was left of their food. Two wafers of the waybread; that was it. They would make it last.

More pressing was the matter of water. Sam’s bottle was only a quarter full. If they could not find a stream or a pool soon, there would be none left. He looked up and saw that the sky was darker; and in the distance he could hear a faint rumble.

Frodo found enough strength to sit up, though he sagged over against his knees. “It sounds like a storm,” he said.

“It’s likely a trick to play on our minds,” said Sam. “If there’s any storms in Mordor, there won’t be rain in them.” He took a small sip of their failing water, then gave his bottle to Frodo.

Sam listened, and heard, as from far away, the soft drumming that could only mean a rainstorm. His first thought was that he had gone mad in this wretched land. But no—Frodo had heard it as well, and besides the rain was getting louder. Disbelief gave way to hope. At length he could hear the individual patter of each drop, and it seemed an eternity before the rain could reach their parched mouths. Even Frodo looked up, holding out a hand in a mixture of wonder and doubt.

Sam, too, stretched out his hand, waiting for the first drop to fall upon it. He waited…

…and let out a cry of pain. The raindrop slowly rolled down his finger and off his skin, and when it fell to the earth it was the colour of his flesh. His finger was gone.

“Frodo, Frodo!” he cried. “Run—take shelter—this rain’s poison!”

Frodo looked at Sam, then at the fast-approaching rain cloud, and shook his head in despair. Already the drops were beginning to collect around them, and the clump of thorns was dissolving into the ground. “No, Sam,” he said. “There is no shelter from this devastation. We cannot outrun it; there is no escape. All is lost.”

“I can shelter you, Master—for some time at least—until the storm passes,” said Sam. But looking at the endless sea of clouds, he knew in his heart that it never would. Nevertheless he tried to save his master, to catch with his own body the rain intended for him. Thunder rolled around them. Rain fell in torrents. And slowly, everything ran down, like an unfinished painting left out in the rain, from the fiery tones of the Mountain in the distance to the two abject hobbits lying on the ground. It ran, blurred, until all that was left was blackness, blackness of shadow and nothing and despair.

It stretched on forever, but somehow it managed to echo with one word, ripped from an unknown voice within the stretches of time:

Kira opened her eyes to find herself in her room, in bed. She felt wretched, and her head throbbed with a kind of urgency that cancelled thought. She shifted, as if to shake free the last traces of the nightmare.

“Kira? Kira! Rosemary?” a voice called, rising in joy and disbelief. “Rosemary, she’s awake!”

Kira focused her bleary eyes on the speaker. “Aunt Penny? What are you doing here?”

Aunt Penny laughed and took Kira’s hands in her own. “And sensible!” she called. Hearing nothing from down the hall she shook her head. “Mercy, she must have really dozed off this time,” she said, more to herself than to Kira. “I’m sorry, dear. What did you say?”

“Oh. Your mother sent word to me to come and help as soon as she knew there was any hope. We’ve been quite worried about you, Kira; we were afraid we were going to lose you.”

Penny cast her eyes down upon her lap. “Don’t you remember?” She looked up again and smiled, but her eyes were glistening. “Kira, love, you nearly died.”

“Died? How? Where? When?” With an effort and much more headache, she sat up. Something was wrong.

Her aunt gently laid Kira back down. “It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is, you’re alive, awake, and well.”

“In her room, asleep. We’ve done the job of watching you in shifts. I should go and tell her the good news.” Aunt Penny rose, but Kira grabbed her arm.

“Nigh upon three weeks, I’m afraid. You were near dead when you washed up on the river.” Washed up on the river… Kira searched her memory, but her head hurt and her mind had clouded over. What had happened?

“Your mother nearly despaired right then,” Penny continued. “And after that, you came down with such a terrible fever we feared we’d lose you again. You must learn to be more careful, for your mother’s sake as well as your own.”

Penny Brandybuck hesitated. “I’m sorry, Kira. I shouldn’t have let my tongue run so. Best not to think about it and be glad you’re alive. You’re a very lucky girl, lass.” She rose and left the room.

It was only a few minutes before Mother came in. During them Kira tried to recall what it was that she was forgetting, even though Aunt Penny seemed to think it unwise. Something was wrong, something was being hidden, and she could not let it rest. Yet her memory came up blank.

As soon as Mother was awake she practically flew to Kira’s bed and showered her with kisses, laughing with the same kind of nervous joy that she had sensed from Aunt Penny. “Kira! My child!” She pulled back a little, to better see her daughter. “Look at me, Kira. Oh… Penny? Will you run out and find the doctor and tell him she’s awake?”

“Oh, I suppose you’re right. It can wait till morning. But surely you could make her something to eat—the broth, and some salted ham, perhaps? Kira, you must be famished after all you’ve been through.”

Kira’s stomach rumbled and she had to agree. Somehow Mother’s presence crowded everything else out of her mind, no matter how pressing. While Aunt Penny was fixing the food Mother talked about everything and nothing to her, how much she had fretted and how relieved she now was and how somehow, deep inside of her she knew Kira would pull through. But there was a hollow look in her eye.

“Mother, you look terrible,” said Kira. It was true. Rather than the prim, organised, sanguine hobbit that woke her up each morning, Mother looked as if she herself had taken ill. The only red that could be detected in her face was about the eyes, though that could have been the rush-light Aunt Penny had set beside her bed to keep watch.

“Well, we’ve all been a little worse for the wear these past days, haven’t we? You yourself were looking quite blue when they found you—you have Daffodil to thank for that, by the by. If she hadn’t had the sense to go for help it could have gone very ill for you—more ill than it did, that is.”

“But Mother, what exactly happened to me? How did I get in the water to begin with?”

Mother blinked, as if to say, You don’t remember? “All I know is what your friends told me. You were alone when you fell into the canal.”

Before she could say anything more, Aunt Penny came in with a bowl full of chicken broth and a plate piled high with dry toast and slices of salt ham, which Kira gratefully ate under the supervision of her family. But as she finished the last bite she felt a little drowsy and yawned.

“She’s still recovering,” Aunt Penny told Mother. “We had best let her get back to sleep. You should probably do the same.”

Kira lay back down and Mother tucked her in. Whatever it was that she couldn’t remember still niggled at her, but she was too tired to do anything about it. She closed her eyes, and…

…found herself on an island. It was no larger than her room, but she could not tell how she knew it was an island, for it was all black. Not even a star pierced the expanse above her. She walked to the water’s edge, but it was black, too—not the black of water at night-time, but the black of pitch. Even if the midday sun shone it would still be black—and likely suck so much of the Sun’s light into itself that she would be reduced to a pale, sickly fruit hanging in the sky.

I don’t think so, she thought, and moved back to the centre of her little island. But it was a smaller island now, and the water lapped at its shores, eating away at the black rock. And she realised that it wanted her, that it wanted to take her and drag her into itself. And soon it would.

The island was now the size of her bed. She wished desperately for a tree or some sort of tall object that she could climb to get above the flood, but all there was was a small outcrop of rock. She stood upon the highest part on her tiptoes, determined not to look at the black sea at all costs, for it would pull her in if she did. But she felt there was something behind her, and she was compelled to turn around.

A wave of the water had risen to her level, had risen high above her. It threatened to break over her and sweep her away, but before it could she looked into it and saw reflected there another scene…

When Kira woke up her headache was gone, but she could not remember anything from her dream except the sensation of drowning in blackness.

This time it was Mother at her bed, all delighted to see her awake again and asking her about the most pressing issue of the morning: breakfast. “Your aunt’s out to fetch the doctor, so I’ll have to make it for you,” she said. “What do you want to eat?”

Kira expressed a desire for toast with butter and jam, and poached eggs if any could be found. “Do you want me to go out to the kitchen and eat it?” she said. “I think I might be strong enough.”

“Heavens, no, Kira!” called Mother from the kitchen. “It’s winter! You needn’t get out of bed till spring!”

“I knew that,” Kira mumbled, and reminded herself that whatever was wrong with her had kept her asleep for three weeks. And it was fairly close to winter before that, too, she thought. She reached down in bed and felt her bad foot. It was icy, and the mere touch of her hand sent pain dancing up her leg. A glance at the frost-rimed window above her bed was all the confirmation she needed to tell her that winter was in full swing.

My, thought Kira. “Thanks, Mum.” She deducted as best she could the three weeks from that date, which made the day of her accident some time in late November.

Before she could think on it more Mother came in with a plate full of toast and three poached eggs. Kira ate it all. Then as she was swallowing the last bite the door of the smial flew open and Aunt Penny walked in, bringing with her the doctor.

Mother stood up to greet them and helped hang up the doctor’s coat and scarf. But soon everyone piled into Kira’s room, the doctor and her aunt’s faces turned rosy by the chill winds outside.

There was a look of genuine relief in Dr. Grimwig’s smile. “It’s good to see you awake, Kira.”

“Always the right thing for a recovering patient to say.” He went through the standard examinations, only this time he listened to her breathing as well (explaining that this was always a good idea if someone had recently been waterlogged). He did not examine her foot, though; it was a mutual agreement that Kira should just stay in bed during the winter regardless of any illnesses.

“All right, I suppose,” said Kira. “My nose is a little stuffy, and I do feel rather week, but that’s all. Oh, and my head’s all fuzzy. I can’t concentrate well and I don’t even know how I fell into the canal in November.”

“That’s understandable. Your body is using so much of your strength to repair itself that you don’t have very much left for your mind. You’ll remember what happened soon enough, I imagine, as it clears up. Best to let you remember on your own time and not burden you prematurely. Do tell me when you remember, though.”

He turned to the grown-ups in the room. “Well, Rosemary, Penny—I think it’s safe to say that Kira’s life is no longer in danger. Penny, I would say that if your sister thinks it safe, you may return to your family without feeling worried. In the meantime, you may always send for me if you need me; otherwise I shall be back to visit Kira in a week’s time.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” said Dr. Grimwig. “As I was remarking when I came in, your sister caught me at a good time. I was about to leave to visit three patients in town; it looks to be a bad winter in that regard already. I can’t keep them waiting.”

Mother slipped some coin into the doctor’s hand. “Well, then, thank you very much for helping mend my daughter,” she said.

“My pleasure, ma’am.” Dr. Grimwig had made his way down to the entrance and was bundling up again. “Anything for a family friend.”

“Isn’t it wonderful, Kira?” She took Kira’s hand in hers and kissed it. “You’re going to get all better and there isn’t any more danger for you.”

Kira nodded, and considered a nap as one of her next possible courses of action. The doctor must have been right about her body using most of her strength for recovery. She told Mother of her plan, and Mother replied, “I should probably get a little shuteye myself, now that I can sleep easy. I’ll tell Penny, and you can call for her if you need anything.” She left the room.

A minute or two after the door closed, Kira lay back down in bed and closed her eyes, letting her hand hang down the side. It felt wet. With a little effort she raised herself and held it before her eyes. A teardrop—Mother’s teardrop—had fallen on it, and the tear slowly rolled down her finger and off her skin.

“Aunt Penny!” she cried in as loud a whisper as she could manage. “Aunt Penny!”

“Aunt Penny… when they found me, by the river—did they find anything else, too?”

Penny made as if to hush her, but seeing the look in Kira’s eyes, left without a word and returned shortly with the book. “There—there it is. And see what a fat lot of good it’s done you, getting yourself nearly killed for a thing like that.”

Kira snatched the book out of her aunt’s outstretched hand, but waited to open it until after she had left.

There it was: the Red Book of Westmarch, the tale of the salvation of Middle-earth, as laid out in the Ring-bearer’s own hand. The compilation of the world’s greatest and most ancient myths, dating from the time when the Elves had ruled the land and Men were only a rumour from the East, translated from the Noble Tongues by Bilbo Baggins himself. And now?

Now, as she turned the stiff pages with trembling hands, it was bare. Every word, every drop of ink, every subtle brushstroke had been washed, smudged, eradicated. Frantically she leaved through it, searching for some fragment that might have been miraculously spared from the destruction. Surely if the ink had lain on the pages for so long, traces of the words at least could be visible? But each page was blank, either tinted grey with the last drops of ink, or worse, bleached clean as bone. With a choked sob of rage she drew her arm back, ready to fling it against the wall; but her hand dropped it, senseless, onto her lap; and she gathered it into her arms, weeping into its ruined pages, because there was no hope.

As she lay there, sobbing, she found herself on the island again, and a wave of the black water rose about her, ready to fall. It broke over her, and she sank into oblivion.

“I remembered not too long after you left,” Kira told Dr. Grimwig the next week.

“You must not try to dwell on your loss too much. Be content that you survived. I must admit, I never expected that you would climb up a tree and over a river to save something like that. It was… daring.”

“Why would you say that? No, you’re still recovering—and you’re grieving, too, which happens to all of us when we lose something dear to us. It will get better with time, though I must admit I’ve never heard of anyone grieving over a book before.”

“I’m sure it was.” He laid a hand on her shoulder as she wiped at her eyes, then her nose. “There, there—I’m sure it’ll all be better now. How have you been sleeping?”

“They’re bad dreams. People I’ve read about getting washed away. I can’t stop them.”

“Are they particularly troublesome? If you have difficulty sleeping your mother can fix you a tea that will help.”

“I can deal with them well enough,” said Kira. “They will go away eventually, though, won’t they?”

“The bad memory, I meant, of being alone and falling in. Your experience in the canal was... harrowing. But if you’re still sad over the book, I’m sure there are others you can read.”

He clapped her on the back. “You’re far too young to be making such grandiose statements. I think you have a thing for books, Kira—that’s been made completely clear by now. In fact, it might be a good idea to have one on hand this winter and get your mind off things.”

“No, not this winter. I don’t think Mother or Aunt Penny would approve, even if I had the heart to. Didn’t reading get me into this mess?”

“Well, yes and no. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Dr. Grimwig heaved his shoulders, dismissing the entire subject of Kira’s emotions to somewhere far Outside. “Well, your body’s sound again and it should continue to be so provided you eat all six meals each day. It’s the best advice I can give anyone this time of year. If you have any problems, tell your mum so she can find me—otherwise I don’t think I’ll need to see you again until next month.”

Even though Aunt Penny had been given leave to depart, late at night Kira overheard her telling Mother that she would not until she was certain that her niece would be well.

“They are in the safety of Brandy Hall. And you are my family, too. Kira may be getting better, but she liked that book too much. She’s been sullen the whole week—oh, if only I’d had my way with the Master and she hadn’t learned to read!”

Kira strained her hearing. “You couldn’t have known, Penny. I’m sure we all would have done things differently if we had. But thank you for staying—I am sure it will not be for much longer.”

So when, in four days’ time, Aunt Penny came in during tea to have a talk with Kira, Kira was hardly surprised.

“Are you feeling better?” It was an innocent question, but Kira sat up in bed nonetheless.

“No, then.” Kira took a gulp of tea. “I feel dried up, like all the magic’s gone and died inside me.”

“Kira, darling, you sound like Andric when he’s in one of his moods. You’re not due to be a tween yet until another four years.”

Kira wrinkled her nose at her at her aunt, shrinking into the pillow propped at her back. “Well, it feels like it is. And you wish you’d kept me from reading, which I can hardly blame you for since sometimes I wish it myself. But there are a good many better things to wish for, like that everyone else could read, or that Tom weren’t an oaf, or that Frodo had never sailed—”

“Kira, you should have been asleep that late at night! You’re losing sleep over this?”

Kira answered Penny’s question with a glare, and deliberately took a scone from the tray on her lap.

“Kira! This is no game! You need to pick yourself up; I don’t care how upset you are!”

“Aunt Penny, it wasn’t an ordinary book. The—the Travellers wrote in it—Sam Gardner wrote in it, over a hundred years ago! It was so ancient, and so important to so many people! They’re probably sad, too.”

“Well, you’re not them, are you? You’re a Proudfoot; you’re not a Took or a Gardner or even a Brandybuck.”

“And I don’t care if you’re descended from Merry the Magnificent on your father’s side. You’ve had as little to do with them as possible, and just because you have a bit of that blood in you doesn’t make you one of them. So don’t act as if you are! We—your mother especially—are very worried about you. You barely got out of that river with your life.”

“Because you’ve been crying for over a week already. Can’t you at least put this aside long enough to get a good night’s sleep?”

Kira could only shrug. “Just leave me alone, Aunt. You don’t even understand why I’m said.” She put the uneaten half of her second scone back on the tray. “I think I’ve lost my appetite, Aunt Penny. I’m sorry.”

“Kira…” Aunt Penny looked about to say more, but she only sighed and took the tray from the room. She made as if to shut the door behind her, but turned back and kept her eye at the crack in the door. Her niece had hugged her knees to her chest, and was proceeding to thud her head into them. Silly thing, she thought, but suddenly Kira shuddered and went limp. Crashing the tray on the floor, she rushed back in. “Kira, are you ill?”

There was no response. She laid a hand to Kira’s cheek; it felt remarkably cool. Kira did not move, not even to breathe. Trembling, Penny checked the girl’s pulse.

It was there, though faint. But the girl looked more dead than asleep, or even fainted. Silently she kept vigil over her form, waiting but dreading to know what would happen next.

Kira had expected the blackness to return to her. She did not expect to rise from it and see her aunt there, demanding to know what had just happened.

“I—I don’t know, Aunt Penny. I must have fainted. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“I’m sure you couldn’t. But still—don’t! Now, I’m going to clean up the mess I made when I ran in here to see if you were still living, and then I shall watch you until your mother returns from town. Can I trust you to stay awake while I’m cleaning?”

“Aunt Penny, the last time this happened was when I found out the book was gone! I don’t even know what happened, and I’m certainly not trying to faint!”

Her aunt seemed to take this well enough to rise from the stool next to Kira’s bed. “Then it has happened before?”

Aunt Penny left the room, and the sound of sweeping could be heard from the hallway.

Two days later found Daffodil running into Kira’s room, skidding to a halt on her knees at the bed, and in the same action bringing Kria’s hands into her own.”

Kira fumbled for her pillow, set it behind her back, and sat up, rubbing her head. Belatedly she gestured to the bedside stool for Daffodil. “Yule? Is it Yule already?”

“First Yule, at any rate. And a very happy one, too, since your killjoy mother and aunt are letting me in to see you. When it gets warmer out I think Roly and Tom and I are going sledding. I wish you could join us.”

“Oh—well, I suppose I can understand that. But Tom is awfully sorry for everything that happened. We all are. If we had known you were going to almost drown… Oh, I’m so sorry, Kira, for everything that’s happened to you, and every part I had in it! I checked every day to see how you were doing,” she added. “We were all very afraid for you for a while.” She squeezed Kira’s hands and tried her best to smile.

“What?” Daffodil paused. “Oh, how terrible! After all you did to save it that must have been a nasty shock.”

Kira blinked and dashed her hand across her eyes, trying not to wallow in self-pity. There was a pause as she tried to think of what to say next. “I do thank you, Daffy, for finding help. I realised I should have asked you to before you left—if I had known you were getting someone, I probably would have stayed on the ground.”

“It was nothing, Kira. You would have done the same thing for me, I’m sure. Though I’ll never know what possessed you to go after that thing in the first place…”

Kira gave one short nod. “Thanks anyway. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now, but thanks.”

Daffodil gave a little laugh. “And here we are talking about sad things and it’s Yule! I made you something, you know, if you’d like it.”

“It’s not very much I know,” said Daffodil, looking at the doily. “Mother only started teaching me this month. In fact—if your mum will let me I could come and teach you. Then you’d know what to do with yourself!”

Kira smiled in spite of herself. “What do I do with it? I could hang it up on my wall.”

Daffodil got off the stool and disappeared beneath it. Kira heard some coughing below. “Heavens, how long has this lain uncleaned? I think this is the largest number of dust mice I’ve seen under a bed.”

“I don’t think Mother’s paid much attention to sweeping this past month, Daffy.”

“Too true! Is this it?” An arm snaked out and plopped a dust-covered item on the bed. It was the dog.

“Okay, I’m coming out now—what’s this?” Daffodil had mostly emerged from under the bed, and she was tugging something with her. She looked at it. “I thought you said it was gone!”

Daffodil, with a bit of effort, heaved on about half the pages to open the book right in the middle. “Oh. That’s so odd—when I last saw it…”

“Right.” Daffodil pushed the book back underneath. “There,” she said, plopping down on the bed, her hair all dusty from her adventure. “I remember this dog from long ago, now that I see him again.” She picked him up and began to dust him off. “Eek!”

Daffodil had dropped the soft toy. She shook her hand out, letting fall to Kira’s coverlet a bug—not too big but not very small either, and one of the disgusting crawly kind at that. It was dead.

“It must have gone there to escape the winter,” said Kira. She lifted her sheets, letting the carcass fall to the ground. She finished dusting off the dog, and placed the doily atop its head. “What do you think?”

Aunt Penny spoke. “We hardly had the chance to! Daffodil was banging on the front door at dawn!”

“I should have been able to keep track of the dates,” Kira ruminated. “I know it’s harder for me to make gifts during the winter, but I like having the chance at least to think about it.”

“Kira,” said Mother, “you’ve been too busy healing to worry about that sort of thing. Don’t fret about it now.”

“Mother, if I had something to fret about, maybe that’d let me focus on healing a little more.”

Aunt Penny caught the look Kira threw her. “I think she means that if she had something to distract her she wouldn’t be so troubled.”

“Troubled? But it’s Yule!” Mother took hold of both of Kira’s hands. “Now, I wasn’t entirely sure if you’d be up to eating the regular Yule meals this winter, so last night your aunt and I took up all of the dried mushrooms from the fall, found some salt ham and mutton, and made you a whole three kettles full of stew.”

“And every drop of it’s yours for the eating,” Aunt Penny put in. “Over the course of the winter, I should add. It’s not quite sick food, you see, but it is hearty and nourishing, and there’s nothing that cheers up a hobbit more than good food.”

Kira smiled gratefully at her benefactresses. She had never had her own private supply of food before. One thing was certainly better, wintering at home—she received very personal attention when it came to meals, especially at Yule. Last winter she had been lucky to have a small quantity of cold goose and some mincemeat brought into her room. She did not think that she could stomach either, now, at least not for a good while, but her family had already seen to remedy that with the stew—all the dried mushrooms? “Does this mean I can have some right now?”

With a wink and a smile Penny left the room. Kira realised with the alacrity of her aunt’s return that it must have been left simmering on the kitchen stove. As she tucked into the bowl of stew, she said, “Daffodil must have at least smelled this on the way out—and in. What a pleasant surprise, but how did you manage to keep it that way?”

Kira laughed at this. “Mother, Daffodil wants to come in once a week and teach me tatting.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, love. It’s about time you started learning something new again.”

The whole day was spent in Kira’s room, laughing and sharing old family tales. And Kira laughed and did not mind salting her food with tears. When night fell she hoped.

Second Yule was more subdued than First, though Kira did not quite understand why until she remembered that a year ago she had finished her primer and started Bilbo’s tale. But she shook off the memories for now and ate roast chestnuts brought steaming from the fire, and when she sat up in bed she tucked her feet under herself so that a little feeling returned to the right foot.

A week later Daffodil visited and started teaching her the art of lace. She had previously tried her hand at some of the other cloth-crafts, but if anything fell out of place it always unravelled. This kind of lace was all knots, though, and Daffodil showed her the various forms she had learned. Daffy told her that if you got really good at it you could make basic pictures in the lace, flowers and fruits and vines and trees. Kira’s attempts were bumpy and uneven, but not much worse than her friend’s.

But through the week she imagined lace tapestries of trees that shed liquid light, and went over the forms in her mind. The loops could be drops of light, at the very least, but picture-lace involved another method that she knew nothing about, though she could try and figure how it worked. She would have to remember to ask Daffodil to leave a pair of the fine needles with her next time; she could beg the string from Mother or her aunt.

A few more visits and Daffodil brought in an apparatus of her mother’s: a paper-and-pin set with many, many bobbins of string that created sheets and sheets of lace in beautiful wavy patterns. They tried briefly to reckon out the method, but were too afraid to mess up the pattern as it stood.

Daffodil had to leave before it got dark, winding her feet in a few rags to protect them from the snow; but she left the lacemaker behind and Kira mused on it until the light was too dim. The lace looked, she realised, like a wave, with endless crests of water. They created a rhythm: too high and it would subsist; too low and it would rise again.

She had never noticed a shrub on her little black isle before, though she had the feeling it resembled the thorn bushes in Mordor. Ignoring the black water, she stared at the plant until she saw that it was oozing sap that plinked down onto the rock. Where did you come from? she thought to the bush. The water was making noises, too; she had never noticed that before. It was probably because she wasn’t looking at it and it wanted to make its presence known. She turned to look at it, but it was not trying to swallow her island this time. If anything it had receded, but it was gaining again, inch by inch. There were no storms in this little land.

She thought over everything that had lain in her mind for the past month, whether fully or only half-buried, and walked to the water’s edge. And what are you? What do you want? No answer from the water, of course, but for once it was in motion and not trying to make her see the horrid dreams reflected in it. After several minutes’ thought, she stooped down and dipped her hand in it, half expecting it to dissolve. Almost instantly she felt a tug out to the sea, and jerked her hand, still whole, away. It was dry.

The water stilled as she slipped deeper into the realm of dreams, daring her to look within. Viciously she kicked at it, to disturb the surface. What do you want? she asked the blackness again. And her eyes were drawn to the ever stilling water. No! I don’t want any more dreams; the waking’s hard enough! Leave me alone!

And this time a voice answered her, though she did not know whence it came. Would you forget at night, then? You forget enough at day.

I don’t forget, you ninny! And I don’t want to, not even if it means this!

But there was no answer. The water pooled around her foot. Could you at least stop the dreams? They scare me.

The water increased now, but it did not pull at her. It was going to swallow the island again, she decided. Her skirt floated up in the water, then as the water took it grew heavy and sank. But there were no vague images within the water, though she looked down at it, just black. Still standing, she hoped her plea had been heard when the water closed in over her head.

Penny Brandybuck was not a little worried. Kira’s condition had been improving steadily through late December and into January, to the point that the doctor had scheduled his next appointment as late as the next month. But now she had taken a turn for the worse. The poor girl’s nightmares—which she dearly wished Kira would stop, though she knew she couldn’t help it—were not occurring nightly anymore, but when Penny came in to check on her during the still nights she was in that same strange faint that she had been in before. Penny questioned her about it, but Kira was evasive as always and could only say that, yes, the “blackness,” as she called it, was happening more often than she’d like. After the first occurrence she had decided to wait it out and see if it would go away on its own before asking the doctor. And it had appeared to, for a month. But now it had come back with a vengeance, and she knew it was serious—all the more so because Kira was so close-mouthed about it. But Dr. Grimwig needed to see her and judge for himself, and Penny couldn’t very well go and fetch him, or even talk to him in private, without Rosemary at last suspecting that something was wrong. If at all possible, Penny would rather spare her sister the trouble and settle it privately. She did not need any more grief in her life.

So Penny just hoped, until the doctor’s next visit, that nothing would go wrong.

She went out to meet him, without trying to seem too worried, but there was only a small space of time to talk to him before Rosemary came out, too. But the doctor caught her meaningful looks, and gathered that somehow, against the expected turn of things, Kira’s state had worsened.

He said nothing as he went through listening to her lungs, checking her pulse and temperature; but after they had all retired into the parlour Penny could tell they were going to have a bit of a talk.

“I don’t know what to say,” said the doctor. “She has worsened, that’s for sure.”

“She looks so tired,” said Rosemary. “Though she doesn’t cry out at night as much as she used to, so perhaps she isn’t as troubled she was. But I truly cannot see what could be wrong with her! She should be recovering by now!”

“There are no troubles with her heart—it may be a little weaker than usual, but she’s been perfectly well with worse than her current condition. I would agree that she seems a little anaemic, but that is understandable since she can’t be active over the winter. Penny, was she anything like this last year?”

Penny shook her head. “She may not have been the liveliest girl in the Hall, but she was… restive. Her legs twitched in bed when she grew bored.”

“And that is how she has always been over the winter,” Rosemary added. “I think she wants to be active—she was working quite hard on her lacework until recently—but can’t. I don’t understand it.”

“Sometimes these things fluctuate,” said Dr. Grimwig. “I wouldn’t consider it too concerning unless it keeps up for more than two weeks—I’ll drop in and see how she’s doing then, in fact. Remember that you can’t always expect a fast recovery.”

“I would not say that. But I do not think that anything is seriously wrong—not unless she stays this way for a long time, or she worsens.”

Penny was shocked. Was he just saying this to comfort her sister, or did he genuinely believe that this was nothing? “Doctor…” she said, but good sense restrained her from saying anything more in Rosemary’s presence. She waited until he was outside, saddling his pony, and made sure that Rosemary was occupied with preparing some food.

She nodded. “The nights that she hasn’t had nightmares—they’ve been worse for her. I think they’re what are making her so tired. She… she faints. Only it’s more than faints; she looks near death when it happens. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“It happened to her first when she found out that her book was gone, she told me. Then, later, when I questioned her about why she was persisting in being so sad. But it stopped last month, and now in the past week it’s come back twice! What could have come over her? Is this anything normal?”

He dropped the reins from his hands. “I’ve never heard of it before, not in patients I’ve had or even in my reading. If the condition happens at night, if it has anything to do with those dreams, I’d suggest a draught that would help her to sleep better. But the faint itself sounds very strange. What exactly happened?”

And Penny described the events with as much detail as she could manage. “I fear for her.”

“As do I. But remember: she is stouter than she seems; no one thought she would survive when she was born.”

“And I’m certain that she’s doing all in her power to keep her alive and well, even now. But I am glad that you did not leave her when I suggested; fear can cloud judgment and Rosemary needs someone to look after her. Passing through such dreadful trials; it is no surprise that Kira’s dreams are difficult. Maybe that strange faint you described is just her own way of getting rid of them, and when they start to go away on their own she won’t need it anymore.”

“You see, Penny, so much of my job isn’t setting splints or giving people potions. There’s no better cure-all to a hobbit than his—or her, in Kira’s case—own spirit. Most of the time they heal themselves and give me all the credit, because I happened to be there at the time. How many times has Rosemary come to me with her child’s problems, and all I can prescribe is rest and the things she loves most? That’s common sense, there, not high learning. They just need me to look to her foot from time to time, and her heart, so that we can tell if there’s any danger for her, maybe give her something that might help her feel better. But the getting well? That’s her job. You and Rosemary worry about Kira because you love her. I worry, too, but I’m also sensible enough to know that in such a young heart she’ll be able to sort things out. All she needs is a little more time.”

With hope in her heart Penny observed Kira in preparation for the doctor’s next visit. At first she did not seem to overtire any more, though even with calming draughts the faints persisted in much the same way. But at least Kira did not seem to be as troubled when she dreamt.

But then Kira spit up one of her meals. Rosemary tried to put a calm face about it for the rest of the day, but at night when Kira was sleeping she shattered.

“What’s wrong with her?” Though she whispered it, the simple question could not have been more raw, more powerful, not even if she had screamed it from the hilltop.

Penny sank down on the bed beside her, putting an arm around her shoulder and suppressing her own cares. Rosemary was doing an admirable job of weeping silently, but the sobs wracked her body.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” said Penny. “Something disagreed with her. The draughts, maybe?” But Dr. Grimwig had said not to use them frequently, and the girl had not been given one for two nights.

“No, it’s something, and you know that just as I do. She’s ill, Penny, and we can’t even try stopping it if we don’t know what it is. We should call the doctor tomorrow.”

“He doesn’t seem to think that Kira has anything she can’t take care of herself. Let’s wait and see if it repeats itself; it could be wholly unrelated to… to her fatigue.”

“I just can’t understand it. If we were to lose her, it should have been when she was nearly drowned, or just afterward. She shouldn’t be slipping away now, when she was just getting better! What sort of horrid thing could be draining all the life from her like this?”

“Hush, Rose.” Rosemary buried her head in her sister’s shoulder, and Penny laid a hand on her hair, smoothing down the ringlets, as she had done whenever Rosemary got herself into a scrape so many years ago. “We won’t lose Kira, because you love her, and she loves you. If she can help it she’ll get better.”

“She can. She has before, and Dr. Grimwig thinks it isn’t nearly as bad as we do. I trust his judgment.”

But before the two weeks that the doctor had given Kira were over, she spit up twice more. Third time’s the charm, Penny thought grimly, and summoned Dr. Grimwig the next morning. “I used all the discretion and patience that I could,” she told him as they hurried over to the smial. “But three times in less than two weeks—she must be getting worse, Doctor.”

“They’re just about as frequent, but I think they’re lasting longer. Perhaps if you could manage to observe her one night…”

“I didn’t think so. Then I shall only do that if I think it is the one way I can help Kira, for Rosemary’s sake. I’ll speak to Kira about it, if you can contrive your sister to leave the room. She’s really gotten worse?”

But when she took private conference with him after he had examined Kira, he could offer neither explanation nor cure. “You talked with her about the spells she’s been having?”

“Yes, and she’s as close-mouthed about them to me as she was to you. She’s hiding something from us—from all of us. Either that or she’s trying to tell us and we can’t understand her. She said that she dreamed of water, and once the water covered her the spells started. She said something about arguing with the water, too, which frightens me. If I didn’t know better I’d say she was…”

“If I didn’t know better. Or at least sick to the soul. And I’ve heard next to nothing about soul-hurts; most people don’t think they even exist. Relics of a bygone era…”

“Like that book. Do you think it has something to do with the dreams and fits?”

“I think it has everything to do with them. She’s grieved for it too long. How I wish the winter were over—maybe then she could start to move on from it!”

“She did seem to when Daffodil first visited her at Yule. Something must have changed, though.”

“Then she didn’t really let go of all that grief, I’d say. And she probably won’t until spring. I’ll visit her more regularly now, so that we can keep her going until then.”

So the visits increased back to weekly, then every three days, but Kira continued to get worse, and even Dr. Grimwig was starting to feel helpless. Kira spat up. Kira lost her appetite. Kira grew more tired, more withdrawn. And Rosemary was starting to panic.

Finally, with great sorrow in his eye, the doctor consented to observe Kira as one of the black spells fell on her. So Penny explained to Rosemary that they were going to look at Kira while she slept, and see if that would offer them any clues as to what exactly was afflicting her. With difficulty she was able to persuade Rosemary to get her own rest and not interfere. Then, taking blankets and chairs, she and the doctor stole into Kira’s bedroom, keeping vigil through the night.

There were voices at her elbow, though she knew they had to be farther away than that. They thought she was asleep.

Kira was not asleep, though she knew that she should be. But she didn’t want the dreams, and she didn’t want the blackness, so her only other option was to lay awake in lethargy.

“Kira’s case has me flummoxed—or had, I should say. I think I’m beginning to understand.” That voice was male; it had to be Dr. Grimwig’s.

“Well, as I told you, I’ve never seen or even heard of this fainting thing. But I keep on dwelling on everything else, and on her grief, and I think I may have come upon something that would explain it. But, no—it shouldn’t be, not in her, not in someone so young!”

“The weariness, the loss of food, of appetite—they happen often to the elderly, particularly if a loved one has died.”

“Grief. Missing someone who can never come back, to the point that the body wants to join them.”

“I… I don’t know.” Dr. Grimwig had never sounded this shaken before. “Some part of them loses the will to go on living. They can get beyond it, sometimes, but depending on how dear the departed was, more often than not they die.”

For a while Kira could hear nothing, until she wondered if the whispered conversation was just her fancy. But then Aunt Penny spoke again. “And this is what’s been hurting her? Will she die?”

“I don’t know—it happens only to the old, who, having had a long, full, life, are growing weary. It shouldn’t be affecting her; she has so much ahead!”

“I hope not. Illnesses can only get better or worse. If they stay the same for a long time, they wear away the one who is afflicted. But don’t despair—nobody thought Kira would make it when she was born. Her grief is strong, but if you can find a way to mend it, she may recover.”

Kira squeezed her eyes further shut and tried not to think about it. Dying? Dying? She couldn’t be; she didn’t want to!

But she remembered her island, and how her aunt said she looked when one of the fits came over her. It was the closest thing to rest that she could find, and it made her take on the form of death. She should have guessed sooner, really.

Her heart was pounding within her, as all her senses turned to war against her and each other. Was this thing right or wrong? If it was right, then there was nothing to worry about. If wrong, then how, how in the Shire could she fight it? Was she even supposed to? But she felt weary, weary from the struggle, and when she felt the black wave rising behind her she did not even turn to face it. It washed over her.

Dr. Grimwig stood up so fast he knocked the chair over, only heaving a sigh of relief when he checked the girl’s pulse. Penny, who had grown somewhat accustomed to Kira’s spells, had risen more sedately and followed.

“How frightening,” he said. “I’m afraid this doesn’t clear up any of the confusions I had, either. If anything it makes them worse. Penny, you must do everything in your power to keep her well, at least until the spring. Then I might be able to hope more. You know Rosemary would be heartbroken without her.”

“And I would not wish to see this illness afflict two. Kira is all your sister has left.”

Daffodil had, in the meantime, been visiting Kira on a regular basis, though Kira had dropped the art of lace-making for some strange reason. And she, too, had been witness to her friend’s deterioration, and it gripped her heart like a strangler’s hold. Almost two weeks after the doctor’s chilling diagnosis she decided that there was nothing to it but a quick and hopefully painless confrontation.

It started out well enough, with the idle conversation and laughter that normally filled their time together, but both of them could sense the ease leaving the room as the inevitable questions brought themselves to the fore of Daffy’s mind. “When do you think it’ll be warm enough for you to get up and about?” she asked Kira.

“Well, it’s mid-March. Spring will be here before you know it. Roly and Tom both want to see you again.”

“Don’t be absurd, Kira!” said Daffodil, trying to stay buoyant. “Roly’s still in bed when I come to visit you, and you know he doesn’t like doing that sort of thing by himself. And Tom? He’s tried, but your mother refused him.”

“You… you aren’t going to let the events of the fall ruin a perfectly good friendship, are you? He is sorry, I told you that already.”

“Oh, for heavens’ sakes, Kira—that was what, last November? I’d have thought you’d be over that by now.”

“It’s not only a book! It’s our history, our heritage! Our last ties to the Elder Days! And nobody can understand that!”

She shook her head. “Not complete ones. They did copy all the Travellers’ Tales, but not all the elvish stuff.”

Kira gave another one of those miserable shrugs, and dashed her hand against her eyes. “There’s no ‘how’ to it. I just do. And now it’s gone.”

Daffodil was at a loss for words. Hesitantly she touched Kira’s shoulder, but Kira drew back. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Daffy, and I’m terribly frightened. You see what a horrible wreck I am. I know I should trust and love you—you’re my best friend, after all—but I can’t, at least not the trust. Even if you saved my life. But I trusted you, once upon a time, you and Roly and Tom. You let me down. And then you took away from me the one thing I still trusted, and I don’t know what I’m to do anymore. I’m dying, Daffodil. The doctor said so.”

“Well, he doesn’t know for sure, but he says I am if I’m ill from the grief and whatnot, and I can’t get better if I can’t stop the grief. And if he doesn’t know that’s why I’m so pale and tired, I do, and I sure as Shiretalk know that I can’t stop it, even if everyone—me included, sometimes—tells me to. Go ahead and tell Tom that, and see if he’s sorry about the book.”

“Kira, you may be sick, but you aren’t dying. Another couple of weeks and it’ll be spring, and you’ll feel far better.” She took both of Kira’s hands in her own. “And then you’ll be able to get out of bed, and come outdoors, and the whole world will be green and beautiful and everything can go back to normal. And we’ll all play together in the meadows outside, and there won’t be any distractions nor anything to drive wedges between us. We could pretend the whole of last year was a nightmare, couldn’t we? And then things would go back to the way they’ve always been.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Kira. “I don’t think things could ever go back, because I can’t go back even if you can. I can’t go out and play in the fallow fields, much less conspire with Tom at the canal, and act as if nothing ever happened. Daffy, I may not even be around when spring comes. I don’t see anything in that season—except maybe fresher food—that would make life more worth living than it is now during this wretched winter. And I can’t even enjoy the food if all I do is spit it up. Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother with everything anymore.”

Daffodil rose. “Well, I know it, even if you don’t. And you’d best not forget it either, while you’re moping. You’re not the only person that’s had a wretched winter this year, Kira.” She ran from the room and slammed the door behind her, fighting her tears until she could collapse outside the smial and weep for everything that had gone so horribly wrong.

Kira was fairly certain that Aunt Penny was displeased Daffodil wasn’t visiting now, but offered no explanation for what may or may not have happened. In the meantime, each day became more difficult for her than the last, even if spring was around the bend. She no longer indulged in long bemusements of how all this wretchedness could have come to pass, because it only made her spirits heavier still. If she closed her eyes for but a second she was on her island, and the blackness was there, too. She didn’t know how much longer she could bear it, but she knew in her heart that at some point things had to come to a head. And then, what woe!

The nightmares were mostly gone now, either replaced with the blackness or drowned out with the draughts, which Kira sometimes wished she could have more of, even if they left a bitter taste on her tongue.

But one more stole behind her unawares at night, and dragged her forcibly into its grasp.

She woke up with a shriek, and it must have been louder than any she had had yet, because almost instantly Mother entered the room.

It took a few more seconds for Kira to get her bearings on her setting and reality. “Nothing, Mother. It was just a dream.”

She shrugged. “Similar, though each one seems to be unique. Don’t worry; it’s not that bad.”

“Kira, it must have been bad if it woke you up like that! Won’t you please tell me what was wrong? What was your dream?”

“Every time, it seems to be different—at least, a different start. They all end up the same. This time it was one of the legends I had read. It was about the Two Trees of Light, created before the sun or the moon or even mortals like us. They had just been created, and all the people in the tale were happy. Then it started to rain.” She faltered and looked away.

Kira looked back at her mother, to make sure she wasn’t too confused and really did still want to hear the rest of it. “The rain washed everything away, like a painting, but the people and the Trees were still there. It hurt them, I could see. They were crying out—crying out at me. And I couldn’t do anything to save them. I couldn’t even wake up. Sometimes—sometimes, Mother, I wonder if they’re angry with me, over there in the west, or just incredibly sad at all that’s happened.”

“Kira, there’s nothing but Ocean and fairy-stories in the West. You still know that, right?”

Mother paused, thinking this over. “Then Kira, I want you to do something for me. I want you to try and forget all the things you read. They’re just giving you bad dreams, and they’re likely also keeping you from getting better. All that reading—it was something you never should have done, and now you’re getting the grief for it. If you’d just leave it all behind you we could forget this ever happened. Please, Kira, I want you to get well.”

The blood drained from Kira’s face. She looked at Mother as if she had just stabbed her in the stomach. “No!” she cried. “I can’t do that. I’m supposed to keep it alive!”

“Mum…” She closed her eyes, ready to let the tears out, but the blackness had returned and it was rising. No! she thought to it. Wait till Mother’s gone!

And yet a sudden longing rose within her, one that immediately turned her insides in revolt, to let it wash over her, to be swallowed in its embrace. It was against every desire she had ever had—and yet it was there. Your life is in ruins, it thought. Everyone you know has turned against you. You’re dying, remember?

Perhaps some part of her resisted, but Kira was too weak. She faced the blackness and stretched out her arms towards it, willing it to wipe away all her misery.

Kira opened her eyes. The blackness had finally ebbed away from her, leaving her worn beyond all measure. Painfully she raised herself from bed; it was lighter in her room than she last remembered. Dawn was creeping in through the window. She must have been out for a while, then. The morning light reached across the room, but it did not fall on the grey figure bent over on the stool next to her.

What have I done? thought Kira as she gazed in horror upon her mother. It was not just the dimness that made her look ashen, nor the angle of the light that shadowed her eyes. Her lips were cracked, and her hair unkempt; yet the most frightening thing of all was the blank look of despair that haunted her face even in sleep. Beautiful, darling Mother…

Kira laid her hand on Mother’s knee, but the apologies she thought of died on her lips. None of them were worthy.

Mother opened her eyes and turned to her. “Kira?” she said, half in wonder, tears starting in her eyes. “My child! You’ve come back!” She pulled Kira into an embrace, managing to laugh and cry at the same time. Kira let herself be comforted in the hug, but somehow it wasn’t as strong as she remembered, to the point that she was afraid of hugging back and breaking her like a twig.

“I’m so sorry, dear, for… for whatever it was I did. How, how did you manage to come back?”

The door to Kira’s room opened. “I told you she would, Rosemary,” said Aunt Penny. “She just took longer than normal.” She flashed an accusatory look at Kira.

“Oh, no,” said Kira, as she realised what her spell must have looked like. “You didn’t think I’d died, did you, Mum?”

Mother shook her head. “Only at first. But you were so close, I couldn’t see you returning…” With that a fresh burst of tears came out, and while she was sobbing into her hanky they turned into hacking coughs.

Aunt Penny stood Mother up from the stool. “But she has, and you need to get some rest. I shall have a word with Kira.”

“I will watch over her, Rosemary. I can’t have you catching ill on me, can I?” Gently but firmly, she guided Kira’s mother out of the room. A minute later she came back in, seated herself, and closed the door behind her. “We need to talk,” she said.

“Kira, this is no small matter! Whatever this awful sleep is, it’s taking control of you. You were gone for longer than a day!”

“Yes, and your mother found out about it! We thought—I thought, though I didn’t dare tell her—that you were going to die! And I had to see her heart break all over again. I told you not to let her see those spells of yours.”

Penny put her arm around her, drew her up to her breast, and patted down the curls. “I suppose you can’t entirely understand, because you weren’t there the first time. It was so hard for her, I was afraid she was going to die of heartache. But she didn’t, Kira, because she had you, and you kept her hoping.

“I know she never told you much about him; the grief was too close to her heart. But your father was one of the most beloved hobbits in the whole of the Farthing. Our families ran into one another a lot because we lived not ten miles from Michel Delving, which isn’t that far if you have a pony. And the Proudfoots had traditionally lived in Michel Delving, and still had a lot of business to handle there, and so much happens in town that we all got to be on good terms with one another. Well, your parents got feelings for each other, after a time, and I still remember the look of joy on my little sister’s face when she told me that Lagro Proudfoot had spoken to her. I nearly wept for joy. And when they did marry, I didn’t think there could be two happier hobbits in the whole of the Shire.

“The Proudfoot clan was quite large at the time, and most of those that remained on the White Downs lived in town, but your father had a weak constitution. One of the families was moving to a new house in the Westmarch, so it was agreed that he and his new wife could settle in their own smial, which was fairly secluded and out in the country. They thought that if he farmed the fields attached to it, his condition would improve over time and he would be better suited to raising a family. They could never have been more wrong.

“About five months after they had been married and settled themselves in this very hole, I heard that your mother was with child. I, of course, was already married with a brood of my own at Brandy Hall; but when my sister’s time drew close I went back to the Westfarthing to help her deliver.

“It was the day after I had arrived, I remember. The babe wasn’t quite due yet, but at the first signs I was supposed to run out and fetch the midwife from town. Well, I was helping your mother sew some clothes for the new arrival, when there came a knock on the door. I answered it. I had never seen the hobbit who was there before, but he said that he had found your father lying on his back in the fields outside. He was in trouble.

“We both ran out immediately, your mother as fast as she could in her condition, and sent the messenger to town to find the doctor. Lagro was still alive, when we found him. But he only lasted a few minutes. It all happened so fast; we didn’t know what was wrong, nor what to do about it. But I will say this: if love could give life, you would have a father in your home, dear. And I hope no one will ever weep as your mother wept over him.

“His death put her into a great deal of distress, and before I knew it I was running out, too, bringing the midwife and hoping that the day would not bring more tragedy. But you were born safely. You were a pretty little thing, but you’d been born early and your right foot had formed wrong. You were so weak, folk thought you weren’t going to make it through your first year, especially with your poor father’s heart. Many of them thought it’d be better for you in the long run. But your mother loved you, and you did not die.

“Now there was no one to look after both of you, and most people assumed that your mother would just go back to her family and raise you there; but my sister didn’t want to give up her new life so easily. So she gathered her wits about her, and sold the field in back of the smial—to your friend Daffodil’s family, I believe. She used the money to take care of you, and later to start up a herb garden on top of the hole so she could make enough money to support you. Even if she couldn’t spend as much time with you as she wanted, she always had you and your well-being in mind.

“People say what they will, but you saved her life when you came, and I was glad you survived because it meant she did, too. So don’t you dare give up living, Kira. You’re all she has left.”

“Live, Kira. I’m not fool enough to tell you to give up on your books, not anymore—can’t say I’ll ever understand it, but I know I can’t fight it—but at the same time you can’t always be looking back on what happened, to your book or to you. While you’re doing that life’s happening around you, and you’re letting it pass you by. You’ve got to keep going, Kira, even when it hurts. Even if you don’t think you can bear it, you still can and you still will, because other people need you to and they’re counting on you. And no, I don’t understand you and I don’t understand your book, but I do understand pain and loss because that’s a part and parcel of life. If I wasn’t there for you before this it’s only because I didn’t take your own loss seriously enough, and I hope you’ll forgive me.

“You can’t do anything about the past, but you can do something with the here and now, and the less time you spend wishing life could have been different the more time you have to make better the days ahead.

“I’m not asking you to forget, Kira, and I’m not asking you to suddenly become all smiles the way you used to be. I’m just asking you to keep going. Life won’t get better right away, but it’s too good to give up on. Even when it’s hard, if you look carefully you can find reminders of pleasantries and hold on to them.”

“There—there’s one for you.” Aunt Penny got up, peered out the window, and opened it. The morning sunlight pooled in, colouring the poor little sickroom with life, and the chill air of winter streamed in. Instinctively Kira smelled it, and found to her unexpected delight the scent of dirt embedded within. “It’s a robin,” said Aunt Penny. “The first robin of spring. The snows are melting, and if they’re gone by April, there’ll be feasting in Hobbiton. You’ll be able to get out of bed again, too. I’m sure that if you’re up to it you could go to the spring party. I think it’d do you good.” She closed the shutters, for fear of the cold making her niece ill, and turned to her. “Kira, will you go outside again?”

Kira thought for a few moments, recalling how happy she had been last spring and how happy Mother had been, too. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I will.” I promise I won’t forget, Frodo, she added in her thought. But I can’t let Mother die, either.

Kira had a little under two weeks to adjust to the idea that she had promised to… whatever she had promised to do. She kept a watch on the window, and rejoiced when she saw the first bit of ground free from snow. It was brown, of course, but brown was the colour of growth and within a day’s sunshine it had turned a marvellous shade of green that she had almost forgotten about over the winter. The Tree Party looked to happen right along schedule this year. Now that the sun was getting brighter each day and that everything smelled so fresh, it was hard to look at her room as the sickroom now, and in spite of herself her feet itched to get out of bed. But then Kira remembered that thing had changed so much since she had last been outdoors, that a major piece of history had been lost forever, and that sobered her up quite a bit.

Nighttimes were still a problem for her. The day that she had talked to Aunt Penny she had resolved not to welcome the blackness anymore, but that meant staring right into the water every night and dreaming. A part of her had hoped that the dreams, or better yet, the island itself, would go away with her resolution, but she had no such grace. Aunt Penny had said it would get better. She hoped she was right.

So on the third of April Kira set her foot out on the rag rug in her room, then slid it down to the cool brick and stretched her arm behind her back, ready to shoulder half her body’s weight once again. This is where I belong, she thought, but a part of her still felt she belonged back in bed, or better yet, in the Canal. She tried to lock that part away. She forced a smile, walked as best she could down the hallway, and sat at table with Mother, who was still a little tired from her earlier ordeal. They had managed an unspoken arrangement not to speak of that again.

Kira gradually got used to hobbling about the house again, and she and Aunt Penny helped Mother start this year’s annuals in the little indoor pots. “We’ll be starting business a little late this year,” said Mother, “but that can’t be helped, can it?”

And then, when the last of the chill waters had run off into the nearby streams, Kira opened the smial’s front door and stepped outside. Tears sprang into her eyes, though that could have been the sudden gust of wind that blew at her face. She rambled through the country, vaguely wondering where everyone was until she remembered that Aunt Penny was out at the market in town, and so probably was everyone else. So much the better: Kira was not in the mood for company. She sat herself beneath the tree that she had fallen asleep under, and tried to sort out all that had happened from then till now, and what would happen after.

April sixth came all too soon for Kira’s apprehensive mind. Daffodil had not come to visit since she had been so mean to her. And if she was nervous about facing Daffy, how could she bear even the sight of Tom without either bursting into tears or running up and pummelling him? But the party was important to Aunt Penny, and still more important to Mother. She was bound to go, for good or for ill, and even if she weren’t she’d only be putting off the inevitable.

So with a heavy heart she rode in her uncle’s old cart, the same that had taken her to and from Buckland last year, and travelled east to Hobbiton in time for the party.

No one really recalled why there was a feast there anymore. Though it was the Elves’ New Year, this theory was generally scorned because only the Gardners believed (and even then, didn’t believe too loudly) that elves were real. Of course it was also old Sam Gardner’s birthday, and his mayoralty would not be forgotten for a long while. But Kira had always held with the idea that it was the anniversary of the great Party Tree’s first flowering.

It truly was the centrepiece of the event, after all; at least to the children, for whom the feast must have been made. And it almost never failed to bloom in time for the event, and the ground would be littered with leaves of gold. It was said that whoever got the first flower would be blessed with exceedingly good luck the next year; but whether this came from a time when the tree was a great deal smaller, or whether the tree had wisdom enough to bestow flowers upon worthy hobbits below was unknown. Kira had never gotten one, though once she had been fortunate enough to see one drifting down, but she had memories of standing under the tree with the other children, singing,

Of course she did not know what it meant at the time, and she doubted anyone but herself thought it was more than mere doggerel now.

She and her friends had gone to the Tree Party as long as she could remember. But there was no genuine reason for her to go aside from the large amounts of free food: her friends usually left her to strike up old acquaintances with, say, the Hornblower brothers, or distant cousins from the far reaches of the Farthing, and they would have nothing to do with the lame girl that tagged along behind them. So after eating her fill and trying to butt into a few conversations, she usually just left the group and went over to the Tree, even if she was supposed to be too old for that sort of thing. She remembered hearing the story of its origin, but it had never mattered to her then. Kira had just known it was a beautiful tree, and she liked to sit underneath its wide and lofty boughs, long after the younger children gave up on their quest, and smell its fragrance. Then it was time for quiet stargazing until Mother called her back to the Burrowses’ cart, which would take them all home.

She hadn’t been able to go last year, for the snows had lasted far longer than usual; but Daffodil had told her that it was an awful drag, that winter had gone on so late that the Tree hadn’t bloomed in time. But at the time she hadn’t even missed the party. Smaug was flying over Laketown, and Kira wouldn’t have missed that for all the parties in the Shire. She sighed. This year’s winter was far worse than last’s had been, no matter what anyone else said.

The sun felt pleasant on her face as they drove along the East-West Road. No one spoke, though Mother held her hand and smiled at the upward turn of Kira’s fortunes. Kira just felt sick as she imagined forcing herself into society once more. Still, she could not help but smile when she caught a glint of gold and white in the distance. That would be the mallorn.

It was only mid-afternoon, but already the entire Party Field was packed. Kira was content to take her first meal with the Brownlocks, whom she had not seen in over a year, and answered their question about her health and the disaster over winter as meekly as she could. Normally this was the portion of the party she was anxious to get over with; today, however, it was a pleasant buffer between now and what was yet to come. As the Brownlock family began to drift away from the table Mother asked Kira if she thought she were up to going over to the children’s tables on her own. Kira hesitated.

“I think she’ll be fine, Rosemary,” Aunt Penny put in with a meaningful look at Kira. “It’s rare that she gets a chance to be around so many children, and the presence of one of us would spoil it, wouldn’t it, Kira?” Kira swallowed the bile in her throat, kissed her mother on the cheek, and rose from the table to seek out her friends.

“You’ll come to me straightaway if you feel ill or tired, Kira,” added Mother. Kira simply nodded and walked away before either her emotions betrayed her or she lost courage. But she did not seek out her fellow teens just yet.

First she had to bid the Tree hello, now that she finally knew what it was. So she sat at the edges of its shade and let the perfume wash over her, half-listening to the sing-song of the children begging boons from it, who did not understand. Funny that we can’t believe in elves even when they’re right in our midst, she thought. Hullo, mallorn. I’m sorry it took me so long to see you for what you are.

After a few more minutes of contemplation she got up again. Better to get it all over with…

It was not hard to spot her friends in the midst of the slightly shorter tables, with benches that had been cut down to a child’s height. Lingering near the part of the food tent closest to the area, she waited until Daffodil rose to refill her plate, and then walked along beside her.

With only the smallest glance in her direction, Daffodil cut her off. “Don’t be.”

Now Daffodil stopped and turned to her. “Don’t lie to me, Kira. I’m not a fool. Maybe you put it harder than you should have, but you meant it all the same. You can’t go back to who you were and that’s that.”

Kira chewed her lower lip. “Yes, but I was still wrong on some things. Look, here we are, it’s spring, and I’m alive and talking to you.”

“Well, of course you are! You can’t just give up on life like that, even if all the doctors in the Shire say you’re going to!” She clapped Kira on the back; Kira stumbled forwards. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. And you’re right, of course. But… Daffy, if you can put up with my eccentricities… you know, I didn’t mean that you weren’t my friend anymore.”

“I know that,” said Daffodil, and her smile nearly lit up her eyes. “Maybe you are different, Kira, but we can work through that. Just as long as you find someone else to talk tales with.”

They both laughed, and when Daffodil dropped her plate Kira picked it up and took it, claiming that the right of food must go to the hungrier first.

Laden with food, the two lasses made their way back to the table. “Tom’s in rather high spirits tonight,” Daffodil commented. “I wouldn’t cross him if I were you.”

Suddenly a shout was raised from the table in the distance. About half the children got up to gather around them. “Look who’s back!”

At the front of the party were Tom and Roly, who practically ran to see her. “Kira!” Kira and Daffodil stood stock still, and Kira tried her best to still her hammering heart. “I’m very sorry, Kira,” said Roly, “for what I did last fall. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Are you the girl that fell in the river?” asked one of the other children. Without even waiting for an answer, the rest of them pelted her with questions. “Wasn’t it scary?”

Kira’s heart raced. Get me out of here, she thought to no one in particular. Finally, she managed a response. “Er… dinner…”

“Sorry,” said Tom, in a voice loud enough to quell the others. “It’s not polite to make a hobbit go hungry, especially someone who’s been ill all winter and is only just recovered. Let’s go back to the table.”

And the group shuffled back so they could all resume the subject of food. Tom walked on the other side of Kira, who did not look at him as he spoke to her. “You really had me worried, this whole winter,” he told her. “Why did you risk your life for that thing?”

“It mattered to me,” said Kira, “not that you hadn’t already worked that out before.”

“Kira, every time I think I can’t be amazed anymore at your… your idiocy, you go and prove me wrong! What’s wrong with you? Even after a whole winter, you won’t—”

They had reached the table. “Tom, leave me be. It’s been a nasty winter, and I don’t want spring to start off in the same way.”

It was difficult for Kira to focus on food and the questions at the same time, so she ignored her sudden celebrity until her plate was mostly clean. When she pushed it away, the questions returned.

“What was it like?” asked one of them, a younger hobbit whose sense had not quite caught up with his curiosity.

Kira only shuddered. The clamour was starting to stifle again. The voices swirled around her; she was feeling dizzy. And amid the whirlpool she caught out one stream of talk:

“I heard she’d fallen into it from a tree… but what was she doing in the tree to begin with?”

She opened the eyes she’d been squeezing shut to see where the voice had come from. The girl who had asked it was sitting across from Tom.

“A book?” Tossing her curls back, the girl laughed. More children took notice. “Whatever for?”

Daffodil touched Tom’s shoulder. “Tom, you’re making Kira uncomfortable.”

“So what if I am? If her book matters enough that she nearly got herself killed for it, I’m sure she won’t mind a little extra talk about it.” The laughter gave way to silence.

“Tom,” said Daffodil, and she pointed him towards Kira, who had nearly sunk below the table. But it was too late. Kira stood up, livid. “For the records, Tom, not that you think there’s any point in keeping them, I wouldn’t have ‘nearly gotten myself killed’ if you hadn’t thrown the Book in the old oak to begin with.”

“You still didn’t have to go after it. You could have kept your wits instead.”

“I’ve lost my wits? I’m the one that can read, I’m the one that thinks about the outside world, I’m the one that tried keeping you from ruining something so important. Who’s really lost his wits, Tom?”

“It wasn’t important, Kira, and I didn’t ruin it. That was either the wind, or it was you.”

“Tom, you—” Kira lunged across the table, but Roly had stood up behind her, and restrained her.

“In fact, either way it was you, because I wouldn’t have thrown that book into tree if you hadn’t been reading it all the time.”

“Right, because I could just sit there and let three Ages’ worth of history get forgotten, just like that. Don’t think that I was only ill because I fell into the canal! Don’t think I’d have been perfectly healthy over the winter if I’d let it fall without at least trying to save it! If you knew how much we’ve lost—”

“See?” said Tom, turning to the crowd. “She thinks the Travellers’ Tales are real!” The children laughed again.

Get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here… Kira sank to the grass, the energy of her rage flowing from her in tears. The blackness rose about her, and panicked, she began to fight it, but her efforts were only serving to make it rise faster. In desperation she forced an image of Mother’s face into her thoughts. The blackness slowed, then stilled, then ebbed.

Finally, she opened her eyes again. The conversation at the table had long turned to some other, safer topic; only Daffodil remained with Kira. She put her arms around her.

Kira looked at her with reddened eyes. “Leave me alone,” she said. Daffodil quietly rose and walked away.

In another five minutes, someone rushed over to the table, breathless, saying that the musicians were tuning their instruments. There was a great bustle as the table emptied itself, and Kira walked back to her seat on the bench and heavily sat down.

Just as she thought she was alone, Kira felt a hand upon her shoulder. It was Tom. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry if I hurt you.”

Kira was now left alone to the stars. She gazed up as they glimmered in the darkling sky. Without even thinking about it, she began to make out the constellations. There, that’s the Hunter. And the Plough, too. She turned her eyes towards the glow that remained as the Sun sank into the Western Sea, and caught the sweet glimpse of the Lonely Star. And that’s Eärendil! The tears began to flow again, but she did not sob as she stared into its beauty. Elbereth Gilthoniel, I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! She slid off the bench and onto her knees in the spring grass, barely noticing the clatter of her crutch behind her, only feeling the cool air drying her tears even as they fell.

Something about its timbre struck her, and she turned to look at its owner standing beside her. “Kerry!” she cried, and reached over to hug his legs tightly.

“Whoa, whoa!” said Kerry Brandybuck, sitting down next to her. He placed an arm around her shoulder. “Shh—what’s wrong?”

“I tried so hard, Kerry—I really did, and I thought I was getting a lot better, but then Tom had to be so mean, and—” She broke off her sentence. “I’m sorry—here I am babbling to you and you don’t even know what I’m talking about. This isn’t a good way for you to see me again, after so long…” She fished about for a hanky, but Kerry handed her one before she could find hers. She wiped off her face and blew her nose, then looked up at him earnestly. “The Book is gone.”

“I know—or at least we’d gathered as much. The Red Book of Westmarch, you mean?”

“Thank you. It’s not really my fault—it was a gust of wind that toppled it, no matter what Tom says—but I still wish I had done things differently.”

“We all do. But I—my family and I, all the Families, in fact—have had a whole winter to mull it over, and so much help from one another. We tried to contact you, but nobody would let us. ‘Stupid Travellers’ influence,’ they called it.”

She chucked ruefully. “‘Stupid Travellers’ influence’ indeed. You’ve made a believer out of me, and I repaid you by destroying your most important artefact.”

“I know, I know. But it’s queer, all the same; things shouldn’t have happened the way they did.”

“No, they shouldn’t have—but you never know. I know it’s shaken up the book community rather badly, hopefully enough that we’ll take a greater interest in sharing rather than storing this sort of thing. We’re already going through all our collections and trying to piece together the parts we’ve lost. If anything, this disaster was caused by our own bad stewardship of the books.”

“But why? I’ve had this feeling for the longest time, that something’s horribly wrong in the Shire and we either ignore it or don’t do anything to fix it.”

“I’m not the person to ask. We’re just the younger generation; we follow our forebearers and try not to judge their actions. They have so much more experience, and have dealt with so much more…”

Kerry nodded, and for a few moments they gazed at the stars together. “So, what exactly happened at the canal?”

“Tom—one of my friends—took the book from me, because he thought that I was spending too much time reading and not enough time playing. Then he threw it up in the old oak, and I went after it.”

“But you still blow Merry’s horn from Rohan every November, don’t you? And the mallorn still blooms.” They looked over at the Party Tree and watched the children singing to it.

“Bah,” said Kerry. “I’m not used to talking all reflective like this. Let’s see if we can find you—oh, hullo there!” he cried, suddenly raising his hand high up in the air and waving at a person in the distance.

“Kerry, I’ve been looking all over for—oh, Kira!” Sandra Fairbairn, clad in a plain grey dress, made her way over to the two hobbits and sat on the other side of Kira. “I’m so sorry for everything—it was the original, wasn’t it?”

“Of course!” said Sandra. “Kerry brought us the bad news when he learned of the accident.”

Kerry gave a wry smile. “I’ve been serving as crying shoulder for Kira these past minutes.”

“Tell you what,” said Kerry, “I’d better give both our dads the news. You sit and keep Kira company, and you can come and find me when you’re both done.” He got up and walked away.

For a moment they stared at his retreating form. “What was that about?” said Kira.

“Oh,” said Sandra. “He probably just guessed we’d want some time to talk over all that’s happened without him butting in. He’s like that.”

“Do you think the Families would miss something as big as the Tree Party? Especially since we know what it’s for?”

“But it’s only one night! And he lives all the way over…” Kira waved her hand vaguely to the East.

“Well, we’re also having a bit of a conclave, seeing as our one great unifying manuscript’s now lost. You’ll be summoned to it later, so each of the heads will hear firsthand exactly how it happened.”

Kira gulped. It sounded remarkably like a council, or a trial. “No complete copies?” She knew the answer, but could not but hope.

“None. That’s what this is for: trying to bring together all the copies we have in the three libraries, and seeing how much we’ve lost. Of course, even if we had a complete copy it wouldn’t be the same. It was really the handwriting—I never realised until then how much of a difference it made—that was the magic of the original. During some of the most dreadful parts—like going through the Black Land—it was as though the words themselves were reluctant, as though he didn’t want to remember them or write them down. Did you get that far in the book?”

“I finished that part. I—oh, I would have returned it to you, the elvish legends rather daunted me; but then Tom was so nasty that I decided to start on them anyway. If I had given it back to you…”

“If I had never given it to you in the first place! What a fool I was, thinking the Book would be safe from all harm if I let it from my sight!”

“I know. We shouldn’t dabble in what-ifs. But, you see, I had only wanted you to believe in elves. Do you believe in them now, Kira?”

Sandra smiled, though not nearly as cheerfully as she had when Kira had seen her in Westmarch. “Then there’s some good that’s come of this whole mess.”

Kira shrugged. “I don’t think it was worth it. If I hadn’t learned to read, well, I’d be as ignorant as the rest of us, but you’d still have your book and I’d still have my friends. Sometimes I rather wish I hadn’t.”

“Your mind and heart’s a lot more important than a bunch of words, Kira. We still have copies—”

“Some copies, of the most important stuff, and if the original really was the only way to get you to believe I’d give it to you again.”

“Well, I’d like to think I would.” She sighed. “It’s just been so difficult.”

Sandra sighed. “Not to my face, no. But it is mine, all the same. I knew how important it was when I gave it to you. We didn’t know—though we’d guessed—that you cared about it by November, too. So,” she said, “I’m the one that’s responsible.”

“Then you’re a great friend, Sandra, and I’m sorry that I’ve given you grief for it. I wish you lived closer, and that Mum would let me associate with you.”

“Well, she wouldn’t if she knew about you. I got in a mite of trouble for visiting the Fair with Kerry’s sister, and I can’t imagine she’d have a more charitable view of you. And now everyone knows I’m a hopeless bookworm, liable to gallivant Outside at the drop of a pin. I’ve lost everything: I lost my respectability for the Book, I lost my friends for the Book, and then I lost the Book, too.”

“I wish I could say something to cheer you up, but it seems as if we’re losing everything these days. First Grandmother, then the Book, and now the King, too…”

“What?” The chain of words somehow managed to link itself with the sombre clothing she had seen on Sandra and Kerry, a few other hobbits scattered throughout the party, and even a couple of children at the table. “Oh, dear…” She closed her eyes and wept the silent tears again.

“Kira—oh, I’m so sorry; I thought you knew! The heralds came to the Bridge last month—Elessar is dead and his son Eldarion is now King. I didn’t mean to distress you…”

“No, but—” Kira paused to sniffle. “It seems like everything leftover from the Third Age is gone now, and most people don’t even know! I didn’t even know most of it until just now!”

“You probably would have known about the King if you hadn’t been stuck inside for so long, Kira.”

“Kira, he’s mortal like us, and he’d already reached two centuries! You can’t grudge him his rest—whatever that may be.”

“I didn’t get to see him either, if it helps. He left Arnor for the last time the year before I was born.”

Sandra gave another one of her sad smiles. “Oh, you would have loved her, Kira. She used to tell the most marvellous stories—not only from the Red Book, but her own memories of the Travellers, and her journey to Minas Anor when she spent a year in the King’s Court with all the fancy lords and ladies. I used to want so badly to go there.” Her eyes glistened. “I think I was more grieved when she died than when I heard the news about Strider. She was our last tie to the Red Book—our last tie to Frodo, too, barring all his namesakes. She remembered him, you know.”

“Not quite,” said Sandra. “And she didn’t remember much. But she was very bright, even when she was so young, and it didn’t take her long to learn how to talk. And as soon as she could, her father asked her if she could remember the other hobbit who had held her and sung her to sleep. And she did, so he told her, in language she could understand, that this was a very dear friend of his that had gone away. And every day after that he asked her if she remembered Mr. Frodo, until she was old enough to understand how important it was and daily bring up her memories herself. She told us that he used to say that a memory is one of the most precious gifts you can have… how it helps you go on in dark places…” Sandra broke off and dashed the sleeve of her dress against her eyes. “I still can’t quite believe that she’s gone.”

Kira was silent for a while, not wishing to intrude on something as holy as this friend’s grief. But Sandra seemed to have mastered her tears—either that, or there were no more left to be shed. “What was the memory? Did she tell you?”

Sandra nodded. “It wasn’t much, though, as I said. I suppose it was the sweeter for being so faint. Just… the gentle sound of his voice, the soft touch of his hand on her brow, and a pair of twinkling brown eyes, looking down with love and sorrow.”

“I should have liked to know her—to talk elves with you and her as you promised. At least she told you. Now I’ll never get to see anyone who knew the Ring-bearer. There’s no one left.”

“I don’t like it, either, dear.” For a few minutes the two girls, united by their loss, sat there, but then Sandra remembered at the last that she still had to go and find Kerry, since he had given both of them the slip last time. “You won’t be too upset on your own, will you? Come to think of it, you should probably go find your mum or something; she must not have heard from you in a while.”

Kira looked at the position of Eärendil on the horizon. “Not quite yet. Usually she finds me at the Party Tree, anyhow.”

“Are you sure? I could introduce you to all of my cousins of various degrees that are your age. Kerry’s sister Merina would be about the same.”

“I’ve met her,” said Kira, and she felt a sudden longing to see Merina again and possibly many other, similar children. “But I don’t think I can manage too many more people right now, if you take my meaning. Besides, wouldn’t they all be dancing?”

“I suppose not. But I really must go now—I’ll get to see you again, hopefully?”

“That’s so long!—But it’s better than nothing, I suppose. Goodbye!” And with that, Sandra rose and left in search of Kerry.

With her friend gone, Kira felt as if all of her emotions were released from the bottom of her heart to pour down through her feet to the ground. She limped over to the tree, where most of the children had given up on singing. Elanor, the Book, Strider… Strider, dead? She sank to her feet at its bole, drawing her knees up to her eyes. Why? She looked up at the fair tree around her and half-expected it to wither up like Laurelin, just to spite her. What am I to do? The rejection, the reunion, the comfort, the cataclysmic news—all of these rushed back to her and she felt a surpassing weariness that kept her from even attempting to sort out her tumultuous feelings.

She rose again, turning to look at the tree. She laid a hand on its silver bark—it almost felt alive, to her. Mallorn, mallorn, elven tree; cast a blossom down to me! She did not say it, but she thought it and channelled all the needs, all of her joy and pain, into the living wood. She turned around, waiting to see if a flower would come drifting down to her on the wind.

None came. She should not have expected anything different, really. The weariness washed over her again, and she laid herself down in between two great roots. Within minutes she was asleep. She did not dream.

It took Rosemary five tries to awaken Kira, so deep a slumber she was in. “I told you she was not ready for this,” she told Penny. “Look at how exhausted she is from all that effort!”

Penny only shook her head and helped the half-sleeping Kira make her way across the field into the cart. She had not seen the girl so close to peace in a long time. Kira slept in the cart, and when they arrived at the Proudfoot smial, she was too tired even to change out of her nice dress before she went to bed.

“I think it’s high time I went back home,” Penny told her sister once Kira was soundly asleep. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

On a sudden impulse Rosemary flung her arms around Penny’s neck. “Thank you so much,” she said, “for all you’ve done. I don’t deserve a sister like you.” Then she let go and smiled. “You need to see your own family—and your husband, too, I daresay. I’m sure I’ll be able to look after Kira by myself, now that it’s spring again.”

“I hope so,” said Penny; and when the next day Kira was awake and cheerful she departed.

A week passed before she got the summons. Since Kira knew it was coming, she made the most of the time in between. The mallorn’s peace wore off slowly, so that those dreams she had only began to trouble her the night of the twelfth or so. The daytimes she busied herself about the hole with quiet tasks, and rarely went outside.

Kira only shrugged. “I’d rather spend time with you for now, Mother.” She knew she could not hope to avoid the Burrowses—and Tom—forever, but she had some time before she truly needed to think about such troubling things again, and she wanted to use it.

Then, on the thirteenth of April, a knock came on the smial door from the postal lad. He bowed and doffed his cap. “Letter for one Miss Kira Proudfoot, and her mother Rosemary.” Kira watched from the kitchen as Mother slowly took the letter and paid the postboy. She rose and moved until she was behind her. “Do you want me to read it to you, Mum?”

Mother turned around and closed the door behind her. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Kira took the paper in hand—it was Michel Delving’s finest, softest grade—and looked at the seal. “It’s from the Warden of Westmarch,” she said. “He probably wants to know what happened last November.”

Immediately Mother’s expression turned from one of faint surprise to outright suspicion. “What does he have to do with you?”

Mother took the letter back. “No. Those good-for-nothing lackwits are not having anything more to do with you, Kira. After all of last year I think that you’d agree with me—they’ve made you do horrible things, and made even worse things happen to you.” She walked briskly over to the kitchen, towards the cook-stove.

“He’s the Warden—one of the four most powerful hobbits in all the Shire—and we don’t even know what the letter says. If we throw it away, he’ll probably send more, or even come for me himself. Besides,” she added, “it wouldn’t hurt to read it, would it? You could still say no.” Her stomach twisted.

“Very well,” said Mother, handing her the paper. “I suppose we should listen to what he has to say,” but the way she said it sounded as if she was only letting Kira read it so she could reject the proposal more soundly.

Kira sat down at the kitchen table and broke the seal. There were two leaves inside: one very short note addressed to her, and a longer one addressed to Mother.

Your presence is requested at an audience with the Thain of the Shire, the Master of Buckland, the Warden of Westmarch, and Mr. Holfast Gardner, concerning the loss of the Red Book of Westmarch last year; to be held at one o’ clock in the afternoon this Saturday, the 15^th of April at Bag End in Hobbiton. A response is appreciated but unnecessary.

“They’re in earnest, Mother,” said Kira, when she was finished. Beneath were the seals of the Thain, Master, and Warden, in all their official glory, signed underneath in red ink, as well as a fourth signature in red. She handed the letter to Mother so she could inspect the seals themselves.

Enclosed is the official summons for your daughter’s presence at a private enquiry we are making concerning the destruction of an ancient and well-beloved heirloom of our families. Because young Kira was intimately involved in this unfortunate event, we are most desirous of hearing from her exactly what happened.

This is not just for our own self-interest. Kira was very damaged by the surrounding events, and we are concerned about her well-being. If we can know the exact circumstances of the accident, we can make certain it will never happen again, to her or any other youth.

Rest assured that the meeting will be informal, and we will not try to press any contrary views on your daughter.

I fully understand any scepticism you may hold towards our request to see her; I admit that Kira’s previous dealings with us have left a rather unfavourable impression of us on both you and the rest of the White Downs.

As such, we request your presence at the audience as well, so that you may see that we mean no further harm to Kira. You may withdraw her at any time that you think the conversation is detrimental to her, and if you should happen to have any suggestions for us we encourage and welcome them.

                                                                                                                                       Sincerely,
                                                                                                                                       Elfstan Fairbairn
                                                                                                                                       Warden of Westmarch

There was no seal on this letter, nor any red ink. Kira briefly remembered Kerry’s conversation with her, and wondered if this was what he meant about trusting those in charge as having more experience and more wisdom. The letter was very cleverly worded, too: if anything would persuade Mother to let her go to Hobbiton in a few days to talk with the heads of the Travellers’ Families, it would be this. But the idea of Mother coming with her was discomfiting. It was a lot easier to go back in her mind to November and the time before when she was surrounded by people who understood.

Mother was duly impressed by the letter, but it took a private trip over to Tom’s hole (to his father; Mother wanted to ensure that Kira had not misread anything) before she consented to letting Kira go. The next day she went to the Post Office to dictate a short response of assent and request for transportation, if at all possible.

Very early Saturday morning a very fine carriage pulled up to the Proudfoot residence. Kira, who had dressed herself in the same brown workdress that she had worn to her grandfather’s funeral, and her mother mounted, and with the crack of a whip they were moving east towards Hobbiton and Bag End.

Kira’s self-consciousness prevented her from luxuriating too much in the green velvet upholstery, and she contented herself with staring out a glass-paned window and watching the countryside roll by. Yet she felt incredibly rustic, and wondered if she should have taken Mother’s advice and chosen a nicer dress. What am I doing here?

Through the White Downs they rode, into flatter land and Waymoot, and then rolling again as they turned north on a back road into Hobbiton. They passed by the Party Field, with the mallorn in her resplendence, and then—something which Kira had seen only from a distance—the Hill. Even if New Row was not as old as her own home, something about the arrangement of the holes in one great Hill and the sprawling garden that took up every uninhabited space took on the air of ancientry to her, and she felt as if she were magically transported back to the Third Age.

The carriage wound its way up the Hill, until they reached the smial at the top, replete with round green door. It was exactly as Kira had read it: Bag End.

Kira and Mother dismounted, and while the carriage drove round to the back walked on a white stone path through beds of jacinths and late crocuses to knock on the front door. There was silence, then a scamper of feet, a few tumbles, and the door suddenly flew open to reveal a golden-haired faunt. She took one look at the visitors, and then turned back and yelled, “Auntiiieee!”

Kira heard a slightly more sedate patter of feet before she saw a much older hobbit, perhaps in her seventies, come running up and scoop the child into her arms. Then she directed her attention to the visitors. “Apologies,” she said with a breathless smile. “All of the younger folk went off on a fishing trip today, so we’re rather short of help. Fíriel Bolger, at your service.” She inclined her head, and Kira and her mother murmured their own introductions and curtseyed.

“I’m very glad both of you could make it,” said Mrs. Bolger once she had directed them inside. “Was the journey comfortable?”

“But you must be in sore need of refreshment,” she continued. “I’d like to invite both of you to take luncheon with the rest of us, if it pleases you.”

It more than pleased Kira, whose stomach had been rumbling for quite some time now since they had only packed one meal for the ride. So within a few minutes, once they had freshened themselves up, the Proudfoots took seat with all the Tooks and Gardners and Brandybucks and Bolgers and many others besides. Kira was afraid that aside from the food itself (which it might be added was excellent even by hobbit standards) the meal would be very dull, as she realised that there was no one her age for company, much less anyone she recognised. But in time, venturing out to converse with the very elderly and slightly deaf hobbit to her left, she discovered that he was none other than Frodo Gardner, and that he had a remarkable propensity for rattling off jokes and amusing yarns at such a prodigious rate that before she knew it the meal was over.

Then Kira’s stomach knotted horribly (a feeling only made worse for being full) as the purpose of her visit returned to her. As they were all clearing the dishes from the table, scouring and rinsing them, a middle-aged hobbit nudged her and said that as soon as she and her mother were finished they should make their way to the study. He pointed out the way, and before he retired to that room himself Kira got a good enough look at him to guess that this was indeed Sandra’s father. Kira sloshed some water through her milk glass and passed the news along to her mother, and when they were done they walked together down the hallway into the study.

It was a pleasant enough room, facing directly westward. Up against the window was an upright desk with ink and quill, and there were several bookshelves to either side. The shelves themselves were almost bare, for tables upon tables (pushed against the walls) had books stacked upon them, contrasting in their clutter with the otherwise bare room. Six cushioned chairs had been placed in the centre, facing one another in a circle, and it was in three of these that the Warden, the Master, and one other hobbit were seated. Kira and her mother sat down in two of the other chairs, and last of all entered a hobbit at whom Mother started on seeing. He closed the door behind him.

“I apologise for the clutter,” he said, gesturing to the book-strewn tables. “We’ve been going through our collection since the disaster to try and see exactly what we have. I take it the audience is ready to begin?”

The hobbit whom Kira did not recognise nodded at this, and rose. “By my authority as Took and Thain of the Shire I declare this audience to commence.”

The Thain sat back down. “A formality,” he explained. “If this were to stand by all the ceremony we’d have at least twice the number of hobbits in here, and a scribe to foot.”

“I’m afraid, though, that we have you at a disadvantage, knowing a great deal more about you than you do about us. I am Auduin Took, Thain of the Shire, at your service.”

“Holfast Gardner, at your service.” This came from the hobbit that had entered the room last.

“So,” said Mr. Brandybuck, “I’d like you to tell your story, Kira, starting from the earliest relevant point.”

Kira glanced at Mother, who gave her an encouraging look. Then she thought of the fine folk seated around her, all of whom were literate and believed, and knew whence she should start.

“My father was Lagro Proudfoot, who was the son of Blanco and Hallie Proudfoot. Hallie was, as you know, one of the daughters of Merry and Estella Brandybuck, so I do have some Travellers’ blood in me. Maybe that was what got me all tied up in this, or maybe the fact that I’ve been lame from birth. At any rate, my dad died shortly before I was born; and I have had as little contact as possible with his side of the family since.

“Until two winters ago, that is. Everyone was getting sick back home, and since my health’s delicate my mother sent me over to her sister’s care in Buckland—she had married a Brandybuck, far more decent than any outlandish strain that may have entered my blood. I made the acquaintance of Kerry Brandybuck, your son,” here she gestured at the Master, “and he offered to teach me how to read when it became clear that I would be stuck at Brandy Hall for the winter. My foot kept me from getting up and about, so I learned to read because it was the only thing I could do. Aunt Penny found out, and got a little angry—I didn’t understand why, then—but after having a good talk with the Master of Buckland,”—another gesture—“she relented.

“You must understand that at the time I thought the Travellers’ Tales were no more than old fairy-stories told at a fireside, and I didn’t think anything of them. I remember I was terribly shocked when I found out that Kerry believed they actually happened. Anyhow, I left for home in the spring, and didn’t think too much more on books until I discovered the mithril coat in the Mathom House. After a bit more thought and a bit of luck too I managed to get to Undertowers so that I could learn more about the tales. Sandra gave me the original Red Book, because I was one of the first children she’d met who was truly interested in them and because she wanted me to believe they were true.

“I read everything about the War of the Ring and the part we had in it, and it made my friends upset because they thought I was more interested in the Book than I was in them. I don’t know if they thought right, but when things came to a head I was too stubborn to apologise and continued reading, even thought I’d planned to return the Book before I got to the elvish legends. Finally one of them got a hold of the book, to try… I don’t even know what he wanted to do with it, but he wanted to change my behaviour. When my other friends disapproved of what he was doing he threw it up into the branches of an oak tree that overhung the Ash canal. I went after it, but it fell in the water, and when I woke up it was gone forever.

“I apologise heartily for every part I had in the destruction of the Book, and do know that none of it was intended.”

“We know that none of it was intended, and hold you entirely blameless in the matter,” said the Warden. “If anyone is at fault it is Sandra, who let the book leave the library and accepted all the risks inherent with that action.”

“Don’t blame her!” cried Kira. “I told you before; she only gave it to me because she wanted me to believe, and there’s nothing like the original to do that.”

“Yes,” said Kira, with a guilty look at her mother. “I couldn’t say when, but… yes.”

“I—I don’t know. I suppose so, but I really wasn’t thinking about that when I went after it. I just knew I was the only one who could save it.”

“But your friends were there—the ones that had driven the other to the point of throwing the book in the tree?” said Mr. Gardner.

“They weren’t devoted enough to risk their own necks going after it, and I don’t blame them. I think I frightened them, and they left. Daffodil went and got help, but I didn’t know that at the time and it would have showed up too late anyhow.”

“Which is of the utmost importance,” said the Thain. “Kira, you must never hold your life in such low esteem as to risk it for the sake of a mere object: even one as precious as the Red Book of Westmarch.” Mother opened her mouth, perhaps to object to the direction the conversation was turning to, but Kira spoke before she had the chance.

“You would have been considered prudent,” said the Master, “and no one would have blamed you.”

The four hobbits looked at each other; if they were taking Mother’s suspicious glares into account they did not show it. Finally the Warden spoke for them all. “Yes,” he said. “While what you did was doubtless… heroic, it was still misguided, and thus wrong. We’re not exactly a people built for heroism.”

“Really? I thought that’s what the Red Book was all about. We may not look like much, but we can rise to the occasion.”

“Of course not! Besides, I thought that folk died in tragedies. The only thing that’s gone here is the Book, and a heroine would hardly have a part in its destruction. What would you have done in my place?”

Kira was dimly aware of the other people in the room rising in indignation, but her eyes were fixed on the Warden’s.

“That is neither here nor there,” he said, after a few moments’ reflection. “If you made a mistake in going after the book, it has been forgiven, for your life has been spared. And it is hardly fair for you to compare our two cases: you are a child, and are not bound to the Book by any sense of duty.”

Kira lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to talk out of turn.”

“I know. You were speaking out of your zeal, of which perhaps there is too much for one of your age.”

And too little for one at yours, she thought. She felt Mother’s hand gripping her wrist.

“All this has moved beyond the point,” said Mr. Gardner. “The problem of the Book is not in what happened at that oak tree, but what happened before.”

“Is wrapped up with the same. Right or wrong, Kira could not help going after the Book—which I think you, my cousin, would understand as much as I—so if we are to ensure that this does not happen again, we should examine the underlying causes.”

“Well, there’s half the problem!” said the Master. “And most of them thought that Travellers’ Tales were for faunts, too?”

“I know,” said the Thain. “But I’d say this whole thing started because the girl learned to read, not because her friends couldn’t. Funny how disasters like this never happened in the Third Age, isn’t it?”

“Not really—I think most of the disasters back then stemmed from hobbits wandering Outside and never coming back; and even then, they weren’t disasters,” said Mr. Fairbairn. “Hardly a big matter, except to their loved ones.”

“And if she could have, it would be a disservice to give any hobbit in her situation the sole option of leaving the Shire. We can’t all be Tooks, can we?” said Mr. Gardner.

“Not in the least. I’m only saying that Kira should not be made to feel miserable simply because she can read.”

“Perhaps not, dear, but you got into plenty of thorny situations because of it. We can’t punish Kira for reading, and we can’t punish her friends for not reading. What do you suggest that we do, Auduin?”

“I think we should try to keep these situations as calm as possible, should they arise. You’re right, of course, that we can’t prevent the situations themselves. So I suggest that we keep books from leaving the libraries, permanently. That way people who are not accustomed to reading won’t be tempted to push their luck; and there is no longer any risk to the books themselves.”

The four hobbits conferred for a few minutes; it seemed that their private disputes had cooled down. When they broke from their discussion they had reached an agreement.

Caradoc Brandybuck spoke. “We will uphold the Thain’s decision, if not permanently then at least for the time being. It will prevent another disaster like this one, if it does not make any social situations more stable. This may be an inconvenience to you, Kira; but it will be better in the long run. I am sorry.”

Kira left the room bewildered, not at all comforted that Mother looked pleased at the meeting’s outcome. During the general pleasantries before taking leave of Bag End she singled out Mr. Gardner; he seemed the most sympathetic out of the lot. “Why do you think everything will get better if it’s harder to get at books?”

He shrugged. “The books last a good deal longer. Our oldest Shire record hasn’t left the room it’s kept in for at least a century.”

“The Yellowskin. It’s a record of births, marriages, and deaths in the Great Smials, among other things.”

“Ah, that’s the debate. I’d say ‘no,’ but reality seems to disagree with me.”

“But I became one. Couldn’t you have pulled that off with my friends? Then we wouldn’t have a problem at all.”

Mr. Gardner stared at the rug on the floor. “If only it were that easy.” Suddenly he looked in Kira’s eyes again. “I’m dreadfully sorry that you had to get caught up in this whole business. In an ideal world you could not only read in peace, but discuss it with your friends and face something better than ridicule.”

He shook his head. “We have, only—you’re too young to understand something so complex. Suffice it to say that not all the change from the Third to Fourth Age was good. We—the Thain, Master, Warden, and the Mayor, that is—have had to change with it. This—all of this—is a consequence.”

“Sometimes I don’t, either. Which is probably why the other three have authority and I don’t. But I’ll do what I can to help you. Tell me, what was the name of the fellow who threw the book in the tree?”

“Thank you. It’s high time we had a talk with the person who was actually responsible for the loss of the book, isn’t it?”

“Good.” She sighed. “I am sorry for getting angry at the Warden, by the way. He was right; I shouldn’t have risked my neck like that going after it. But I wasn’t trying to be a heroine.”

“Of course, it worked back then, but a lot of things that were brave and right—right, to the point of folly—worked in the Third Age. I have a feeling we’d have done a lot better back then, you and I.”

Mother, who had been speaking to the Master of Buckland on account of his having provided aid for her sister’s children over the winter, came over to prevent Mr. Gardner from pressing any more “contrary views” on her daughter. The carriage was sent for, Kira and her mother mounted, and they were off.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Mum?” said Kira as she watched the Hill in all its storybook glory receding from her line of sight.

“I suppose not,” said Mother. “My faith in the Thain has been considerably restored—not that he matters that much compared with the Mayor, who’s a very decent person. Maybe the Tooks are starting to get some hobbit sense in their heads, finally.”

“Still, I didn’t follow all the conversation well enough to be sure that they weren’t just putting more notions into your head.”

Mother fixed her eyes on her. “And you do, too, don’t you? I was able to follow that much.”

Kira nodded. “But it’s no use getting upset at them for it. I believed in the Tales long before, even if I didn’t think of them as carrying on into today.”

“Even if those tales were true, Kira—which they aren’t—they’d still be past and gone.”

“As Mr. Gardner was just telling me.” She smiled. “Really, I’m the one with the most contrary views of all, and they’re just trying to make me a little more normal.”

Mother leaned her head against the window. “Well, they can believe whatever they want, as long as you don’t get caught up in their business again.”

Kira knew that it would take a bit more than staying out of libraries to go back to “plain old hobbit sense,” but she decided not to tell Mother.

“And they’re doing the right thing by keeping those books of theirs to themselves. I daresay they’ve learned their lesson.”

“Certainly not. If you happen to run into him or some such people at a party or something, you can exchange pleasantries—no use in being rude—but no actively seeking them out! They’re a bad influence.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Kira, but thinking back to the Tree Party she was happy. She had been actively sought out then, and since there was no use in being rude she’d just have to talk with them a little whenever she was actively sought out in the future. That, at least, comforted her as she examined a future filled with no books and little reading for the rest of the ride home.

When she got home that night and went to bed, she dreamed of trying to climb the old oak and being held back by invisible hands, and of the Past being carted up into the Lockholes and the doors nailed shut. She thought she could hear pounding within the walls as hobbit hands drove the nails in, but she couldn’t be certain.

The next day Kira woke up, dressed, ate, and did her chores. Then she went outdoors to find her friends and make peace with them. It was a beautiful day outside, and the sunshine warmed her darker clothing. She didn’t know how long she was supposed to wear mourning, but a little warm weather wasn’t about to hinder her. Walking on top of the smial, she sat down on the mulch that had been covering the herb plot over the winter, and wormed her fingers down through it into the soil. It was starting to warm, too. Soon she and Mother would be planting. Brushing the mulch back over the hole she had made, she took up her crutch and wandered over to the Burrowses next door.

Daffodil was within, working on her lace. “Kira! I haven’t seen you since the Party!”

“I needed some time to think. I’m afraid Tom wasn’t the only unpleasant thing that’s happened.”

“What else could—never mind, I won’t even ask. Even Roly was furious at him, though. He had no right to… to goad you like that, and in front of everyone else!”

“If I were you I shouldn’t have been able to help it. To be so callous, so unfeeling! I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“And you’ve only gotten grief for it.” She made a noise that sounded something in between a laugh and a sigh. “There are some things I don’t understand about you, Kira.”

“You’ve got a point, there. Still, I think he may have realised he’s gone too far. I can’t be wholly certain, since he’s Tom, but you shouldn’t get a repeat of what happened at the Party.”

“That’s good, because I can’t afford to wage another silent war with him.”

Daffodil’s eyes opened wide. “I thought it was always going to be war between you two!”

Kira shook her head. “I can’t avoid him, Daffy. The people in charge of the Libraries have decided that none of the books can leave them.”

“It seems as if all those quirky descendants of the Travellers aren’t as quirky as we’d thought.”

“Yes, but they don’t want anyone else to. More accurately, they don’t want me to get into any more trouble, or to get their books into trouble with me.”

“The first way I can not get into trouble is to make some sort of peace with Tom. Maybe if they see everything’s going all right, they’ll open up the Libraries again.”

“Then I don’t see a truce nor a library opening coming. You’re too stubborn, Kira.”

The look of abject hope on Kira’s face made Daffodil grimace inside, and wonder at the change that had wrought itself on her friend. “Well, as I said, Tom’s softened up a bit. At the very least, you can try…”

“No,” said Daffodil. “But it might be worth a go. As you already said, Tom is rather hard to avoid, especially if you have no excuses for it.”

Roly ambled over from the kitchen with a hand full of dried apple slices. “Hullo, Kira! What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you just go back to your books? I’m sure that would be far more effective than any half-hearted apology.”

“She can’t get at any more books,” said Daffodil. “And besides, do you really want Kira to coop herself indoors all the time, like last fall?”

“No,” said Kira. “But I can work on that. We’ll never be back to… to the way we were before I learned to read—I’m not giving that up—but we can be as close as we can.” She did not say if “we” included the Burrowses or not.

“Thank you.” Kira faced the two. “I really don’t deserve friends like you—you were a great help to me at the Party.”

“I think I thought you were always more on Tom’s side than on mine—because of what happened at the oak, and before—but it seems as if you’re taking mine, now.”

Roly shook his head, looking more pensive than Kira had ever seen him. “I’m not on anyone’s side, Kira. I just don’t want the four of us to be split up. That was done by your books so much of the time—but you can’t get at them anymore, and Tom’s been more of the problem than you for a long time—for longer than I cared to admit. Let’s go outside and see where he is.”

The three of them walked out into the fine day together, and Kira wondered why she had ever said she was tempted to leave the Shire. Then she recalled her dreams, and wondered why she was spending so much energy on the present when the past lay behind, forgotten, in the dust.

When they found Tom, Kira had managed to set the past aside, neatly folded up in a corner of her mind, to be taken up again when this gruelling task was over. He was sitting alone, in a fallow field, ripping up blades of grass and tossing them aside. She came up from behind him and sat down; he appeared not to notice her. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tom.”

“But you will. Even if you think I’m a fool, you’ll let me be a fool and not try to kill me every time you want me to be like you.”

He flinched and looked away. “Kira, I wasn’t trying to kill you; if you hadn’t gone after that fool thing—”

“There is nothing you can do to make me stop believing that the events laid out in the Red Book of Westmarch actually happened. I never shall stop, but even if I did it would be through no act of your own. So, where does that leave you? You can try and avoid me, but from what Daffy and Roly have been telling me you’ve had a lonely past week and you’d have to expect more of the same. And I don’t think you’re so comfortable with the town lads that you’d lose all three of us over something like this. Or, we can keep running into each other like normal, and every time we do you can humiliate me and antagonise me as you did at the Party. That’d make things downright horrid for both of us, and you would fall so low in my sight that I’d feel more for the brute beasts in my tales than I would for you. I may not be too fond of you at the moment, Tom, but I’d like to think I still have some shred of respect for you within me. If you keep this up you’ll lose even that. So, you can make yourself sullen and miserable for as long as we both live here, or we can learn to put up with one another. Which one will it be?”

Tom picked up his lump of grass and threw it far away. “Why can’t you just forget about the whole thing?”

Kira studied her hands, nestled in the lap of her brown dress. “Because everyone else has,” she said softly. “I’m sorry for all the pain that causes you, but I can’t back down from that.”

“I’ll be wrong, then. You let me be wrong, scoff at me whenever my back is turned, and I’ll be happy enough.”

Daffodil and Roly had sat down, too, so that the four of them were sitting more or less in a square. “Tom,” said Daffodil, “Kira’s offering you something close to what we had last spring. You’d be a fool to throw that away.”

“Close, but not quite.” He looked at Kira. “You were getting eaten by it then, too.”

“Tom!” said Roly. “It’s better than what’s going on now, unless you care so little about Kira that you don’t even want her casual acquaintance. And even then you’ll have Daffodil—and me—to deal with. I don’t want the four of us to get broken up by something as stupid as this, and I shan’t let you.”

“I’ll try my best not to be bookish around you, Tom,” said Kira. “And I won’t use up all my time reading, either—I don’t have any more books, and I don’t have a way to get at them. I’ll try my best.”

Tom fixed his gaze on all three of them, and Kira could see that he had felt hurt, if not wronged, the past week. She held out her hand to him again. He put his in hers, then reached out to Roly on his left. They all joined hands and rose, Kira pulling on Daffodil and Tom for support in standing up. She smiled, though her heart ached and weighed down on her like a stone. Not all the damage of November could be undone, but some of it could.

For the next few weeks Kira tried to live as serene a life as possible, though her hands itched for paper and her eyes for the beautifully scripted words. But that’s gone, now, she reminded herself fiercely; and resumed trying to live as if nothing had ever happened. The weather warmed and she and Mother spent a pleasant couple of days setting all of their seedling herbs in the plots. Her body still tired easily, so she did not participate in many games with her friends but looked for flowers, or watched clouds scud across the sky. Perhaps Tom did not like this, but having made her peace with him she did not care too much about his opinion. Sometimes Daffodil joined her, and they would talk quietly, calmly, about ordinary things.

It soothed her heart, but when Kira was least expecting it the old shadows would return. Once, closing her eyes, she even found the dark island awaiting her there. Her cycle of dreams seemed to be broken, but they were still vividly real and almost all of them were bad. Soil, fine but rich, poured down from the sky and she tried to catch it in her hands, only to have it slip through her fingers to be lost below. At night she despaired of ever fully recovering.

She tried to think on Mr. Gardner’s justification for what had happened, how the Ages had changed and you couldn’t expect everything to be the way it was. But wasn’t it still the same Shire that the Travellers had fought to save? Big Folk may have changed their calendars, but hobbits didn’t do that sort of thing. The Shire wasn’t supposed to change.

And now their greatest record, the Story that was true and never really ended, was lost, or as good as lost, to her; and she was supposed to pick up her things and move on without so much as a backward glance. That wasn’t what Frodo had told Sam to do.

Well, she would move on if people insisted, but no one could stop her from gazing at the receding horizon.

One mid-spring night she couldn’t get to sleep, sitting in bed and caught up in watching the stars wheeling ever-slowly past her window so that she wouldn’t have to think as much about the things that threatened to smother her. She had not been out stargazing in a long time, years even: real stargazing, not trying to prolong the moments of quiet at a party but lying supine on an open field without a tree to block her or a hobbit to interrupt. She remembered, from early in her youth, getting out of bed in late autumn with blankets and being taught the names of the constellations and how to tell direction. It was rather pointless for someone in her condition, but she had been allowed to look all the same. At this age, of course, if there was any leaving of the hole after sundown it could only be for purposes of mischief; and Kira was expressly forbidden.

Still, there was nothing mischievous in losing oneself in the beauties of creation, and Kira rather craved such a sensation. For several minutes she let it tug at her heart, until suddenly making up her mind she swung her legs over the bed and stood up. It took her a little while to find her crutch in the poor light, and longer still to find the robe she often wore in bed over winter and throw it on. Pulling a blanket from the bed, she opened her window and slipped out.

Not wishing to accidentally trample any plants, she crept around the smial and crossed the small path in front of their door to crest another hillock, which had lain fallow for as long as she could remember. She wrapped her blanket around herself and lay down. There was no moon out tonight, and the stars were so bright that she could see the Furrow down the middle of the sky. Kira wondered if she had ever seen so many of them at once before; and if not, if that was because she had never gotten a chance or because she had never really looked. Perhaps it was both.

This late at night there reigned a stillness that was hard to match at any other time, until she could not be sure if anything she heard was nearby or in a different Farthing. Even though she could see no trees she heard the hoot of an owl, and became increasingly convinced that a cricket lay right next to her ear and would hop on it any second. The rustle of wind through the grass, the distant bark of a dog, even the dull thud of her heart became audible. They and the stars commingled into a blissful harmony, and Kira felt tears sliding down her temples as she realised it could never last for long.

And it did not. A noise shattered the tentative peace Kira had established around her, a noise so foreign it took her a moment to place it. It was like a footstep, but heavier, a tramp rather than the near-silent fall of bare feet. She gasped. Who could be going through the Shire with boots on? Two possibilities sprang immediately to her mind; she hoped it was the more pleasant of the two. Torn between curiosity and fear, she rolled over onto her stomach and tried to descry the intruder. After half a minute it coalesced from the shadows into her view.

Even from the higher vantage that the hill provided her, she could see it was huge, at least three times her height. Her heart flew into her mouth: one of the Big Folk had entered the Shire.

Paralysed by the thought of such a tall Man being where he had no right to go, she scrutinised the traveller as he drew nearer. If he passed by her hill, she should be able to get a good look at his face—but no, he was hooded—and not alone! She now perceived a shorter figure alongside him—at first she thought it was some treacherous hobbit, but it was too stocky—a Dwarf, then. Her mind raced as she tried to discern the meaning of this. A Dwarf, who perhaps had passed through the Shire at other times, showing their land to a Man? She was not sure what to do: whether to run home and hope they didn’t notice her, or to run into town and get help, or just to cry out and hope someone heard her. Incensed by the impudence of a Dwarf abusing the privilege of travelling through her land, moreover by the daring of a Man to break the King’s Edict so soon after his death, she did none. Leaving the blanket behind on the hill, she ran down pell-mell until she blocked the travellers’ path, folded her arms over her chest, and tried to look as menacing as a sixteen-year-old crippled hobbit could.

“Halt!” she cried, and immediately blushed at the shrillness of her own voice. The travellers stopped, but she doubted it was because she had told them to. She swallowed her embarrassment and continued in as confident a voice as she could muster. “Please state your business here,” she said. “The borders of the Shire are closed to Big Folk, and if you think we sleep inside them you are sorely mistaken.”

The Dwarf just grunted, but the taller one laughed. Yet it was not harsh, or jeering. It was musical. He sat down in front of her, but she could still not see beyond his hood. “I know of the King’s decree,” he said, “and my companion and I do not break it, as it applies only to the race of Men.” He drew back the hood to reveal a beautiful, ageless face that reflected the light of the stars. Kira’s jaw dropped, and her leg buckled under her.

“And if I am not incorrect,” added the elf, “you yourself are breaking some sort of rule, being so young for one of your people and being awake and out of doors at this time of morning.” Kira flushed even brighter, not sure whether to stare in awe or run away. In order to avoid more mortification she glanced over at the Dwarf, who had also sat down in the small valley and had a smile twitching on his lips. His silver hair and beard shone in the starlight, and she could barely make out the same golden tracery on the rim of his helm that she had seen on Fírin’s. With an impending sense of dread her eyes flicked between the pair, and a light broke on her understanding.

“Oh no, oh no,” she muttered to herself, feeling that it was quite impossible for her situation to get more shameful She risked a glance at them again, hardly believing her own eyes. “Did…” She tried to think of a way to phrase her question without sounding even more of a fool. “Did either of you fight in the War of the Ring?”

“Both of us did,” said the Dwarf. She shrunk from his steely gaze, but his next statement made her wonder if he had read the real question in her eyes. “We fought together, in fact.”

Kira clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said, almost inaudible. “I didn’t know who you were. You are Legolas and Gimli, right? I’m not dreaming or going mad?”

“No… but…” Kira faltered and looked down. “I’m sorry; I have no right to speak to either of you this way. I’m already breaking Mother’s rule being out here so late…” She snuck another confirmatory glance at the two.

Legolas laid a hand on her shoulder, so gentle that she almost flinched. “All is forgiven. We were not expecting a chance encounter by so… audacious a hobbit, but since it has occurred I would not deny it.” He drew forth from the pack that Kira now saw he was carrying a small lantern, and almost simultaneously Gimli drew from his some flint and tinder, and lit it. Kira was now able to see the faces of these two heroes more clearly in the yellow light, and she studied their features with a near determination to imprint them on her memory. Gimli took out a pipe, filled and lit it, and carefully moved downwind.

Kira wondered why he would even take interest in something as bland as her life, but decided it was best to answer the question. “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought it’d be nice to look at the stars. I only live in that hole over there,” she said, gesturing through the small valley in the general direction of home. “They’re awfully bright tonight; you can see the Furrow.” She gestured up towards the band in the sky.

Kira immediately thought of who must have told him their names for the stars, and shivered as she thought of how incredibly old these two were. Questions were on her lips but she had not the heart to say them. An odd silence descended in which Gimli puffed on his pipe and stared intently at the hobbit child, and Kira stared intently at the ground.

At length Legolas spoke again, this time to the dwarf. “What precisely are you thinking about, friend?”

“I know I’m not familiar with many hobbit families, miss, but from what I’ve heard it takes a rare hobbit to go out and challenge two travellers in the land alone, especially ones so much larger than her. But you don’t look like any of the hobbits I’ve known.”

“Indeed I have not, though I thought that one of Merry’s daughters had wedded one… It’s very hard for me to get my head around all the names and ties of kinship with your kind.”

“She did,” said Kira, “and I’m her granddaughter. My name is Kira—Kira Proudfoot, at your service, sirs.”

Legolas looked at her face. “The lines of descent have been obscured already, then. You do not look much like him.”

“That’s all right,” said Kira. “I didn’t even know until a year or so back.”

“A hobbit not knowing her own genealogy?” Gimli laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“I said I was a Proudfoot,” said Kira. “We’re much more sensible than Tooks or Brandybucks. I think they’re supposed to be rather embarrassing.”

Gimli snorted. “Embarrassing? And what, pray tell, is embarrassing about bringing about the defeat of the Lord of the Nine?”

“I thought I had heard something like that in the Westmarch,” said Legolas. “Yet you clearly do, and the people around you do not want you to. Why?”

The question pierced her heart. “I don’t know,” she said. “If you’d asked me a year ago if I believed that elves were real I would have laughed in your face—and yet, here I am, talking with one.” She glanced up at him again. “I learned how to read, is what did it. And I read and I saw enough to convince me that maybe not everything I’d read was a bedside story. But I can’t say why nobody else does; it doesn’t make any sense. The closest thing I’ve heard is that we’re living in the Fourth Age and those things don’t matter anymore. Can you explain it? I’m terribly confused.”

“I fear I am not the right person to ask. For elves continually look backwards to the past, and Middle-earth has been given to the dominion of Men. It is our lot to depart, or to fade in the face of their rising. I have heard Men say that our focus on what was has made us unable to adapt to what is, or to look to what may be, and that is why we must diminish; I do not know if that is true. As for Gimli and me, we are relics from an earlier Age, soon to depart from the new altogether. The affairs of this world concern us no longer: not out of will, but of necessity.”

“We are sailing West,” said Gimli. “That is why we came to the Shire—to see it before leaving forever.”

“I’m an old dwarf—it’s a miracle I haven’t gone and died yet, in fact. I may as well go to rest somewhere peaceful.”

“Once we did,” said Legolas. “But it has changed, and the call of the Sea presses ever at my heart. The King is dead, and I have nothing left to tie me here. I cannot hold it at bay any longer. And would you grudge Gimli the chance of seeing the fair Galadriel once more?”

Kira sighed. “But you can’t go,” she said softly. “You’re the only ones left.”

“All things in this Middle-earth must pass, child. Nobody can hold that back forever, as much as we may want to.”

She looked up, and was startled to see sorrow in the elf’s eyes. “Do you miss them?”

“Very much.” His eyes darted over to Gimli, and she realised that soon Legolas would be losing him, too. “I know now why our folk have had so little to do with mortals. Only necessity brought me into contact with them, and yet the bonds that resulted have shaped the past yen of my life.” He gave a brief smile. “Yet I will not grudge the pain that has come since; it is a small price to pay compared with all the good that came as well.”

Kira sat silent for a few moments, thinking. When she finally spoke her voice was almost a whisper. “Take me with you, then.”

“Take me with you. I see now that you have to go, and I want to go with you. I don’t want to stay here.”

“But this is your home. You belong in the Shire, not in the wide world and certainly not in Elvenhome.”

“No, I don’t,” said Kira. “I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong now. I’m the only person left who even cares about the past, and I can’t even take a book from a library anymore.”

“I’m sure you are not the only person, Kira,” said Gimli. “The Fairbairns wish to preserve it, and that is why they have made their rule. Surely you know the reasoning behind it?”

“I am the reasoning behind it! If I’d never taken the Red Book from the library, it’d still be around. But now I believe the Book, and everyone expects me to act as if I don’t. Do you know how hard that is?”

“I am sorry,” said Legolas. “I did not realise you were involved in the accident.”

“But that’s not the half of it. The Book was lost because I was reading it too much for my friends’ tastes, and they decided to act against that. I was the accident.”

“I don’t… but I do. I mean, I know it’s not my fault, but I still helped bring it about. Even if I couldn’t help it. We were supposed to preserve our History but instead it’s been destroyed—there aren’t any complete copies of Translations from the Elvish left, and everything else is locked up. Our history…” she shrugged, “is gone.”

She glanced up again from the ground, looking for a clarification of this statement. Gimli gave her so strong a look suggesting his long-suffering forbearance for this sort of cryptic talk that in spite of herself she giggled.

Legolas fixed his friend with a keen stare and continued. “Nor is it something that can be locked away as easily as you suggest. Eärendil continues to shine, even though many Men have forgotten the source of his light. Do not lose hope, for you are young yet.”

“Everything but the land.” He turned back to Kira. “It is well suited to your people, and enjoys your presence to the point that it gladly yields its fruit to you. Men are not so fortunate.”

“And I do know that I should stay here, even if I don’t always want to,” added Kira. “I’d probably sink your boat, anyhow—the West wouldn’t want the likes of me.” Her eyes strayed to the dwarf. “How did you manage that, anyhow? You weren’t a Ring-bearer. What if they don’t accept you?”

“They shall have to!” Gimli laughed. “For I am going there, whether they will it or not!”

“Nay,” said Legolas with a smile, “they certainly shall. For the deeds of those in Middle-earth are not unknown to the Lords of the West, and I have already received word of their permission in my dreams. The Lady Galadriel sounded most pleased—I would not be surprised if she was instrumental in securing him welcome.”

“Peace!” said Legolas with a laugh. “We shall see them all in the flesh soon enough, Master Dwarf.”

“Some time yet. We were charged by many to observe the state of the Shire before we left, for few can see it firsthand now. And we wished to see the descendants of our friends. Fortunately the journey from Anduin to the Havens has staved off the sea-longing enough to do so.”

“Well, if you wish to stay in this area for the night there are some friends of mine I’d like to show you, just so that they can see that elves really are real.”

“Then I doubt even Master Legolas and I shall convince them that they were wrong in what they did.”

“He is right,” said Legolas. “And we must not tarry much longer if we are to reach the Tookland tomorrow.”

“I do not think that would be wise,” Legolas said. “It is better to make farewells now and not reawaken any wanton desires. The Shire is not a place for Elves anymore, even if Dwarves may pass through it with little more than a scowl from its inhabitants. But I do not see any harm in walking with Kira back to her home and bed.” He placed a certain stress on the last word that made Kira feel rather sheepish. But she did not protest this last decision; she was not sure how much she would able to bear parting with these two twice.

They were kind and let her set the pace, doubly slow for her height and her condition. When they reached Kira’s smial they stopped to say farewell.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” said Kira, “but I think I understand why. I don’t know if all the fair folk in the West know what happened to the Book, but if they do tell them I’m very sorry.”

“I’m very glad I got to meet both of you tonight. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“As are we,” said Legolas. He stooped low and kissed her brow. “May the Sun shine on your path, Kira Proudfoot, wherever it may lead.”

“May… may the West be everything you hope it will be—and more, besides.” She opened the door carefully so it would not creak and slipped inside. “Goodbye.”

She closed the door to whispered farewells on the other side, and snuck back into her bedroom, finding herself standing in front of her window again and looking at the stars. At length their silhouettes, dark against the starlight, came into view at the top of the next hill, and they paused. She felt the elf’s gaze upon her home as he lifted a hand against the sky in farewell; then they turned and crested the hill, and Kira saw them no more.

If the next morning Kira looked sombre and a little weary, she was wide awake and a certain light shone in her eyes that had not been there before. She had only wept a little the previous night for the departure of Legolas and Gimli, and the ensuing hours until morning had made the encounter seem almost dream-like (though not a dream, she assured herself; she had not gotten sleep after going outside, either) and she could turn their words over in her head with little more than a strange sense of peace. But her burdens still weighed about her; although she knew in her head that what Legolas had said to her was true her heart could not yet accept it.

Now, however, Kira was back in the world of washing and weeding, though she knew, with a clearer purpose than she had ever felt before, what she needed to do as soon as she could find the time. She finished her chores at noon, and after luncheon asked Mother for leave to go outside and play with her friends. Setting out with a snack wrapped in some muslin and an admonition to be back by teatime, she began to walk towards the Old Canal—not near the oak, but where the ruffians had begun digging and you could still see the faint outline of the Ash River’s old course in the dip of the land. It was not exactly a lie she had told Mother, for she ran into her friends along the way and did spend some time with them—but she moved on as soon as Tom remarked upon the “smug look” upon her face and wondered what jolly good thing could have happened to her.

Then she moved onwards and followed the river upstream until it reached Michel Delving, crossed it, and found tucked back in that corner of town the Mathom House. Aimlessly she wandered through the aisles crammed full of things loved and forgotten, running her hands over the dusty remnants of ages past and occasionally stopping to read a caption card. Most of the things meant nothing to her, but they were of the past and had been important to someone in their time. Of course the mithril coat caught her eye, and now that she knew who had worn it and whose life it had saved she could not help but spend some time with it. It was astonishing—though not really—that something so valuable, even in the cost of its material, could be sitting, unobtrusive, next to broken dolls and old tankards and nobody even knew.

She made her way across town, deciding to save the stationery shop for her first market day of the year, and entered the empty Storage Tunnels. It was not too hard to find Fatty’s cell if you knew where to look for it, and Kira spent time in there as well, rereading the poem he had carved into the door and feeling rather than seeing the grooves etched into the walls. It was still too light out to make out the scene from them, but she could reach up to the low ceiling and trace the Sun’s disk with her hands.

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky when she decided to turn back. She thought of all the other old things in the Shire that must be lying around neglected and wondered if she’d have time in her life to visit them all. Tomorrow, she decided, she would find a cart and let it take her wherever it was going, especially if it was going somewhere that one of the Travellers lived. She had a feeling that Tookborough was still out, for fear of disturbing her already precious memory of the last of the Nine Walkers—and besides that the Thain gave her a funny feeling and she did not know if she would be welcome there. Brandy Hall was too far away, there was no longer a Bagshot Row, and Undertowers did not technically count; so she realised that, if she was lucky, she should go back to the Hill at Hobbiton and maybe get a closer look at Bag End. She had the feeling that Mr. Gardner would not get her into trouble with Mother. He, at least, would understand.

So that evening Kira did a little extra work while dodging Mother’s questions concerning her industriousness, and early next morning made some sort of noncommittal excuse that hopefully would not leave her worrying too much if she returned later than she had planned. Then Kira stepped outside into the bright cool morning air, wondering if she would have to walk all the way to town to find a ride out to Hobbiton.

As it turned out, she did have to go all the way to town, but a farmer coming up from farther south was kind enough to lend her a ride and she arrived a good deal more quickly and a good deal less tired. After a little bit of nervous waiting and conversation near (but not too near) the Oak Barrel, she learned that one of the goods-carts was headed out on the East Road, and would reach Bywater by noon. Few hobbits trusted the folk that were paid to carry Men’s merchandise from one end of the Shire to the other, but Kira planned on hopping on the back without the driver even knowing and she was not as afraid of Big Folk, or the hobbits that interacted with them, as she had once been. So she hid behind the cart until its driver arrived, and when he had hitched his pair of ponies to it, climbed on and hid among the giant furniture being transported.

The journey was uneventful, though she barely avoided discovery when the driver rested at Waymoot. Kira was most grateful that the driver stopped at Bywater as well, allowing her to get off without any risk to herself. After a few questions in town (and not too many stares in the direction of the Green Dragon and the Ivy Bush) she was able to find the road that led northwest to Hobbiton.

From there the Hill was not very difficult to find, especially since its presence was signalled by the large mallorn in the Party Field. She decided that that was as good a place as any to begin, especially since she had never really seen the tree in full bloom and there was no one in the field. Standing beneath it, she craned her head upward and wondered how elves could bear to live at such a height, and if it were going to continue growing for centuries and centuries since it was an elven tree. She also briefly considered taking a nap there, since it had worked such marvels on her the last time; but she knew that time could not be wasted on such things as sleep. Finally Kira just took a turn about the massive bole, her left hand, resting on the silvery bark, guiding her. She was glancing down at the flowers that had sprung up at the foot of the tree when she suddenly collided with a soft, heavy object.

“Oof.” She looked up from the ground to see a hobbit, perhaps forty, picking himself up from the ground. She stared at him for a moment, trying to locate his features in her memory. “Stars above! You—you’re the old Mayor’s son!”

He looked startled, but recognition dawned on his face as he looked at her, and at her stick. “The crippled girl? From the South White Downs?” He reached down a hand to help her up. “What are you doing here?”

Kira brushed the dirt off her dress. “I should be asking you that—why, I’d nearly forgotten about you. You used to tell us all the names of the stars and then you left. Why?”

“Surely you didn’t think I stayed around Michel Delving just to take you stargazing? Especially when the rest of my family had left for good? No, my heart was captured, and I had to stay long enough to convince her to come back with me. But you still haven’t answered my question: what are you doing here?”

The old Mayor’s son was about to respond to her hedging when he was mercifully (for Kira) interrupted by the arrival of a hobbit lady running from the direction of the Hill.

“Harding, love, luncheon is—” She broke off, breathless, as she saw Kira, and walked the rest of the distance. “Who is this?”

Harding turned to the lady, then to Kira, saying, “This is…” He faltered, searching for the name.

“Kira Proudfoot,” said Kira, bowing her head. Both of them started and stared at her. A look of comprehension spread over Harding’s countenance and suddenly his eyes were filled with pity. “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not realise that was you…”

“Come along,” said the lady, taking Kira’s hand; Kira exchanged the right with the left so that she could walk. “You’re invited to lunch, too, Kira; and we’d best move inside for it won’t wait for us.” Together they walked towards the Hill, Kira casting questioning glances at the two.

Kira was shocked when they walked up the path that went above the New Row, and more still when the lady opened the door to Bag End and stepped inside. Half pushed inside by the entrance of Harding behind her, she had to stumble into a chair just to make heads and tails of what was happening. The lady took her cloak and neatly hung it on a hook behind her. Mr. Gardner came in from beyond the hall. “Kira? What are you doing here, child?”

“I ran into her—quite literally—over at the Party Tree, dad,” said Harding.

Kira’s eyes widened as she looked at Mr. Gardner. “You were the old Mayor?”

Mr. Gardner smiled. “Once, yes. I should have thought that you’d at least have heard the name bandied around.”

He chuckled. “Not everyone in the Shire thought so, evidently. But I’ve had more than my fill of politicking, so don’t even think about trying to get me back in. Shall we had over for lunch?” They made their way into the dining room, where the table was set for a large number of hobbits: the entire Gardner clan, or at least all of those in residence at Bag End. “Clearly you’ve made the acquaintance of my eldest, Harding,” said Mr. Gardner.

Harding nodded. “She was one of the local children I met when I was courting Clematis. I’d never connected her with the incident last November until now, though.” He gave a wry smile and looked at Kira. “You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you—what, five years ago?”

“A lot’s happened,” said Kira, who sat down at the extra place Clematis had set for her and began to eye the food. “Me learning to read, for instance.”

“I can see that,” said Harding. “I’m terribly sorry for what happened, though—even more so, since I know it was—” He broke off, shaking his head in wonder and dismay at everything that had happened. “But what are you doing here?”

Kira blushed. “I’m sorry for not answering that earlier. But you see, Mr. Gardner,” she turned and looked at the old Mayor, “I wanted to see all the parts of the Shire that were… well, important in the Third Age, and I thought that here would be a good place to start.”

“Did you want a tour?” piped up a tween Gardner from farther down the table.

“I suppose that was something of what I had in mind,” said Kira. “It’s just… you have to understand, every time I see the Hill I think it looks like something from a story, not something real; and I desperately would not have that be the case.” Especially since everything is passing away, she added in her thought.

“I’ll give her the tour,” said Harding, “Father, if there is nothing you would rather have me do.” He looked at Kira. “You can at least see all the oldest parts, the parts that haven’t changed much in our time, as I’m fairly sure that none of the children’s rooms are clean.” He fixed a glare at the tween who had spoken earlier, who turned red and looked down.

“But first,” said a voice from the corner, “we had best get on with the meal, or I shall go mad with hunger.” Kira glanced over to see the elder Mr. Gardner filling his plate, and smiled as she pulled two pasties off the platter being sent her direction.

After the meal was through and Kira had thanked her hosts, Harding took her aside and began to show and explain the history of the smial, while asking her questions of the area and the children she knew.

“Do you remember the three other children that were always with me?” said Kira.

“You don’t say!” He stopped in his tracks; they had entered another room anyway. “I thought you were all good friends!”

“We were,” Kira assented. “And he thought—the other two did, as well, but they knew when enough was enough—that he was just looking out for me.”

“Nothing by itself, I suppose. But folk were edgy. Oh, they all respect the memory of Sam Gardner; who wouldn’t? But somewhere along the way they decided that we were becoming too outlandish with our association with Tooks and Brandybucks, having forgotten, apparently, the reasons for those ties.” He sighed. “Hobbits can be downright fools at times, Kira. But I was glad to be gone; after all, this is my home, and at least folk here are still a little more trusting. They called me Harding of the Hill over in your country—partially to keep me separate from the Harding that lives there, but sometimes I wonder if they just wanted to remind themselves I wasn’t one of them.”

“Oh, that sort of thing happens all over the Shire; we’re rather stiff-necked. Granddad still has quite a few good yarns from his time about all the finer folk putting their noses in the air about ‘those gardener upstarts.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if that was really how we got our name.” He looked over at the room they were in. “Ah, you’ll like this one—not so much for the room itself but for what’s in it.” They were in the parlour, and over the mantelpiece hung a sheathed sword. He got up on a step-stool and took it down. “This, Miss Proudfoot, is Sting.”

A look of unmixed delight spread over Kira’s face. She reached out and tugged at its hilt. “It’s tied!”

“Great-granddad had to put that rule in place when young Faramir Took wanted to show off the forms his father had been teaching him and nearly took off Great-Aunt Goldie’s hand.”

“She still hasn’t forgiven him for it. They’re married, incidentally.” He replaced the blade in its position of honour. “And, if there’s no one in it, we’ll be able to see the greater pantry.”

“What’s so important about that?” said Kira, hurrying after him down the hallway into the room.

He pointed to a bit of plaster, hidden behind a sack of potatoes, that was a slightly different colour from the rest. “That’s where Sancho Proudfoot thought Mad Baggins’ jewels were.”

“Really?” said Kira, and then she thought. “Sancho, Sancho—I have an Uncle Sancho, all the way out in the Westmarch—couldn’t be the same fellow, but—”

“Kira, my dear, if you’re a Proudfoot you’re probably related to all the folk at that party, from Sancho to its hosts, however distantly. And now,” he added, as Kira’s mind whirled at all the new information, “I’ve saved the best for last.” He led her down the tunnel that opened upon the study.

“I’ve seen this before,” said Kira. “This is where I met with your dad and the Thain and the Master and the Warden.”

“This is where the Red Book was written. The desk hasn’t been moved or anything.”

Kira ran over to the writing desk, but since it was an upright it was too tall for her. Harding fetched her a stool from the corner for her to stand upon so that she could be the correct height. It was beautifully crafted; there was a drawer beneath the sloping top for quills and blotting paper, and two wells carved in the top for ink and sand.

“The men at Dale made it for Bilbo Baggins,” he explained, “though I think some of the mechanisms may be dwarven.” He pulled open the main drawer; it slid out soundlessly.

Kira looked around the room. Most of the clutter from before was gone, and all the books were now stacked neatly in shelves. “Are you done with your searching, then?”

“Yes, and now we’re comparing all the incomplete versions across the libraries.”

“Grim. We have enough to piece together a good outline of the Elder Days, but it’s nothing near complete.”

“Don’t apologise, and anyhow we’re not sure yet. We have all of the Quenta, and much of the Great Tales, which is a blessing. Besides, nothing can happen to what we do have anymore, so we don’t have to worry about losing anything else in the future.”

He shrugged. “It’s substantial enough.” Yet they both knew it was nothing compared with what they once had.

“I don’t see any problem with it. Just be careful if you get any books down.” Harding looked over the room and tsked. “Somebody left the inkbottle uncapped anyhow; I’ll have to clean it out and refill it. And don’t break anything!”

“Don’t worry;” said Kira, “I’ve only had problems with these when my friends are nearby.”

The old Mayor’s son laughed, and left Kira alone in the room. She had thought of getting out one of the books on the shelves and exploring it, but suddenly her solitude had left her in a more reflective mood. The sun should have been shining through the round window above the desk, but it was behind the clouds now and the room was dreary, and all the talking and all the anecdotes should have done something to make her happy but they hadn’t. Kira wondered how many times Frodo Baggins had stood in this very spot, perhaps staring out the same window for inspiration, or for strength to write down the most difficult parts of the narrative.

And what for? The Book was gone, and its copies were locked up, and everything else that was or may have been a part of the past was passed by daily, so commonplace it was ignored. So much of the Third Age was gone, too much, lost either to time or to the West, where no hobbit could go; and the Fourth Age had no time for the past. The Great Danger should have been engraved on the hearts of all, but it was trapped, bottled up, forgotten. She laid her head on the desk, lightly though it was a sound piece of furniture. How, how had they managed to fail?

In time Kira felt something warm on her face. She opened her eyes and raised her head: the sun was coming out again, washing the writing desk in golden light. Kira laid her hands on the surface, hearkening to the warmth the sunlight brought and willing herself the strength to go on once more. But she had to squeeze her eyes shut, for the sunlight was reflecting off something onto them. Shading herself with her hand, she cautiously opened her lids to see what it was.

The sun was shining directly into the inkwell, and at its bottom was a centre, made of some bronzy metal. Curious, she lifted the sand shaker out of its place, but there was only wood beneath it. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she reached inside the inkwell and pressed down on the metal. To her surprise, it gave way with a gentle snick.

Kira was startled, and began to look around to see what might have happened. One of the side panels of the desk had swung down on a miniscule set of hinges. A secret compartment? She looked more closely; the panel had revealed a small drawer. She tugged on it and it slid open.

She heaved a sigh. Empty. Or… was that something in the back? She reached in and pulled out a scrap of parchment. It was yellow with age, and stiff to the point that she wondered whether she could unfold it without doing any damage to the paper itself. How long had it been sitting there? Carefully she laid it on the desk and bent back the creases.

Kira nearly fell off the stool. She dashed her arm against her eyes, to clear her head and her tears; then she looked at the writing again. She recognised that hand—the firm, flowing, controlled letters, that had continued, like their writer, on and on no matter how much terrain they had to cover. Impossible! How could something like this have lain hidden for over a century? Wiping more tears from her eyes before they could fall, she looked at the text itself, and read it.

It was a poem, she realised, and one written either by poor light or by overflowing emotion, for the style of the handwriting immediately recalled her to the Mordor chapters. And the poem was filled with the same sense of despair, but compounded with a longing so intense that she wanted to cast herself down and pine away for something that could never be.

For that’s what it was, she realised, but if she had had nightmares they were nothing compared to this. She did not know whether it was a day or night-time fancy, but it had been real at some time—a sea-dream, gone horribly wrong. But in this dream not even Valinor could offer the peace he yearned for, and Kira suddenly begged forgiveness for all those long times that she had wished he had stayed—as if that could have changed any of the wreck she and so many were now supposed to rise from. To feel forever alone, forever alienated, to have the sea-longing denied… It had better not have ended like that, she thought. Well, if it had, at least Legolas and Gimli would be there soon to give the Powers the what-for.

She reread the poem, and imagined what it must have been like writing it, and the magic that had worked itself on her heart, that she had not even realised she lost because she had never known she had it, was restored to her. Frodo’s hands had touched this paper, and now hers were touching it, and the past wasn’t as far away as it had seemed. It was not much, but it was something genuine, something original, something in his hand; and she had found it. Maybe he had never wanted anyone to read it, but had forgotten to destroy it when he had time.

Well, it wasn’t about to be destroyed now, and it wasn’t going to be locked up to moulder away, either. She had read it, had touched it, had felt the same longing and the same despair, and something as great as this could not be contained in mere walls. She closed her eyes, and saw in her mind the past bursting out of its dusty prison and flying out into the open air, settling on those outside and entering their hearts. A far cry from reality, perhaps, but better than whatever alternative the Families were cooking up.

And she would endeavour to make that vision real, even if she was the only hobbit in the whole Shire doing it. This—this poem—was her own sign of hope, hope for renewal of lost memory, and she could not hold it back from herself or others. Refolding the paper, she placed it inside her dress, close to her heart. Let the Families do what they wanted; they could not deny her this small joy.

“It is my gift,” said Kira Proudfoot, “and nobody can take it away from me.”

Thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to share this story with you, and for putting up with almost all OCs and unnecessary digressions into Angst.

1). The poem at the end is (for those of you who haven't come across it) "The Sea-Bell," which can be found in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil where it is associated with, but not attributed to ("highly unlikely"), Frodo and is said to have dated from the early Fourth Age. Fandom practically requires, of course, that he actually did write it. The idea that someone found the poem squirreled away somewhere I believe dates to Foster's Guide to Middle-Earth; that is, at least, where I got it from. He attributes it to a Fairbairn, which is a bit ridiculous since they live in Undertowers which did not exist at the time of the poem's writing under this scheme. The plot point at the end was, among many other things, my attempt to fix that. Depending on SoA's copyright rules I plan on including the entire poem in the second chapter of the sequel (yes, there is one), at which point it will fit the rest of the story far better.

2). Thank you to every single one of my encouraging reviewers, from my early RL friends on whom I foisted the tale (they know who they are) to my first audience. Especial thanks go to all those who have made it their mission to review every or almost every chapter: Dreamflower and Larner (who managed to do so in such a timely fashion that I awaited their reviews as eagerly [I hope] as they awaited my chapters, Agape4Gondor, Kara's Aunty, and Virtuella.

3). Thanks to my beta, Nyarendil, who helped root out evil typos and make my characters' speech more hobbity, and who engaged in some amazing philosophical conversation with me around the time of the story's climax. He has, alas, been unable to help me on the last three chapters, which have as a consequence gone out with only my eyes having looked at the latest draft. As a consequence, anyone who points out to me in a review or in an email any sort of technical error (until the return of the beta) in these three chapters will receive a free drabble from me on a topic of her choosing.

As soon as he is able to look over these chapters and I have gone over his comments, that will be the final draft of the tale which will be copied onto all of my files so that I can post the identical story on other sites if I wish.

A sequel will, deo volente, be coming: it is currently drafted out to the fifth chapter (with chapter lengths being around the length of the last chapter in this tale) and will deal with events about twelve years from the conclusion of this tale.

Keep Alive the Memory by Celeritas