At one point in the night, I heard the wind picking up. I half-roused, cuddled in Frodo's warm bed, to listen to the creaking of the tree outside Frodo's window. The creaks were regular, almost like words. The wind gusted, and the tone turned fretful, complaining like an old hobbit at the chill in the air.
The trees are complaining, whispering amongst themselves and the words hang just beyond my comprehension. I am standing in the Old Wood and the trees are about me. It's nighttime, there is a brisk wind and the air is full of old sorrows.
"That day they slaughtered us and made a fire of our bones," whispers an oak.
I am standing in the Bonfire Glade. "Hemmed. Hedged. Cut. So they dared," snaps a nearby maple. The branches lash and switch in anger and loss. I realize dimly that I should be afraid, but I am not. Instead I feel an overwhelming grief, and tears seep from my eyes. I lay one hand on the bark of the nearest tree, a lovely beech.
"I wish you could be happy."
The beech tree rustles, swaying against the wind. "Our singers are gone. They've moved on, moved away, and no longer sing our branches straight and green, or our roots deep."
A tangle of forsythia is huddled on the beech's leeward side, a few faded flowers still clinging to the branches. "Once they sang to us…and we were cared for. But no more. No more. None for either in the end." As the words form in my mind, the forsythia's scrubby branches writhe slowly apart, revealing a dark bundle concealed within.
I catch my breath and crane to see it. "What is it?" I ask. There is no reply. I step through the scrub cautiously, and kneel down by the dark form. It is enveloped in a grey cloak and hood. My heart starts pounding. Surely I've seen this cloak before? A few bruised yellow blooms are scattered across the material. I tug back the hood and instantly recognize the face shining in the moonlight. It is Frodo. His eyes are closed and his skin cool. "No… It can't be."
"Can't it?" the trees whisper back. I ignore this as I loosen his cloak from his neck and touch his face.
"Frodo," I whisper. "Frodo?" There is no answering stirring of movement. My fingers on his cheek make little dimples, as if pushing into soft clay. I bring my face down to his, willing that I would feel a breath, some movement of air from his lips. But there is none. "Frodo." I rest my cheek against his, despairing.
There's a sudden rush of rustling and creaking, and I look around, tears wet on my cheeks. It sounds as if the trees are laughing. "Stop it!" I cry to them. I grab his shoulders and begin to shake him, and his head rolls sickeningly from side to side, limp and lifeless. "Frodo!" I cry. "No, no…"
"No, no, no…" I awoke with a gasp, shaking from an overarching feeling of doom. A dimly seen form was curled next to me, breathing softly and evenly. Frodo, thank heaven! I turned to him, and felt the icy-cold weight of his jewel slide off my neck. The skin of my neck was tingling where it had lain. I scooped it up and put it back over his shoulder with a feeling of revulsion. The frosty surface felt alien under my fingers. It was a dream. Frodo was warm and alive. It was only a dream. It was early in the morning of Toby's birthday, and it was only a dream.
Frodo stirred under my touch, turning on his back and throwing off the bedclothes. I felt his forehead anxiously, and his hands. His forehead was as warm as it should be, and his right hand. His left hand was cool. I slowly felt up his left arm to his shoulder, feeling the coolness increase. His eyes flew open when I touched his wound. There was a bone-deep chill in the shoulder.
"What is it?" he almost gasped, grabbing my hand tightly. He winced, his face contracted in pain and confusion. "What month is it?"
I held still, my hand limp under his. "It's September, Frodo," I said. "The year 1420. What's wrong?"
His hand tightened on mine nearly to the point of pain. He stared blankly up at the ceiling. "It's early, how can that be?" he said hoarsely.
"What's early?" I asked. "The illness you spoke of?" I tried to ease my fingers gently out of his grasp, thinking fast. "You were sleeping uncovered, Frodo. That's why you're chilled. And you were dreaming. What were you dreaming of?"
"Trees.." he said slowly. "Wandering in the Old Forest with Merry and the others and feeling how they hated us." His eyelids fluttered a little.
I finally freed my fingers and stroked his forehead. "Just a dream," I said soothingly. "An old memory. It can't harm you now."
"Can't it?" he said slowly.
I froze, staring at him. "What did you say?" He was silent, rubbing his shoulder thoughtfully.
I shook off my paralysis and got up to stir the fire. I decided if he was cold then some heat couldn't hurt. The teakettle hanging over the banked coals still contained hot water. I poured some in a bowl and dipped a thick cotton compress into it. After I wrung it out, I laid it carefully on his shoulder, covering the small cold scar. He hissed a little when the heated cloth touched his skin.
"Is it too hot?" I asked anxiously.
He shook his head, eyes closed. I knelt down by the bed and watched him as the compress cooled. Even in repose, there was a beauty and a light in him that animated his features. When I removed it, it seemed to me that his shoulder was a little warmer. I replaced it with another, and his shoulder was definitely warmer after the second application. His face had relaxed somewhat, too. I changed out the compresses five more times before his shoulder was warm enough to suit me. As the chill faded, he drifted quietly back to sleep, no longer turning and muttering.
Will he know me when he awakens? I thought sadly. I tucked the bedclothes about him and paced restlessly into the front sitting room. What if I hadn't been here? Would it have passed, leaving him with one of his vague complaints about "not sleeping well"? The fear and disquiet I'd been keeping at bay rushed over me.
The dream…
It hadn't faded as most dreams do. Instead, it had seemed to sharpen in the time since I'd awoken. I found myself turning it over in my mind, and noticing new details in it each turning. Anxiousness, I told myself firmly. Grief, I told myself again and again. Yet I could not quite convince myself the dream was the product of those familiar demons.
His face…
I sank down on the divan before the cold fireplace and hid my face in my hands. The face in the dream was not the face I'd watched just now in sleep. As much as I wanted to refuse it, I knew I'd seen Frodo dead. I've had enough of death, I thought in anguish. Haven't I?
My Tory gone, and my own baby, my Toby, gone. In my arms as I held him, the hardest thing a woman should ever have to bear. Not Frodo as well. I can't do it, I can't…
I heard Frodo stirring and soon enough, he emerged from the bedroom, freshly washed up. He came over to me with a dressing gown and started to drape it about my shoulders. I grabbed his hands, rubbing them between my own. They were both warm. I reached up to his shoulder, sliding my hand inside his night shirt to touch his shoulder. It was warm, as well. Frodo looked startled. "What is it?"
Doesn't he remember? I took a deep breath. "Nothing," I said, knowing I was circumventing the truth a bit. I don't want to upset him. "It seems chilly in here to me."
He wrapped the dressing gown about me. "You are cold because you are sitting by a cold fire." He picked up the poker and rekindled the fire briskly.
When the flames were leaping high again, I patted the divan next to me. He sat down and I cuddled close to him, draping the gown over us both. I lay my head on his chest, and touched his warm solidity; so different from the cool slackness I'd felt under my fingers in the dream.
I'd helped Dahlia lay out Tory, stunned and disbelieving. It was a widow's duty. We'd washed him again, and combed his hair. I'd picked up his arm to move it, and it had been so heavy and awkward. At one point, we had lifted him into a sitting position so that Dahlia could unfasten his nightshirt. I'd stood there embracing his cool body, and suddenly felt him sliding out of my arms. I'd tightened my arms around his chest, but his head tipped back and pulled me off-balance. He'd slid out of the circle of my arms and I had barely managed to guide his tumble onto the bed and not onto the floor. I'd crumpled next to him on the bed, nursing my strained back and sobbing. It had replayed itself in my mind endlessly at first. Tory beginning to slip, my struggle to hold him, and the sudden knowledge that he could no longer help me. That what I held was clay only, that would slide away from me or onto the floor, all uncaring.
Tears were in my eyes. It was a dream. I blinked them away fiercely. I won't heed some foul dream. I could care for Frodo. I would care for him and love him and that need never come to pass.
"Do you want to eat?" he asked gently.
"Eat?" I answered vaguely. "I don't believe so."
He picked up my hand. "I know what day it is. Toby's birthday."
"Yes," I said slowly. "He would have been four today." He squeezed my hand and I took a deep breath. "I need to dress. I'm going to walk over to the cemetery for a bit."
"Shall I come with you?"
"No, thank you, Frodo. I'll be back in a little while." I washed up and dressed. When I came back out, Frodo was starting on his second cup of tea, and leafing through the Red Book thoughtfully. "Going to write for a while, my sweet?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yes, I thought I'd finish the Old Forest today. By your leave, of course."
"Oh." I suddenly felt a great weight of worry roll off my chest. "You've been working on the Old Forest section? That's obviously why you were dreaming of it, then."
He picked up a quill and then put it back down again and looked at me curiously. I abruptly realized I'd slipped. I started backing for the door. "I'll be back at lunchtime, Frodo—" I said hastily.
"Dreaming when?" he asked, his eyebrows drawn together.
I hesitated, my hand on the knob. "When?" he repeated. "I don't remember any dreams of the Old Forest, Tansy."
I sighed, feeling my shoulders droop. "Last night," I admitted. "I don't want you to be concerned, though. You seemed restless, and I heard you mumble something about trees. I didn't understand, but if you've been working on that section, then it makes perfect sense." I waited, my palms sweating. I won't be dishonest with him, but… Please let it be, Frodo. Let's just let it be.
He considered my words for a long minute, still frowning slightly. "I don't remember such a dream," he finally said, sounding tentative.
"I don't think you were fully awake. Just talking in your sleep, mostly," I said carefully. He clasped his hands together, rubbing the left with the right. I watched him as he rubbed his right hand quickly up to his left shoulder and down again, with an obvious shiver as if he only felt a draft or some such. You're checking, aren't you, my love? I thought sadly. You're checking that old wound to see if it's acting up again. And you don't want me to know it.
He relaxed a little, and gave me a small smile. "I guess that does happen, doesn't it?" he replied. "I suppose I should be relieved that I only spoke of trees when you were present." The smile broadened as relief and mischief sparkled in his eyes.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," I said, wrinkling my nose at him. As I opened the door, he was picking up his pen again.
I walked to the cemetery, deep in thought. I knelt down next to Tory's grave, staring at the stone as if Tory himself would appear to answer my concerns and quiet my fears.
Beyond the circles of the world…
It was so easy to look back on my time with Tory and Toby and say that it had all been worth it, that the pain paled in comparison to the joy I'd received. If the pain lies before you still, is it so easy a choice to make? Could I walk into the dream, eyes open, and still savor the joy to be had?
I made a small exasperated noise. Tory would be annoyed if he were here. Don't look for rain clouds in a clear sky, my love, he'd say. Here I was acting as if an occasional illness meant something more. And I was avoiding the true question. Did I honestly see myself ever letting him go? Now that I'd found him, I intended to hold him as long as I could.