Hamfast: Family

The sun peeks bright into the window and beams with all the brilliance of a brand new day. Hamfast grumbles and draws a pillow over his eyes. “Blasted sun! Can’t you let an old hobbit sleep in now and again?”

The Sun clicks her tongue and shakes her yellow face, causing the room to dance with her rays as a crystal in candlelight. “You’d not be so tired if the man in the moon hadn’t come down. Frolicking with dishes and cats playing fiddles. It’s all silliness and jubilance and not what’s proper in a hobbit. You’re missing a calf, you know.”

“Calf? I don’t even got a cow,” Hamfast gripes and turns his back on the Sun.

“Well, no, not anymore, she jumped over the moon,” the Sun says, “and your calf went with her.”

He burrows back into the bed sheets and is drifting off again when down the hall the bairn cries, and Bell rolls over mumbling, reaches out, touches his shoulder. “Could you?” she asks and blinks at him and the sun. “I would, but I’m not really here.”

Hamfast nods. He’ll get the bairn and see to it, but first he turns into her touch and leans over to kiss her. She smiles sleepy, leans in.

“Dad!” Hamson waves his hand in front of his father’s face. The children stand watching him, the meal cooking on the stove forgotten as they wait for their father to come out of his stupor and sit down at the table. “Dad! Are you just going to stand there all day? You’re needed, you know. There’s important things, decisions that need to be made. No one knows which cans to use for the beans and we don’t have enough sheets to build a bridge. It’s a disaster really.”

“What?” Hamfast says, shakes his head. Had he just heard correctly? “What’re you talking about?”

“We need the bridge to get the beans from one side of the river to the other,” Hamson says, like he’s explaining it to a child. “It’s been planned for months now.”

Hamfast blinks and steps back so as not to be crowded. He looks over his children critically as the food begins to burn on the stove. “You’re not going off frolicking with dishware are you?”

Halfred conceals the spoon he had been twirling out of boredom by slipping it into his pocket. “No,” they all say as one.

“There you are, sleepy heads!” Bell says as she breezes into the kitchen and suddenly everyone is seated and awaiting their food, arranged in their seats by order of their age, Hamson the eldest at thirty-six, followed by Halfred, Daisy, May and lastly Marigold at seventeen. Bell serves them all then takes the seat next to Hamfast and all the seats are filled. Hamfast frowns down the table at his happily chatting family then frowns down at his breakfast. He lifts his fork to stab a sausage but then Marigold whisks the plate away and it is empty, wiped clean as if no food had ever touched it.

“You must’ve been hungry, Dad!” she exclaims and throws the plate out the window. She bounces off with a smile and before Hamfast can protest his lost meal, his family rises from their seats, talking and clattering about with such noise that nothing he says can be heard. They shout back and forth to each other as if they are on opposite ends of the Party Field rather than all crammed together in the tiny kitchen and though he can’t hear his own voice, over the din rises the sound of the bairn wailing. Hamfast steps into the hall and walks to the room where the crying is coming from.

“There’s naught in there,” Bell says and as she speaks the noise of the children in the kitchen fades to distant rumbles. She leans against the wall just outside the kitchen and watches him with sad eyes. “Don’t go in there, it will only get you lost. Stay here with us.”

Hamfast hesitates. “But he’s in there.”

“Who?”

“I… I’m… I don’t know,” Hamfast stammers, the name and face he’s searching for refusing to come to the surface, yet the crying pulls at him and he reaches for the doorknob, and even as he does so the wailing grows more distant and faint but no less frantic or persistent. “I don’t know, but he needs me.”

“He doesn’t even know you.” Bell crosses the hall, brushes his cheek with the back of her hand and smiles wistfully. “I’ll be gone when you get back. Do I get a kiss this time?”

Hamfast mimics her caress and she leans into his touch, closes her eyes and hums just once as is her habit, then her brown eyes meet his and there’s a fire there he had nearly forgotten. He leans in, kisses her and she fades from his touch as their lips meet, and when he opens his eyes, he finds the smial empty and dark. The wailing continues. Hamfast turns, reaches for the doorknob, pushes the door open.

Halfred looks up from the nasturtiums and smiles, blinking into the sun as the vast and seemingly endless gardens of Bag End stretch out behind him to touch the horizon. “Where did the others go?” Hamfast asks.

Halfred bends back to his digging and Hamfast sees that he is planting rag dolls deep into the ground. “Well, Hamson is at Mugwort’s growing giant mushrooms in his glass house, Daisy is being sworn in as Deputy Mayor, May’s down in Tookbank courting all the lads of the gentry, and Marigold’s… Why, I think she’s lost somewhere, but I don’t know where. She’s fine though, not to worry. She has good company.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, I’m right here, and Ma was never really here and you’re standing just there.”

“What about the bairn?”

“Bairn?” Halfred looks at him critically. “Dad, you know there was never any bairn. Are you having the fits? Should I get the healer again?”

Hamfast shakes his head, troubled though he couldn’t say exactly why. He isn’t even too sure himself what bairn he’s talking about and even as he begins to guess, the thought slips away from him to wander at the edges of his mind, cast into shadow.

“And what might you be doing?” Hamfast asks as he steps down into the garden to join his son, only to find Halfred now standing at the garden gate with his cousin Hale Goodchild.

Halfred looks back at him and Hale smiles over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t it be obvious?” Halfred asks. “We’re going to the inn, it’s a merry old inn and we’re going to balance spoons on our noses. Hale always wins but I hope to ascend and maybe get a bouquet of roses.” He walks out the gate, throws his arm around Hale’s shoulders and together they trot off, following the garden to the horizon as they laugh and chat.

“You’ll be of age soon and you’re too old to be going about adrift!” Hamfast calls after them, but they are too far away to hear. Someone laughs behind him but when he turns, the sun has set and the stars are shining against the half moon and he stands in his garden smoking a pipe twice the size of his hand. He dumps out the ashes from the bowl and is about to go inside when he hears a hiss. He pauses, waits for it to come again.

“Psst!” He looks at the Twofoot’s garden. A cow stands there and she waves a hoof at a table full of coiled ropes. “These’ll keep them where you want them,” the cow says.

Hamfast blinks to clear his vision, the sun shining brightly into his bedroom window. The bairn cries somewhere in the smial and Bell sighs in her sleep beside him. “Blasted sun! Can’t you let an old hobbit sleep in now and again?”

The Sun clicks her tongue and sighs lonely, sending a cool breeze through the closed window. “It happened again, I’m afraid. You’ll have no luck finding him now.”

“Finding who?” Hamfast asks huffily, still blocking the light from his eyes with an upheld hand. 

“Your calf, of course.”

Hamfast mumbles at this and turns his back on the sun. “I don’t got any calf.” Or does he? Hadn’t he been looking for something yesterday? Was it yesterday? It seems to him as he lays there with eyes closed that there has been many such days stretching out before that one and between this one, so many that he can’t count them for the stars in the heavens. He knows only that each day he looks for something and does not find it, that each day he grows more despairing to find what is missing and that only he seems to know that anything is different, changed, out of place. Then he shakes his head and clears the cobwebs from it and burrows back into the bed sheets. He is drifting off again when down the hall the bairn cries, and Bell rolls over mumbling, reaches out, touches his shoulder. “Could you?” she asks and blinks at him and the sun. “I would, but I’m not really here.”

Hamfast starts to nod but pauses in mid-action. This is too familiar. Why?

“Ham?” she says and reaches out to brush his curls behind his ear, her eyes full of concern. “The bairn, darling. You must see to him.”

In a fog, he finds himself nodding, throwing back the bed sheets, inching over to the side of the bed. Then he stops, remembers the kiss that is never delivered, and he scurries over to Bell, cups the back of her head and leans in to kiss her as she smiles sleepy.

“Dad!” Hamson jumps back, laughing. “What are you doing?”

Hamfast stops himself and finds his children standing around him, watching him, the meal cooking on the stove forgotten as always.

“Where’s your mother?” Hamfast asks.

“She’s dancing in the parlor with the cow,” Hamson answers as if this should be obvious. “Have you come to a decision about the bridge yet? It’s important, you know. It has to get done. No one’s been able to cross for weeks.” He gestures out the window, where Hamfast can see a long line of hobbits standing about and waiting, the line winding all the way down the Hill to The Water.

“Don’t see what we need a bridge for,” Hamfast says.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Daisy exclaims. “Just spread the sheets flat and lie them one upon the other. Tie down two corners to this side, weigh down the other corners with rocks and toss those to the hobbits on the other side of the river and they can tie their ends down and then you’ll have a bridge.”

The children turn back to Hamfast, waiting. “Should we do that?” Hamson asks.

“If you have to, but I still don’t see what we need a bridge for,” Hamfast says but Hamson is out the door and hollering down the Hill before he can finish talking and a moment later the line of hobbits is gone. Hamson comes back inside, smiling triumphantly.

“There you are, sleepy heads!” Bell says then as she breezes into the kitchen and just as before, everyone is seated and awaiting their food. She serves them happily and Hamfast tries to shovel the food into his mouth before Marigold can come behind her mother and take the plate away, but it’s no use. She’s there a moment later and the plate is empty and clean before Hamfast even touches his fork to it.

“You must have been hungry, Dad!” Marigold exclaims and throws the plate out the window.

Hamfast sits back and watches as his family stands and fills the room with their talk, sits and waits for the wailing he knows will come and sure enough, there it is, a squalling that rises over the noise to fill only his ears. Hamfast steps into the hall and walks to the room.

“There’s naught in there,” Bell says. “How many times does it take, Ham?”

Hamfast shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

“Stay with us. With me.”

“You know I want to,” Hamfast says, “but he needs me. I know he does.”

“He doesn’t even know you.” Bell crosses the hall, brushes his cheek with the back of her hand, smiles softly so that the candlelight is reflected in her eyes. “But I know you and you’ll never leave, not even to find him. Stay with me.”

Hamfast lifts his hand, cups her face, brushes his thumb across her cheek and folds his other arm behind her back, drawing her close. “But you’re the one as leaves,” he says. A tear slips down her cheek and she reaches up to kiss his brow and foolishly he closes his eyes, or perhaps wisely, for he never sees when she disappears and only knows when his arms are empty and his brow is untouched. He opens his eyes and the smial is empty and dark as he knew it would be. The wailing continues. Hamfast turns, reaches for the doorknob, pushes the door open.

Halfred looks up from the nasturtiums and smiles, blinking into the sun. The gardens of Bag End stretch out behind him, nearly every inch and foot covered in blooms and blossoms so thick that nothing else can be seen. Hamfast looks down at him and his smile slowly fades. “Your brother knew who he was going to marry before he was even your age,” Hamfast says. “They’re trying for bairns already.”

“I’m not Hamson.” Halfred pats the dirt down, fingers the sprouts where he had planted the rag dolls. “This is all I can offer you.”

A whistle sounds at the gate and Halfred looks up, beaming, and waves back at Hale. “I got to go,” he says to his father.

He’s out the gate already when Hamfast steps down into the garden and as he watches Hale and Hal walk off, someone laughs behind him and comes to stand at his side. “Are you feeling like yourself, Master Hamfast? You don’t look well.”

Hamfast regards the young lad standing next to him, a well-fed and sharply-dressed tween whose face he can’t quite see. “I’m right fine, young Master Odo,” he answers.

“Oh. Because Frodo says you’re looking a bit haggard and he seems to think it’s his fault somehow, but I explained to him that you’re just stubborn that way.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly been eating,” Hamfast admits.

“We can’t have that!” Odo exclaims. “Come inside. Bilbo’s off slaying more dragons, finding more gold and gaining more eccentricities. It’s just my brother and me here and as much as he tries, Frodo can’t really do anything for himself.”

“Now hear, hear, young master, I’ve always found your brother to be a competent and well-organized young lad,” Hamfast says.

“That’s because you’ve always found him after I’ve been there,” Odo says with a wink. “Why, he can’t even teach a snake to play the fiddle. What use is he? And yet he goes about claiming so much. Come on in and eat.”

“I thank you kindly, Master Odo, but I’ve got to be seeing to the bairn and someone should really find Marigold,” Hamfast says.

“Oh, but she’s fine. She’s wonderful even. You don’t need to worry about her.”

“Well, if you say so.”

“I do. And don’t worry about the bairn. He doesn’t really want to be found, or you’d have found him already, yes?”

“I’d still best be getting home. Hal and Hale are stirring up trouble, I’ve no doubt.”

“Yes, they’re like that. Some things can’t be changed.” He looks down at the garden and exclaims for joy. “Oh look! They’re growing!” And emerging from the ground where the rag dolls were planted are flowers shaped like hobbits, the petals hanging downward like hair. They wave about in the breeze and Odo squats down and looks at them as they bend and sway, watching with fascination. “You can only take what’s given to you.”

Hamfast walks home and sits down dejectedly in his potato garden. He picks up a stick and pokes at the soil, unearthing a half-grown spud with long twisting eyes. He lifts the spud from the ground and holds it before his own eyes. The potato shutters and shakes the loose dirt off itself, its eyes twisting about to look at him with annoyance. “Hey now! I was sleeping!” it protests.

“I’m sorry, but I’m missing something and I thought you’d might know what.”

The spud shakes again and sighs. “Now, didn’t the Sun tell you she’s got your calf? You need to clean out your ears, or you’ll grow potatoes. Ha! Potatoes!” The spud laughs at its own joke and ignores anything else Hamfast has to say. 

The next morning dawns the same as the others, only when Hamfast enters the kitchen, it is Daisy who serves and May who tells everyone where to sit. Hamson considers the food on his plate, looking at it from all angles, even lifting the plate to eye level and above, rotating the plate before setting it down again. “This isn’t my food. I didn’t sow it, or grow it, or reap it, gather it, mill it, sell it, buy it, prepare it, serve it,” he says then shrugs and digs into the food with hearty appetite.

May nods approvingly. “Some things are ours because we say so. Some things are ours because they’re given, but if they’re given, they can be taken back. Like the calf. That poor little calf.”

“You have nothing to complain about,” says Daisy, the brooch of the Deputy Mayor on the collar of her dress. “You don’t have to tell everyone what to do, where to go, how to behave, how to dress. It’s a job and a half looking after this Shire. Why, did you know that just the other day, Pansy Scruttle left her house in nothing more than a shift? It took hours to get it all straightened out and forgotten, and putting a stop to the gossip! That was a job for ten hobbits, but I managed well enough.”

“And you’re telling us about it because you think May can keep her mouth shut?” Halfred says and May swats him over the head. “I can too keep my mouth shut,” she says.

“Is that so? Half the lads in Tookbank would say otherwise. You can’t stop talking long enough for them to get a kiss in. You do know what courting is, don’t you?”

“I do, but you never will.”

“Children,” Bell interrupts and shakes her head. “Not in front of your father.”

And they all look at him as though they had forgotten he was there. Hamson tilts his head and considers his father gravely. “You’re not feeling well, Dad?” He waves his hand again. “Dad?” he says, his voice echoing off the walls as the bairn’s wails begin again.

“I have to get the bairn.”

“That’s it, I’m fetching the healer. He keeps forgetting there’s nothing to remember,” Halfred says as Hamfast stands up from the table and goes to the bedroom door.

“There’s naught in there,” Bell says.

“I know that, and I’ll only get lost looking for it,” Hamfast says and pushes the door open.

Hamfast bends over his potato garden, the little half-spud resting atop the ground at his side. “Why aren’t you looking?” the spud asks. “She was right then, and you’ll never leave for nothing.”

“It’s not that. I just don’t know what to look for.”

“Do you ever?” Odo asks from the parlor window of Bag End. He disappears from the window and reappears at Hamfast’s side a half-minute later. “You can’t even see what’s right in front of you.” And as Hamfast looks up from the hobbit flowers, the glare of the sun behind Odo casts the lad’s face into shadow and though he tries hard, he cannot recall the young heir’s face from memory, and he realizes with alarm that he’s never so much as glimpsed Odo’s face.

Hamfast paces Bagshot Row, unlit pipe in hand, the half moon hanging so low it nearly kisses the ground and lights the earth with a faint silver glow while the distant hills are hidden in darkness. “What is missing? What am I supposed to be looking for and where do I look to find it?”

A crunching through the grass and leaves draws his attention and he looks up as Odo, with walking stick and cloak, passes by. “Now, young master, it’s a mite late for a stroll,” Hamfast says.

“Not a stroll. It’s a quest,” Odo announces and produces a second walking stick from somewhere and holds it out to him. “I’m going to find the elves. I’ve been thinking on it, and I think they can help you find what you’re missing. Are you coming?”

…you’ll never leave, not even to find him…

Hamfast takes the walking stick, grips it tightly and nods, so desperate he is to be rid of this restlessness, this sense of nothingness, this void that threatens to swallow him whole with every step he takes, yet as he moves forward to follow he finds his feet suddenly leaden, resisting his command to step forward and follow Odo.

Odo nods at him, seeming not to notice his difficulty, and waves for him to follow. “Come along then, and hurry! They won’t wait forever, not with a draughts match between the Lord and the Lady about to start.” He trots off at a quick pace down the Hill, leaving Hamfast far behind. “Nothing gets accomplished by dawdling!” he calls back as he reaches the bottom of the hill and is swallowed by darkness.

“Wait! I’m coming!” Hamfast calls in a whisper and he forces his feet to move forward, inch by agonizing inch, until he sweats with the effort. At length, he reaches the bridge over The Water, and the bridge is made of sheets. He steps onto the bridge, finding it surprisingly sturdy, and a hobbit hands him a jar of beans.

“For the toll,” he explains and goes back to guarding the bridge, another jar of beans at the ready.

Hamfast crosses the bridge, and the silvery light of the moon moves over to chase away the darkness and cast the marketplace in a pale glow, and The Ivy Bush is alive with boisterous hobbits, so many that no one voice could be heard from the others until suddenly they started chanting. “Hale! Hale! Hale! Hale!” cried one half while the other half cheered “Hal! Hal! Hal! Hal!”

Hamfast hands the jar of beans to the cow and makes his way to stand at the window to the inn, his quest with Odo forgotten and with it went his leaden feet. He moves freely now and reaches the inn swiftly and stands transfixed by the contest taking place within. Hale and Halfred sit in the middle of the throng, balancing spoons on their noses as the man in the moon sips an ale and a tabby cat jumps upon the table and plays the fiddle. The scene all but freezes as he watches, so that no one and nothing moves within and the sounds of the cheering fades to nil and the moonlight dims to blackness. Behind the door, a wailing sounds and Hamfast nearly cries himself with the frustration of it all but he cannot stop his hand going to the doorknob, turning it, pushing the door open.

He lifts his hand to block out the sun as he awakens in his bed and Bell sighs beside him. “Blasted sun! Can’t you let an old hobbit sleep in now and again?”

And so the day progresses (and several others just like it, or so it seems) until he is again alone in the gardens of Bag End, watching the hobbit flowers dance in the breeze, and Frodo appears before him. “Can I help you, Master Frodo?”

Frodo shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m the one who took your calf, not the Sun. She was just being kind to me, knowing that your calf brings me such joy, but I had no right to be taking without asking. I’ve been trying to give him back for a long while now, but it’s not working.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow, sir.”

“Yes! Exactly!” Frodo says and sighs with relief. “I’m glad you see the problem, but I think I have the solution at last.” He hands Hamfast a plain wooden box.

“What’s in this?” Hamfast asks.

“The answer to her question, and yours. Take it with you tonight when he comes and you’ll see.”

Hamfast tucks the box into his breeches pocket and touches it through the fabric. When he looks up again, Frodo is gone and Odo stands there, looking down at him without emotion. “It’s not for Frodo to give,” he says, then turns and walks away.

Hamfast waits that night under the glow of the half moon and this time when Odo comes to him, he has no problems following. Odo takes him down the Hill, and they pause only at the sheet bridge to get their jars of beans for the toll and again on the other side to exchange the beans for jars of mustard. They walk past the inn without looking inside, though Hamfast notes with satisfaction that it’s Halfred’s name the patrons shout out in triumph. Odo rounds the back of the inn and shouts, “They’re here!”

Hamfast is just behind and he comes around the inn to find themselves standing in the middle of some woods. Ahead in a clearing there is a faint glow that does not come from the moon but instead appears to shine upward from the ground. Odo stands at the opening of the glade and he beckons for Hamfast to join him even as he stands in awe and joy at what he sees there. Hamfast gulps down his anxiety and walks with silent steps until he stands at Odo’s side, and he turns to the source of the light: wood elves of golden hair, their white gowns shimmering in gentle waves to spread upon the ground around them.

“Odo tells us you seek something that you have lost,” an elf lady says. “You do not remember what you lost and so do not understand this longing, but be warned: in finding what you seek, you can lose even more. Step forward, both of you.”

They enter the glade and crane back their necks to look into the elves’ timeless and graceful faces. The elf who had spoken holds out her hand. “Give me the box.”

Hamfast fishes the box out of his pocket, hesitates only a moment before doing as he was bid.

“Not all questions should be asked. Not all answers are to our liking,” says the elf beside her.

“Are you ready for the answer?” the elf lady asks. “Are you ready for the consequences?”

Hamfast nods. “I need to know,” he says.

“Then open it.” She bends down to bring the box within his reach and from its depths, he can hear the elusive wailing. His hands shake as he reaches up and slides his hand over the lid, as he bends his fingers to capture the lid in his grip and pauses. He looks into the elf’s eyes and she looks back, neither encouraging nor discouraging. He looks at Odo, who stands staring at the box, his face again expressionless.

Hamfast lifts the lid, the wailing stops and a breeze sweeps warm and gentle through the glade, coming from the treetops to settle at the grass under Odo’s feet. Hamfast watches in stunned amazement as Odo fades away and is replaced by a young tween that Hamfast knows in a heartbeat as the one he had lost. Brown skin crowned with sun-bleached curls, brown eyes full of laughter and sunshine and set into a carefree face.

“Sam!” Hamfast cries. How could he have forgotten that face? How could he have not seen it before? He throws his arms around Sam and cries for joy. “My own Sam!”

But Sam steps away, slipping from his grasp. He looks at Hamfast questioningly. “Sam?” he asks in Odo’s voice. “Who’s Sam?”

“You are! Sam, my son.”

Sam shakes his head. “I’m Frodo’s brother and Bilbo’s heir, and they’re expecting me.”

“But I’m your father,” Hamfast says. “You’re my son… Sam?”

“I’m not.” He steps back further. “I’m sorry.” And he fades away and is replaced by Odo, whose face Hamfast could never see or remember, and Odo turns and walks away, leaving Hamfast standing in the glade with the elves.

Hamfast turns back to the elf lady and stutters, “But, but… I don’t understand!”

“It is not for us to explain. Did you bring the mustard?” she asks and Hamfast nods, hands over the jar. She smiles and turns to the others. “Excellent. Let’s go now before we miss the start of the draughts match.”

And they leave and with them goes the light.

GF 3/11/06