CHAPTER I

There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids. Isn't that the saying? I think it was Stephen King who wrote that. God, what I wouldn't do for a Stephen King book right about now. Or even a cigarette. Isn't it funny, how deep and primal certain cravings go? I haven't smoked in…damn, almost fifty two years, and I still miss it. I miss reading books in English even more, though; certain kinds of stories just don't translate. I had a pretty big collection of books back home, Stephen King among them. Can you imagine if I'd ended up in Castle Rock instead of Middle Earth? At least I wouldn't have to deal with Elves and Dwarves and Ringwraiths…but I'd have to deal with rabid dogs and aliens and sewer clowns. I don't know which is worse, honestly.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Where was I? Oh yes. A mother, frightened for her kids. Please remember this as my story goes on, because it's imperative: everything I did, I did for my children. You can shake your head and point fingers and heap blame on my head—God only knows I deserve it—but I did it all for my kids. You don't think twice when it comes to your children's safety. If they're in danger, you rescue them.

And Middle Earth is dangerous.

It doesn't feel very dangerous, in the books and movies, does it? No, the green Shire and mysterious Elven forests, it all feels very mystical and beautiful and…quaint. But they don't show you the ashy fields plowed to ruin, the starving Rohirric children with limbs of straw, the beheaded villagers with heads on pikes. Did Tolkien talk about the limited food, the day-to-day war against starvation and the elements, the inability to walk out the front door without a sword to protect yourself? I can't remember. I haven't read those books in so long. Honestly, I can't even remember the story itself, because we didn't live the story.

We barely lived at all. Actually, there were quite a few times I thought we'd all die. Especially little Silas. I think of him as little Silas even today, when he's a grown man…sometimes I'll see him training, or teaching Sibyll how to string a bow, and realize he has a beard and strong arms now. But there's still a part of him, maybe in those big blue eyes, that tell a tale of a frightened little boy, lost in a sea of grass, and found by horsemen. He kept his humanity, I think, more than Sibyll and I did, anyway.

Sibyll and I were always too much alike. We fought, even before this whole insanity happened, as mothers and daughters often do. She's stronger than Silas, that much I know—we both are. But that kind of strength takes something out of you. It makes you cold. Cutting. It take away a little bit of your soul. And being in Middle Earth, trying to survive, only enhances that.

I should start at the beginning, really. But see, it's so difficult to tell when the beginning really began. For me, it all started on a Wednesday afternoon when I came home from work, to an empty house and a strange light coming from my basement. But for Silas and Sibyll, it began many weeks before that.

I'll try to be slow. I'll speak clearly. We have all night, after all. It's a very long story and I'm not surprised you want to know the whole thing—I've had to tell it, in bits and pieces, to many people in order to protect myself. But you're one of the last, I think. I feel it in my bones. Don't look at me like that: I'm an old woman. It happens.

I suppose it really started when the kids discovered that trapdoor in the basement. That's where we'll begin.

"C'mon, Silas, don't be such a baby," she whispered, and pushed her little brother closer to the basement steps. They stood at the top, backed by late-afternoon sunshine, staring at the empty maw of the cold, dark basement. The sunshine only illuminated the first few steps, but everything below that was absolute darkness.

Silas, a boy who looked nearly thirteen, gnawed worriedly at his lower lip. "I'm not a baby," he snapped at his big sister. "I just don't wanna go in the basement. It's dumb. And cold, anyway. And full of spiders."

(He emphasized that last word deliberately. Sibyll hated spiders.)

His older sister rolled her eyes, tucking a strand of dirty blonde hair behind her ear. "You're just making things up. There's more spiders in that stupid old cupboard you hang out in. And don't you wanna see the surprise? It's really cool, I promise."

"You said that last time."

"Well, this time I mean it," Sibyll huffed. At fifteen she was only just beginning to lose her baby face and starting to truly develop into a young woman. In the right light, at a good angle, with her hair pulled back, she could pass for a young adult. But standing over her twelve year old brother she looked every inch the teenager she was.

One long moment of deliberation from Silas, who rubbed his nose.

"Fine," he said, and reached for the light switch.

"Nuh-huh," Sibyll corrected him, batting his hand away. "Mom said we can't use the light because we forget to turn it off, remember?"

"I am not going down in the basement without a light!" Silas shot back. "I'll remember to turn it off. You're the one who keeps forgetting, anyway."

"Do you want Mom to come home and see the light on? She'll yell at both of us and then you won't be able to play that stupid computer game you like so much." Sibyll pointed out, nudging her brother down the stairs.

With a final mumbled protest of "It's not a computer game, and it's not stupid," Silas began descending the stairs. The old wooden steps creaked and groaned in protest, and his palm slid squeakily against the wooden bannister. His elder sister, grinning like a predatory cat, followed right behind him, making sure to shut the door tightly. With the light gone, there was nothing but shadowy gray shapes and even darker blackness.

Once at the bottom, the siblings took a moment to get their bearings. As their eyes adjusted to the light, dark shapes began springing up around them; several boxes stacked on top of each other, with an upturned chair on top of that, became a fearsome monster. An old beanbag chair with some Christmas decorations spilled on it was a prickly ghoul. The exposed beams above them, covered with cobwebs, seemed very far away. Silas swallowed nervously.

"Come on," Sibyll urged, and she picked her way through the disorganized chaos. They maneuvered around more boxes and over a rolled up carpet, and then behind an old empty bookshelf, where the young girl finally stopped. "Over here, help me move this," she ordered, and Silas obeyed without thinking.

Together, they pushed on the old bookshelf, easing it away from the wall. It moved with a jerk, scraping the concrete floor, and wobbling dangerously at the top. "Careful!" Sibyll scolded between her teeth.

"I'm being careful," Silas insisted, a petulant tone creeping into his voice.

One more jerk and the bookshelf was moved out of the way. Sibyll dropped to her knees and ran her hands against the floor. "It's right…hang on, where is it…"

"If you're messing with me, Sibyll, I'm gonna read your journal to Brian Kutchworth at school," Silas warned.

"Don't you dare! I'm not messing with you, I swear. It's around here somewhere, feel for it—it's like a crack. It's a trapdoor, I found it when I had to bring up those plates for mom yesterday."

The two of them smoothed their hands over the concrete in silence, the cold stone leeching warmth out of their hands. "Found it," Silas said after a long moment. "And I feel something metal, too, it's like a ring or something."

"That's it! Awesome!" Sibyll cried, and shuffled over to her brother. In the dim light, she could just make out his face. "It's really heavy, I don't think you can lift it by yourself," she added.

"Yes I can," he said impatiently, and yanked stubbornly on the metal ring. There was a grinding sound of stone against stone, and he strained mightily, trying to pull it up further.

"It sort of swings—yeah, like that, to the side," Sibyll said encouragingly. "Perfect!"

The trapdoor, which was a wedge of concrete several inches thick, could lifted and slid across the floor, much like a manhole cover. Surprisingly, the two children managed it with relative easy, taking great care not to get a finger pinched in the gap between concrete and floor. When the cover was successfully out of the way, they were left with a large hole, about two feet in diameter. Inside the circle was absolute blackness.

"Wow," Silas whispered after a long moment. "Cool!"

"See?" His sister preened somewhat. "Told you."

"What's down there?" he wondered aloud, and peered a little closer. It was so black it was making his eyes hurt—a place completely devoid of any light whatsoever.

Sibyll was leaning over the hole too. "Probably the foundation of the house," she said matter-of-factly. "Like the space under the porch."

"It's so dark though," he mused. "Like, scary dark."

The two of them stared for a long moment, squinting in the darkness. After a moment Silas blinked hard, and then closed his eyes again. It looked like there was a pinprick of light way, way down beneath the house. But that couldn't be right—if it was the foundation, like Sibyll said, then it should only be two or three feet below them. He could probably reach out and touch it. But then why did it seem as though they had found the entrance to a tunnel that was hundreds of feet long? That couldn't possibly be right. It must be some trick of the light.

He reached out a hand to touch the bottom, expecting to feel dirt, or smooth stone, or something that would indicate a bottom to the blackness. But there was nothing. He kept reaching, straining, fingers groping for a bottom, and the fact that there was none began to send a shiver up his spine. The back of his neck prickled and the skin on his forearms pimpled with goosebumps.

Something tapped his shoulder.

"YIPE!" he shrieked in fear and drew back immediately, falling backwards onto his heels and hitting his head on a box of Halloween decorations. "What was that?" he shouted, and then saw his older sister, face buried in her arms, shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Your f-fa-face," she choked, still laughing like a hyena. (His sister had a very unattractive laugh.)

"I hate you!" he snarled, and was on his feet in a flash. "This was stupid! I hope you fall down that hole and die, you jagweed!"

Sibyll was grinning that wide, cat-eyed smile again, still giggling. "Oh come on, it was a joke. Relax."

"No! You're such a douche, Sibyll, I hate you sometimes." Silas stormed upstairs, kicking a box out of his way as he passed, his cheeks still flushed with anger. His elder sister wiped a tear from her eye and leaned over to yank the heavy slab closed.

As she did so, she could have sworn she saw a small pinprick of light, way, way beneath her.

It was very late on a Wednesday night when Rose Kennedy discovered that her children were missing.

She had been held behind at work, since there were two new employees who needed training, and since she was the receptionist with the most seniority, that job fell to her. Receptionist with the most seniority—that was really just a nice way of saying she was old, and that she'd been there a long time, so would you please teach these two nineteen year old idiots how to work a copier? She was thirty seven, not exactly elderly. But thirty seven was late thirties, and late thirties meant pushing forty. Oh God. Pushing forty. When did she blink and realize she was nearly forty?

Staying late at work meant she was forced to call her sister to pick her kids up from school. Violet was an unreliable aunt who spent far too much time painting and singing to be of any real help: knowing her sister, Rose assumed that the kids had waited about ten minutes, and then walked home. Sibyll was getting older, and she was becoming more mature. Really, they could handle a night by themselves.

There was a frozen pizza and some leftover ginger ale, and Rose fully expected to find her house flooded with light, smelling of pizza, with her two kids squabbling over the computer. Their electric bill was outrageous, since Silas was falling into a habit of forgetting about light switches. He was a good kid, but too absent minded. He was turning into Violet by the day, always sketching and humming and spending more and more time cooped up in his closet in the kitchen. Maybe he was autistic. She should bring that up to the doctors the next time he had a physical. No, he wasn't autistic, he was just a quiet kid who did his own thing.

To her surprise, as she pulled into the driveway, all the lights were off. The house was totally dark.

It was then, just then, that a quick flare of fear—cold, tight, and low—flickered through her belly.

But it was probably nothing: the kids had probably gotten home from school early, and Sibyll was in her room listening to music, like she usually did. Silas was probably on the computer playing that silly game with the buildings, and had forgotten to look up to realize it was dark outside. Maybe Violet had actually picked them up on time, like she said she would.

They had probably gotten into one of their classic sulking fights: Sibyll had a mean streak, and she liked to pull pranks on her little brother. It was sad, really, because he idolized her—the two of them would get into huge, explosive fights and then retreat to different corners of the house to brood and plot revenge. It would be best to nip it in the bud. If they hadn't eaten already, she'd take them out to get Chinese food. Never mind that her feet were killing her and her back ached something fierce. They hadn't connected as a family for a while.

"Hey!" Rose called as she opened the door, wiggling her stuck key in the lock, "Did you guys eat?"

Silence answered her.

Another pulse of fear, and this one lingered. Oh god, what if they never made it home? What if Violet hadn't picked them up, and they had gotten abducted by some murderer? What if they had—

What if they were just hiding in their rooms, now enough!

Heels clicking loudly on the floor, heartbeat pounding in her ears, Rose went up the stairs, turning on the hall light as she went. Sibyll's bedroom was dark. Maybe she was sleeping, maybe she'd had a tough day at school, she knew her daughter had a massive crush and was dealing with bullies, but she never napped in the afternoon, why would she start now?

Empty. Bed was cold.

A sour taste rose in her mouth and her stomach cramped fiercely. Gone. "Silas? Sibby?" she called, voice loud and authoritative. "SILAS!"

Nothing.

She stumbled down the stairs and went straight for the computer room, which was really a spare bedroom converted into an office. Maybe Silas had his headphones on, which he wasn't supposed to do for this exact reason, because when she called for him he couldn't hear. The computer's screensaver, which showed a picture of her two kids smiling in a cornfield with pumpkins around them, was the only illumination in the dark room.

Rose called them again, her voice bordering on a scream. "SIBYLL! SILAS!"

She wheeled around and spotted the basement door. It was wide open.

Dread curled around her like a constrictor. An image, so clear and horrifying it was almost like a vision, rose in her mind; her two kids, fighting downstairs in the basement, knocking over that old bookcase, crushing them. Their small lifeless bodies with shattered bones and a pool of blood.

She practically fell down the stairs, rolling her ankle spectacularly, but the pain didn't even register. There was something odd, something bizarre: things were moved around, but what was worse was there was an odd yellow glow coming from the back of the basement. Rose flicked on the lights and picked her way around the rubbish, following the yellowness.

A trapdoor. It was wide open, but instead of blackness it was a bright yellow glow, like looking into a sun: it made her eyes burn just looking at it.

"Sibyl? Silas?" she called, and her voice sounded wrecked: panic and fear and anger all rolled into one.

A very faint voice, like a whisper across an open field, came up.

"Mommy…"

She dropped to her knees, ignoring the shrill scream of pain from her kneecaps. "Sibyl?" she called.

Again, that faint cry.

"Mommy…pllleeeeeassee…"

Without even thinking, she reached into the yellow light, straining for her children. There was a blink, a flash, a squeezing feeling like she was being pulled through an enormous rubber tube—

—And then nothing.

I hope you guy enjoy this! I love reading fanfiction, especially fanfiction where a girl finds herself in Middle Earth, but they never seem very realistic. And I've never seen a mom or kids, so I thought this would be a refreshing take! Please leave a review, comment, favorite, whatever, I'll try to reply to all of them! :D