"But I had forgotten Bombadil, if indeed this is still the same that walked the woods and hills long ago, and even then was older than the old. That was not then his name. Iarwain Ben-adar we called him, oldest and fatherless. But many another name he has since been given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern Men, and other names beside. He is a strange creature..."

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Chapter 3: By the Weeping Willow

The house I found myself in might have been my own. It was set near a stream and a field and a forest, but my home was not so green, the rain was not so strong and clean, and no one ever sang unless they were in the shower.

I was rushed in by the short, colorful man who had found me just as it started to pour, and he came in behind me laughing and shaking droplets from his great brown beard.

Not having made it out of range of the spray, I ended up wet anyway.

The man and his wife – who was, to be perfectly frank, waaay out of his league – sat me down and fed me, and the food, if somewhat lighter than I was used to, was no less satisfying. It felt like eating out of the forest itself, like fresh air and downpours and thick, moist soil.

I had been so rushed by the strangeness of it, I didn't have time to think that accepting food from strangers I'd met in a field when moments before I had been standing in my attic was probably a bad idea. When the idea did come to me, halfway through a second helping of bread and butter, it was immediately followed by the notion that this must be a dream, in which case I could enjoy it, or a hallucination, in which case what else had floated up out of that book? I had thought it was dust…

The man was fingering the book, and it wasn't until he said, "Old Tom be a-wondering…Where did you come by a thing like this? Its jacket is not hardy, and its lettering is strange, " that I made the connection.

"Old Tom," I breathed. "Old Tom Bombadil, who defeated the Willow."

Tom roared, the crinkles in his face multiplying and reddening, and Goldberry – for so my hallucinating brain identified her – smiled softly as she sat down beside me.

"Old Man Willow? He's a nasty one. Full of anger. Cold, old anger. The kind that gets in the roots and works its way up into the branches. Is he what's troubling you?"

"No…" I said. "What's troubling me is, you're not supposed to be real."

Immediately I realized this was a rude thing to say, and I opened my mouth wide to apologize, but Tom and Goldberry were laughing again.

It must be nice, I thought, to be always that happy, to have nothing ever get to you.

"Aye," said Goldberry, "so the folk of Men believe us, dreams and legends, myths and tales. But we are flesh and sinew, alive as oak and ash."

"That's not quite what I meant," I said. "If you'll excuse my bluntness, I'm not really sure how I got here."

Tom rubbed his beard. "Where were you before you went a-wandering on my grasses?"

"In my aunt's attic."

"Hmm. Not the sort of place to begin journeys from."

"No. I opened that book…touched that handkerchief…and then I was here."

Tom's eyes brightened as he looked at the cloth. "Magic."

"Excuse me?"

"Not the high spells of wizards," Goldberry supplied, "nor the earth spells of Elves."

"No indeed," said Tom. "No. This is the roaring spell of hearts. She loved very much, who made this handkerchief. She was not ready to let go of the person she gave it to."

I frowned. "My aunt? I don't think so. And I don't know that she ever embroidered anything."

"Then perhaps it was given to her."

I took the handkerchief again, studied it carefully. There was a thrill in me, a quiet place was waking up and recognizing something. "I…I can't read it," I said. "Can you?"

"Dwarf runes," said Tom. "They are runes of love and friendship and sorrow. Travel well, dear heart, dear friend. I do not think Dwarves made this."

There was an image in my mind of Grumpy with a needle and a hankie. No, I didn't think so either.

"Who would have given my aunt a handkerchief with Dwarf runes?" I wondered aloud. Could Aunt Scilla have been a Trekkie? One of those people who go to Renaissance fairs? I felt like someone would have told me, and the image didn't fit with the picture on the mantel. That woman had had a practical face and worn workshirt. Then again, she hadn't turned out to be all that practical, and who knew what Trekkies wore when they weren't Trekking?

"Not a Dwarf, I think," said Goldberry, "though perhaps they know something of it. Can you not ask your aunt?"

"No," I said, a little too sharply. "She's gone. She's been gone for years. No one can ask her anything."

"And no one knows where she has gone," said Goldberry. "Perhaps the Dwarves can tell you."

I looked up at her and blinked. This made sense. It made…well, bizarrely it made sense. Aunt Scilla had disappeared where no one could follow. She'd gone somewhere and hadn't said where…

I shook my head violently. No. No way. I wasn't in Middle Earth, and neither was my aunt. Of all the impossibilities, that was the most impossible. I was hallucinating. Or I'd fallen over. Or…

"You do not believe in magic," Tom said shrewdly. He folded my fingers around the handkerchief. "But magic doesn't need believing. Follow the runes to your answers. Over hill and mountain they will lead you, through forest and valley, but at the end, yes, at the end, you will find magic, and answers, and perhaps your aunt."