Chapter 7: Miss Took's Testimony

"Frodo," Eos whispered. He still looked beautiful after all those years. Was he too beautiful to be real? She must be dreaming…

She felt herself falling, and her vision blurred. She wondered if she would wake up anytime soon.

"Eos!" Frodo ran and caught her as she fell. "Oh, Eos, darling…"

"Is that really you, Frodo?" she asked faintly.

"It's me, Eos, it's Frodo," he almost sobbed, burying his face in her hair. He noticed that she was shivering, and lifted her up. A few snowflakes fell into his hair.

"A snowstorm is threatening. I ought to get you inside. Can you walk?"

"Yes – I think so."

"Here, lean on me."

Frodo held Eos up as they made their way back to the Cottons' hole. Coughs wracked Eos's body. Frodo wrapped his cloak around her. She is ill, he thought.

Eos clung to Frodo's arms as he helped her through the door. He held her as a huge cough tore through her. He took her cloak and hung it up on a peg. He then took a good look at her. Eos was much thinner than Frodo had remembered. In fact, she looked awfully famished. Also, the roses that once had seemed to bloom in her cheeks for eternity had now turned to pale lilies. Her dark eyes were morose and seemed almost wild from malnourishment and mistreatment. Her black hair had a single streak of grey running through it.

What had happened to the vivacious, innocent Eos, whose smiles always held three large dimples, and cocked her head when one spoke to her? Who was cruel enough to make this happy beautiful creature so sad?

Eos, half coughing, half sobbing, allowed Frodo to embrace her tightly and murmur her name over and over into her hair. "Oh, Eos, what happened?"

She tried to hold back a cough when she spoke. "It's a long story, Frodo."

"Mr. Frodo, do we have company at this time of night?" Sam's voice came from the back of the hole.

"Sam," said Frodo, as his friend came into the foyer, "I think we should welcome back Miss Eos Took." He put his hands on her noticeably frail shoulders.

Sam's eyes looked on the verge of popping. He leaned forward slightly, as if to affirm that it was indeed Eos. He then gathered himself together and said, "Eos – this is a surprise!"

Eos smiled shakily before another severe coughing fit came over her. "Rosie!" Sam called over his shoulder. He ran over to help Frodo keep her from collapsing. Rosie appeared. Her reaction was about the same as Sam's.

"Eos? Is that you? Wha – ?"

Sam put a hand on her arm. "Rosie-lass, I don't think we should make her speak right now. She's tired, she's ill. Can you get her to your room to rest a bit?"

Rosie, lost for words, went and took Eos by the shoulders and gently steered her toward her room. Farmer Cotton was walking past when he saw Rosie with Eos. "What's going on?"

"Calm down, Mr. Cotton, Miss Eos just came by, and she was sick, so we had her come in," Sam explained.

"Does any of her family know about this?"

"I don't think so," said Frodo.

"Well then, we should at least tell her father – "

"No."

Sam and Farmer Cotton both looked at Frodo, surprised at the firmness of his response.

"Why ever not?" asked Sam.

"I haven't seen Eos in a long time, so I may not interpret her actions accurately, but I think if she had wanted her family to know she was back, she would have gone to them, not us."

"Why do you think she wouldn't want to go to her family? Her sisters, maybe? Berylla?"

"I don't rightly know. But I wouldn't take action until she tells us what she wants." Frodo touched Eos's blue cloak. It was ragged and barely wearable. Frodo remembered when it once had been new. In the few times he had glimpsed her over the years she had been married, he noticed it had gained patch upon patch, until the patches needed patches themselves. Someone hadn't been treating her right.

Olo Bracegirdle. It had to be. Memory of when he first saw Crystal came back to him.

"Daddy always hit her and she cried." Crystal's bruises and cuts from a whip. Her fluttery mannerisms when he first saw her.

Frodo had got his man. And he didn't think he was counting his chickens too early.

An hour later, Rosie came to Frodo and Sam in the kitchen. "Frodo, I need to talk to you for a moment."

They both stood in the hall outside Rosie's room. "Frodo, Eos desperately wants you to be with her, but first I have to tell you something." For a moment she wrung her apron nervously.

"What is it?"

"Eos seems to have been abused for over a number of years. When I was bathing her, I saw her torso, which was covered in yellow bruises and a good deal of whip weals. She has scars all over her, Frodo."

Frodo's brow furrowed. "Did she tell you who beat and whipped her?"

"No. She was very scared. She wanted you to know first."

Frodo put his hands in his breeches pockets and stared at the floor. At length he looked up and said, "How is she now?"

"She has a mild fever. She'll recover within a week with the right treatment. Now please, go to her. She needs you."

Frodo sighed and opened the door. The room was dimly lit. Frodo could see a dark-haired head propped up on the pillows. "Frodo?" Eos's voice called to him in a faint, thin voice.

"Eos, I'm here." Frodo sat on the bed beside her and took one of her tiny hands. It was bony and cold. "You needed me?"

"Just stay here with me, Frodo. I don't need more."

She regretted saying that. Her old sweetheart's hypnotic blue eyes seemed to pierce her soul. "You're not telling me the truth, Eos."

Eos closed her eyes and breathed out hard. She squeezed Frodo's hand.

"Just tell me everything. From when you married till now." Eos's eyes fluttered open to gaze back at him.

"Please tell me – Eos." He said this in an almost begging tone. Frodo reached out to caress her cheek. The look of pure and utter love she saw in his eyes melted her heart. She began.

She told of her arranged marriage to Olo Bracegirdle and the pain of their wedding night. He had threatened to sleep with other women if she did not let him have his way with her, so she had let him. She had thought they would eventually come to love each other, but Olo knew no love, only lust.

When the baby came, Olo slept other women anyway. And he started beating her often.

"Olo was clever. When he beat me, he never touched my face, so that all my wounds would be hidden under my clothing. The only time that he ever harmed my face was when he threw me into the nursery, and I hit my forehead on a table." She reached up and touched the scar, wincing from the memory.

"I remember!" Frodo leaned forward to touch the scar. "I was walking past your stall one day when I noticed you in the back, nursing a huge cut on your forehead. That was the only time you were hurt in the head." He looked at the cut thoughtfully. "Why did he throw you that time?"

"I caught him bedding another woman, and he became angry." Eos tried to hide the tears leaping into her eyes, but Frodo saw. He wiped them gently away.

"But if he treated you so, why does it upset you?" he asked.

"It's the woman that he was rutting in our bed with. Oh, Eru…" Eos turned away, weeping openly. Frodo took her in his arms and propped her head on his shoulder, shushing her softly. "What is it, Eos?"

"She was my friend, that is, up until that incident," she spat bitterly. "Olo was sleeping with Asphodel Fields."

"I remember Asphodel," said Frodo. "Stringy red hair, quite round, right? Wasn't she a tart who flirted with everyone at parties?"

"That's the one." Eos was quivering with anger in his arms. "I can't believe I was once her friend. Asphodel, who bedded her friend's husband!"

Frodo sensed she wanted to explode right there in his embrace, so he held her closer to comfort her. "Eos, Eos, I need to know your story. I can't find out if you don't keep your hurt get in the way of your reasoning."

Eos calmed down and snuggled closer to Frodo. "He did sleep with more women," she said, "but I never found out which ones. I learned not to enter the bedroom if I heard noises from inside. I would sleep in the nursery. But he still kept beating me on a daily basis. The minimum was a smack in the shoulder. The worst times were when he was drunk. He once chased me around the hole with a belt in his hand." She shuddered. "And as soon as Crystal could walk, he kicked her around also. I think you have an idea of what he did, having taken care of her."

Frodo nodded. "When I first saw her I noticed the cuts and bruises on her arms. She told me Olo took away her playthings."

"That he did. The thing was I was too scared to tell anyone what everyone what went on in my home. Not even my dear Berylla… Oh, Berylla." She buried her face in Frodo's vest.

"What about Berylla?"

"Asphodel and Berylla remain friends to this very day. When we were little girls, Asphodel would drag Berylla with her to spy on lads. Berylla was always her favorite, and Berylla always considered her as her best friend. I loved Berylla dearly, and I could not bear to have her think me a liar if I told her about Asphodel and Olo. Oh, Frodo, you do take my word, don't you?"

"Don't worry, Eos dear, I do." Frodo kissed the top of her head. "Just tell me about when you went missing," he whispered. He felt as though if he spoke any louder, he would break her. She felt so delicate right now. "Was that Olo's handiwork too?"

"No." Eos choked back a sob. "I ran away."

"You ran away? But – but without Crystal - ?"

"I think I was going mad. Two months ago I – I guess I just became focused on one objective, and that was to get away. It was like an animal instinct, I just had to be free of everything in my current life. So, I – ran. You must think I'm horrible."

Frodo shook his head. "Trust me, Eos, I've done worse. Where did you go?"

"I went to Bree and stayed there."

"You just – stayed there? What did you do in Bree?"

"I did some crochet work which I sold. Then I would wonder around and watch people. Most of the time I just hid in my room in the Prancing Pony." Eos's eyelids were beginning to droop. But Frodo could not let her sleep yet. He needed to know a little more.

"What made you come back?"

"I heard – some of the locals talking. They said – Mr. Baggins had taken – custody – of Olo Bracegirdle's - daughter." She coughed. "I heard – she was under better care – so I decided to come back…" She struggled to stay awake. "I wanted – to know she was – under better care – that she was happy and thriving - Frodo, where is my little girl?"

"I tucked her in bed before I found you. She is happy, Eos, she's fine."

"Good." Frodo let her lie back on the pillows. Eos turned to lie on her side, facing him. Eyes closed, she said, "There's – another reason – I wanted to come back…"

Frodo waited.

"I wanted to know – that you still cared for me – like you once did."

"I do, Eos, I do. I never stopped caring." Care, Eos? I've never even stopped loving you for ten years!

"That's good," Eos murmured sleepily. And she was asleep.

Frodo kept gazing at her, never wanting to leave. Finally, he laid a lingering kiss on her knuckles and blew out the single candle in the room. He left and closed the door softly behind him.

"Once there was a way

To get back homeward.

Once there was a way

To get back home.

Sleep, pretty darling

Do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby" – "Golden Slumbers", the Beatles

A.N.: Just so people know, my story can be found in the Open Scrolls Archive at 'cause I have about thirteen reviews on but about zippity do da in Open Scrolls. (Grrrrrrr…)

In addition, I hope the remaining members of the Beatles (Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr) don't mind the use of their song from the Abbey Road album, should they stumble across this story.

Also, I'm going to start responding to reviews on my blog. Just click on the link on my profile which says "homepage."