Disclaimer: Nearly all of these characters were created by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien, whom I greatly esteem. No disrespect whatsoever is intended to Prof. Tolkien in anything I may write, and I make no profit from any of these stories.
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Chapter Three - An Interruption, Continued
Brandy Hall, SR 1484
If nothing else, Sariadoc's children will sleep well tonight, for I can proudly state that I managed to run them literally ragged. Not bad, I can't help but think, for an old Hobbit of ninety-four. Their mother, Posy (a distant connection of mine, being a granddaughter of Adelard Took, who was a great-grandson of the Old Took, rather than just a great-great, like myself) came upon us whilst we were enjoying a spirited game of Duck, Duck, Goose and treated me to a rather curious expression--I'm not certain whether she thought I'd fallen headlong into my dotage, or if my behavior stood contrary to everything she expects of a Thain.
Though, when I come to think of it, she may only have wondered how on earth she'd to find time to scrub and bandage and mend the clothes of five such unruly little goblins as Merry's grandbairns, and how many other times she might *have* to do so before they come of age. Three lads and two lasses, there are, and each of them more lively and inquisitive and mischief-making than the last, each with a halo of honey-colored curls, those mismatched but nonetheless thoroughly appealing Brandybuck features and the wide, color-changing eyes that never seem to miss anything. Better proof was never seen than those children of apples not falling far from trees. If poor Posy weren't a Took, I doubt she'd survive their youth, and even though dear Sariadoc's a Brandybuck through and through, he seems, at times, a bit perplexed by the riot that reigns within his home. But then, he never knew his father as a lad.
I'm smiling as I write this, not only from the pleasure of my splendid afternoon with those lovely, lively young Hobbits (which has quite chased my doldrums away), but because a memory's surfaced, just now, of one night on our great journey. We cousins had been arguing, in our own friendly fashion, about the ways in which we were related to one another, all the firsts and seconds and thirds and removeds--a favorite topic of all Hobbits. I can't recall now how Gimli found himself involved, because if there's anything bound to bewilder someone who's *not* a Hobbit, it's our geneology (or, perhaps, our politics). Gimli would have been far better advised to back off quickly, and leave the subject alone, especially since dwarves seem to take such concerns terribly seriously (as they do many other things), and also to find our degree of inter-marriage somewhat shocking. The discussion got quite heated on poor Gimli's part, what with Frodo's patient but nonetheless incomprehensible explanations and Merry's sly delivery of exactly the sort of convoluted facts that make sense to no one *but* ourselves. Frodo's patience, of course, was genuine, but Merry approached it all with a totally feigned air of solemn studiousness that would have done his old schoolmaster proud, while I nearly laughed myself sick. I'm afraid my wicked cousin brought the unfortunate dwarf very near the point of pulling out his own beloved beard.
Here's something I've often wondered: *do*Dwarf women really have beards, or was Strider only joking? I suppose he might have been, though for all his inestimable qualities, our king isn't really the sort for much jollity, which I take to be the result of being brought up by Elves. Not that Elves can't be fine fellows as well. They're just...Elves. Which is to say, for example, that Legolas is a dear chap, but were he suddenly to sit down beside me in The Green Dragon and order a pint and a fill of his pipe, I'd most likely fall straight off my stool from the shock of it.
Oh, I'm making no sense. The truth of it is, I'm missing Merry, for tea-time's long since come and gone, and suppertime too, but he's still not back at home. It's silly, I know, but I worry for him, and if I didn't know that to do so would be utterly foolish, I'd saddle my pony and go out for a look--though I'd most likely just end up falling in the river in the dark, and Mer would have to rescue me, for he's a far finer swimmer than I. I, on the other hand, have a better head for heights..
Amazing how quiet Brandy Hall goes at night, although somewhere in the distance I faintly hear some very young Hobbit's cries. Angry cries, too--in a Hobbit-bairn sort of way. My wee Faramir was the same as a lad: however tired got, he *never* wished to bid the world goodnight, a quality he most likely gets from me: one more pint, one more pipe, one more song, and only then to bed.
And there, suddenly, not far away, at all is the sound of a door opening, and the whisper of Hobbit feet on the flagstoned floor of the corridor. There's my Merry, home at last.
I'd left the study door open a crack, so he'd see the light. Most likely my cousin knows it's me, even though I wasn't expected. I'm equally sure he'll come into the room--which of course he does, with a smile and an, "Evenin', Pip. Have a good ride over?"
Merry looks tired, I think. Thinner than a prosperous old Hobbit should be, and a bit shadowy round the eyes.
"Not bad, " I answer. "I've been waiting awhile. Had some grand games with the lads and lasses."
"Pip," Merry says, sinking into his chair by the hearth, "You're too old to be playing games."
"Or maybe I'm *not* old because I do," I respond.
"'The closer we are to danger, the further we are from harm.'" Merry laughs suddenly, quoting an old piece of my nonsense.
In my own foolish way, I'm good for my Merry, I think. At least, I hope that I am.
"Hope you are what, Pip?" Merry asks, perplexed. I'd no idea I'd spoken that last bit aloud.
"Good for you," I answer feeling, suddenly and oddly, the slightest bit shy with this cousin I know and love better than anyone in the whole of Middle-earth. I take a seat perched on the footstool, as I often do, looking up into his eyes. "I *am* good for you, aren't I, Merry?"
"Do you really need to ask that, Peregrin?" Merry answers. He reaches out to ruffle my hair, fondly, just as he's done since I was a little lad. It's his left hand that reaches, I notice, so I touch my fingertips to the right. It's cold. Icy cold.
Merry's hidden it well for years, trained himself to use his left hand nearly as well as he ever did the right--half the Hobbits who know Merry believe him to be left-handed, a trait even more rare with us than it is amongst the Big Folk. The truth is, that his poor hand has never properly mended, not since that day on Pelennor Fields. It often goes quite cold when Merry's tired or unwell or sorrowing, and sometimes pains him badly besides.
The Valar know I don't mean to speak ill of poor old Frodo, or take away from his courage, his pain and or his sacrifice, but I sometimes wonder if our elder cousin quite that understood others suffered as well. That others muddled through pain and horrible dreams and the sense that they'd been cut loose altogether from their proper lives.
I loved Frodo dearly. I did, and I do. I've truly missed him every day since he left us. And the day I saw him alive in Ithilien, and brave Sam, too, was one of the happiest I've ever known.
I've also asked myself a question, though, that Sam and Merry never would: was Frodo so wounded in his body and spirit because of a Morgul blade, and a monster's venom and the terrible journey across Mordor to Mount Doom...?
Or did he suffer so because in the end, unlike Bilbo--and unlike Sam, too, the truest of hearts, whom that evil ring must have found quite perplexing indeed--Frodo *didn't* give up the ring willingly. He kept it, and he claimed it, and we're only alive today because a monster tore it from his hand.
But who am I, after all, to question anything? I couldn't even resist the Palantir, and *that* day I remember as the worst of my life, worse than Boromir's death, or our capture by Orcs or Lord Denethor's blazing pyre. It isn't so horrible, either, because of the burning, or seeing that terrible eye in the glass, hearing the dreadful voice in my head.
No, that day was the worst because it marked the one time in my life my Merry turned away from me, and *I*caused it. I parted us. And if I'd never found him again alive, I wouldn't have cared if that troll squashed me absolutely to jelly (instead of merely part-way), because I'd have destroyed the better part of what gives meaning to my foolish Hobbit life,
Merry's giving me his questioning look, biting one side of his lip, with his brows raised high, so . I shake my head, rattling the cobwebs away.
"It's nothing. Too many thoughts," I say.
He makes an effort to wrap those cold, stiff fingers round my warm ones. "You are not only good for me, Pip, you are the best of cousins, and the best of friends." He gives my hand a bit of a shake. "How many times *do* I have to tell you?"
"Well," I answer, giving him my cheekiest grin, "I *always* like to hear it, Mer." I kick back my footstool, hauling my cousin to his feet.
"You've kept us up too late for two old Hobbits," I say, giving him a little shove toward the door. "Go to bed!"
"Gladly," Merry sighs, so I know he's tired through-and-through, and glad not to have to be hospitable, even with me. He pauses in the door, though, watching me, that familiar crooked smile playing over his mouth. "I'm glad you're here tonight," he tells me. "Goodnight, my Pip."
The door closes softly behind him, but I still murmur to it, "Goodnight, my Mer."
* * *
MISSING, PART TWO
The Village of Frogmorton, SR 1389
Merry had always enjoyed coming to the village of Frogmorton, where the family often broke their journey on the way to Hobbiton. It was their custom, as with most Brandybucks, to stay at The Red Swan, as the landlord's wife there had been born a Bucklander. Much of Merry's enjoyment came from the novelty of sleeping not in a snug hole in the earth, like a proper Hobbit, or even a neat little house above ground, but in a building that actually rose to two whole storeys, one above the other. Though he wasn't particularly fond of heights, he loved the delightfully dangerous sensation of going to bed so high up in the air.
The family always took the same rooms on their visits, two chambers at the very top of the stair: one large, with a single big bed for Saradoc and Esme, the other smaller, with two narrow beds side-by-side for the lads.
In the past, Merry had loved the ritual of stopping for the night: his father's strong hands lifting him down from whatever cart or carriage they'd used for their travels; a quick dash upstairs to throw his little bag onto the bed; down again for a quick peek round the public room, a word with the landlady and a moment to pester the Inn's large ginger tomcat, then a second dash out to the stables, where Saradoc would be seeing their ponies settled for the night.
Merry always stopped just inside the stable doors, breathing in the lovely smells of leather, ponies and hay. He was fond of all animals in general, but horses and ponies in particular, and it was his great delight to help his father with the easier buckles and lighter bits of harness, then to brush all the parts of the sturdy little beasts he could reach until they shone like satin; finally to measure out their oats, and see to their hay and water.
On this night, however, Merry dropped more than climbed down from the cart, all on his own, the moment they reached The Swan. Once inside, he neglected to look round for strange and interesting Hobbits from foreign parts of the Shire, or even to drag the justly reluctant Tom from under the leather armchair where it had hidden itself. Instead, he waited quietly beside his father while Saradoc made arrangements for their rooms and supper, then dragged himself up the long, steep stair.
His body felt worn-out and weighty, not at all its usual buoyant self. After being sick that morning, he hadn't wanted any luncheon or tea, and now all he wished to do was curl up on the little bed he knew would be waiting for him, and close his eyes. All day the inside of his head had buzzed with thoughts, but now it felt as empty and echoing as Frodo's old room.
"Ah, the poor little lad--is he ailing?" the landlady cooed, in a voice both kind and inquisitive. Merry passed upward, hearing ask behind him, "Cousin Saradoc, do you think Merry might actually be ill, and not just upset?"
"I expect he just needs a bit of rest and quiet by himself, lad," Saradoc answered. "Merry will come out of this again by suppertime, I warrant."
His mother said something else, but Merry had reached the door by then, and couldn't make out her words. He let himself into the small room quietly, shut the door without a sound, then flung himself down, still fully clothed, atop the coverlet, dropping almost at once into a restless slumber.
He dreamed of running and running through the corridors of Brandy Hall--Merry knew he was home, even though none of the doors looked familiar. What worried him rather more was the silence--for even late at night, the Hall should have hummed with faint, sleepy noise--and the fact that not a Hobbit, Brandybuck or otherwise, was there to be seen. He began to panic, looking for someone, anyone to keep him company, moving faster and faster until the tunnels blurred from clean, comfortable Hobbit delvings into dank, dark twists filled with the smell of old, bad fish.
Merry stopped. Listened. Watched. His heart rattled inside his chest like a marble in a jar.
Something flitted across the edges of his sight, Hobbit-sized and roughly Hobbit-shaped, though it scurried and skulked in a way that sent shivers up Merry's spine.
He knew, then, what the thing must be: the Gollum-creature, from Cousin Bilbo's tale, come to lure some unsuspecting lad down into the deepest dark, ask him complicated riddles and, finally, eat him alive.
Merry squared his shoulders and whirled round, raising his fists to defend himself. He didn't mean to be eaten, not if he could possibly help it.
But before he knew what had happened, the scuttling thing bowled into him, knocking him flat and breathless, and Merry, to his astonishment, found himself staring up into the face, not of Gollum, but of his Cousin Berilac. Except Berilac, normally a sturdy, ruddy-faced lad of almost ten, had gone scrawny, bluish-pale, with clammy skin and great, staring eyes.
Shocked beyond belief, Merry screamed, struggling with every fiber of strength he possessed to make his escape. Berilac, bigger and heavier, held him fast with one hand, while his other raised a shapeless thing that wriggled and dripped. As Merry screamed again, this wraith-cousin pushed the horrid thing into his mouth, forcing his jaw shut until he choked on the foulness struggling inside him and couldn't cry out any more.
"Merry! Merry!" someone called, a sweet, familiar voice, though it seemed to come from quite a long way away.
Moaning, Merry forced his eyes to open. The nastiness hadn't left his mouth--if anything, it seemed worse, chokingly strong. His sheets were soaked and twisted around him. He began to cry both from the fear and the sheer misery of it all.
"My poor little Hobbit," Frodo said to him kindly. "You certainly aren't yourself today, are you?"
For a moment, Merry feared he'd changed too, like Berilac, but of course Frodo hadn't meant that at all. He didn't even bristle at being called little: he *felt* small, shrunken down to a tiny ball of discomfort and sadness, his heart still racing from the awful dream.
"Let's clean you up, shall we?" Frodo said cheerfully, unwinding the top sheet from Merry's legs.
To his shame, Merry realized he'd been sick again, though he'd no idea how--his stomach had to be emptier than empty. "Don't tell Dad," he pleaded weakly. "Promise?"
Frodo had bent down to pick Merry up in his arms, but he paused, frowning, "Whyever not, silly lad?"
Merry pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his forehead upon them so that the room wouldn't spin. He searched through all the words he knew, trying to find ones that could express what he'd understood.
Frodo did pick him up then, moving Merry to the armchair by the fire in order to divest him of the spoilt clothes he'd fallen asleep in. After, he popped Merry into a fresh nightshirt, then carried him to the clean bed near the door while he dealt with the unpleasantness.
When Frodo came back, he smelled nicely of soap, and he'd brought Merry a cup of water to wash the bad taste way.
"Now lie down, dearest," Frodo commanded, as he set the half-emptied cup on the table.
Merry complied gladly; his head swam alarmingly. "'m not sulking," he told his cousin in a funny, scratchy voice."
"I know, my dear." Frodo stroked the Merry's sweaty curls back from his face, his touch cool and soothing against the younger Hobbit's flushed skin. "You're ill. Everyone understands that now."
Merry wanted to close his eyes and melt into the caress, but wouldn't allow himself to do so. Frodo had to know. He *had* to understand.
"*Not* sulking," he insisted. "Just...all jumbled up."
"I know, Mer," Frodo sighed. "But, honestly, I'd thought you'd understood what was happening, that I was going to Bilbo. I never meant it all to fall on you like this."
Merry's eyes prickled; he blinked them fiercely. "*Why?*" he pleaded, groping for his cousin's hand. "Did mum tell you I'll be good now? I promised. I'll be good. You don't have to go."
"Ssh, Merry. Is that what you thought? My dear, silly lad, I love you more than any Hobbit alive. I honestly do. And that I promise *you*." Frodo straightened, giving Merry's hand a final pat before he crossed to the wardrobe to find his own nightshirt. He dressed quickly.
"Scoot over," he ordered, when he returned. "Just because you're ill, doesn't mean you get to hog the entire bed."
Merry scooted. Frodo slipped in behind him, wrapping his young cousin in his arms, and Merry turned to face him, snuggling close--he felt cold now, and Frodo was warm.
"You're burning," the older lad murmured, "Like a little furnace. Why didn't you say you weren't feeling well, Mer, before we set off? You could be home snug in your own bed just now, with half the aunties in Brandy Hall fussing over you."
"Don't want aunties," Merry informed him, sleepy again in a heavy, uncomfortable way. "Or fussing. Just Frodo."
"Oh, Merry," his cousin sighed. "How I *do* wish I could be in two places at one time, with no one else to tell me how things must be."
Merry dreamed a whole series of funny dreams, though none terrified him like the one with the Gollum-Berilac. A few times he thought he felt sun on his face, other times that he heard the clop of ponies' hooves just ahead. When at last he woke up properly, he wasn't in The Red Swan at all, but in his cozy room in Brandy Hall, tucked up in his own small bed with the headboard carved like a tree, that had been Saradoc's when he was a lad.
His first thought was that he needed very, very badly to visit the privy, but when he slipped out of bed to go across the corridor, his legs folded up, depositing him quite suddenly onto the floor.
"Ooh," he moaned, as the room spun round abruptly. He tried to pull himself up on the edge of the bed, but his arms seemed no more to be relied upon than his legs. If he had an accident like a baby all the other lads would know: they would tease him and call him names and...
He would have to crawl. That was it. His room wasn't large, after all, and the corridor not particularly wide, so if he just crawled...
This time he fell upon his face, biting his tongue badly.
Luckily, someone heard the noise of his falling--his Uncle Mac, a kind and good-natured Hobbit despite having the misfortune to be Berilac's dad.
"Merry-my-lad!" he exclaimed. "I don't believe your mum would want you out of bed."
"Uncle Mac," Merry whispered. His bitten tongue burned, and his need was becoming desperate.
Merimac looked closer at his nephew's stricken expression, scooped him up and draped Merry over one shoulder. "Well, if that's how it is, let your old uncle give you a ride. Can you manage things from there?"
"Yes," Merry replied shortly. He still had some pride, after all--though he was grateful to discover Uncle Mac still waiting outside when he was through, ready to convey him back to his room. He even let his uncle tuck him into bed again without protesting that it was daytime, and he didn't want to sleep, he wanted to play.
The thing was, he did want to sleep, or at least to lie quietly, without moving, which wasn't like him at all. Normally he was one of those young Hobbits who kept in motion from the moment he opened his eyes at daybreak to the moment he shut them (reluctantly) at night. Now, though, all that had occurred was coming back to him, and suddenly he didn't want to talk to Uncle Mac anymore, or even look at his uncle.
Merry's mind had begun to worry away at a question: what had Saradoc meant, when he said the family *wouldn't*...wouldn't what? Frodo wasn't well understood by their relations, but he was a pleasant and well-behaved lad, and most of their kin liked him for that, even Grandfather Rory, who rightly thought Frodo a clever young Hobbit, in the best way, and bound to go far.
Merry turned his eyes to his large round window. A grove of trees stood just beyond, that one particularly large beech Berilac had once dared him to climb at their center. Merry hadn't wanted to climb, but did anyway. He'd almost fallen out when Berilac shook the branch he was standing on, but didn't, so that was all right. Most of the beech's leaves, Merry noticed, had dropped off and been raked into piles, along with all the leaves of its neighbors. When had that happened? There'd still been green leaves on the branches last time he went by.
Uncle Mac followed Merry's gaze. "Look at those, lad! Perfect piles! I expect you can't wait to get out and have a good jump-and-tumble through those."
"Yes, Uncle," Merry replied dutifully, shutting his eyes..
After a little while, Merimac left him alone.
Later, Berilac slouched through the door. "Hoy, Frog-face," he said, but without the tone that usually warned Merry of coming mischief.
Merry turned his eyes to the window once more. A few leaves still drifted downward from the fullest of the maples, slow bits of flame.
"The grown-ups thought you'd die," his cousin informed him. "*I* thought that might be interesting." He stepped closer to punch Merry's shoulder, though not hard enough to make Merry flinch.
"I *hate* you," Merry told him, in a soft, hoarse voice. "You should have gone away, not Frodo."
Berilac's face took on a weird, crumple-y look, like parchment that's been crushed into a tight ball, then smoothed out again. To see that sort of change come over Berilac made Merry uncomfortable. He'd meant the words, he supposed, but to say them outright had been mean, and he'd been raised to avoid unkindness at all times. He would be Master of the Hall one day, and Saradoc had taught him that a Master must be both fair in his acts and fair in his speech.
"You know why Frodo went away, don't you?" Berilac taunted.
Merry shook his head.
"He couldn't stand having a little toad like you tag after him all the time." Berilac's voice had gone beyond teasing into something sharp and dangerous, like a handful of broken glass. "He had to move all the way to Hobbiton to get away from *you*."
"No he didn't," Merry murmured, though in his heart he feared Berilac's words might be true, despite what Frodo told him at The Red Swan. Frodo was a big lad, as his mum had said, nearly halfway grown, and interested in the sorts of things big lads liked. And what was he? Little and annoying, like an awkwardly-shaped parcel one couldn't set down, no matter how one wanted to.
He'd thought, just for a moment, of calling out for Frodo when he first awakened. Now Merry knew for certain it would be no use. Frodo wasn't there. He wouldn't come.
Merry held back a sob. Frodo hadn't even said goodbye.
He lay very still, too weak and ill to do otherwise. Tears leaked out of him, right there for Berilac to see and mock, running down his face to pool beneath his jaw and soak the edges of the covers.
Frodo was gone. He was gone. And wasn't ever, ever coming back again.
"Merry, I say--!" Berilac's voice sounded strange, with a tone Merry had never heard before. "I say, don't cry like that! You'll make yourself worse again." He took two steps forward, one back, then came all the way to the bed in a rush. Merry huddled into himself, expecting a thump or a pinch or a twist of something that would hurt, but Berilac only fished a grubby handkerchief from his trouser-pocket and used it to scrub the damp from Merry's cheeks.
"I'd have missed you, Frog-face," he mumbled gruffly, and then was gone, racing from Merry's room as if Grip and Fang and all the Maggot dogs were on his heels.
Merry turned his wet, hot face into the pillow, not certain, precisely, what had just happened.