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O The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night  by Lindelea


Chapter 16. In which a youthful hobbit takes up the search

The world was wrapped in clinging mist, damp, cold, and unpleasant. Frodo shivered as he made his way across the shrouded fields, following the directions of a chattery mum labouring in the kitchen to cook up quantities of food for the searchers who’d be in and out as the day progressed. In answer to his question, he was told that Bilbo had gone out with the first group, just before the dawning, and wouldn’t he like to stop long enough for some bacon and eggs, ham and sausages, bread and... He managed to put her off by grabbing up one of the ready-made packets of food, neatly tied up for a searcher to sustain himself in his endeavour, and promising to return for a hot meal later.

The chilly mist dampened his clothes, clung to his hair in droplets, weighing him down, making him feel uneasily like he’d been pulled, gasping, from the grasp of a cold river. The vision of two little lads, cold and drowned, rose before him, and he put out a hand, groping as one blind. He blinked fiercely to clear away the tears blurring his vision, and trudged on.

He could hear the calls of searchers now, mist-muted and eerily distorted, and he saw the occasional yellow smear of a lantern in the grey dullness of this day. On he stumbled, not noticing the sound of tumbling waters until he’d stepped off the bank into the little stream itself with a splash and startled shout.

He heard an answering shout, muffled but rapidly approaching, and then hands were pulling him out of the water, and a drier cloak than his own was wrapped around him, and he was being sat down upon the bank.

‘There, lad, all’s well, the stream didn’t get its hooks into yer.’

‘Ye’ll want to watch out where ye step, lad. Look at’ee, wet t’ th’ skin! I’d say go back to yon farm kitchen, warm up by the fire afore ye go out again!’

‘And don’t come out by yourself, you benighted coney! ‘Specially if you don’t know the lay of the land!’

‘Ye said rightly, Eber, ye said rightly!’ A clout on the shoulder. ‘Now get up, lad, afore ye shiver yersel’ to smithers! Do ye want one o’ us to go back wit’ ye?’

Frodo shook his head. ‘No,’ he mumbled, ‘I’ll find my own way back. Don’t stop searching on my account.’

‘Good lad,’ one of them muttered, slapping Frodo on his other shoulder. ‘Get along with you now.’ There was a push to get him moving in the right direction, and he moved on obediently, hearing their talk fade behind him.

‘Oughter send someone along o’ him...’

‘Too late now, have to send out a search party to find him in this...’

‘Hope we don’t have to send out a search party for him in this...’

‘Hope they don’t have to send out a party for us...’

He’d quite lost his bearings, though he’d intended to return to the stream and work his way along the bank. Quite likely others had already done so. But he had to see with his own eyes, he had to find Merry, little Merry, blue-lipped and shivering, rather like Frodo himself at the moment...

He stumbled into a shambling run, raising his voice in desperation. Merry! Merry!

As if to mock him, faint calls returned through the mist. Merry! Ferdi-lad!

Something black and threatening loomed before him in the mist, reaching for him, but he didn’t see it. He ran with his head down, with no idea of danger until a shocking blow knocked him to the ground. He briefly saw stars whirling against a black background, raised his hands to his head to encounter incredible soreness and warm stickiness--blood!

He blinked away the dizzy feeling and, gathering his courage, looked up to see what had brought him down. The mist was darker here, darker all around him as if some terrible giant had taken Frodo into his mouth and was about to chew and swallow... and then he realised that the tall dark teeth hemming him in were really trees, and he lay in a little copse. He’d run into a tree, as a matter of fact, and done himself some damage.

He sat up in a mossy clearing, the pounding of his heart slowly fading. The moss was soft and damp (though he was damper, and so did not notice). The fog twisted around the trees in ghostly swirls, and the calls of the searching parties were dim and far away.

Frodo sat, dully staring at the vivid green before him. He plucked up a handful of moss and let it drop again, a neat clump, and then he picked it up again and fit it carefully back into the dirt-shape it had made on leaving the earth. He smoothed the moss gently, and when he took away his hand the clump was a part of the velvety carpet once more, without a trace of its disturbance. Without a trace... like Merry.

At this thought, Frodo threw himself face down upon the moss and sobbed out his misery, his loss, even the nagging guilt that had he been there, Merry would never have gone wandering alone. Well, not alone, but with only another young hobbit barely out of faunthood. Surely they’d been drowned, or found by a fox, or...

Something knobby and uncomfortably hard was under his elbow, standing out from the cushiony moss. Frodo sat up again, rubbing at his eyes. He’d have to go back to the farmhouse, join one of the search parties...

He picked up the stone that had disturbed his elbow, hefting it in his hand. A fine throwing stone, smooth and round, not the sort of thing you’d find in a mossy clearing, but more likely in the bed of a stream, worn by running water. Frowning, he noticed other stones scattered about the clearing, more of the same, of just the size to appeal to a young hobbit.

He caught his breath. Had he found sign of Merry and Ferdi?





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