Chapter 3. Into Shadow

I elected not to attempt the climb to the Old Orchard in the gathering gloom, and Samwise, I think, was grateful. Like most hobbits, heights made him giddy. I’ve followed young Pip up enough trees that they do not bother me as much as they might, though I’ll never be one to go upstairs to bed, regardless.

In any event, we were skirting the Hill, to take the Hobbiton Road up from the Mill, when we came to old Iris Sandytoes’ place. It had stood empty the past twenty years, since she died with no children and no Will. No one had attempted to claim the property, and by rumour it was haunted.

Of course, I’m much too sensible to pay attention to such rumours. I’ve lived too close to the Old Forest all my life to worry about “haunts”. Now there’s a place I’d not want to spend the night...

I must admit, the deserted smial had a spooky aspect with its broken windows and door hanging on one hinge. Someone really ought to do something about the place. It escapes official notice, I think, because it’s not too near the road.

Samwise stopped. I touched his shoulder with a querying sound, and he shook his head. ‘We hadn’t oughtn’t be here,’ he said.

 ‘We aren’t going to be here, Samwise-my-lad,’ I said heartily, though the growing dusk did nothing to give credence to my words. ‘We’re going to go right through and out the other end.’

 ‘Full o’ spiders and rats, I don’t wonder,’ he muttered.

 ‘Well, we’re not going in,’ I said. ‘We’re not invited for supper, after all, but we’ll be late for our own suppers if we take the time to go all the way round.’

He nodded gloomily. No doubt he’d have a tongue-lashing from old Hamfast for being late, and for leaving the clippers in the Old Orchard, though perhaps he’d trot right past Number Three and Bag End, right past the good smells emanating from his smial (and, I hope, from Bilbo’s, er, I mean, Frodo’s!), just to retrieve the grass clippers and put them neatly away before returning home. Would he stop so long as to finish the clipping? I rather doubted it. It would be dark by the time he got home. No doubt Master Hamfast would have his son finish by lantern-light, after supper.

 ‘Come, lad,’ I said, clapping him on the shoulder much as I’d hearten a fearful pony. ‘At a trot we’ll be through and gone before the spooks even know we’ve been.’

 ‘Spooks and spiders,’ he grumbled, but I could see him gather his courage.

 ‘Right, then,’ I said briskly, and led the way.

I didn’t know quite what happened at the time, though now, of course, I do.

One moment we were trotting across the deserted yard, through the long tangles of grass and weeds, and suddenly the ground fell out from under me. You’ve stepped in a hole before, haven’t you? You know that awful sinking feeling before your foot hits, and you stumble forward, trying to catch your balance.

Only, in this case, my foot never hit. There was no bottom to the hole.

One moment I was trotting a little ahead of Samwise, and the next moment, I was falling into utter darkness.

***

I don’t think I swooned, for had I done so, I’d have drowned, but I don’t remember hitting the water. It’s so odd; one moment I was trotting along, the Sun at my back sending her last farewell through the trees as she kissed the horizon, and the next, I was swallowed by icy darkness, seized by a sense of frozen cold, an eternity of breathless panic.

Though I could hardly feel myself moving in the numbing cold, my head broke the surface and I gasped for air. In that moment I knew what had happened.

The old abandoned well had been safely covered over with sturdy boards after Pip had the misfortune of falling in a few years earlier, while staying with Bilbo and Frodo. You could have trotted a pony over that well cover without any danger, but now it was gone. We never did find out what happened to it, but that matter was not uppermost in my mind at the time.

 ‘Help!’ I shouted. ‘Help me!’ Surely Samwise had stopped when I’d disappeared. But... what if he thought I’d been eaten by spooks? What if his trot turned into a panicked gallop, and he was racing away at top speed? I could drown here long before any thought to look for me, or ask after me. Frodo was probably buried in a book at that very moment, in front of a crackling fire in the study, no thought of supper (and cousin) having yet occurred to him.

Drown... or freeze to death. My stomach clenched so tight from the icy embrace of the water that it tied itself into painful knots. It was difficult to keep my arms and legs moving as I scrabbled at the side of the well, seeking purchase.

 ‘Master Merry?’

I swear, had Samwise been within arm’s reach I’d have shocked him speechless, throwing my arms about him in sheer relief and joy, perhaps even kissing him soundly on the cheek as I did Frodo when he pulled me from the River, that time in Buckland when I... but that’s another tale.

As it was, I was so cold it was hard to force the words past my chattering teeth, but I was frantic lest he turn away and leave me.

 ‘H-h-h-h-h-h-h-here!’ I managed.

 ‘Master Merry? Is that you down there?’ he asked.

I wanted to snap something to the effect Who do you think it might be? but all I could manage was a chattering I-I-I-I...

 ‘No rope,’ I heard him mutter, an echo in the dark. ‘No light, no branches long enough to reach...’ Perhaps he wasn’t the half-wit his father made him out to be. I had suspected as much for a long while now.

 ‘You hold on now, Master Merry!’ he shouted again. ‘I’m going for help!’

I wanted to tell him to go get Frodo, not to raise a great row. All I needed was for the entire neighbourhood to be roused, hobbits with lanterns and ropes and blankets and hampers of food and soon after I was pulled from the well a party would break out. There’d be a grand celebration, and I’d never live it down.

On second thought, I wanted him to find help close at hand. I didn’t know how long I could last.

The sense of numbing, frozen cold was growing. I couldn’t feel my legs, though I thought I must be kicking them just as hard as may be to stay afloat. I clawed at the smooth stones that lined the sides of the well—too smooth.

The darkness seemed to take on malevolent life, chilling me to the marrow, trying to drag me down forever into the stillness of death and Shadow.

Samwise had gone. He hadn’t waited for an answer, and it’s a good thing, for I couldn’t have answered him to save my life.