Strange Lander

1. The Turn of the Key

A/N: So, first things first, major thanks to Fire Daughter, the lightning-fast reviewer who pointed out that I'd forgotten to change the font in this chapter so it debuted as a hot mess - much like 2020, am I right? Anyway... second time's the charm. I know the "girl-falls-into-Middle-Earth" story has been done to death and resurrection and death again, but you know what, we all deserve a high fantasy quest in one of our all-time favourite fictional lands, so here we go. Rated T for swear words (because honestly, wouldn't you?) and a fair bit of angst about all *gestures at the news at any given moment* this.

People often think of London as a cold, damp, smoky city, all stone and steel and cobbled streets left over from more history than anyone can track. But that is only half the truth. London is also a green city, and nowhere is that more evident than the majestic woodlands of Hampstead Heath: the last piece of land that remembers when its namesake was a humble village rather than just another stop on the Northern line. In the last days of summer, a little before 6 pm, Sarah Stokes could taste the greenery in the air like crisp pears. Forest debris crunched underfoot as she strolled down a grand avenue of trees that had been planted forty years ago. Their canopies kept the sun out but soaked up its gold, imbuing everything with an air of magic — appropriate, considering just how much magic is about to feature in Sarah's story.

She was on her way to Parliament Hill for what had become her favourite lockdown ritual: once a week, after logging off from their respective jobs, she and one of her oldest friends, Miriam, met atop the hill for some socially distanced sketching. They sat six feet apart - enough for a Sarah-and-a-half to lie down between them - and rendered the London skyline in smudged pencil, to the tune of dog paws and overexcited children. They usually spent the first twenty minutes saying nothing at all, focusing on the world and forgetting it at the same time. Then, gradually, they would ask about each other's day (though there was rarely anything new to report), parents (still well, thank God, but still out of reach), and state of mind (barely clinging on, but saying it aloud nudged them away from the brink). They would compare sketches and laugh at how terrible they were, neither of them having any artistic training whatsoever. They smiled with their eyes where their mouths, concealed by masks, could not.

This particular evening - which hardly felt like evening at all, given how much light spilled across the ground - Sarah sighed with something like contentment. A tiny dog ambled past her, happy to be off leash. 'Hi puppy,' she said, before clearing her throat and belatedly realizing that it was, depressingly, the first time she'd used her voice all day. No video meetings, no phone calls, no deliveries. Just her. She drifted from the middle of the tree-lined avenue right to the edge, where the ground dipped into a small ditch, as the tiny dog's owners marched after it, taking up most of the path as they went.

'Oh no, don't mind me, I'll just walk sideways up this tree,' she muttered.

Something chirruped from overhead — she squinted in time to see a flock of parakeets zoom between patches of sky. The parakeets were a staple of the Heath, and most of North London. Someone presumably owned a pair many years ago and, by accident or design, they'd gone forth, multiplied, and thoroughly undomesticated themselves.

If they didn't have such distinctive, borderline shrill calls, Sarah might not have seen the door.

She stopped on the path to make sure she wasn't looking at something else but, no, it was definitely a door. A dark green wooden door, rich with age but completely unassuming. Go on, keep walking, it seemed to say. You've probably got more important things to get on with. I bet you wouldn't find me all that interesting anyway.

Sarah looked up and down the deserted tree avenue, then at her watch. She did have more important things to get on with, but she was also running ten minutes early. And curiosity was a seductive siren. She approached the door warily, breathing it in — no paint fumes. The door hadn't been assembled in situ, someone must have literally schlepped it all the way into the middle of the Heath. Sarah walked around the door, where it looked perfectly ordinary from behind as well. A film prop, she thought, looking around for a non-existent camera crew. It must be.

To humour herself, she dabbed some hand sanitizer on her palms and then turned the delicate golden key sticking out of the lock. It clicked. She stepped over the threshold. She didn't remember closing the door behind her, but close it did.

In fact, it slammed.

Suddenly the green in the air was different. This was the green of fresh grass and rolling hills. Perfect blue sky. Open air — too much air. Sarah whirled around in every direction until she fell over. Wherever she was, the door hadn't followed.

She pushed herself up and scrabbled to keep her satchel on her shoulder, processing her new surroundings. There were streams, and tidy gardens, and washing on lines between adorably round cottages built right into the ground, each front door a different but equally cheerful colour. Smoke from chimneys, chickens in yards. Very petite people tending to them.

No, Sarah mouthed to herself, perhaps thinking that if she said it enough times it would be true. No, no, no, no, no. No fucking way. Nope. Absolutely not.

And yet it was. Somehow, some way, she was standing on a hill in Hobbiton. The Shire. Middle Earth.

At this point Sarah did what any rational person would have done — she screamed, for a long time.

That was when she discovered her second problem: she had no voice.