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Keep Alive the Memory  by Celeritas

Chapter Three 

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.

“Careful, sweetheart, you can’t have been out of bed more than a week!”

“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?”

“Mum, they’re family; of course they did.”

“How are your cousins?  Were they nice?”

“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.”

“Oh, really?”

“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.”

Mother paused, forkful of potato half-raised to her mouth.  “He what?”

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?”

This time Mother dropped her fork.  “Where in the Shire did you hear that?”

“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.”

“Once?  That’s not too bad.”

“And I completely deserved it that time, too.”

“Why?  You couldn’t have done anything—”

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.”

“Now, why would you ever do that?  You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“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?”

Kira hung her head and mumbled something.

“I can’t hear you, Kira.”

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

Kira!  What have they been teaching you in Buckland?”

“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.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.” 

*  *  *

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.”

Kira nodded.

“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.”

“Did you ever get to see him?”

“Who?”

“Merry the Magnificent.”

“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.”

“Did you or Dad ever think their stories were true?”

“What?”

“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.”

Kira nodded.  “Maybe it’s inherited—Kerry believes the tales, too.”

They were silent for the rest of the journey home. 

*  *  *

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.

“Who is it?” she called through a mouthful of toast.

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

Kira swallowed her mouthful of food.  “Didn’t Mum tell you I was eating?”

“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.”

“I was toasting bread!”  Kira took another bite.

“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.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Proudfoot, I’ll look after her,” said Daffodil.

“Thanks, Mum,” said Kira.  “I’ll be back soon.”

“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?”

Kira laughed.  “I did see a hobbit wearing boots on the way back…”

“You didn’t!”

“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?”

Roly mumbled something about not listening and a meat pie.

Daffodil shook her head.  “He’s a lost cause.”

“Say, do you know where Tom is?” Kira said.

“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.

“What are you going to do with her?” asked Daffodil.

“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.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t do such a thing!” Kira cried.  “She’s shivering!”

“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?”

“No!  You’d let it loose!”  Kira looked offended.

Roly sidled up to the scene.  “How did you catch the rabbit anyhow?”

“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.

“Hoy!  That was my supper!  You—”

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.

“Why?” said Roly.

“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?”

Mad Baggins?”

“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!”

“How should you know?”

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

Daffodil laughed.  “You what?  Whatever put that idea into your head?”

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.

“How did it taste?” said Daffodil, barely restraining her laugher.

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.

There was only one way about it.  She would have to find a library.





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