PART TWO: ANAMNESIS

Chapter I: The Woman Who Wears Pants

Have you heard the legend of the Woman Who Wears Pants? Okay, so you have… Well, I'm going to pretend that you haven't heard this story and tell it to you again.

The legend originated in Bree, all the way back in the year TA 2796.

Whoa. That was a long time ago. Man, this is making me feel old. I don't want to tell this story anymore. But I'm going to anyway. Because it's an awesome story. And you're going to hear it again. Whether you want to or not.

So, where were we? Oh yeah. The Woman Who Wears Pants. She showed up in Bree in the year TA 2793 with her husband. He was a blacksmith and she was a… Well, no one was really sure what she did. Sometimes, she ran errands for her husband. Sometimes, she would wander around market, picking out food for dinner. Sometimes, she went into the woods near Bree and would disappear for hours. No one was certain what she did—they just knew that she was crazy.

The Woman Who Wears Pants is one of those stories that the old men and women of Bree tell their grandchildren as they sit around the fireplace in the evening. There are many variations of the story, but they all begin the same:

The woman (supposedly, she was descended from a line of Bree dwarves, but no one knew that for sure) had long ago lost her wits. And one morning, she woke up and decided that she didn't want to live in Bree anymore. So, her poor husband (a hardworking dwarf who tolerated every single one of his wife's changing moods) packed up and moved out with her. The Woman Who Wore Pants and her husband did not return to Bree for a very long time.

Over the next couple years, rumors spread across Middle Earth. Soon word reached Bree of a wild woman who was up in the mountains, fighting massive trolls and boorish orcs with her bare hands. Travelers seemed surprised and awed at the stories of her, but the villagers of Bree just shook their heads and said, "That is our pants-wearing woman."

This is where the stories start to vary. One version tells that she climbed a mountain (because she wanted to be the tallest person in the world) and battled the king of goblin town (because he called her ugly). Another version tells that she tried to assassinate some elves who "looked at her funny" and that she decided to go ghost hunting (to prove their existence). A bard once tried to convince me that she infiltrated a dwarven camp and pretended to be one of their own (so she could stalk the dwarf prince). The stories go on and on with many different versions, but at the very core, they all say pretty much the same thing: Girls, you should never wear pants, or you'll end up like her—jumping off a cliff because you want to take a swim in the sea, only to never resurface again.

I always love a story with a good moral at the end.

Ooooooh. Don't wear pants, girls. They're scary. They'll do funny things to your head.

Personally, I'd be more worried about my legs than my head—the pants they make in Bree are nothing like comfortable jeans, I can tell you that.

Anyway, I'm going to tell you the story of the Woman Who Wears Pants—except I'm going to tell you the real version. Now, it doesn't have a moral like "Don't wear pants, girls" at the end, but there is a purpose to me telling you this story.

Let's see, where to begin? I guess I should start in Bree, shouldn't I?

Picture this: A forest with tall, arching trees, their thick branches forming a canopy overhead and their roots knotted over uneven ground. Amongst the twisted trees is a short, blonde woman dressed in a wool tunic and black trousers (scandalous, I know), attempting to arm a crossbow. Her name is Ana and that woman is me.

I placed my foot in the stirrup of the bow and hooked the taut string on the clip. The arrow fit perfectly in the groove, sliding back to the nut. Then, I lifted the crossbow and rested my cheek against the wooden tiller, taking aim at the thick oak tree in front of me. The trunk was flecked with pale holes where previous shots had pierced the bark and the arrows had been cut free.

When I first began learning archery two years ago at the insistence of my hubby, I'd managed to get ten arrows in the trunk of the tree. Ten out of a hundred. After two years of practice, most of the arrows landed closely together, so that only one spot on the tree had been carved out by arrowheads. Personally, I thought I was now an expert at archery, but apparently, I was "below average" and "likely to shoot my ally in the back" (the hubby's words, not mine).

I pulled the trigger. The crossbow sprung to life. The string snapped forward. The arrow flew through the air…and hit a rock on the ground twelve feet to the right of the tree.

"God damn it!" I dropped my arms, the stirrup of the crossbow resting on the ground. "It was the wind," I shouted to no one in particular as I stepped over a patch of mushrooms and went to collect the arrow. "If there'd been no wind, I definitely would have hit it." I plucked the arrow from a patch of grass. The metal head titled to the side, holding on by a sliver of wood, and to my horror, I realized the arrow had snapped in two. "Aw frig."

A round of applause sounded somewhere behind me.

"Shut up, Longshoe," I grumbled. "I'm still working on it."

"Longshoe? My feet are rather plain in size."

My heart missed a beat. That was not Longshoe's nasally voice. I spun around and saw a tall man with long, red-brown hair leaning against the trunk of an oak tree. His arms were folded across his broad chest, and his lips quirked upwards in a half smile. His white tunic, the likes of which would never be seen in Bree, was cinched at the waist with a black belt embedded with silver stones, and there was a longsword strapped to his side. I might've thought him to be good-looking if I hadn't been afraid that he was going to murder me and bury my body in the woods where the Breelanders would never find it.

I moved to cock my crossbow, but being me, my fingers slipped and I dropped the weapon on my toes.

"Ow!" I hopped up and down, holding my throbbing foot off the ground. "Damn it!"

"Was that the wind as well?" The man laughed at his own joke. And by "laughed", I mean, really laughed. He was doubled over, clutching his stomach, as his whole body trembled.

I debated throwing my boot at his head. Instead, I settled for asking, "Who are you?"

It took a minute or so for his laughter to subside. He wiped a tear from the corner of his right eye. "I knew liked you."

I scowled. Making strange comments that no one else understood was my job. Carefully, I picked up my crossbow and checked it for damage. Crossbows are expensive, you know, and the hubby would not be happy if I asked him to fix it. Thankfully, it was dent free. Though, of course, the same couldn't be said for the arrow.

I glanced back up at the stranger, my eyes narrowing in dislike. "Who are you?"

"I am Tea."

"T?"

"Tea."

"Tee?"

"Tea."

"Tea?"

"Tea."

"That caffeinated drink that's like a wannabe version of coffee?" I asked.

"Tea came before coffee, so would coffee not be the 'wannabe version' of tea?"

"Blasphemy!" I gasped. "Never accuse coffee of wanting to be anything but what it is. It doesn't matter which came first. What matters is which one tastes better. And that is obviously coffee, because let's face it, coffee is the drink of perfection."

Tea tipped is head back and let out another wave of laughter. When the fit of mirth died down, Tea managed to say, "I missed you, Ana. It has been almost three years since I last saw you."

I caught myself before I dropped the crossbow on my poor foot again. I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain I'd never met this crazy guy before. I tended to remember people who named themselves after wannabe-coffee. But apparently, this man knew me. Which meant he was magical or dangerous or both.

Trying to act natural, I pulled an arrow out of the quiver on my back and said, "You're crazy."

"Very." Tea nodded in agreement.

"Crazier than I am. And that's saying something." I placed my foot in the stirrup and pulled back the string. In one quick, practiced movement, I placed the arrow in the groove and turned to point the loaded crossbow at Tea. "So. Who are you really?"

Tea was rather unphased by my threat. He glanced down at the crossbow and then back up at me. "I saw you fire earlier. I would be more frightened if you were aiming over there." Tea pointed randomly to his left.

I pulled the trigger. The string snapped forward and the arrow embedded itself in the tree, the shaft barely an inch from Tea's right ear.

Tea glanced at the arrow then back at me. A twisted smile crossed his face, and he tilted his head to the side. "You missed."

"That was on purpose!" I drew another arrow from the quiver. "Are you stupid? I was obviously missing you on purpose so you could live but feel threatened by the fact that I could potentially kill you! Don't you know how this works? It happens in movies all the time."

In one swift, practiced movement, I cocked the crossbow, loaded the arrow, and aimed at Tea again.

Tea yawned. "That is your excuse. I think you can only hit me once in every ten shots."

"Wrong." I fired again, and the arrow landed right beside the other, slightly closer to Tea's face.

"You keep missing." Tea sighed. "I feel sorry for the dwarves whose lives depend on your aim."

My stomach lurched at the mention of dwarrows, but I pushed the fear down and said, "Shut up. I can hit you nine-times-out-of-ten."

Tea raised his eyebrows.

"Fine. Maybe eight-out-of-ten."

His eyebrows went even higher.

"Seven-out-of-ten…"

And then Tea was doubled over with laughter again.

I scowled. "I'm working on it! That's why I'm out here practicing all day."

Tea didn't answer. I think he might have been crying from all the laughter.

I gave up on the crossbow. "Some people just aren't meant to be threatening."

"No," agreed Tea. He leaned against the trunk of the tree, an arrow on either side of his head. "I was threatening once—no more though. No one remembers me anymore." He let out a long sigh, and an almost haunted expression crossed his face. "My older brother used to be a terror when he so desired." He glanced at me. "You would not know him, I suppose."

"I don't even know who you are," I muttered.

"You don't?" Tea stared at me. There was something dark, almost feverish, in his eyes and I shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. I wanted to get out of there. Far away. There was a fire and a hot meal waiting for me back home. And a trained swordsman who could protect me from crazy guys like Tea.

I slung the crossbow over my shoulder and put the arrow back in the quiver. "I would say it was nice to meet you, but that would be a lie and my mom always told me to be a good, honest girl."

I was already walking away from Tea, picking my way through the tree roots and bushes. For a moment, I thought he was going to let me go. He made no motion to follow me and he wasn't speaking. I breathed a sigh of relief. Freedom.

"Where is the Senturiel?"

His question stopped me in my tracks. I didn't want to be interested. I didn't want anything to do with him. In fact, I half-suspected he was going to try to kill me any minute now. But he had talked about the Senturiel, about the stupid rock that had given me hell for almost twenty years. Very few people knew about the existence of that rock—and most of those that did know, hadn't been born yet.

Slowly, I turned around. Tea still hadn't moved from the tree, his dark eyes watching me with amusement and something colder.

"I threw it away," I said.

Tea laughed. "You threw it away."

"Yeah, into the fires of Mount Doom and all that."

The laughter vanished, and Tea stared at me, his face flat and blank. "You can't throw it away."

"Mount Doom destroyed the Ring," I said. "I'm pretty sure it can destroy the stupid Senturiel."

"Maybe it could," said Tea. "But I doubt the Senturiel would let that happen."

"What?"

I had no idea what he was talking about. I had thrown the Senturiel away. I had seen it land in the molten lava of Mount Doom. There was no way the Senturiel had survived that. And yet, and yet… And yet, I had Skipped from Mordor to Bree. Without the Senturiel. I had chalked that Skip up to the Senturiel's powers rubbing off on me, but even to me, that seemed a farfetched explanation.

A shiver ran through my body. That rock had caused me nothing but misery. It'd been two years since I last Skipped anywhere, but still I remembered the jarring, disorienting feeling of traveling from Ohio to Middle Earth and back. My parents, my friends, my home, my jobs, things I had lost, things I had struggled to keep.

I stared at Tea. Was it possible? Could Tea be telling the truth? Did he know some secret I didn't? Was the Senturiel still out there? What if the answer was yes? What would I do?

Well, that was easy to answer.

I turned around and walked away.

"Ana, why are you leaving?" Footsteps followed me through the forest and Tea's voice could be heard behind me. "We must speak of the Senturiel!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, refusing to look over my shoulder at him. "Century-el? What's that?"

"You play the fool," said Tea, "but you and I both know you are not."

"I don't know that." I stepped over an oversized tree root and almost toppled over in the process. "In fact, most people consider me a fool. I have references if you need them." I shifted the weight of the crossbow on my shoulder. "Gandalf, Thranduil, Elrond…they'll all be more than willing to tell you what a fool I am. Should I get you their contact information?"

We reached the edge of the forest, and I stepped out onto the East Road. The ten-foot high walls of Bree rested on the other side of the dirt road, and I could clearly see the gate, its wood covered in patches of gray mold. Longshoe, a tall gangly youth and my friend of sorts, was talking to the gatekeeper. He caught sight of me out of the corner of his brown eyes and turned to wave. When I waved back, Longshoe abandoned his conversation (not that I blame him, the gatekeeper is notoriously dull) and hurried across the road to talk to me.

"Were you practicing shooting?" asked Longshoe.

"Yeah." I held up the crossbow for him to see. "I only broke three arrows today."

"It takes practice," said Longshoe with an encouraging smile. "You will be a master soon enough."

"Yeah, yeah. Everyone keeps telling me that." I pouted. "Why can't I be a genius who is magically good at things in one day?"

Longshoe smiled but didn't answer. After a moment, he asked, "So who were you practicing with?"

I frowned. "What?"

A creased appeared between Longshoe's eyebrows. "Who were you practicing with?"

I glanced around, wondering if I had missed something. "I was practicing by myself."

"You were talking to someone when you emerged from the woods."

I looked around. Left. Right. Behind. There was no one there. I turned back to Longshoe, genuinely concerned about his health. "Um. No. I was alone. Are you feeling all right?"

Longshoe still looked deeply troubled, but he decided not to mention the stranger who had come out of the woods with me again. Maybe he assumed I was having a torrid affair with a handsome foreigner. Who knows.

You're probably too busy wondering how I could have forgotten Tea's existence entirely to care about my fake torrid affair. I don't blame you. It was a strange thing. The moment Tea disappeared from sight, my memory of him went blank. I remembered practicing with my crossbow, I remembered missing the tree and breaking the arrow, I remembered leaving the forest in a bad mood, and I remembered running into Longshoe. The places in my mind where Tea should have been…he simply was no longer there, wiped away as if by magic.

I adjusted the strap of the crossbow on my shoulder and said, "Now, come on, the hubby is going to kill me if I'm late to dinner."

At the word "hubby", Longshoe practically wilted with disappointment. I didn't notice, and I strolled across the road, humming a cheerful tune. (I was a little dense back then. Or, well, even denser than I am now.)

I'd been living in Bree for the past two years with my hubby. That's right. You heard me correctly: I'd been living in Bree. For two years. With my hubby. No Skipping, no being chased by mountain trolls, no fighting with wargs, no wars for the fate of Middle Earth, just me and my hubby and a quiet life. I'd taken to calling the villagers of Bree my long-lost cousins, because for all I knew, they were all related to my dad. At first, the villagers were extremely confused by my over-friendly attitude and avoided me like the plague, but after a while, they became accustomed to my oddities. Whenever a traveler passed through Bree and encountered my weirdness, the villagers would say proudly, "That is our Ana. She wears pants."

That's right. I defy Middle Earth customs by wearing pants. Why? Because dresses can be maddeningly impractical. Even if I hadn't Skipped in two years, I was still convinced that, at any moment, I was going to find myself suddenly in the mountains surrounded by goblins and have to run for my life. If I happened to be wearing a dress at the time, I could very well trip over the hem and that could be the end of me. So, I bought and wore men's trousers, much to the horror of the Bree-folk.

Bree in the year TA 2796 was much smaller than it had been in the days of the Company and the Fellowship. Its population was still growing as more people discovered its profitable location on trade routes and rangers from the north realized it was a good resting point on their journeys. The town was built on the slopes of Bree-hill with a deep ditch on one side and the East Road on the other. An interesting collection of people chose to live in Bree; stout men and women who worked the surrounding farmland, dwarrows who were involved in trade, hobbits who found the Shire too dull for their tastes, and even an elf had taken up residence there.

Longshoe and I walked through the main street of Bree, trying to avoid the animal droppings on the road and greeting the people we knew as we passed. Some of them avoided eye contact with me; they were the purists who believed women wearing pants were the bringers of ill-fortune. Others, however, found me to be a delightful source of gossip and were always happy to talk to me so that they could later pass on stories about me at the local inn.

"How fared your practice today, Miss Ana?" asked Rob Fernpath, a local farmer who came into town often to sell his crops.

"The same as always," I said with a dramatic sigh. "One of these days I'll stop missing."

"That is good," said Fernpath. "That husband of yours keeps you working at it, though. He is a tough one."

I grinned. "He'll take that as a compliment."

And then it hit me. It was feeling more than anything else, a feeling of being watched. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my skin started to crawl. It was not the first time this had happened. I didn't know where the feeling came from—there was no logical reason behind it—but every once in a while, I'd be walking through the streets of Bree or practicing with my crossbow in the forest, and I'd suddenly feel afraid. The clash of metal on metal, the foul stench of an orc, the faces of the dead, it was all there, following me like a shadow. I touched the base of my throat where the golden locket containing the Senturiel used to hang. There was nothing there. That's right. The Senturiel was gone. No more Skipping. Bree was my home now.

Taking a deep breath and trying to ignore the slight tremor in my hands, I smiled at Fernpath. He gave me an odd look, and I knew that more stories about how crazy I was would be circulating in the inn before long. Ah, well, I was used to it at that point. With a smile, I said goodbye to Fernpath. However, the thing about Bree is that you can never make it down the main street without being stopped at least three or four times. Fernpath went on his way only to be replaced by Sam Burberry, the local woodsman and my fellow deer watcher.

"I spotted Kol in the forest today," said Burberry, stroking his thick, black beard.

"Kol?" Longshoe frowned. "Is that the buck you named?"

"Not just any buck," I said. "He's a player."

Burberry nodded in firm agreement. "He was in the company of another doe today."

"Another one?" I gasped. "Damn. How many does does he have? First, there was Olga and then there was Ulna. And then there was Helga. Who's the new girl?"

"She is a fine doe," said Burberry. "Olga, Ulna, and Helga will be jealous."

"Shannon," I said with disgust.

Burberry nodded grimly. "She does have the appearance of a Shannon."

After Burberry bid farewell and made his way over to the inn for a good drink, I managed to get a whole two steps down main street before Lucy Nailhead called out my name. For a second, I debated whether or not I should continue walking. However, Lucy was a pulp woman with rosy cheeks who believed it was her duty to feed me. And since I have never been one to turn down free food, I turned around and accepted the basket of pastries she shoved into my hands. Already I could picture the hubby's pissed-off face when I showed up late for dinner. Again.

"Dough balls?" I asked eagerly, examining the contents of the basket.

"Of course," said Lucy. "How could I forget?"

"You are a dahling," I said. "Longshoe, isn't she a dahling?"

"Yes, yes." Longshoe nodded eagerly. "She is a darling."

"Not darling," I said. "Dahling. Jeez. Get it right."

"Dahling? What is the difference?" asked Longshoe.

Lucy gasped and clutched my arm. "Ana? Is it true? Longshoe does not know what a dahling is?"

I sighed and shook my head. "Apparently he doesn't."

"Lucy knows?" Longshoe's brown eyes widening with surprise.

"Of course, I do," said Lucy indignantly. "How could you not know?" She spun around and grabbed a random stranger from the street. It happened to be a curly, blond-haired hobbit who worked at the Prancing Pony. Lucy pulled him into the conversation and said, "Hob, how does 'dahling' differ from 'darling'?"

Hob barely missed a beat. "Dahling is a term of affection that applies to a person with some amount of majestic potential."

Longshoe sighed and turned to smile at me. "I should have known it would concern majesty."

Hob frowned. "Did Longshoe not know what the term 'dahling' meant?"

Lucy shook her head sadly.

"Are you really one of us Bree-folk?" asked Hob. "Who does not know the meaning of 'dahling'?"

The teasing of Longshoe went on for a few more minutes before I excused myself from the group, explaining that the hubby would not be happy if I was late for dinner. Since everyone present knew my hubby and knew how disapproving he could be, they all gave me sympathetic glances and let me go on my way with Longshoe in tail.

Bree was a pleasant place. An eclectic group of people who, while they thought I was strange, was certainly willing to accept me—after all, odder people than me had passed through Bree. I still remembered the red-haired Dunlander who was on her way to the Ettenmoores to study trolls, and the hobbit who insisted that he had invented the game of golf, a pastime for everyone. The Bree-folk had accepted each one of these travelers and enjoyed exchanging stories. Of course, by the end of this tale, the Bree-folk would no longer think of me as a harmless woman with strange clothing choices, but for the time being, I was the innocent and strange Ana Stonbit.

The smithy where I lived was located at the end of the main road. It was a small, one-story building with a house attached to the side. Smoke was raising from the house's chimney, and I saw that the two young men who were apprenticed to my hubby had locked up and gone home for the day—which meant dinner was on its way. (I was in so much trouble.)

"So who was that man you were talking to earlier?" asked Longshoe.

"Who? Burberry? He's a woodcutter." I barely paid attention to Longshoe as I tried to come up with ways to dodge my hubby's anger. Perhaps if I complimented his beard…dwarrows liked that.

"No," said Longshoe. "The one who emerged from the forest with you."

Finally, I turned to look at Longshoe properly. I'd thought he'd dropped the matter of the nonexistent stranger in the forest, but apparently, he hadn't.

"You keep asking me that, and I have no idea what you're talking about. I was in the forest alone. As always." We stopped in front of the smithy, and I started up the two stone steps to the front door. I paused, glancing back at Longshoe and shaking my head. "And I thought I was the crazy one."

Longshoe opened his mouth to respond, but I stepped inside my house and, with a quick wave, shut the door firmly behind me.

My house was a humble abode with a kitchen (that I almost never used), two bedrooms (one for me and one for my hubby), a room for washing (how I missed a nice hot shower), a sitting room (which was also the dining room and library and pretty much everything else room), and an armory (how could we live without one?). That's it. I wouldn't have minded a pool in the backyard, but you know how Middle Earth is… Pants were bad enough, and I could only imagine the reaction of Bree-folk if I went outside scantily clad in a bikini.

After two years, I had developed a routine for arriving home. First, I would enter the room on the left, which was a small armory of axes, swords, and bows. After putting away my crossbow, I would head for the kitchen where, undoubtedly, my hubby would be cooking dinner. I would run into the room and cry, "Hubby, I'm home!"

And, as always, Thorin would look up from the meal he was preparing and shoot me a venomous glare. "How many times have I told you not to call me that?"