Hannah slowly shifted from one foot to the other and scanned the traffic for a car—any car—turning in to the college. It was Wednesday night, and she was beginning to worry that Mark had forgotten their appointment.
Not that it would be a huge deal if he had, Hannah reminded herself. She could just wait here awhile, and if he didn't show up, she would turn around and walk back to Preston Dining Hall and have dinner there. Why did she care about this little meeting so much?
She was curious, she admitted to herself. The things that had happened in the park four days before had begun to instill doubts in her mind. Not that she wanted to admit that Amondaur might actually be telling the truth. What reasonable person would believe that he had literally come from another world—and a world invented by a twentieth century fantasy author, no less? But if he wasn't crazy and wasn't lying… As Sherlock Holmes had once said, "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth."
Hannah wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. Nothing that Amondaur had said or done in the past three days had helped her in the least. She began seeing his every move through two lenses. On one side she was a skeptic—"He's insane, he actually believes this himself, and he's researched his role very well," she told herself. But the entire time, a little voice in the back of her mind kept saying, "What if he's not insane and he's telling the truth? Then all the little pieces would fall into place and it would all make sense!" No, the question was driving her crazy, and she hoped that talking it out with Mark would help her sort it all out.
That was obviously not how Erica had seen their plans for this evening.
"You've got a date with Mark!" she hooted.
"I do not!" Hannah declared, throwing her jacket over her desk chair. "He wants to discuss Amondaur's condition."
"Oh, that's what he said," Erica answered mischievously, tapping the side of her nose with her finger like Santa Claus in the old poem. "But you and I both know that was just a ploy to get you to have dinner with him!"
Hannah tried to be mad, but ended up laughing. "It's just a chance for us to discuss work. That's all."
"Uh-huh. Sure it is," Erica said innocently as she turned back to her computer.
Erica was wrong, though. Hannah saw this meeting as purely informational, not romantic. And for that very reason, she hoped Mark hadn't stood her up. Today was his day off, so she hadn't seen him at the psychiatric hospital to remind him.
Hannah checked her watch again. 6:10. Maybe his clock was off?
She started when a car pulled up to the curb in front of her. Mark waved from the driver's seat. With a grin she couldn't suppress, Hannah walked around and got in.
"Where would you like to eat?" Mark asked as he pulled away and Grenville College disappeared in the rearview mirror.
"Oh, anywhere's better than the dining hall!" Hannah said casually.
"How about Hollands?"
"Sounds great."
Hollands was a locally owned restaurant with a very cozy atmosphere—it would be perfect for sitting and having a private chat. And besides, their onion flowers were fantastic.
Hannah and Mark exchanged basic pleasantries until the waitress had brought them their drinks and gone away with their orders.
"So," Mark said, leaning forward on his elbows, "tell me all about this outing."
Hannah described her entire journey with Amondaur through downtown Grenville—Amondaur's way of automatically offering her his arm, his reactions to traffic, his obvious pleasure at the sight of the park. She described in detail their conversation about how to defend towers and how Amondaur had helped the girl with her horse. Finally, she told how he had automatically gone for his absent sword hilt when startled. When she finished this recital, she sat back and watched Mark for his reaction.
Mark looked thoughtful. He absently stirred the ice in his Pepsi with his straw in silence.
"Well?" Hannah finally asked when he didn't seem to be about to speak. "What do you think?"
"What do I think of what?" Mark asked.
"Amondaur's behavior," Hannah said.
Mark gathered his thoughts. "I think we're going to have to change his diagnosis. Maybe he really could be classified as having delusional disorder."
Hannah leaned back and suppressed a sigh. That hadn't been the answer she was looking for, but then, what exactly had she expected?
"If he trained with horses since childhood… Perhaps lived in some backwater where he learned a lot of wilderness skills quite young…" Mark was thinking out loud. "But no, then he'd claim to be some mountain man or something. Not from another dimension."
The waitress brought their food, and they returned to more casual topics for a few minutes. The onion flower really was delicious, but Hannah had lost her enthusiasm for it.
"So. Philosophy," Mark said, dipping a piece of onion in the sauce.
"What?"
"You said you were majoring in philosophy," Mark reminded her.
"Oh. Yeah."
"How did you get interested in that?" he wanted to know.
"Well, I took this world religions class as an undergrad, and I thought it was really fascinating—especially the eastern religions. You know, Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, that sort of thing." Mark nodded. "Well, I just kept taking classes, and…" She shrugged. "It was the topic that interested me the most. So I switched my major to Philosophy and Religion."
"And you decided to study it in grad school?"
"Yeah. Well, you know what they say about a philosophy degree: the only thing you can do with it is teach philosophy!" Mark grinned. "They only teach it on the college level, so to teach college…" She shrugged. "I needed a graduate degree." Mark nodded. "Now what about you? What got you into psychology?"
"Well, same as you, I took a class of it my senior year in high school, and I thought it was fascinating. There's so much depth to a topic like that! And I like working with people; I've got a knack for it. So I got an undergrad degree in psychology, and now I'm working on my doctorate for psychiatry, and interning at Grenville P. H. The rest you know." He smiled.
Hannah mulled over her cheeseburger. "So what did you think of Amondaur when he first came to the hospital?"
"Back to Amondaur, are we?" Mark teased.
Hannah smiled. "You had to admit, he's interesting."
"Oh, very. I'm thinking about publishing a case study on him. Maybe his delusions could lead to creating a new classification of mental illness."
Hannah didn't like that idea, for some reason.
"When he first came in, the first thing everybody noticed was the weapons, of course. It's not every day you come across a man wielding a bow and arrows, a big hunting knife, and a five foot long sword! And then of course, there were his clothes. Like something straight of a Renaissance faire. Only, they were actually of durable materials, and much worn—stained, torn, and rather smelly. Everything was completely plain and unadorned; entirely utilitarian. Except for a silver pin he wore on his cloak—beautiful thing. Shaped like a star."
"The Star of the Dúnedain!" Hannah exclaimed, her face lighting up.
"The what?"
"Star of the Dúnedain. It was a badge of kinship among the Rangers of the North. It was worn with pride and honor."
"Ah." Mark watched her expression, his own fading into a thoughtful smile. "You know, I think that's the first time I've seen you get excited about something relating to Tolkien."
"I must be slipping," Hannah said with a half-smile.
000
Mark picked up the check. Hannah tried to protest, but, "I told you you'd get some real non-dining-hall food for free," he reminded her.
He paused as they were getting in the car, then turned to her. "How would you like to see the clothes Amondaur arrived in?" he asked.
"Really?" Hannah asked dubiously.
"Yeah; we've got them at the Hospital. We can stop by there. You can tell me other things about the clothes I might not have noticed—like the Star of the Dúnedain. And it'll give me a chance to jot down what you told me about your outing with Amondaur."
Hannah deliberated for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, that'd be cool."
000
Mark took Hannah to his office in the Psychiatric hospital, and went off to fetch Amondaur's clothes. He returned a few minutes later and handed Hannah a large paper grocery bag. "It's all in there," he said, taking a seat nearby and pulling out his clipboard. "I warn you, though: it smells strongly of B. O."
"Of course," Hannah said off-handedly, wrinkling her nose as the smell hit her. "It's no easy thing to get a hot shower in the wild!"
Mark laughed and began writing down the details Hannah had shared with him earlier. Holding her breath a bit, Hannah pulled the items out of the bag one-by-one.
On top was the Star of the Dúnedain. It was a beautiful thing, with more intricate metalwork than Hannah had expected. She handled it reverently.
Next was a gray cloak, carefully folded. She shook it out and took a look at it. It was ragged and muddy at the bottom, but the well-worn material was of good quality.
The clothes were drab—black and gray, mostly. Most of them were made of leather or some other durable material. Stains and mended tears marked the long knee-length coat and tough leggings. There was also an under-tunic.
"The other things are there," Mark said, indicating an oddly-shaped package wrapped in a couple garbage bags. Inside, Hannah found Amondaur's boots and weapons.
The boots were unlike any others Hannah had ever seen: much like a leather sock, with thicker leather soles.
A quiver of tooled leather was filled with handmade arrows. The fletching was un-dyed. The hunting knife in its dark leather scabbard was utilitarian, but looked well-made—and well-used. Looking carefully, Hannah discovered a Tengwar character carved into the wooden handle. It was an M, with the diacritical mark for the A overtop: Amondaur's first initial.
She saved the sword for last. It was very plain, held in a battered leather sheath. Drawing it out, Hannah discovered it was fully five feet long—nearly as long as she was tall. The pommel, grip and cross-guard were unadorned, and the blade bore no inscription, only a blood groove. The locket and chape on the hilt were also unadorned.
"Completely plain and utilitarian gear," she reported to Mark. "His Sindarin first initial is carved into his knife hilt. Everything in here has been well-used—as you can guess from the smell," she added with a smile. "The clothing is all hand-stitched. Mostly leather. But you knew that already." She began putting away the clothing. "It's about as authentic as you can get."
Mark took down a few notes. "Still can't figure out what his classification would be," he mumbled.
Hannah bit her lip and paused in her work, then carried on. "Have you ever thought that maybe he isn't insane at all?" she asked quietly.
She was aware that Mark had set down his clipboard and was regarding her curiously.
"I mean," she went on, still folding Amondaur's clothes, "you mentioned once that maybe he's just a really good actor. You can't place him in a mentally ill category, and the more I'm with him, the more sane I think he is. You've heard of those studies where perfectly healthy people go into asylums just to see how long it takes somebody to notice?"
"Yeah, I have." Mark set down his clipboard and helped her get the long sword into its garbage bag wrappings again. When they were finished, he looked at her thoughtfully. "It's just possible you may be right," he said slowly. "He might be putting it on. But why?"
Hannah shrugged. "Eccentricity? Amusement? The attention? Just to see if he could?"
Mark nodded slowly. "I think we may need to give that some more thought. Because you are right; his lack of psychotic episodes and any criteria with which to place him in a normal category of mental illness might indicate complete sanity."
"Either that, or he's telling the truth," Hannah added, just to see Mark's reaction.
Whatever she had expected, she was disappointed. He just grinned. "Yeah. Right," he said.
000
But the more Hannah thought about it, throughout that week, the more doubts began to creep into her mind. Was it at all possible that he really was telling the truth? Because she was pretty certain now that he was not crazy. The choices then were that he was lying or telling the truth. Strangely enough, both of those choices looked equally likely to her. Amondaur was so nice and so absolutely sincere, she had a hard time imagining him lying about anything, much less about something so huge. That was why she had thought him insane in the first place—he seemed absolutely convinced himself of the reality of his claims. And that left the possibility that he was, in fact, telling the truth.
Hannah couldn't have tried to explain that if she tried. How could Middle-earth actually exist? It was fine to assume it did when you were reading an engrossing bit of fanfiction, but honestly, what were the odds? The world that some random professor named Tolkien had invented, for God's sake!—how could it possibly be real? But it seemed Hannah had no choice but to believe it.
If only she could get proof of some kind! But she didn't know how.
The idea that Middle-earth really might exist raised all kinds of unarticulated hopes and fears in Hannah's mind. It would mean changing her entire way of thinking about the world, and that was a scary thing—like having a rug pulled out from under your feet. But if she liked the bare hardwood floor better than the rug in the first place, wouldn't it be better to fall on your ass if that was the only way to get to the bare, hard truth beneath?
If Amondaur was actually telling the truth, then Middle-earth existed. And not only that, but the entire structure that Middle-earth sat on existed. For myths in Tolkien's Middle-earth were not old stories passed down through countless generations until all that was left in them was symbolism. They were actual, verifiable truth. Galadriel herself had seen the Valar in Valinor. Gandalf himself was a Maia. There were people still living at the time of the War of the Ring who had seen millennia-old history being made. If Middle-earth was real, so were all the crazy stories—like Beren coming back to life. And if that was all real, so were the Valar... Whenever Hannah reached this point in her reasoning, a little shiver went down her spine, and her heart jumped into her throat. In defense, her mind pulled back and said, That's only if he's telling the truth.
And Hannah refused to believe without some honest-to-God proof.
TBC
AN: Info on the Star of the Dúnedain comes from the encyclopedia on councilofelrond dot com.
Darkened Dreams: I have a confession to make. I have never actually eaten at Applebee's. Mea culpa!
Erasuithiel: Pangaea. You got it right the second time. :)
Cindy: Thanks for reminding me! It's due to you that this chapter is now up!
Please review!