I actually had this chapter written when I posted Chapter One, but I thought I'd better space them out a bit. Gimli's Trouser Beard, your advice on how Sarah should bait Sauron cracked me up, but it also proves that evil minds think alike, because my own ideas had already run in the same direction...

Two: Plans Within Plans

For the longest second silence stretched between us. Then my father blinked and said, "You what?"

My mother fastened me with one of her patented laser-beam blue-eyed stares, the type that had always reduced me to a quivering heap of truth-spouting Jello in the past. But I knew I couldn't let her read anything wrong in my face -- I had to keep up this charade for now at least. Sauron's hideous threat still reverberated inside my brain. Only by going along with this farce could I hope to keep my parents safe.

"I said yes," I stated, my voice sounding firm and confident enough -- I hoped.

Smike reached out and took my hand in his. I forced myself to keep from shuddering. "You know -- we just started talking last night, after everyone had left, and then it just sort of...happened."

From somewhere my mother produced a halfway convincing smile and said, "Not that we're unhappy with the news, but this just seems so out of the blue -- "

Although my mother didn't seem to be offering much in the way of protest, my father had no such scruples. He straightened, and gave Smike a very direct look, the one I had always thought of as his "lawyer stare."

I groaned mentally. Here came the cross-examination.

"You're both very young for this, don't you think?" asked my father. "Both still in school, no jobs -- "

"Actually, sir, I'm working as a teaching assistant at Caltech this year," Smike replied. "Besides, I already own my home -- "

My father steamrollered on. "And you think a teaching assistant's salary is enough to support the both of you?" He shot me a half-irritated, half-fond look. "Although we're certainly very proud of your talents, Sarah, the field you've chosen isn't exactly the steadiest thing in the world."

Smike cleared his throat. "Um, I can understand your concern, Mr. Monaghan, but I really don't think money will be an issue. The interest from my grandfather's trust will keep us quite comfortable even without my T.A.'s salary."

At the word "trust" my father seemed to go on the alert, like a dog who had just smelled a particularly juicy steak getting slapped down on the grill. I wouldn't call him exactly mercenary -- even though he had bailed out on the D.A.'s office fairly early in his career to go into entertainment law -- but on the other hand, he wasn't about to turn up his nose at the prospect of his daughter marrying someone with a trust fund.

"We wouldn't be getting married until April of next year anyway," I put in, fixing an expression of innocent enthusiasm on my face. If Smike wanted to play these games, fine. Let him find out I wasn't exactly going to remain in the stands and watch -- I planned to get down on the field and engage in a little scrimmage myself. "Not until after I graduate." FIDM didn't actually offer four-year degrees; I'd done my associate work in eighteen months, and the same for the advanced associate degree in film and television costume design that I was working on at the moment. That meant I'd be finished in mid-March instead of June; at the time I'd been happy with my accelerated schedule, but now I found myself wishing I'd stretched things out a bit more. At least then I could push this so-called wedding back until the end of June. But April was better than nothing.

Mike himself had done his undergraduate work in three years instead of four, so, although he was actually six months younger than I, he had already begun his post-graduate studies in theoretical physics, concentrating in quantum mechanics. And he wasn't bothering with a master's degree -- he'd gone straight into the doctoral program, which was a little unusual, but not unheard-of...especially for as brilliant a student as Mike.

I could feel Smike's fingers tighten around mine -- not enough to hurt, but definitely a warning squeeze. It seemed that I had irritated His Unholiness.

Score one for Sarah.

"Um...right," Smike managed, his earlier cheer sounding just a little ragged around the edges. "Sarah did insist on that."

"Well, good," my mother said. "No need for completely rushing into this, after all."

"Besides," I added, "Mike's such a guy -- he has no idea how much planning these sorts of things take. We have to find a site, a caterer, a florist -- and do I design my own dress or buy one? This happened so fast I don't even have a ring yet!"

Throughout this speech I could see Smike's smile falter a bit. No doubt Sauron hadn't been able to retrieve the intricacies of modern American wedding planning out of Mike's brain because Mike, being who he was, wouldn't have known about any of that stuff in the first place.

Bitten off a bit more than you could chew, Sauron? I thought spitefully. Just wait until I sic a wedding planner on you -- you're going to wish you were back in the Cracks of Doom!

"Better lay off, Sarah," my father said, good humor somewhat restored now that he realized the two of us weren't going to be living in the basement and sponging off him. "Your fiancé's looking a little green around the gills."

"Sarah and I can handle most of that," my mother stated calmly, no doubt taking pity on who she thought was a poor kid who had suddenly realized it wasn't just going to be running off into the sunset and living happily ever after -- at least not until after we'd dealt with menus, place cards, tux rentals, and floral arrangements.

I wondered how calm she would sound if she found out the smiling boy who sat next to her daughter and held her hand was really a misplaced Dark Lord who had stolen this body to escape annihilation. Then again, knowing my mother, she'd probably sit down and have a nice chat with him and attempt to figure out the psychological reasons why he'd felt compelled to do such a thing in the first place. And once she was done with that, she'd list all the reasons why what he'd done was wrong and then tell him he really should vacate Mike's body because it was the Right Thing to Do.

Parents.

But I knew I didn't dare open my mouth, because I couldn't risk Sauron's retaliation. I had to pretend I was happy, that I wanted all this. However, that didn't mean I couldn't continue to stick pins into Smike at opportune moments.

"Well, I do want him to be involved," I said. "I'm not going to be one of those brides who makes all the decisions on her own and just wants the groom to show up on the wedding day and stand in the right spot."

Actually, Smike was looking very much as if he'd like me to be that exact sort of bride, but even he knew better than to say anything. Instead, he just nodded, his expression a bit dazed.

Then my mother gave me a slightly apologetic look. "And here we are grilling you two when we should be celebrating. We can work out all the details later -- let me check the fridge. I think we've still got a bottle of champagne left over from when we had the Fosters here for brunch -- " And she rose and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, leaving the remaining three of us to stare at one another in uneasy silence.

For myself, I had no idea what Sauron's game was. Had he just thought this would be a good way to torment me, or had he experienced some doubt as to whether I might fly the coop at some point, consequences be damned? If that were the case, then he knew me even less well than he thought he did. None of this was Mike's fault, and I wasn't about to abandon him to perpetual possession by the Dark Lord of Mordor. Let Sauron think he was keeping me on a short leash -- once I had some quiet time to assess my options, I knew I'd be able to come up with some sort of plan. Maybe not a good one, but a plan nonetheless.

"Here we are," my mother said, returning with a tray on which clustered the Waterford champagne flutes a client had given my father a few Christmases back, along with a bottle of Moët. She set the tray down on the coffee table and picked up the champagne bottle, then looked over at Smike. "Would you like to do the honors, Mike?"

He flinched slightly, looking as if she just brandished an Elven blade at him. "Um, well, I'm not very good at that sort of thing -- "

"Let me," my father said, appropriating the champagne bottle and beginning to unwrap the foil.

"Thanks, Mr. Monaghan."

"No more of that." After removing the little wire basket from the top of the bottle, my father began to expertly maneuver the cork upward with both his thumbs. "Andrew, if you please. But not Andy. Only my mother calls me that."

"Sure, Mr. -- Andrew."

The cork popped out of the champagne with a minimum of fuss; my father was very good at opening champagne bottles without blowing holes in the ceiling or spraying alcohol all over the place. Both my mother and I approved of the technique, she because it preserved her décor, and me because no champagne got wasted that way.

He poured a good measure of pale golden liquid into each flute, then waited as we all picked up our glasses. "To Sarah and Mike," he said. "May you both have very many happy years together."

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes, but I knew I had to keep up the happy façade. I lifted the champagne flute to my lips and sipped the liquid within, feeling the soft effervescence tickle my palate. Champagne was actually the first alcohol I had ever drunk; my parents had let me taste it at a New Year's party when I was about fourteen, and I had loved it ever since. Too bad that what we were celebrating was such a complete lie.

Then I wondered how long it would take to actually come up with some effective way of getting Sauron evicted from Mike's body, and whether I'd actually have to go through with marrying him. Putting it off until April would help, since that was six months away, but what if I couldn't get him exorcised (for lack of a better word) by that time? Then I'd have to continue this insanity through to its logical conclusion. And if I ever did manage to succeed in banishing Sauron once and for all, then I'd have the fun of dealing with the aftermath.

I made a vow then that, no matter what happened, I wouldn't hit poor Mike up for alimony.

So we drank, and at one point my mother excused herself to fetch a calendar. "We really should set a date, Sarah," she said on her return. "Things book up so fast, especially in the spring."

My mother spread the calendar open on the coffee table. I had to force myself to look enthused, since of course I hoped to have everything handled long before then.

"Not the seventh," she mused. "Easter weekend -- too much going on. What about April fourteenth?"

My father gave her a pained look. "I'm already taking a big enough hit on April fifteenth," he remarked. "Think we could move the money drain to another weekend?"

"Andrew," she said reprovingly.

Until he'd made that statement, I really hadn't stopped to think that my parents would be footing the bill for all this. As it had been Smike's idea, I just figured he would pay for everything. But traditionally the bride's parents were supposed to pay for the wedding, and I had a feeling that, even though he complained about it now, my father might be stubbornly orthodox on this subject. It wasn't as if my parents couldn't afford it, but it just seemed plain wrong for them to throw away so much money on such a bogus venture.

"What about March thirty-first?" I asked quickly. "I'm done with school on the twenty-first anyway."

Both my parents looked over at Smike, as if to make sure that was all right with him. "Well, I don't know..." he began, frowning a little as if he were trying to frantically page through the random facts in Mike's head in order to find the bit that contained Caltech's academic calendar. The frown deepened. "That's right after start of spring term, but it should be OK."

"We'll just postpone the honeymoon until after school's out," I said sweetly. "Sound good to you, dear?"

His eyes narrowed a bit at the "dear," but he nodded. "Sure, that could work."

"Great," my mother said. "I'll go ahead and get the word out."

And knowing the family grapevine, that meant relatives all up and down California would soon be penciling in March thirty-first on their calendars as the date that Sarah would be walking down the aisle with Mike Westerfield. I knew the inevitable "but weren't they just friends?" questions would come up, and then I'd have to launch into all sorts of plausible but completely false explanations. I couldn't tell anyone the truth, or my most likely occupation on March thirty-first would be staring at the walls of my rubber room.

With an air of finality, my mother wrote "Big Day!" on the little square containing the number thirty-one, and my fate was sealed. I could tell Smike felt more relaxed; when my parents weren't looking, he shot me a triumphant glance and smiled slightly. Bastard.

After that the talk flowed into normal chitchat, with my mother already postulating possible venues and both males in the room getting that slightly glazed look most men do whenever women start talking about "girl stuff." I nodded in the appropriate places and told myself it really didn't matter -- I'd let my parents settle on a budget and just go with the flow. And if I were lucky, maybe all they'd lose over the whole mess was a couple of security deposits.

Then it was time to go, and just after I rose from the couch Smike said, "Why don't you get your things together, Sarah? I'll wait down here."

Confused, I stared down at him. "My things?"

He gave my parents an indulgent smile, as if to excuse my absent-mindedness. "We talked about this last night -- remember how you agreed it was better for you to just move in with me now that we're engaged?"

My stomach wanted to drop to the floor. Of course I should have known that he would never let me come home and settle in comfortably to wait for our "wedding." No, he had meant to take ownership of me from the very start.

Quelling the urge to pick up the empty champagne bottle and smash it over his head, I managed to reply, sounding like a complete idiot even to myself, "I totally forgot -- my bad!"

Both my parents looked less than thrilled. "I really don't see the reason -- " my mother began.

"Oh, Susan, this is the twenty-first century, isn't it?" Smike cut in. "I mean, you really don't think Sarah was saving herself for her wedding night, do you?"

If the floor had swallowed me up at that point I think I would have been grateful. Hot color flooded into my cheeks, and I blurted, "I'll just run upstairs and get my stuff," then bolted from the room. I caught a glimpse of my father giving Smike his best "you're grounded for life!" glare before I tore up the stairs.

Because I just hadn't been humiliated quite enough so far, right? How did that bastard know exactly the wrong thing to say? Oh, I'm sure my parents had a pretty good idea that I wasn't exactly a virgin anymore, but it's one thing to have a suspicion and then to have your daughter's fiancé casually put it out there as if he were stating the mileage on his car. And since I hadn't come home last night, I was fairly sure my parents were putting two and two together and getting a number they didn't like very much.

Still with cheeks burning, I pulled my little rollaway suitcase out the closet and began stuffing clothes into it at random -- underwear and socks, jeans, T-shirts, a couple of sweaters, an extra pair of shoes. Of course I'd have to come back in the near future and really gather up all my belongings, but I knew Smike was just trying to make a point -- he'd asked me to jump, and I hadn't even inquired as to how high. I'd just thrown myself off the cliff.

I went into the bathroom that adjoined my bedroom and scooped up my toothbrush and toothpaste, container of floss, deodorant, lip balm: all the little oddments that I thought I needed to get through the day...until I'd spent months in Middle Earth and realized how unessential most of that stuff really is. But this wasn't Middle Earth, and I wanted all my modern-life security blankets with me. I wouldn't fool myself into believing that they would help me through the ordeal that lay ahead, but even those traces of normality might somehow keep me from completely losing my mind.

For a second I thought, What if this is the dream? What if I'm only having a nightmare, and in the morning I'll wake up to find Gorendil lying beside me, the two of us still safe in Minas Tirith?

How I wished it were true. But I looked around the bathroom, saw the daubs of three different shades of blue paint near the ceiling on the wall opposite the mirror where my mother had been testing shades for a minor remodel, and realized I really was home. Not that it was my home anymore. No, Sauron had managed to neatly snatch that refuge away from me as well.

I descended the stairs, bumping my suitcase loudly along behind me. Smike and my parents came to meet me in the foyer; my father still looked irritated, but, with standard uptight WASPy scene-avoidance fully engaged, was maintaining a stormy silence.

My mother also seemed somewhat subdued, but she did say, "Are you sure, Sarah? After all, of course I knew you would move out some day, but -- "

"I'm sure, Mom," I said mechanically. "Besides, I'll only be a mile away. It's not as if I'm moving to the East Coast or something."

She blinked. Were those tears in her eyes? I supposed it would be a big deal for your only child to be moving out, even if she happened to be staying in the same town. I know I hadn't expected it to be like this -- I'd thought I'd graduate, get some exciting job in film or television, and move to the Fairfax District or someplace like that to be closer to the studios. I certainly never expected to be moving in with Mike, let alone engaged to him.

Not that it was really Mike who'd be sharing the pretty Tudor-style house with me...

All false solicitousness, Smike bent over and took the suitcase from me. "Let me get that."

I let him take it. As much as I had yearned to go home and see my parents, by that point I just wanted to get out of there. The constant strain of having to pretend in front of them was already getting to me. At least when I was alone with Sauron I didn't have to hide anything.

So I gave my mom a hug, and then my father, and after a few awkward comments like "I'll call you" and "take care" Smike and I got safely out of there. Only after he had stowed the suitcase in the trunk of my bright blue New Beetle and then slid into the passenger seat did I turn on him.

"What the hell was that all about?"

"Careful, Sarah -- your parents are watching." He smiled and waved out of the passenger window.

I turned the key in the ignition and viciously shifted into reverse. An SUV on steroids lumbered past, and I had to wait, fuming, in the driveway until it was safe to pull out into the street. Then I put the car in drive and took off at a rate of speed that would definitely have caught the attention of San Marino's finest if any of them had happened to be in the vicinity.

"Married!" I exploded, once the car had safely rounded a curve and we were out of eyeshot. "What put that idea into your diseased brain?"

His eyes remained fixed on the streets as they passed by, on expensive home after expensive home, all fronted by professionally landscaped yards, some with new, pricey vehicles gleaming in the driveways. Without turning to look at me, he said, "It seemed the easiest way to keep you close."

"You could have just made me move in with you."

He finally turned and gave me an unpleasant smile. "Guess I'm just old-fashioned."

I knew then I wouldn't get a straight answer out of him. Whatever he was up to, he certainly wasn't about to tell me anything.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, until I pulled up into the driveway of Mike's home. Again, it looked completely normal, except for the drooping "Prancing Pony" banner that still hung above the front door, a relic of the party from the night before. Of course you couldn't tell from looking at it that an evil entity had taken over the body and soul of the person who lived in the house.

Now that my parents weren't around to observe, Smike let me retrieve my own luggage from the trunk. I didn't bother to protest.

He unlocked the front door and led me inside. Christ, what a mess. When we'd left I hadn't paid much attention to the detritus that littered the living and dining rooms, since I had thought -- dummy me -- that I was going home permanently. Now, however, it had become painfully obvious that some serious clean-up work was in store.

But first things first. I followed Smike into his bedroom and dumped the suitcase on the bed. I'd never been in here before -- Mike had always been careful to keep me out of his room -- and it looked much the same as the rest of the house: carefully maintained antiques, hardwood floor with a big Persian rug covering most of it. The place certainly didn't look like a typical college guy's bedroom, but I guessed that was mainly because it had been furnished when Mike inherited it, and he hadn't seen the need to change anything.

"Do you have any empty drawers in any of this furniture?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation as prosaic as possible. Aside from dealing with such necessary logistics, I had no idea what the hell we would even have to say to one another.

"That one, I think," he replied, after another one of those pauses that seemed to signal he was drawing on Mike's memories for input.

Sure enough, the highboy he'd directed me to was practically empty, except for some faded and sad-looking T-shirts in the bottom drawer. And when I stuck my head in the walk-in closet, the story was almost the same -- Mike's wardrobe barely occupied a third of the racks. Well, at least we wouldn't be arguing over closet space...

But after I'd stretched out the task of unpacking for as long as I could, and after I'd rolled my suitcase into the closet and stowed it in the far corner, I emerged into the bedroom to see Smike still standing there, watching me the way one might watch a semi-amusing monkey in a cage at the zoo.

"What?" I demanded. "I didn't know that putting away clothes could be so interesting."

In answer, he moved away from the doorjamb he'd been leaning against and came to me. He reached out to touch my hair; I didn't flinch. What was the point? He'd already done the worst to me, as far as I was concerned.

"You know," he said, his tone thoughtful, "I think he's almost happy. You don't know how many times he's thought of what it would be like to have you living here with him."

Don't let him get to you, I told myself. Don't let him see that his words have any effect...

Somehow I managed to dredge up a smile and say, "Oh, really? Well, if you're having a chit-chat in there, let him know I said 'hi' and that it was a really great party and that I'm sorry he got possessed by a sorry two-bit Dark Lord who didn't have the sense to stay dead."

He didn't blink. "Insult away, if it makes you feel better." And with that he left the room -- but not, of course, to begin tidying up the place. Instead, once I ventured out of the bedroom I saw him in Mike's office, pounding away on the computer. Computers were Mike's one indulgence; every year he bought something newer and faster, with the biggest monitor he could find. Since the back of the enormous cinema display faced the door, I couldn't see what he was working on, but at least he was occupied with something besides me.

With a sigh I went on into the kitchen, found a box of trash bags under the sink, and began the weary process of making the house fit for human habitation again. At least I wouldn't have to scrub anything down; I knew that Mike had a cleaning service come in once a week on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

The cleanup took me about an hour and a half, and by the time I was done I was ravenously hungry. I realized I'd hadn't eaten anything all day (since a glass of champagne hardly counted), so I found the menu from a Thai place that Mike and I often ordered from, called them up, and had them charge everything to the credit card Mike had on file. I figured I'd earned it after everything I'd been through.

The food came, and the scent of it apparently was enough to draw Smike out of his office. I hoped spitefully that the spicy food wouldn't sit well with Sauron, but he shoveled it in the way Mike always had, then disappeared again.

Not knowing whether I should be offended or relieved. I put the leftovers in the fridge, and then wandered the house aimlessly, not sure whether I could settle myself down to something as ordinary as watching TV or reading a book. Then I spied the complete History of Middle Earth sitting on one of the bookcases in the living room.

What better way to gird myself for the fight ahead than to know my enemy as well as possible? I picked up a volume at random and began scanning for references to Sauron; the thing was as dense as any history book, but maybe I could glean some sort of useful information from it.

I settled myself in an armchair, put my feet up on the ottoman, and began to read. After all, I'd defeated Sauron once. There had to be some way to do it again.