I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

Grandmother rarely reads to them anymore, but that doesn’t stop Sandra from asking.  Her eyes are failing, filmed over; and her thoughts are like ivy, tripping every which way in no particular direction, covering everything, so that you can’t see what they were founded on unless you look very, very closely.  Dad says it’s age, and the natural order of things, but sometimes Sandra wonders if it’s more than that, if somehow too much of everything has wearied her, has caused her to fade like a flower left to dry in the sun.

It doesn’t stop Sandra from asking, but the answer must needs be no, so Grandmother asks her if she’d like to hear a story instead, and Sandra says, yes, please, and settles the old wool blanket about her grandmother’s frail shoulders and sits at her feet.

It starts out with tales from the books, for that is after all what Sandra asked for, but Sandra doesn’t have a head for the old elvish myths and is grateful when the talk turns to other things.  Again the sweet old voice takes her to Minas Anor shining bright in the sun, and she burns envious of the young hobbit maiden with the golden hair riding in with her heroic father and dear mother, serving Her Majesty and wearing fine silk dresses.

She knows, of course, that Elanor Gamgee, Elanor Gardner, Elanor Fairbairn, was once accounted one of the most stunning beauties of the Shire, was so fair they almost thought her elvenkind, but Sandra never saw that in her.  She saw her as a queen, one of the majestic queens of Men of old, for elves did not age and she had never seen her grandmother young.

“I have seen a good many things in my time,” Grandmother says, abruptly, stopping in a long description of Annúminas in winter.

“I wish I could see them for myself,” Sandra says.

“Maybe you will.”

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see. 

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

As she thought, Grandmother stands up for her when they find out what she did with the Book.  She is grateful: she knows she was rash, and she knows it was not wholly a smart thing to do, but there was the need there, the need for others to know.  She felt, when Kira visited, something like a great bird trapped inside that one’s heart, flapping to get out, and if only she could show her to open the cage she would spring free and soar.  She wonders if this was how Beren had felt when he was cutting the Silmarils from Morgoth’s crown: first the one, then the other.

She knew the story.  The blade snapped, and they barely got away with their lives.  But if it was overreaching, it was still the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

After everything cools down she tries explaining this to Grandmother, but the words come out all funny and she falls silent.

But Grandmother takes her hands in hers, and says that she understands and she forgives her; for has not that same desire, to know and make known, driven all that she has done?

Sandra does not remember too much of the Falling-Out, not because she was too young to remember but because she was too young to understand it at the time, much less be involved; but she remembers how voices were raised and tears were shed and an aching loneliness crept upon their household.  Once she was out of bed when she should not have been, listening at the door, and she heard her grandmother’s voice:

“Confound them!  Confound them and all the hobbits of the Shire if they think they can get Faramir to do this!  He’s the representative of the King!  How in the blazes is he supposed to—”

“Hush, Mother.  The children are abed.”

“If they would just go and see for themselves that the world has changed, that—”

“But by all sights it hasn’t, not to them.  You know what they’ve found.”

“They haven’t found everything yet.”

Heart hammering, blood rushing through her face, she withdrew.  She had never heard her grandmother use language like that before.

And when they received word of the abdication, Elanor wept.

Sandra still finds that odd.  She remembers even less of her grandfather’s funeral, but she does not remember Elanor weeping that much.

Later, when she learns of her own catastrophe, she will recall those tears and imagine them mingling with hers.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times that were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

Grandmother tells her things that aren’t in the Histories.  “Tell me about your dad,” she says, and she doesn’t hear of facing down spiders or near starvation but scrapes kissed better, dirt clogged under fingernails, a face wrinkling with smiles, stolen wistful glances westward.  Her mother is a bastion of love, always living, always doing something for someone with joy.  She even mentions walking into their room when Daisy was too much to handle and discovering that it was the wrong time to do so.

Sandra pretends not to know why she is telling her all these things, these mundane remembrances of a life lived so long ago, but she does.  Mother says she is “not long” and she can feel her grandmother’s ancientry pulling her into history.

Peregrin I becomes not the stern, yet wise Thain of history but a bright and worthy adversary.  Meriadoc is a fellow steward of lore, who charged her ere his departure to “keep an eye” on the whole Shire for him.

And Frodo Baggins is a loving whisper in the mists of time.

They are all just paper recollections to Sandra, woven of word and picture, never flesh or sight or sound.  As Elanor breathes life in them all she can see is how brittle they must be compared to the richness of living memory.

The names Grandmother uses come from another world, a world of gaffers and gammers, a world of dust.

And yet Elanor is still here, telling her these things.

“He said I would be a bridge between the Ages.  But I do not know how much longer I shall last.  I am failing, Sandra dear, and they are calling me onward when I sleep.  I miss them, my beloved ghosts.”

She does not tell her much about Fastred.

In September she asks for her old things and distributes them round to the family.  Sandra gets a golden ring with an opal in it, one that she used to think was magic when she was younger.  They take turns sitting with her, now, holding her hand even though she sleeps most of the time.  Father writes and her aunts and uncles draw near.  Those of the eleven remaining Gamgees who can make it also journey over.  Undertowers is filled near to bursting.

One day Grandmother awakens, turns her milky eyes on her, and says, “Sandra, dear, what’s to-day?”

Sandra tries her best to smile and says, “Why, Grandmother, it’s the twenty-second of September.”

“The twenty-second, eh?  That’s a good day to start a journey, don’t you think?”

And when she falls asleep, she does not wake up.

He rode up to the base of the tower, blowing on his hands periodically to keep them warm.  He dismounted into snow and knocked on the door with a mittened hand.

Soon the door opened to reveal the Warden of Westmarch, asking who could be coming to call in this kind of weather.  Kerry stepped inside.  “It’s a matter of business,” he said.

Elfstan Fairbairn led him into the kitchen, where his daughter Sandra was preparing tea.  “Let’s discuss it over something hot, then,” he said.  “Sandra, could you set out another place for our guest?”  He pulled up a chair, which Kerry gratefully sat on.

“It really doesn’t warrant that much discussion.  Dad would have written, but it’s rather important and the post is slower in the winter, anyway.”

“What’s the business, then?”

“A girl—a guest at the Hall last winter—was found in the Old Canal on the White Downs last week.”

“How dreadful!  Is she alive?”

“Yes, but barely.  Her aunt was summoned to help care for her, which is how I found out about it.”

“Do you know who this girl is?”

“Yes—her name is Kira Proudfoot.  I taught her how to read over the winter.  And this is the strange thing—they found, not too far downstream from her, a book.  I thought she might have gotten it—”

There was a crash as Sandra dropped the teacup she was carrying.  Elfstan and Kerry looked at her.  She had gone all pale and was shaking.  “Oh, Elbereth,” she said, and ran out of the room.

Kerry got up to follow, but the Warden restrained him.  He had also gone pale.  “What is it?” said Kerry.

“Last April Kira visited the library while I was away, so Sandra was left in charge.  She gave her the original.”

“The what?  Oh, no…”  Kerry buried his head in his hands.  “This is a thousand times worse than what I thought…”

“Do you know how they ended up in there?”

“No, I didn’t hear anything else… though if Kira was given the Red Book she would have taken care of it.  I hope.”  Kerry stood up again.  “Where did Sandra go?”

“I don’t know… possibly her room.  I’ll check.”  The Warden stood up and left the room.  Kerry followed.  While Elfstan was poking his head in the bedroom, he heard the sound of weeping farther down the hall.  He ran towards it, and opened the door to the room that, until September, had been her grandmother’s.  Sandra was on the bed, sobbing into and punching one of the pillows.

He did not know what to do.  He simply acted.

He ran into the room and touched her on the shoulder.  She looked up at him, eyes swollen from crying.

“Sandra, it’s not—”

“It is, too, my fault!  I gave her the original!  The original!  With Frodo’s handwriting and everything!  The one that felt real!”  She choked back a few more sobs.  He sat down on the bed next to her, feeling a few tears slip from his own eyes.

“Then it’s my fault, too.  I taught her how to read, after all.”

“But you didn’t—”

“No, because I wasn’t at Undertowers at the time.  You can’t be faulted for it; you didn’t know…”

“No, and I wish I did!  You wouldn’t have been so stupid, would you?  I only wanted her to believe; I didn’t know—and now we’ve all lost it forever…”  She broke into weeping again.

Tentatively he placed his hand on hers.  She turned to him, flung her arms around his neck, and began to cry into his shoulder.  “If she fell in the canal with it, at least she believes it now,” he said.  But even as he said it, he felt more tears slip away.  He put his arms around her and patted her back, like a mother comforting her child, making soothing noises until the torrent subsided.  Only then did he begin to weep in earnest, too; and when Elfstan saw them he did not dare interrupt them, these first mourners of the Red Book of Westmarch.

Later Kerry would say that he felt a bond forged between them that day, as sure and strong as if they had kissed.  Sandra would say that that was the day she knew she loved him.  But for that day they gave no thought to that, no thought to themselves, only thinking of the fate of the child that had so suddenly drawn them together, and of the book that she had borne that was now so suddenly lost to the world.

I will not cry, thought Sandra as she sat all alone in the middle of the field where, just a few hours before, she was supposed to have been enjoying herself immensely.  She had been so beautiful, she thought, and everyone had said so, and she had been positive that he would see her and dance with her.  Now she was ripping the petals, one by one, from each of the roses that had adorned her golden hair, and wondered if she had been wrong about Kerry.  Maybe he was just being nice to you all this time, because he felt sorry for you, she thought.  And after all, you know all the couples dances now, and you can dance them quite well.  You don’t exactly need him anymore.

Drat.  There went a tear.  She pulled another rose out, and began ripping.  And crying only made it worse, she knew, because there went a million memories of crying and being held and clinging and snuffling into his shoulder, and suddenly realizing that she wanted those arms around her for the rest of her life, to steady her through all her troubles and share in all her joys.  She loved Kerry.

It was getting very late, and if Mum wasn’t looking for her now she would be soon.  Let her find me, Sandra decided.  But what was she going to say to her mother when she found her outside like this?

The door of Elostirion opened.  Sighing, Sandra resolutely wiped her eyes and stood up to face her mother.  But it was not Mum; it was Kerry.  “Sandra, what’s going on?”

Sandra bristled, straightened her back, and stalked back to her home.

“Sandra?” he said.

She ignored him.

“What’s wrong?”  When she neared him, he took her arm, but she shook him off and shot him with a look so reproachful that he took two steps back.  She shut the door behind herself firmly before running straight to her room.

In a minute Kerry came running, as she knew he would; but he stopped just in front of her door.

“What?” she said.

“Sandra, you know I can’t go in there, now.  It isn’t right.”

Silence.

“Sandra, if you want me to leave you alone, you need only ask.”

At this a fresh torrent of tears started.

“But I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Kerry added.

She wondered if she really should tell him—after all, he’d have to be a ninny not to know—but in the midst of her weeping it came tumbling out.  “You didn’t dance with me!”

Kerry made as if to go into her room, but checked himself.  “I’ve had plenty of dances with you,” he said, using that political tone of voice that meant he was deliberating over every word he said.  “And besides, it’s high time some other lads got their chance.”

“But those weren’t real dances—they weren’t with anyone else nearby or anything!”

“I know.  That’s why I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to dance with you tonight.”

I knew it.  He doesn’t really love me.  Sandra let her face sink into her hands and sobbed.

She did not know how much time passed—only that suddenly she was startled to feel, almost simultaneously, the part of her bed right next to her sink and a pair of strong arms envelop her.  She looked up at Kerry and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“It wouldn’t be proper,” he added with a wry smile.

It took a moment for his comment to register.  “What?”

“If I had danced with you tonight, there could have been talk.

“Talk?  What about?  You taught me how to dance, Kerry; how could there be anything improper about actually dancing?”

“Well, you see…”  Kerry hemmed and hawed for a few moments.  “You see, there’s dancing, and then there’s dancing.”  He paused.  “It’s a very subtle difference, but if you look for it you can find it—I guess I’d know about it only because I’ve been old enough to dance with the adults for some time now, and I’ve had a load of chances to observe.  Sandra, when a couple is in love with each other, people can tell.  And if they saw us dancing together, they might think that I had been taking advantage of your youth—that I was courting you before you were old enough.  And that would be bad for us both.”

“But—Kerry, I still don’t understand.  We haven’t… done anything remotely romantic; I don’t even know for sure if you—”

Kerry silenced her with a finger to her lips, and wiped her eyes with his pocket handkerchief.  “I do,” he said.  “I do love you, Sandra, with all my heart.  And if I haven’t made sure that the reverse is true, it’s because you are so much younger; and even if we know that we can wait, other people don’t.”  He smiled to himself.  “And now that I know I can express myself more fully to you, there’s no telling what sort of scandal I could create if I so much as dance with you.”  He bent over to plant his lips on the crown of her head, right among the curls scented with rose and smoke and grass and nighttime air.

Instinctively she leaned into him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder, and when she spoke again her voice was little more than a murmur.  “Kerry,” she said, “if you’re going to kiss me, you may as well do it proper.”

He relaxed his embrace on her and raised her chin with one finger, so that he could look into her face and she into his.  Then, slowly, tenderly, he leaned down, and she felt her eyelids flutter shut as their lips met.

“Thank you,” said Sandra quietly, even as she blushed just pink enough for it to be visible in the dim light.

“And now that the matter of my suit has been broached,” said Kerry, “might it be possible that we remove to some location other than your bedchambers?”

“Oh,” and this time Sandra’s coloring was plain to see, “I’m so sorry—you shouldn’t have even come in here—”

Kerry rose and offered his arm to her.  “I think it was a necessary breach in propriety.  I couldn’t have your heart breaking on me now, could I?”

“Well, thank you, in that case.”  Sandra laid her hand on his arm and rose as well.  They sat down in the tunnel just outside her room, backs to the wall.

“How long do you think it will be before we can dance without creating any scandal?” said Sandra.

“I suppose,” said Kerry, whose infectious smile diminished at the rate of his thoughts, “that it would have to be quite a while, because we’re usually only in the same place for grand occasions.  That’s not much time.”  He half laughed, half snorted.  “Imagine—I happen to fall in love with the lass that lives clear on the opposite side of the Shire!”

“Oh, but that won’t do at all!” Sandra said, but then a light came into her eyes and she gripped Kerry’s arm with both hands.  “You must write to me—sporadically at first, then weekly, then daily.  Mum and Dad are a bright sort; they’ll catch on pretty quickly, and then next time there’s a reunion you can talk to my father and really get things started.”

Kerry laughed.  “That’s a capital idea!  Still,” he added, sobering, “we’ll have to take everything quite slowly.  Letters or no letters, we can’t have much real contact without being impractical.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” said Sandra.  “We have three years before we can really do anything, and even then I don’t think I would be ready to leave home for a good deal of time.  I do love you, Kerry, but not that much.  Not yet, at least,” she added.  “For tonight, I’m content knowing that you love me.”

“As am I, Sandra,” said Kerry, and he could not keep the smile from his lips as he took her hand and raised it to them.  “Good night.”

“Goodnight, Kerry.”  Sandra kissed him on the cheek before returning to her room and closing the door behind her; and that night she dreamt pleasant dreams indeed.

Birthdays were always the worst—for Rosemary always remembered what had happened before Kira was born, saw him lying there on the field gasping his last breaths and looking deep in her eyes with love.  But it would not do to mar Kira’s day with sorrow, so she always grieved the day before, or the day after.

They’d had the Talk, yesterday, about Kira’s prospects and how the support from the Proudfoots would run out once she turned thirty.  And though Rosemary had tried to be as positive as she could, she could tell from Kira’s eyes that she knew the truth—they hadn’t much money, Kira’s foot was lame, and she was a reader.

Oh, but it was so hard to know what to do!  Rosemary had tried to encourage the books out of her, after all the harm they’d done her, but all that Kira would do was return to them when she wasn’t looking.  And Rosemary had learned not to mind the reading itself, especially when it seemed to have a good effect on her health (which, she grudgingly admitted, was often)—it was the acting bookish that caused all the problems.  And the more she pushed, the more Kira pushed back, and it wasn’t that Kira didn’t understand that this was another factor in her prospects—which were so strongly linked not only to her future happiness, but to any sort of claim to prosperity—she did understand.  She just didn’t care.

So now, sitting next to his grave, fingers entwined in the grass, Rosemary looked at the horizon ahead and wondered if things would have been easier for Kira if their places had been reversed.  Lagro, too, had chafed at the bonds his family placed on him—all for his own good, they said.  And they had pushed until things broke, and he was left to work himself to death and leave her alone.

She closed her eyes, letting the tears fall.  “Lagro, my love,” she murmured, “I’ve a fear I’m not doing right by our daughter…”

Mother would notice that the level of wine was lower than it should be, but Kira didn’t care.  Maybe she’d buy her another bottle.

The candle was a waste, too, but again, necessary.  She had got no time to herself all day, and anyhow it all seemed more fitting by candle and starlight.

Carefully she unwrapped and laid the poem on her bedside table, and read it even though she had memorized all the words long ago.  Then opening her window she gazed out at the nighttime sky, and raised her glass to the stars.  “Happy birthday, Frodo,” she whispered.