Ruby burst into laughter, but it subsided as soon as she saw the look on
Freddy's face.
"Oh, Freddy, you're not serious? Surely you're joking?" she asked uncertainly. Freddy folded the map with a slight crinkling and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He turned to her.
"I think we've found something spectacular," he said, and there was a light in his eyes. "Yes! Yes, why Ruby, we have a map here! This means," and he stopped to fumble in his pocket to retrieve the map again, unfolding it briskly, "we have the directions to these Ents! I believe the hobbit carved this rock, Ruby, before he, well…" Freddy gestured at the remains.
Ruby laughed loudly. "Freddy, have you lost your sense? What—who—what if these Ents are what killed him? I'd rather not stay around to meet them, or it—whatever it is—or we're likely to end up just as he is!"
"But it must be something important enough for him to preserve twice! If we could just follow this map, I think—"
"You mean to go trekking in this forest? Without food? Without water?" Ruby threw her hands in the air.
"Ruby, Ruby," he chided, "I've been in this forest before. I know the way—"
"You know then what they say about this forest," she returned, lowering her voice and drawing closer. "There is something dark here, something that is always lurking. I'd rather not take to foolhardy wandering." And with that she glanced over her shoulder as if there were something watching at that very moment.
"It's not foolhardy, we've the path set before us, right here," he insisted, patting the rock.
"If you should like to wander and end up just as that fellow," and she jabbed her finger in the direction of the long deceased hobbit, "you may do it by yourself," she huffed, and crossed her arms.
"The forest is always changing, Ruby. I can sense it as well as you. I know it watches," he threw a glance around, and then his gaze returned to her face. "This is our chance for adventure, Ruby. Come just a little bit further with me, I won't have you wandering all alone in the forest. I shall have us back by sunset, I promise!" he urged with a last effort.
"Very well," she sighed. "But if we get lost in here forever, I'm going to take that rock of yours and toss it in the river!"
* * *
The hobbits began their journey, using the rock as a crude guide. With closer examination, Freddy had noticed thin white veins running through the rock, and a thought occurred to him. "They are the paths we should take!" he exclaimed at last. "The hobbit carved around them so he could still see them!" With this theory in mind, they ventured to take the path that the lines in the rock dictated. The path was irrational and irregular, as the map often led them straight to the center of a large tree trunk, or through a tangle of thorny brush, and soon the hobbits began to wonder if they were walking in circles.
"I've seen this tree before, I know I have!" Ruby complained, plopping onto the ground at the base of a large tree with smooth grey bark. Freddy also sighed and sat on the ground, letting the rock slip from his fingers.
"What a mess my idea has become," he said, letting out a breath of air. "I'm frightfully thirsty, and I don't think we shall see the light of day for a while yet."
"Mother is probably baking sweet cakes for breakfast," Ruby said drearily, and as if on cue, her stomach let go of a loud rumble.
"I could drink the whole Brandywine River," Freddy said. He looked down at Squash, and even the little dog was panting.
"Come along, we mustn't tarry," Freddy grunted as he rose. He bent over to take the rock from the ground and began tramping through the underbrush, humming as he went. "Say, Ruby, you're awfully quiet," he said after a few moments. The forest around him seemed to double in size, threatening to stifle him as he continued forward.
"Ruby?" he asked, his voice sounding suddenly very small. He turned around and no one was behind him, his heart thumping in his chest. "Ruby! Squash!" he shouted, but the impenetrable trees muffled his cries. Nevertheless, the fearsome little hound came charging through the underbrush, happily wagging its tail as it circled Freddy's feet.
"Squash! There you are! Where is Ruby? Where is she?" he asked, as if expecting a response. He knew the little dog wouldn't have left Ruby's side if he had been with her. Looking up at the looming oaks and firs and lindens, he never recalled feeling quite as small as he felt at that moment. "I'm done for," he thought morbidly, and he sank to the base of a tree, hugging the dog to his chest.
"Will you kindly, hmm, remove your trunk from my roots?" he heard a voice ask from somewhere behind him. Leaping to his feet, he glanced wildly around, his heart thumping in his chest with joy.
"What a cruel joke! This is too much, this time! Show yourself at once, Ruby!" he cried, and looked to and fro. Squash began to growl deep in his throat as he sat at the base of a large tree with smooth grey bark. The branches of the tree began to rustle, and he felt a shuddering in the earth that traveled all the way up to his knees.
"I believe you are mistaken, young hobbit. That is what you are called, if I recall aright. But I forget little and remember well," the voice continued speaking. It wasn't until Freddy looked up to the source of the voice that he realized it emanated from the tree itself. As he looked closer, he realized the tree itself wasn't a regular tree at all, but its trunk was swathed in moss that almost resembled a robe or dress, with several star shaped leaves climbing in a spiral to the branches. Its leaves were long and fernlike, draping downwards almost as hair, and two deep brown eyes were set into a smooth, barely grooved silver-grey face. Two long branches, which weren't branches at all, swept downwards and bent towards him, ending in six slender fingers that he realized were actually hands.
"Why, you're a tree! A talking tree!" he cried, falling backwards. There was a deep musical chuckle, and the tall ash leaned downwards as well as it could manage to get a closer look at him. There was a mouth after all, a kindly mouth that was upturned in a smile, and there were flickers of green in its eyes, which seemed deep with knowledge and shining with benevolence.
"Not a tree, a tree itself, perhaps not," came the voice, which was rich and melodious, as of a well-loved grandmother, yet wise and tinged with amusement. "But if I took the time to tell you what I truly am and how I came to be, we should be here for a long while, by your peoples' reckoning. You are a hasty folk, quite hasty, as I have seen and I have watched for a long while, before you yourself walked underneath the sun." Here she paused and seemed to take a deep breath, closing her eyes as she drank in the surroundings, and when she opened her eyes, it seemed the evil of the forest had subsided for the moment.
"I am an Ent, as we have been called, and as we are known, if we are still known by this name. But I was an Entmaiden once." It seemed she sighed wistfully. "Many seasons have passed, and I would be called an Entwife, were times as they once were."
It was difficult for Freddy to follow her speech, but he listened intently, and as closely as he could over the barking of the dog beside him. Squash suddenly trotted up to her roots, (or feet, now that Freddy could see toes) and grabbed hold of her foot in his mouth, growling menacingly. The Entwife lowered her arm and wrapped her knotted fingers around the dog's midsection, lifting it high into the air and bringing it closer to examine.
"This, I have seen this before, but not in many ages. In your tongue, this manycolored-fourlegged-haircovered-companionofman—"
"Dog?" Freddy guessed blankly, still held in awe that he was talking to an Ent.
"Yes, this 'dog'," she agreed, and set the hound back on its feet. "Though we have many names for this creature, this one in our tongue—" and she broke off into a strange mumbling in her language which sounded to Freddy much like "rumba looma tooma rolla tolla rooma," but he dared not interrupt her. All at once she stopped, and seemed to remember his presence.
"M-miss Ent," Freddy stammered, "I don't mean to enter--, that is, interrupt, and I'm pleased to meet you, but I've lost my cousin, and I'm afraid she's going to get lost in this dreadful forest!"
The tall ash bent barely at the waist and a flicker of amusement passed over her grey features. Freddy noticed a star-leafed vine curled just around her head so it looked as if a circlet adorned her hair.
"Yes, the other hobbit, I have seen her. This 'dreadful' forest, as you put it, is my home, but there are things in this forest," and he heard a rumble of disapproval rise from deep within her throat, "that even the Entwives avoid. Not from fear, but necessity. Come with me, hobbit, and we shall find her." With that, she easily lifted Freddy with her long, grey arms, and Freddy half-expected to be scratched by the bark of such a tree, but he discovered her bark, or skin, was smoother than he expected, and as cool as the forest floor. So he nestled in the crook of her arm with Squash held tightly in his own arms, and he looked in amazement as the ground sped by underneath him with every Ent-stride.
"I must be careful not to tread on her," the Entwife said as she walked. "And as soon as we find her, though I am not as hasty as hobbits, I desire to know why two hobbits were in the Old Forest, the Entwives' domain."
She continued through the forest, and it seemed she covered more ground in less than half the time it had taken for the hobbits to navigate their way through. In no time at all, it seemed to Freddy, they came to a depression in the ground, which seemed as a small hollow to Freddy from his perch, but he imagined it was a very steep hill at hobbit-height. There, at the bottom of the hill, lay Ruby and she looked disheveled as she held both of her knees in pain. It looked as if she had taken a tumble, and as they spotted her, Freddy waved his arm, careful not to drop Squash.
"Well, if it isn't Ruby Knotwise. Here I am, up here, look up!" he shouted, and he saw that she did as he had requested, and her eyes widened in shock.
"Freddy! What are you doing in that tree?" she asked. The Entwife suddenly scooped the hobbit into her other arm and tucked her at the crook of her elbow; in the same manner she had placed Freddy.
"Oh!" he heard Ruby gasp, but she remained still, realizing that she was in no danger.
"I will take you to safety in the Gardens. For you are light for hobbits, and I suspect you hunger and thirst, as all hobbits do," she said to them.
"What are you called? Where do you come from? Were you what Squash was chasing?" Ruby questioned nervously, though she sat comfortably in her perch on the Entwife's arm.
There was another musical chuckle audible among the rhythmic footsteps of her strides.
"I am not so hasty that I can answer three questions at once, but I will tell you that I was an Entwife, and that I am an Ent, but that story I shall save for later, and for another storyteller. As for my name, you may call me Twinbough," she answered evenly, never diverting from her straight course to step aside or wind around any tree, but it seemed the very trees gave way before her and allowed her to pass.
"I will bring you to see Wandlimb," she spoke at last, after they had traveled some distance in silence, though the hobbits suspected the Entwife had been deep in thought as she bore them onward.
"Who is Wandlimb?" Ruby asked.
"She is the eldest and fairest of the Entwives, and she led us to this place many seasons ago, after Sauron the Dark Lord drove us away and destroyed our gardens," Twinbough explained, and he could feel her branches quivering with repressed and long-forgotten anger. "That is as swiftly as I can explain it," she said.
"Sauron?" Freddy asked. "Why, Sauron's been as dead as a doornail for years now! He won't be bothering anyone anymore," Freddy promptly replied.
The long, measured strides of the Entwife never faltered, but she grew silent once more, and for a few moments, the hobbits wondered if she had heard them at all, but she finally spoke.
"Dead, dead, no, not dead," she replied, and rumbled something in her native tongue. As she spoke, she hesitated in her speech every so often to release an earthy sigh tinged with wistfulness or some form of melancholy. She then resumed, "Sauron is powerless. But…we had felt it, in the ground, the trees, the wind. We could smell it, but we were not certain. I will tell the Entwives," she said, and her pace slowed as she drew nearer to a barrier of trees draped in soft moss and vines. The faint trickling of a stream met their ears, and as they looked down, they saw that the stream led up to the trees and disappeared between the trunks of two large rowans. Twinbough splashed through the stream and approached the obstruction, which drew aside at once.
"Welcome to the Gardens of Fimbrethil," she said, stepping through the entrance.
"Oh, Freddy, you're not serious? Surely you're joking?" she asked uncertainly. Freddy folded the map with a slight crinkling and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He turned to her.
"I think we've found something spectacular," he said, and there was a light in his eyes. "Yes! Yes, why Ruby, we have a map here! This means," and he stopped to fumble in his pocket to retrieve the map again, unfolding it briskly, "we have the directions to these Ents! I believe the hobbit carved this rock, Ruby, before he, well…" Freddy gestured at the remains.
Ruby laughed loudly. "Freddy, have you lost your sense? What—who—what if these Ents are what killed him? I'd rather not stay around to meet them, or it—whatever it is—or we're likely to end up just as he is!"
"But it must be something important enough for him to preserve twice! If we could just follow this map, I think—"
"You mean to go trekking in this forest? Without food? Without water?" Ruby threw her hands in the air.
"Ruby, Ruby," he chided, "I've been in this forest before. I know the way—"
"You know then what they say about this forest," she returned, lowering her voice and drawing closer. "There is something dark here, something that is always lurking. I'd rather not take to foolhardy wandering." And with that she glanced over her shoulder as if there were something watching at that very moment.
"It's not foolhardy, we've the path set before us, right here," he insisted, patting the rock.
"If you should like to wander and end up just as that fellow," and she jabbed her finger in the direction of the long deceased hobbit, "you may do it by yourself," she huffed, and crossed her arms.
"The forest is always changing, Ruby. I can sense it as well as you. I know it watches," he threw a glance around, and then his gaze returned to her face. "This is our chance for adventure, Ruby. Come just a little bit further with me, I won't have you wandering all alone in the forest. I shall have us back by sunset, I promise!" he urged with a last effort.
"Very well," she sighed. "But if we get lost in here forever, I'm going to take that rock of yours and toss it in the river!"
* * *
The hobbits began their journey, using the rock as a crude guide. With closer examination, Freddy had noticed thin white veins running through the rock, and a thought occurred to him. "They are the paths we should take!" he exclaimed at last. "The hobbit carved around them so he could still see them!" With this theory in mind, they ventured to take the path that the lines in the rock dictated. The path was irrational and irregular, as the map often led them straight to the center of a large tree trunk, or through a tangle of thorny brush, and soon the hobbits began to wonder if they were walking in circles.
"I've seen this tree before, I know I have!" Ruby complained, plopping onto the ground at the base of a large tree with smooth grey bark. Freddy also sighed and sat on the ground, letting the rock slip from his fingers.
"What a mess my idea has become," he said, letting out a breath of air. "I'm frightfully thirsty, and I don't think we shall see the light of day for a while yet."
"Mother is probably baking sweet cakes for breakfast," Ruby said drearily, and as if on cue, her stomach let go of a loud rumble.
"I could drink the whole Brandywine River," Freddy said. He looked down at Squash, and even the little dog was panting.
"Come along, we mustn't tarry," Freddy grunted as he rose. He bent over to take the rock from the ground and began tramping through the underbrush, humming as he went. "Say, Ruby, you're awfully quiet," he said after a few moments. The forest around him seemed to double in size, threatening to stifle him as he continued forward.
"Ruby?" he asked, his voice sounding suddenly very small. He turned around and no one was behind him, his heart thumping in his chest. "Ruby! Squash!" he shouted, but the impenetrable trees muffled his cries. Nevertheless, the fearsome little hound came charging through the underbrush, happily wagging its tail as it circled Freddy's feet.
"Squash! There you are! Where is Ruby? Where is she?" he asked, as if expecting a response. He knew the little dog wouldn't have left Ruby's side if he had been with her. Looking up at the looming oaks and firs and lindens, he never recalled feeling quite as small as he felt at that moment. "I'm done for," he thought morbidly, and he sank to the base of a tree, hugging the dog to his chest.
"Will you kindly, hmm, remove your trunk from my roots?" he heard a voice ask from somewhere behind him. Leaping to his feet, he glanced wildly around, his heart thumping in his chest with joy.
"What a cruel joke! This is too much, this time! Show yourself at once, Ruby!" he cried, and looked to and fro. Squash began to growl deep in his throat as he sat at the base of a large tree with smooth grey bark. The branches of the tree began to rustle, and he felt a shuddering in the earth that traveled all the way up to his knees.
"I believe you are mistaken, young hobbit. That is what you are called, if I recall aright. But I forget little and remember well," the voice continued speaking. It wasn't until Freddy looked up to the source of the voice that he realized it emanated from the tree itself. As he looked closer, he realized the tree itself wasn't a regular tree at all, but its trunk was swathed in moss that almost resembled a robe or dress, with several star shaped leaves climbing in a spiral to the branches. Its leaves were long and fernlike, draping downwards almost as hair, and two deep brown eyes were set into a smooth, barely grooved silver-grey face. Two long branches, which weren't branches at all, swept downwards and bent towards him, ending in six slender fingers that he realized were actually hands.
"Why, you're a tree! A talking tree!" he cried, falling backwards. There was a deep musical chuckle, and the tall ash leaned downwards as well as it could manage to get a closer look at him. There was a mouth after all, a kindly mouth that was upturned in a smile, and there were flickers of green in its eyes, which seemed deep with knowledge and shining with benevolence.
"Not a tree, a tree itself, perhaps not," came the voice, which was rich and melodious, as of a well-loved grandmother, yet wise and tinged with amusement. "But if I took the time to tell you what I truly am and how I came to be, we should be here for a long while, by your peoples' reckoning. You are a hasty folk, quite hasty, as I have seen and I have watched for a long while, before you yourself walked underneath the sun." Here she paused and seemed to take a deep breath, closing her eyes as she drank in the surroundings, and when she opened her eyes, it seemed the evil of the forest had subsided for the moment.
"I am an Ent, as we have been called, and as we are known, if we are still known by this name. But I was an Entmaiden once." It seemed she sighed wistfully. "Many seasons have passed, and I would be called an Entwife, were times as they once were."
It was difficult for Freddy to follow her speech, but he listened intently, and as closely as he could over the barking of the dog beside him. Squash suddenly trotted up to her roots, (or feet, now that Freddy could see toes) and grabbed hold of her foot in his mouth, growling menacingly. The Entwife lowered her arm and wrapped her knotted fingers around the dog's midsection, lifting it high into the air and bringing it closer to examine.
"This, I have seen this before, but not in many ages. In your tongue, this manycolored-fourlegged-haircovered-companionofman—"
"Dog?" Freddy guessed blankly, still held in awe that he was talking to an Ent.
"Yes, this 'dog'," she agreed, and set the hound back on its feet. "Though we have many names for this creature, this one in our tongue—" and she broke off into a strange mumbling in her language which sounded to Freddy much like "rumba looma tooma rolla tolla rooma," but he dared not interrupt her. All at once she stopped, and seemed to remember his presence.
"M-miss Ent," Freddy stammered, "I don't mean to enter--, that is, interrupt, and I'm pleased to meet you, but I've lost my cousin, and I'm afraid she's going to get lost in this dreadful forest!"
The tall ash bent barely at the waist and a flicker of amusement passed over her grey features. Freddy noticed a star-leafed vine curled just around her head so it looked as if a circlet adorned her hair.
"Yes, the other hobbit, I have seen her. This 'dreadful' forest, as you put it, is my home, but there are things in this forest," and he heard a rumble of disapproval rise from deep within her throat, "that even the Entwives avoid. Not from fear, but necessity. Come with me, hobbit, and we shall find her." With that, she easily lifted Freddy with her long, grey arms, and Freddy half-expected to be scratched by the bark of such a tree, but he discovered her bark, or skin, was smoother than he expected, and as cool as the forest floor. So he nestled in the crook of her arm with Squash held tightly in his own arms, and he looked in amazement as the ground sped by underneath him with every Ent-stride.
"I must be careful not to tread on her," the Entwife said as she walked. "And as soon as we find her, though I am not as hasty as hobbits, I desire to know why two hobbits were in the Old Forest, the Entwives' domain."
She continued through the forest, and it seemed she covered more ground in less than half the time it had taken for the hobbits to navigate their way through. In no time at all, it seemed to Freddy, they came to a depression in the ground, which seemed as a small hollow to Freddy from his perch, but he imagined it was a very steep hill at hobbit-height. There, at the bottom of the hill, lay Ruby and she looked disheveled as she held both of her knees in pain. It looked as if she had taken a tumble, and as they spotted her, Freddy waved his arm, careful not to drop Squash.
"Well, if it isn't Ruby Knotwise. Here I am, up here, look up!" he shouted, and he saw that she did as he had requested, and her eyes widened in shock.
"Freddy! What are you doing in that tree?" she asked. The Entwife suddenly scooped the hobbit into her other arm and tucked her at the crook of her elbow; in the same manner she had placed Freddy.
"Oh!" he heard Ruby gasp, but she remained still, realizing that she was in no danger.
"I will take you to safety in the Gardens. For you are light for hobbits, and I suspect you hunger and thirst, as all hobbits do," she said to them.
"What are you called? Where do you come from? Were you what Squash was chasing?" Ruby questioned nervously, though she sat comfortably in her perch on the Entwife's arm.
There was another musical chuckle audible among the rhythmic footsteps of her strides.
"I am not so hasty that I can answer three questions at once, but I will tell you that I was an Entwife, and that I am an Ent, but that story I shall save for later, and for another storyteller. As for my name, you may call me Twinbough," she answered evenly, never diverting from her straight course to step aside or wind around any tree, but it seemed the very trees gave way before her and allowed her to pass.
"I will bring you to see Wandlimb," she spoke at last, after they had traveled some distance in silence, though the hobbits suspected the Entwife had been deep in thought as she bore them onward.
"Who is Wandlimb?" Ruby asked.
"She is the eldest and fairest of the Entwives, and she led us to this place many seasons ago, after Sauron the Dark Lord drove us away and destroyed our gardens," Twinbough explained, and he could feel her branches quivering with repressed and long-forgotten anger. "That is as swiftly as I can explain it," she said.
"Sauron?" Freddy asked. "Why, Sauron's been as dead as a doornail for years now! He won't be bothering anyone anymore," Freddy promptly replied.
The long, measured strides of the Entwife never faltered, but she grew silent once more, and for a few moments, the hobbits wondered if she had heard them at all, but she finally spoke.
"Dead, dead, no, not dead," she replied, and rumbled something in her native tongue. As she spoke, she hesitated in her speech every so often to release an earthy sigh tinged with wistfulness or some form of melancholy. She then resumed, "Sauron is powerless. But…we had felt it, in the ground, the trees, the wind. We could smell it, but we were not certain. I will tell the Entwives," she said, and her pace slowed as she drew nearer to a barrier of trees draped in soft moss and vines. The faint trickling of a stream met their ears, and as they looked down, they saw that the stream led up to the trees and disappeared between the trunks of two large rowans. Twinbough splashed through the stream and approached the obstruction, which drew aside at once.
"Welcome to the Gardens of Fimbrethil," she said, stepping through the entrance.