Middle-Earth, Beleriand, The Great Forest: Years of the Trees 1130

This is how it begins; this is how it always begins.

Almost a year ago now one of the tunnels had caved in and had taken fifty builders with it. Even the foreman had been lost. The whole colony had mourned of course, but now it was time to move on and so the restructuring had begun. They had to remove the rubble first, and so they had set about it, thinking the thing no more than a minor inconvenience in the history of their great structure.

And that was when, or so the later stories would tell – they had heard the crying. A small sound at first, no louder than a gust of wind rolling down the passage of this mighty mine. But then the sound had grown, loud and pitiful – a deep wailing like a child lost out in the dark.

It was one of the younger builders, a creature by the name of Gan, that finally cracked, and with the heavy butt of his builder's stick broke the last of the boulders that blocked the passage. Now there was nothing between the builders and the crying…thing. Small it was, and wrinkled, and they thought – horrifying as it seemed – that it must be a child. Though how it had managed to wander away from the creche, let alone survive down here for the two weeks of mourning that was required with every death, no one knew.

Gan, reached out to the poor creature then. Intending to place his hand on its shoulder, offer some kind of comfort, but there was nothing there to touch. And that hand went through the creature as if there was nothing there at all. Its head jerked up and in the flickering light of his fellow builder's lamps Gan could see its face at last. It was older than him, wrinkled and withered, but it was a face that he recognized. It was the face…the face of the foreman. The dead foreman.

The Foreman let out another wail, deeper this time, like a terrible storm was approaching and the builders just couldn't see it yet. But the most terrifying thing about that wail, or so the young builder would recount in his later years, was that when you really listened…that wail had words.

'He forgot about us.'

The fifty builders that had been lost in the tunnel collapse had returned, as wraiths – because there was nowhere else for them to go.

This is how it begins, how we lose our place in the afterlife that was promised to our forefathers. How our spirits are left to wander, and in the terror that that leaves our living descendants in, this is how the art of the Ganyman is born.

The art of the dead.

For only he…for only she…can guide the spirit to the next world when our maker has forgotten us.

It shall start with Gan.

But throughout all the others that shall follow him, and take the name of the Ganyman, these words do not leave.

They follow us, follow you even into your dreams. So, remember this Ganyman to be, he turned us away. He fogot about us.

Middle-Earth, Beleriand, The Great Forest: Years of the Trees 1314

The Prince closed his eyes as he pressed himself into the bark of the tree. Don't move, you are not here – you are one with the shadows of the great trees, and shadows do not move. He repeated these words, the words of his teachers over and over again in his head as the noise of the encroachers became too loud to ignore.

A strange people, the encroachers were taller than the people of Hobbick, or their cousins left behind in the caves. Tall and thin, with strange shallow features and bright, unhealthy intense eyes. They did not belong in this land; they did not belong in any land this side of the great water divide. And yet they were here, hunting, killing, slaughtering – they were the servants of the great enemy and the bane of those who opposed him.

He shouldn't be here, he knew that, really, he did – this was much too close to the heart of the encroacher's kingdom. And yet, what else could he do – they had taken Hobbick, the great leader of their people, the Prince couldn't just turn away. He was a Ganyman, and if there was one thing that a Ganyman was, above everything else, it was a servant to his people – and what kind of servant would he be if he let the king die? What kind of nephew would he be if he let his uncle die?

He had moved in the shadows of the trees, weaving with the dance of the darkness and light that hid him as he had followed his uncle's captors. Neither of them should have been this close to the encroacher's territory, but this year's winter had been especially hard, and since the encroachers dam had been built, this was the only place where the fish were plentiful.

If only he had kept his ears open, if only he had let his senses expand – if only he had been a Ganyman before a nephew. Stupid, stupid child – you have to think before you take any step, for the world is a terrible place for a follower of Hobbick. And there he goes again, lost in his own guilt, his own self-absorption and not open to the world around him. The shadows of the trees didn't stop to berate themselves on their failings, and he must be as quick and quiet as they were now. Yes, this was his fault but he would only fix it if he was fully Ganyman, awake and aware to all things that flowed around him – both the living and the dead.

He leaned harder against the crook of the tree that hid him, and he listened to the…to the celebration that going on below. The party of encroachers he'd been tracking had soon met up with others with fine clothes, and jewel encrusted hands. One of these new encroachers had a crown perched upon his head, and the prince trembled with rage. It was him, the encroachers king…he was sure of it. Who else could it be?

Finally, with a swish of their over dramatic capes, the encroacher hunters brought forward his bound and gagged uncle – and the king laughed as the others whoopped, and giggled and the prince closed his eyes again. He had to save him, his rational – or maybe irrational – mind screamed and yet how? A Ganyman he may have been, at least in training, but even Ganymen could fall prey to the terrible blades of the encroacher's swords. The trees' shadows would not be able to hide him if he leapt out in the middle of that party – nothing would. There was only him, for fool as he was, he had not gone back to mount a rescue mission but taken the task of Hobbick's rescuer onto his own shoulders. Stupid, stupid boy.

Stupid boy indeed – for while he had been berating himself, the encroachers down below had not been idle. There's wood, and hay piled up high almost as if to light some kind of fire. But a fire so big even the Crooked Smith 1 alone in his cold forge would be able to see it. And on top of that mound were two sticks holding up a terrible metal spike – a roasting spit, it was a roasting spit. His uncle, weak and malnourished from the winter shortages had been strapped to it with minimal fuss.

The fear, the horror gripped the prince then and it was all he could do to keep the bile that rose in his throat, behind his teeth. They weren't going to execute his uncle, they were going to roast him alive, and then they were going to eat him like he was some kind of exotic boar they'd found rooting around in their vegetable patch.

And if he jumped down there now, or made a single move from his tree shelter, they'd do the same to him. So, all he could do was sit here, sit here and seethe in rage. He hated them, he'd always hated them but now, oh now it was so much stronger than that. A boiling white thing, they made hands tremble as they gripped his Gany Staff. He was a Ganyman, trained in the magics of death, of the second life, he should be able to do something…anything at all. He watched them, how they skipped and laughed with each other and thought of doing something terrible. He thought of sticking out his staff from, pointing it straight at their smiling king's face – or at least in the general direction of it – and yanking his spirit free of his body. He'd done it before…okay, so technically he had done it when the spirit was leaving the body naturally, but the processes could hardly be so very different.

His rage was such that he almost did it too, almost ripped that grinning spectre from his body, his people, his everything – but then, what? He couldn't exactly keep a hold of the spirit, even souls that were already leaving wriggled under the power of a Ganyman's staff. That was why they were taught to move so quickly, to shove the restless spirit into the spectre crack between this world and the next.

Could he do the same thing to an encroacher's spirit?

Unlikely. It probably wouldn't fit; it probably didn't even exist. He'd just stick his staff out and it would find nothing to latch onto…nothing that could do this had a soul. Which left the Prince, once again stuck in the tree, watching as they lit the fire under his uncle, unable to do anything to stop it.

He had the power over the dead…technically speaking…and he couldn't even cause a distraction long enough to, find some way to untie his now unconscious uncle and get him away. If there had been someone else in the tree with him, he might have just jumped down and caused it himself. Told his unnamed companion to get his uncle out and then, well probably sacrificed his life leading the encroachers away from their campsite.

But there was no one here but him, and if he did that now he'd just be adding to the encroachers kill count. Just him here…well, him and the dead. And then, an awful thought crossed the prince's mind. It was a thought every Ganyman will have once in his or her life. How many of the dead had I help cross over? Didn't they owe me? What's one little favour.

His eyes flew to the ever so faintly glowing crack between this world and the next – it was always there, that crack between worlds, most people just couldn't see it. Only a Ganyman knew it was there at all. How many souls had he pushed, beckoned and eased into that crack? How easy it would be to reach out his staff and pull a few of them back through. It wouldn't take many, five, maybe six spectres – he could set them on the encroachers and they'd be happy to do it. Most of them had probably died from those things' blades anyway, what could a little payback hurt?

He thought about the terrified faces of the hunters, and their king – he thought about how they would scream, how they would run and for once, just once, how they would be the hunted. He thought about it so hard, that he didn't even realise that he was already lifting his staff ready to do the deed.

And then…he felt it, the pulsing lifeforce of the tree sheltering him. All things had life, or so the teachings said, all things had a will and a mind of their own. And now, as he leaned against the trunk of the tree, he could hear its voice, the voice of its life force in his head.

No.

It seems to hiss at him.

Please no.

And it made him stop, it made him stop and think beyond the hot feel of his anger. Once he did this, there was no going back. The Living and the dead were meant to stay separate for a reason, and once that barrier was broken…it could never be put back whole again.

So he lowers his staff, and makes himself watch.

Watch as the fire is lit, as his uncle begins to burn.

The Prince makes himself watch it all.

Make himself memorize it.

And at last, when the smell of burning flesh, and the sound of tinkling laughter feels like it is forever nailed to the inside of his skull, he watches as his uncle's spirit detaches from his body. He watches as it willingly floats up and though the crack in the sky. Through the crack in the world. He doesn't even have to use the staff.

Before this day the work of the Ganyman was hard and cruel, for no spirit wanted to go to that strange unnatural crack between the worlds. They wanted to stay here in the sun and the light with their loved ones, where they would not be forgotten. Before it had always felt like he was fighting it, using all his strength to hold it away from its lifeless body – this had been something different. This had been…right.

Soon the encroachers will have their fill, and they will leave this place – go slinking off to their own homes, and then when it is dark and the smell of the smoke has died, the Prince will climb down from his tree and he will go back home too.

He will tell everyone, all his teachers, his loved ones, and everyone of his people that would listen exactly what happened here today. For this is how it will begin, that strange tradition of the Ganyman's, you have seen it before…you know already how it works.

Hobbick may be dead, but his last tale will live on, and through that, so would his spirit.

Middle-Earth, The Shire, Number 3 Bagshot Row: T.A. 2989, S.R. 1389; February 5th

Marigold Gamgee always woke screaming. It didn't matter what dream she had, or how careful she had been with the thoughts before bed – she always woke screaming. That voice in her head, the old one – those words, they always wound themselves into her dreams.

It had started out nice this time, with her and Rosie sat in a meadow of marigolds. Not gold roses as she'd insisted in the dream, but Marigolds. They were picking them, and weaving them together into beautiful crowns of flowers. Or they were trying to, but they always fell apart – finally Marigold had had enough and flung her crown down onto the soft meadow below. She had just wanted a break, to stand up and breath, maybe go sulk by a stream or something. You know the kind of things you did when there was no one around the yell at you to be more careful around water.

But all she'd managed to do was stand up and stand over Rosie, who was still weaving her crown of flowers, before those words…those terrible words, screamed down at her from the sky. A voice so loud and so broken, sobbing those words.

'He turned us away.'

Marigold did not remember much of the dream beyond that – everything went dark when the words were spoken and Marigold woke screaming…of course.

'Gold, Gold calm down…calm down I'm here. I'm here!'

This voice is new, no…this voice she knows for unlike the other one it is not in her head. She opens her eyes at last and looks at her broth kneeling beside her small bed. Halfred looks worried, he looks worried when he hears her scream. She hadn't known it had been so loud this night as to wake him, and she felt more than a little ashamed. How silly she must look, screaming at the little fantasies in her head.

'Did you have the dream again?' Her brother asks, his warm brown eyes crinkling up in concern. Marigold nodded, though she couldn't bare to speak the words that had made her scream so out loud, here in the safe harbour of her bedroom, so she said nothing.

Hal wrapped his arms around her, and brought her small head to rest on his shoulder.

'Oh Gold, it was just a dream…no one's going to abandon you,' And he laughs as he says it as if the thought of anyone leaving Marigold behind, abandoning her to make her way in the world alone was too ridiculous to even full contemplate.

And she doesn't know why, but that thought makes her smile.

'Come on, I think there's still some of Daisy's cookies left out in the kitchen, let's go have some.'

In the terrible years to come, after the death of Da, and the riots in Harbottle…and Hal's execution, Marigold will hold onto this memory of raiding the kitchen with her brother. That memory when she wasn't anything important yet, back when she was just a little girl stealing cookies with her dumb big brother.

Middle-Earth, The Shire, Northfarthing, Bindbole Wood: T.A. 2992, April 1st

She was alone, she had always been alone, such was the life of those born with the gift of the Gany. Such was the fate of her people when they passed beyond the veil of the living world.

The darkness stretched on before her, as did image of her own shadow in the sands of her ancient ancestors' past. She had been in a cave, the cave in Bindbole woods, with Sam and Rosie but…but that felt more like the dream than the vision before her.

She stood now in a desert, no wind to cool her face from the scorching sun up above her, and in the distance, she could see them. At first, they were nothing but small, heavily bundled shapes, then it was as if time had skipped and suddenly, they were there walking past her, their thick soled feet all dusted and scraped from the road. They did not see her for they were moving too fast, and she could not yell out to them for her mouth was frozen. Was this her dream? Was this the visage the cave offered her, that strange cave of the forgotten that not even the old ones would speak about anymore. Was she just to stand here and watch these strange hobbits, these strange hobbits with darker skin, and wraps tied around their faces, walk past?

Was this…what she was meant to remember, the secret every Ganyman knew from the moment they stepped into the cave and realised what they were? No, no this could not be that…there had to be something more…something that everybody else didn't already know. What had she seen, that her ancestors were wanderers in the east, which was such a commonly known fact even stooges like Sandyman had trouble denying it? There was nothing new here…nothing exciting…nothing…and then the clawed hand knocked her off her feet.

The large creature stood over Marigold, no that was the wrong word, it didn't stand, it loomed. It loomed over Marigold like some fairy-tale monster from one of Da's old stories. Because it was one of those fairy-tale monsters, bright golden eyes and all. It was tall and fair-headed, with ears shaped like a leaf, and it was coming to get her.

If she had been fond of poetry like Mister Bilbo, or Master Frodo - she might have even called the creature beautiful as all of his ilk were in the eyes of mortals, but his sword was too sharp and face too lined with hatred…hatred for her…hatred for what she was…and what she would become.

The creature approached her, and she couldn't move, the creature smiled at her and she couldn't run, the creature drew its sword and she couldn't even scream. But she didn't need to, for a fire surrounded them then; a fire of such heat and such intensity that soon it was the creature who screamed now. He let her go and she fell to the ground. The fire did not hurt her; it would never hurt her for she was one of its own, but it hurt him, it burned his flesh away from his bones, and he screamed and screamed but the fire would not stop, it would never stop hurting, stop hunting, stop killing creatures like him.

Soon there was no creature there at all, and Marigold was left alone with the fire.

'Should I say thank you?'

The fire didn't answer her in words, it didn't answer her at all really, it just sat there surrounding her, burning away as all fires should in the end. She screamed, but this did nothing but make her throat ache.

Patience is not a virtue of my children anymore it would seem.

'Was it ever?'

The fire made a wheezing, hissing sound that Marigold realised must be laughter of some kind.

Too true, for the best really, if I'd had more patience than I would have stayed by my brother's side and then we'd all be dead.

The fire grew brighter, and brighter, until it almost blinded her.

'Who are you?

Your father knew me, your father knew me well.

'You were Da's friend.'

In a fashion, but try again and you might be closer.

'He was a Ganyman.'

Aye that he was, and a very fine one at that. Now who am I, Marigold daughter of Hamfast?

'You're not real, at least not as most hobbits see it. You're not from here, this plane...anymore. Your something else, your…your.'

The Father of all.

'I thought that was Eru.'

Not for our kind, Gamgee. I am the one, the first. All those who walk before me are my children. Who am I?

'Someone with an inflated ego?'

That laugh again

True, but no, guess again. I am the first of our kind, I am the last of theirs. I created your feet, your ears and your stomach, I am the lord of all that makes our kind truer and more than theirs. All that came before you were my children, Blarney, Magda, the house of the Turtle-Fish, the three Tribes, the Tooks, the Bagginess they are all my creations just as you are…who am I?

'I don't know your name, but I know who you are all the same. You may be the first, and you may even be our protector as you used to claim to Da; but you're not to be trusted, so you won't pull the wool over my eyes.'

Ah, well now, that is a pity. I had so looked forward to getting to know the second generation of Gamgee. Oh well, perhaps the boy shall be more open to my persuasions. So, I'm afraid I must leave now, for I'm much to do if I'm to sway a creature as that.

'No, No, stay away! Stay away from him! He's not a Ganyman, he'll never be one, just you stay away.'

If not a Ganyman, then why would I want to seek your brother? What other possible reason could there be? I shall leave you to ponder on that for a while.

And the fire went out, and Marigold was alone again… naturally.

Marigold had woken screaming. Sam and Rosie were beside her now, looking concerned but not like they'd been attacked by some powerful, unstoppable ancestor themselves. But really how could you tell that sort of thing just from a person's face. She wanted to ask them, wanted to hear it from their own mouths that they were okay, but she couldn't. She couldn't because it was late, and the old crone was sick of them by now. Pushing the three out the entrance to the cave faster than they could collect their thoughts.

Marigold couldn't ask because Rosie was already running down the hill, crashing through the trees of Bindbole Wood with a vague notion that her parent's house was on the other side. Marigold couldn't ask because Sam was already taking her hand and leading her down the hill and through the trees in a slightly different direction than the one their wild haired friend had gone.

Sam looked okay, or at least he did from what she could see of his face. Had he seen the fire too, she was almost too afraid to ask. Almost being the primary word here.

'What did you see Sam?'

'See?' said Sam as if he didn't quite know what she was talking about. 'Bunch of trees.'

'Trees.'

'Yeah, just some trees with Tooks in them.'

'That sounds weird.'

'Could have been worse, I might have been in the trees with them.'

It sounded weird, too weird to be true. Gamgees were not good liars, generally speaking, there'd been too many generations of Ganymen in their family for them ever to get used to telling lies like regular hobbits. Samwise Gamgee was no exception, if he really had seen Tooks climbing in trees he would have found it funnier. Probably be roaring with laughter, just like Da used to, but he wasn't, he was scowling, and Marigold didn't like that look on Samwise's face, it simply wasn't natural.

'You're lying to me Samwise Gamgee, what did you really see?'

'Nothing to bother you with.'

'I'm tougher than you, so don't be such a grump and tell me.'

'Well, what did you see?'

For a moment Marigold contemplated not telling him, after all if he was going to be so close lipped about his own vison, then why should she bother to tell him hers? Yet that wasn't who Marigold was, she needed to talk about these things, even if was only to her stupid pig-headed older brother.

'Fire.'

'Fire?' Sam said disbelievingly. 'Why did you see that?'

'I don't know, maybe it was a vison of the future and I'm gonna start a fire somewhere in town.'

'Doesn't sound likely.'

'You saying I can't.'

'I'm saying you won't.'

'Well, that's what I saw anyway, so who knows what it means.'

'That's all you see?'

'I don't know, were Tooks in trees all you saw?'

'No.'

Marigold stopped in her tracks when she realized Sam was no longer walking beside her. He'd sat down, sat down in the mud of the forest a few paces back. His head was in his hands, and he was sobbing.

'They knew; they knew what I was Gold!'

'What were ye Sam, a tree?'

'Don't be daft,' said Sam, looking up at her now slightly cross, but a good deal more distracted from his woes than he had been. His green eyes were wide, and red-rimmed and he almost looked like he couldn't see her through the thick fog of his tears. He was the only one on both sides of their family, dating back as long as you could count, that had green eyes. Marigold wondered where he got them from.

'This is serious, not some game.'

'I don't think it's a game Sam, but if you're sobbing too hard to breath then you can't tell me what it is. What are you, Samwise Gamgee?'

'A monster, it was a monster they showed me, they showed me what I really was Gold. What deep down I'd always known I really was.'

'You're not a monster Sam, why you're one of the least monster-like hobbits I know. And I know quite a lot of them, so you should take me at my word.'

'Right, yeah,' He said smiling slightly, then his face fell, and he looked down at the leaf trodden ground again.

'But you don't know Gold, you don't know what I did. What I've done.'

'What could you have possibly done that would make you worse than Sandyman, Sam? Hm? Tell me that.'

'Oh Gold, if you only knew, you'd wish me and Sandyman would switch places and you wouldn't have to be related to someone as vile and awful as me.'

'Come off it, what did you do? Forget to thank Ma last time she beat you?'

'No. I…I…I killed Da.'

'What?'

'I killed Da, Gold, I'm the reason he's dead. I slipped him the poison, I'm…I'm his murderer, Gold. Don't you see that, I'm his murderer.'

Marigold screamed.

The Shire, Hobbiton, Number 3 Bagshot Row: T.A. 2993

Gold Gamgee buried her face in her pillow, trying to smother the voices out of her head. She couldn't remember when they'd started. Maybe it was after Samwise's confession but truthfully, she couldn't say that for sure. Memories were strange, unreliable things at best. For instance, right now she could remember screaming at Sam, she could remember turning tail and fleeing from him, but she had no idea how she had made it back into Hobbiton with no one to guide her. In the end it didn't matter when the voices had started, they were here now and that was what she had to drown out.

Little Marigold, where's my little Marigold?

It wasn't Da, it wasn't Da, it wasn't Da.

She'd heard this voice first, before all the others had shown up, and it was the most painful. It sounded so like Da, every inflection, every low bur of her father's voice and it made her chest ache something terrible. Sometimes it was even worth listening to the others screaming just to drown that one voice out.

He promised to marry me when I was grown.

Gold tried to put a name to the other voice, it did sound familiar after all. A ribbon of red in curly brown hair came to mind, she still couldn't put a name to the girl, but she did remember her following her brother Hamson round like a devoted puppy some years ago. How many? Before the plague had hit? Before May had…before Da had…yes long before that. The girl had been one of the very first children in the lane to be struck by it.

Marigold!

There it was again, there was the voice that pretended to be Da. She was going to ignore it and focus on the face of the girl. She'd been Gold's age, but she'd wanted Hamson to marry her. Said they were soulmates or something like that. Stupid girl, there was no such thing as a soulmate, hobbit souls were too doomed for that.

Marigold, you listen to me now.

If she couldn't shut it up tonight; she would just have to wait it out.

Listen to them Marigold, they're trying to tell you what they need.

The other voices screamed in the background, but Gold couldn't hear them proper anymore.

Everything's gone wrong, oh Blarney Gold make it stop! Make it stop, I can't help them. All I can do is stop myself. All I can do is keep myself whole and sane, go back to the cave Marigold. They need you, you're the only one who's still letting us in anymore, go back to the cave and make the screaming stop.

The voices faded at last and Marigold was free to sleep. Free to sleep and dream of the faces that had screamed at her so harshly before; the girl with the bow would be chasing her, telling her that they were meant to be sisters. That Hamson was meant to be her husband. She couldn't tell her the truth, that Hamson was gone, traveling somewhere in the East seeking his fortune. She wouldn't understand, she was just a stupid little girl with a crush and now she'd never be anything else.

A bright sunny day it was and no mistake, a light in the sky that looked vaguely like the sun, but Gold knew it couldn't be, shone down. She didn't know why she knew the light weren't the sun, she just did. Her dress was all red and blue with frills in its petticoats like the one she'd seen in the window of the shop Daisy had dragged her away from. Yes, if she were to die, like May had, this was how she'd like to be dressed when they buried her.

Singing, singing in the distance, no, singing coming near her, singing coming close, singing right beside her ear. A flash of a large red bow and long curly brown hair to match and that singing grew louder. And louder, and lounder until that singing was all she could hear at all anymore. It wasn't even in proper Western, or Hobbitish, it was just a high keening wail of grief and madness.

Gold closed her eyes, not that that would do anything to block the sound out, but she just didn't want to see. Because she knew what was coming next, she always knew, because she'd had this dream before.

She could hear the footsteps now, hear them clomping along the grassy walkway and she knew that she wouldn't have to wait much longer.

'Marigold are you coming?'

She opened her eyes and looked down upon him, upon the great creature that had once been something very like a hobbit. His flesh – what little there was of it you could see under the bloody bandages he had wrapped around his skull, was burned and sizzled like a freshly cooked steak.

'Marigold, they're dying Marigold. Aren't you going to help?' He spoke in the voice of the girl with the bow, in the voice of a child, but it wasn't a child who looked back at her then. It was the eyes of a monster, the eyes of a creature so betrayed that he could hardly be called a hobbit anymore,

Marigold Gamgee woke screaming. She set out for the hill of Bindbole the very next day.

T.A. 3002

For ten years – or so she suspected – Marigold Gamgee walked each day up that hill and into the waiting embrace of the Cave of the Forgotten. Each night she returned to Number 3 Bagshot Row and awaited the dreams she knew would never stop. No one noticed, no one cared enough about Marigold Gamgee to stop her. After that day they had all gone to the cave she had begun to feel distant from Sam and Rosie. Before, before everything got ruined, before the plague and the Michel Delving Bomb, there had never been anyone closer than those three.

Sam's revelation made it difficult to meet her brother's eyes without flinching. Da had been going to die that day, whatever Sam and Daisy did, Da had been going to die. A horrible and humiliating death in front of a jeering crowd. He hadn't died like that, he hadn't died as he should at a ripe old age surrounded by his children and grandchildren neither, but least he hadn't died like that.

She'd gone over this many a time in her head and decided that that was not why she found it hard to meet Samwise's eyes, or to hold her tongue around Daisy. No that wasn't it at all, it wasn't what they had done to Da. He hadn't had to hang by the hangman's rope and for that she really should be thanking them, it was just, if they'd done it for Da why couldn't they have done it for Halfred? Why had they left him to Proudfoot's noose? Why was his peace worth less than Da's? For that she could not forgive, for that she could not meet their eyes and for that reason most of all was why she returned to the cave.

To die without a Ganyman to hear your Last Tale was a terrifying thing for any hobbit of the proper education, but to die violently without one, well that was the truly devastating thing. That was why she came to the cave every day, that was why she sat in its middle and stared into the blackness around her. She looked for her brother's soul, or rather she looked for the twisted crooked creature it would have become. Each day for ten years she climbed that hill, each day she entered that cave and each and every day she sat and waited for that voice. And when at last she heard it again, well not even the restraints of a Gany-life would hold her smile in check

Gold? Wee Marigold? Come out and play!

And lough there had never been a grin so wide.

A darkness surrounded her, a darkness unlike the one she would travel back home under, a darkness unlike anything that could be conceived in the realm of mortal kind. It was the darkness that followed the dead, or at least the dead of her kind.

Sister.

Cried the darkness.

'Brother.'

The Young Ganyman replied.

Let me out sister, let me out Gold.

The tears that pricked at the back of Marigold's eyes now were bitter to the touch. In the faint light that still trickled in from the outside world the tips of her fingertips glistened.

'I can't, not yet.'

I'm cold, I'm so cold. Let me out into the Sun Marigold. Let me feel it upon my face, give me peace in that at least. Marigold give me peace.

'I will try brother, but I cannot let you out until I know you to be true.'

I am always true.

'When I knew you, yes you were always true to me at least, but I don't know you anymore.'

I am your Brother

The darkness wailed.

'Are you?'

Something sharp clawed at her foot, but Marigold did not back up into the dwindling light of the sun as she really ought to, no, she remained standing where she was. Staring down the darkness that perhaps had once been her brother.

'Show me your face Halfred, show me your face and mayhaps I'll relent.'

Silence from the Darkness, silence and the barest hint of a rustle as if some actor was changing costumes midway through the performance.

Shall I let you see me as I am now Sister, or shall you shake and cringe away from me as so many others of our kind have done before the truth?

Marigold did not reply, but simply waited, eventually he would come to a decision and whether that be good or foul for her she would stand and whether it regardless.

From within the shadows something moved, something slithered forward, and Marigold Gamgee was forced to look down at her feet to meet her brother's face. For it was her brother's face that crawled out of that darkness, and only her brother's face. The body he had once possessed was no more, there was nothing for his spirit to cling to, nothing but the darkness. Behind her brother's left ear, a long, spindly leg covered in tiny black hairs stretched towards her. Seven legs followed in its wake, and her brother's head was propelled forward on their strength. Eight long legs, of insect like build and proportions, eight long legs growing forth from her brother's chin, jawline and skull. Marigold did not let herself move, nor scream as she so sorely wished to, no, she kept herself as still as any Ganyman should be in the wake of the dead.

In the darkness behind them the sound of clicking spider feet grew louder, not from the strange beast in front of her, but for the quantity that stood behind it. She saw it now, now that the darkness crept backwards away from the centre of the cave where the youngest Gamgee did stand. There were hundreds of them, thousands of clicking, clacking spider like beasts, each and every one with the face of her brother.

You wished to see me as I am now, Marigold? Didn't you?

They spoke as one.

Marigold said nothing, for her voice had betrayed her and she could not think to use it again.

What do you think sister? Am as handsome as I once was?

Marigold closed her eyes, and around them the darkness stood as still as it ever had, yet if she strained her ears just so Marigold was certain she could hear laughter. Hear the laughter of the Darkness that even now crept into the corners of her vision. But she did not scream, and she did not cry, for she was a Ganyman and she would not be bowed by that Darkness, no matter how deep it may go.

She did not possess a proper staff or stick as all Ganyman should, for there had been no one to teach her nor test her skill in the Shire Proudfoot had made. Yet from the tree that hung low over the entrance she had broken a branch for herself, and she bared it now in front of her brother's face.

'A lie you are, for Darkness ye be now brother…and…no fool am I. Go back to your land, and bother us no more, for we are the people of the living breath of change. We are the children of he who was sent to the flames, and the fire that guides our steps.'

These were words she knew well, for the Darkness itself had whispered them to her in her deepest nightmares. Tears streaked down her face, wobbling over her chin, and filled her eyes till the point of blindness, but she couldn't stop now. Her brother was gone, and this creature took his place, and if she let it past her…then the whole word would fall.

And so, within her, that branch she held filled with the fire of the dead, that fire that kept that at bay, that fire that she should have listened to.

Back to the Shadow with ye!

A flash of that fire and it was done, and the cave was empty once more. Marigold fell to her knees, sobbing…it was done…she had finally passed the test, and the voices in her head had silenced at last. She was a Ganyman for proper finally, and there wasn't a power on this Middle-Earth that she'd let harm her people now.

(1) - The Crooked Smith – this is a mysterious figure of ancient ancestor lore, although given the derisive way he is often spoke of in the few and garbled texts still left from that time, it is unclear whether he was a god they worshiped, or a very bad joke we just haven't been let in on yet.