Interlude: The Fourth Letter
My dear Frodo,
Where are you? What are you doing? What are you thinking? Are you afraid?
I think of you all the time, you know. I wish I could have gone with you
No, not that. I wish you hadn't had to go. That's it. I wish none of this was happening, but it is, so we've got to make the best of it.
'When you return' – that's what I said to you that last morning. I was putting on a brave face for you, and you, I think, were putting on a brave face for me. But Aragorn and Gandalf will look after you.
I hope you will remember to look after them, too. They're very dear to me. I saw Master Elrond the other day, when he thought he was alone, and he looked so sad and worried. We hobbits, we tend to think that we're the only people who feel sad and afraid sometimes. We don't expect Big People to feel that way, especially if they're like Gandalf, so ancient and wise.
Sometimes I worry about Aragorn as much as I worry about you. He spoke to me once about a time when he would be put to the test. I think this is the time. Please help him if you can.
Things are dark even here in Rivendell. War is coming. I hope it leaves the Shire alone.
I wonder where you are. Aragorn showed me a map before you left, but he said your exact road was yet to be decided. Have you passed through the Gap of Rohan? Are you in Gondor? Or did you go the other road, and have you seen Lothlorien? Aragorn never did get to paint me a picture of Lorien, you know.
You don't need to being back pictures of the places you have seen. Just come back.
Bilbo gazed out at the winter sky. "I don't know why I'm writing this," he said. There was just a single page of it, written over weeks, odd disjointed thoughts sometimes scrawled down in the middle of the night. Rivendell was quieter than ever before, and even the singing was almost stilled. The whole world was waiting between one breath and the next, waiting for news.
I'm trying to finish my book. It's an old story, and now it's over; that's clear to me now at last. Your story will be so much bigger. I need to finish mine so I can move on to the story that's still being told. But I can't seem to finish mine, or even make a start on yours. I don't like to think of you caught up in such things. I feels worse, somehow, than when it was me. You need to come back so you can write your own story. Maybe, when the dust has settled, I'll be able to read it.
The sons of Elrond had ridden to war, or so it was said, and a company of Aragorn's people had ridden with them, although this Bilbo only learned by keeping one ear open while nodding beside the fire. He saw Arwen at a high window, gazing into the south. "Can you see him?" he asked her weeks later, when she passed him in the Hall of Fire, but she shook her head. "He took the path that was foretold by the Seer," she said, "but that path is too dark for me to see him."
I wonder what that means. Are you still with him? I don't like to think of you in dark places.
Have you still got that old Ring of mine? Oh, silly me. Of course you have. That's why you've gone on this whole sorry journey. I hope you're taking good care of it. It's very precious, you know.
They want you to destroy it. Why would they want you to do that? It's been in my mind more and more these last few days. I wonder why.
Have you destroyed it already? Have you sneaked out and done it without asking my permission? It is mine, after all.
No, I don't think it's gone.
It hasn't gone. If it was, I'd know.
I'll know.
And then came a day when the entire world fell silent, caught breathless between action and a thought. When the world resumed, all the bells in Rivendell were ringing, and songs came from every window.
I know, Bilbo wrote, and then he wept.