In the speed of a blinking eyelid they were transported to the study in Bag End again, surrounded by smoke. Gandalf coughed again and looked at the ghost angrily. "I'm very, very disappointed in you Gandalf!" said the ghost "You just won't change your mind!"
"Why should I?" said Gandalf.
"Because... because of what you just saw!" said the ghost "Oh, you're hopeless!"
"I'm not!"argued Gandalf.
"I'm not here to argue! Well, I have to go! Next ghost will be here soon!" said the ghost and clicked his fingers. He vanished in a cloud of smoke.
Gandalf coughed again. 'Another ghost?! These ghosts don't seem to be doing me any good, they just make me feel terrible!'he thought. He went to the kitchen to get another glass of water and then returned. He closely looked at the chair where the first ghost had appeared (to check if another ghost was sitting there now) and then sat down again. He took a sip of water and then as he was lowering the glass, he saw a man in front of him. In his surprise, he dropped the glass and it fell to the ground and broke. 'You should have expected to see another ghost. You're just breaking everything tonight Gandalf the Grey' he thought to himself. Then he paid more attention to the man that was in front of him. He was a tall man, with dark hair and grey eyes. He too reminded Gandalf of someone, but this time he knew who, his old friend Aragorn. "Hello!" said Gandalf.
"Hello."replied Aragorn "I suppose you wonder how I got here and why I am here."
"I do. Actually I want to know how you know the way, I've never shown you this place before." said Gandalf.
"Well, I didn't need to know the way to come." said Aragorn "I'm the ghost of Christmas Future." At this, Gandalf was nearly furious. "I've had enough with all you ghosts!"he said angrily "Go back to where you came from!"
"I cannot do that until I have taken you to the future." said Aragorn.
"Then just take me there so this will be over." said Gandalf "The future can't be that terrible!"
"You think that because you haven't seen it!" said Aragorn "But I have! And you won't like it!" With that Aragorn whistled and they vanished from the study.
Gandalf saw that they were in Rivendell now. They were surrounded by elves which seemed to be going through their everyday life. It looked quite peaceful to Gandalf. "Well, it doesn't look so bad!"he said. The ghost said nothing. Then, out of a room, walked a sad looking Bilbo and right behind him were Sam, Merry and Pippin (also sad). Bilbo went and sat in a corner. The other three hobbits sat down close to him. But to Gandalf something seemed to be missing. He counted the hobbits. They were four when they had to be five with Bilbo. "Where's Frodo?"he asked the ghost. But the ghost still said nothing. Then Sam said something.
"Mr. Bilbo, I know it's hard for you, but we're going through the same thing right now!"he said.
"I know Sam, I know!" said Bilbo. "I'd like to know whose 'fault' it is!"
"Well, that's easy!" said Pippin and then whispered something to Bilbo. After
he heard it Bilbo looked quite surprised. Then all four of them got up and left
the room. "Where are they going?" asked Gandalf.
"To lord Elrond's Christmas dinner." said the ghost.
"Is it Christmas? It all looks too glum for such a day!" said Gandalf surprised.
"It is glum!"agreed the ghost.
"I wonder why!" said Gandalf. The ghost said nothing but whistled again.
Gandalf thought they were going to return to the present, but instead they appeared in another room of the house of Elrond. But it didn't look like Christmas at all! There were no decorations, songs, music nor anything happy. The whole place looked glum! There was only a big table in the middle. Elves were coming and going. But in the crowd Gandalf saw the hobbits, two dwarves (in fact they were Glóin and Gimli), a strange Elf, clad in green and brown (to tell you the truth, it was Legolas), a tall man dark-haired, and grey-eyed (the famous Boromir), Aragorn and also next to him Arwen, daughter of Elrond (I have to let you know that they were in love), a beautiful elf. She had hair dark as the shadows of twilight and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as cloudless night.
All of them looked quite glum instead of celebrating as they should be on such a day. They sat down. Just then, Gandalf walked in. He sat near the hobbits but when he did, they got up and went to the other side of the room giving him a stern look as they went. Then Gandalf went to sit next to someone else, but they did the same, and soon they were all in the corner trying to keep as far away from Gandalf as possible.
"It looks as if everybody hates me!" said ghost-Gandalf.
"It doesn't look like it. They do!" said the ghost "I would hate you too after what you've done!"
"But, what did I do?" said Gandalf "I did expect Peregrin and Meriadoc to hate me anyway! But not Bilbo! I'm sure he will forgive me though! And so will Frodo! Seriously now, where is Frodo?"
"Well, it's time for me to tell you the story!" said the ghost "Do you want to hear it?"
"I do!"answered Gandalf.
"Here it goes then." said the ghost and began the story.
"The hobbits did sacrifice their Christmas and left on the 25th. You sent me to find them in Bree at the inn of the Prancing Pony. So I went to Bree and found them. I was introduced as Strider to them. They didn't trust me at the begging, but I think they did later. The Ringwraiths..."
"Ringwraiths?"interrupted Gandalf "So the Nine have risen again!"
"They have." said the ghost "So the Ringwraiths attacked the inn to find the Ring. We had expected that, so we ruffled the clothes, put in a bolster down the middle of each bed and kept calling Frodo Mr. Underhill, for safety. We tricked the Wraiths and left Bree. We reached Weathertop at night quite safe, but the Enemy had got there first. There were only five of the Nazgûl. Frodo put on the Ring, and they saw him. They wounded him with a Morgul-knife. They only got his shoulder, but the powers of the wound were working. I couldn't heal it, so we hoped we would reach Rivendell in time so Elrond could heal him. We were going well and then Glorfindel found us. He helped a bit and then went with us. Before we had reached the Ford of Bruinen the Nazgûl attacked again. This time all nine of them. Frodo was riding Glorfindel's horse and crossed the Ford, but not quite in time.
The Ringwraiths stepped into the water to get him, but Elrond caused the waters of the Bruinen to flood and they were washed away. Unfortunately Frodo was dragged away by the flood as well. When we found him, the wound had overcome him. Even Elrond couldn't do anything.
Everybody now hates you because it was your fault!"
"My fault? Because I wanted them to leave on Christmas! But I didn't know this would happen!" said Gandalf.
"But it happened, and you can't change it!" said the ghost.
"If I change the plan?"
"I'm afraid it's too late. This is your fate now, and Frodo's."
"No, it can't be! I changed my mind!". Suddenly Gandalf felt he was fainting.
