Even though I knew Frodo was more than willing to have an adventure, he became suddenly reluctant to leave Bag End. Gandalf and I talked to him about it every day, until we came up with a plan for our departure: we would leave the morning after Frodo's fiftieth birthday. It was significant to him to wait until he was fifty, for that was the same age at which Bilbo went on his adventure. We were leaving for Buckland, where Merry had found us a nice little house at Crickhollow for a reasonable price. The story we put around was that the money was running out, and so Frodo and I had decided to live among his relatives in Buckland with our only child. Buckland was east, and since our true plan was to go east and make for Rivendell, it fitted well. Frodo and I debated for a long time over who to sell Bag End to.
"But you hate the S.-B.'s!" I argued when he suggested we sell to them.
"I know, but I'd rather them have it than any random someone." Despite this argument, Frodo still looked uncomfortable with the idea of selling it to Lobelia and Lotho.
I sat for a while, trying to think of who else we could sell to. Then an idea popped into my head. "We can sell it to Sam and Rosie." Frodo looked at me. "They have five kids with another on the way. Heavens know they need the space. And they'll keep it nice until we return from the journey."
"If we return," Frodo said, but he considered it. He and I had discussed the journey many times, and because of what I knew, I maintained an optimistic point of view, whereas Frodo seemed convinced that we would not return. Finally he nodded and said, "We'll sell it to them, at a bargain price, since they're family and all." And so the arrangements were made, and the news went out, and once again the Sackville-Bagginses were foiled in their attempts to get at Bag End. As we packed our things, something nagged at the back of my mind, something to do with Lotho and our return, but I couldn't put my finger on it, and so I ignored the itch and prepared to move to Crickhollow.
At the same time that Frodo and I were planning our trip, the conspiracy planned their own actions to correspond with Frodo's. I gave them the information they wanted, and their plans blossomed and grew into being. We had to include Sam in our plans as well, for even though he was staying at Bag End, he would have to be the one to keep the rest of the Shire informed as to the well-being of the Bagginses in Buckland, since he was my brother. He would pretend to get letters from me telling of the small adventures of life in Crickhollow, and how much Dorabella was growing, etc. In reality, those letters were going to be written by Frodo's distant cousin Mentha, a young Brandybuck girl just out of her tweens who we called upon to be Bella's caretaker while we were away.
Frodo insisted that we write up a will that would take effect should we not return in two years' time. Crickhollow would remain a Baggins house, though Bella would return to Bag End to live with Sam and Rosie until she was old enough to come into her inheritance. Crickhollow would be Mentha's to use until Bella came into her inheritance.
I made one last arrangement before we had to leave. We had sent two wagons of furniture and such things a few days before our own departure, and Merry was to take the last wagon of luggage to Crickhollow with Fatty. I would have Bella ride with Merry instead of walk through the countryside with Frodo, Pippin, and I. I wrote to Mentha and asked her to meet us at Crickhollow to pick up Bella to take her to stay in Brandy Hall the night we were to arrive. I told Frodo it was merely a precaution against anything strange happening that night. Mentha would bring Bella back to Crickhollow the day after we left.
Gandalf had left us after staying for two months. He said that he would try not to be gone long, and that he intended to be back for the farewell feast and Bilbo's birthday. As we said good-bye, however, I knew he would not be there for Bilbo's birthday, and indeed he would not be there for us as we journeyed to Rivendell, as he said he felt he should. I thought of Saruman and the mischief he was up to, and prayed that perhaps this time, something would change.
Summer passed, and autumn was passing, and Gandalf still did not return, as I feared. The Birthday came, and he was absent from the farewell feast, which really was still rather small. There were Frodo and I, of course, and Sam, Merry, and Pippin, and also Folco and Fatty. Despite Gandalf's absence, the party became rather merry, for the younger hobbits were in good moods. They began singing songs, and I soon joined, and coaxed Frodo into joining as well. We drank all of the wine that was left from the Old Winyards batch laid down by Bilbo's father, and I got quite tipsy, as did Frodo and the rest. When all the food and wine was gone, we went to bed; Sam walked home to Rosie, the four young helpers went to the guest bedrooms, and Frodo and I giggled our way to our bed.
After having made love for possibly the last time ever, we lay in bed, wrapped in each other and the blankets. I was just drifting off when Frodo murmured something into my ear. I opened my eyes and asked, "What?"
"Stay whole for me, Dawn," he said again.
"What do you mean?"
He propped himself up on his elbow and looked at me seriously. "We're leaving your family and your friends to go on a journey that will most likely change me, if not you as well. But you are part of the reason I'm going. The Enemy will most likely destroy the Shire if he ever gets the Ring back, and so I have to do the destroying before he does. Even if I am changed by this journey and the Ring, I want there to still be a Shire for you and Bella to live happily in, even if I am gone. If the Enemy destroys it, then what was the purpose of my journey? And I asked you to stay whole, for if you break from the burden of this quest and are not the same as you were, then there is no purpose to save the Shire, and no purpose to destroy the Ring. There will be nothing left for me, for you will be gone."
I stared back into his eyes and said, "Then you must promise to stay whole for me as well. I cannot live without you, Frodo. Even with Bella to raise, I would still be half empty without you, and I would not be a good mother. Bella cannot be raised without a father, so you must remain whole as well. Promise me that."
"I promise," he whispered. I whispered it back, and then pulled him down for a kiss, and we made love again, gently and slowly, savoring.
We all woke up late the next morning, but we packed the last wagon and sent it along with Merry, Fatty, and Bella before lunch. Frodo and I talked with Bella before she went.
"Be good for Uncle Merry, now, Bella," I said as I handed her a little bag of snacks.
"And do what he says," Frodo added. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"I will, Mommy, Daddy," she answered. She held her doll from Gandalf tight against her chest. I smiled as I pulled her into a hug, then kissed her as well and lifted her into the cart between two large trunks. "Bye!" she called as Merry drove the cart away.
"Bye! See you at the new house!" Frodo and I called back, waving. Bella gave a last wave before the cart was over the hill and gone. We went back inside and had lunch with Folco, who then went home. Frodo was anxious that Gandalf still wasn't there, but I consoled him and he decided that if Gandalf was not there by nightfall, he could find us at Crickhollow. We had tea with Pippin and Sam, our last meal in Bag End, and then as evening fell we sent Sam down to his home with the spare key to tell Rosie that they could move in the next day.
After Sam was gone, Pippin and I checked the packs one more time, then put them on the porch. Pippin took a stroll through the garden one last time, Frodo wandered the halls of Bag End and then went to the front gate, and I went through our room for any last minute things I may have forgotten. As I looked around, I felt a sort of sadness well up in me, a sadness that I was leaving my normal life and heading for something unknown and dangerous, and possibly deadly. I started to cry, and then I came to myself and remembered that I wasn't from Middle Earth, I wasn't from Hobbiton. I was from Earth, and I knew what was going to happen, and even though Middle Earth had become my home, and I was married and had a daughter, I shouldn't fear because I knew it would end well.
I finished crying and wiped the tears from my eyes as Frodo called, "Dawn! Time!" I walked out and took my pack. Frodo locked the door to Bag End and gave the key to me. "We'll meet you by the gate in the lane by the meadow after you take this key to Sam and Rosie." I nodded and ran off. The Gaffer stopped me as I passed by and told me a strange rider dressed all in black had come and asked questions about Frodo. I told him I'd tell Frodo and went on to give the key to Sam. Then I met Frodo and Pippin by the gate.
The walking was uneventful until I noticed the sound of a horse or pony behind as we walked, and I said so. Frodo suggested that we get off the road and hide, because he was tired of everyone knowing everything about what he was doing. Pippin and I dashed to the left and found a little hollow that we ducked into. I peeped up and watched as Frodo seemed to struggle with the impulse to hide, and finally threw himself into a patch of tall grass by a tree. It was just in time, too, for at the moment the Black Rider I knew it was appeared around the corner and came towards us down the road.
I watched Frodo watch the Rider, and saw his hand move slowly to the chain around his neck, on which hung the Ring. He almost put the Ring on, but then the Black Rider trotted off again, and I ducked my head back down as if I hadn't seen anything. Frodo explained to Pippin and I what he had seen, and when he wondered where the Rider came from, I told him what the Gaffer had told me. We talked some more of the Rider and the danger it posed, and Frodo decided we would walk to the left of the Road now, instead of exactly on it.
We had a meal in the hollow bole of a tree, and continued walking. Frodo started humming and then singing one of Bilbo's old walking songs, and Pippin and I joined in. At the end, Pippin said, "And now to bed! And now to bed!" Frodo hushed him and said, "I think I hear hooves again." We left the path we had been following, and hid in the shadows of the trees. Frodo once again stayed closer to the path to see if it was another Black Rider. It was, and I could only watch once again as his hand began to grope in his pocket for the Ring.
At that moment, the clear sound of beautiful voices filled the air, and I smiled with joy. "Elves!" I whispered.
"Yes, it is Elves," said Frodo. He told Pippin and I how there were some Elves that wandered into the Shire in spring and autumn, and he was glad they did, for their song had driven the Black Rider off.
I asked, though I knew the answer, "Do you suppose we shall see them?"
"Listen! They are coming this way," Frodo replied. "We have only to wait." I crept closer to the edge of the path, eager to catch my first glimpse of the Elves. When I was younger and had first read Tolkien's works, my favorite characters had been the Elves. They are so graceful and timeless and beautiful; they had captured my imagination with their mystery and loveliness. To be able to see them, not just imagine them, would be amazing. In the world I was in now, they were real, living beings, people I could talk to and interact with and admire.
I knew when they were drawing near, for the trees around them took on a part of their silvery glow, as if the moonlight shone from within them. They walked past where we stood, serene and noble. The last one turned as he passed, looked at us, and laughed. It was like the rippling of a brook over stones. I don't remember much of the conversation Pippin and Frodo had with the Elf, only that his name was Gildor Inglorion and he was of the House of Finrod. His voice was like a song, as were the other Elves'. Then they led us to where they were staying for the night. I'm sure I must have looked an idiot for the way I gaped at them as we walked.
As we sat in the clearing to which they'd led us, Pippin fell asleep, wrapped in his cloak. I knew what we were waiting for, but still I felt drowsiness come over me. Frodo leaned his head against my shoulder as weariness took him. Then the stars rose, and the Elves burst into song, and a fire leaped up under the trees. "Come!" the Elves called to us. "Come! Now is the time for speech and merriment!" That was when we noticed the opening in the trees, and the hall that the boughs made.
We gathered around the fire there, and ate the food and savored the drinks, and laughed and talked. Even with all the words in the world at my disposal, I still could not describe to you the fullness and richness of that night. I had one of Sam's thoughts, that if I could grow apples like the ones I ate, I would consider myself a real gardener. But I think what most touched me wasn't the music, as Sam said in the books, but the way the Elves looked.
As an artist, I spend more time than most people do studying the lines of people's faces and bodies and the way their face flows into their neck which flows into their shoulders and so on. And so naturally I did that with the Elves as well, but when I went to draw them later, I found that I couldn't ever draw them exactly right. The ears were always too pointed or too round, and the chins always came out too soft or too sharp, and things like that. I couldn't ever pull up a clear enough image in my head to make the portrait correct, and I had the feeling that even had I been able to get an Elf to sit for a portrait, I still would have been unable to capture him or her correctly.
Pippin fell asleep soon after eating, and was carried away to a bower where he could sleep the night away. When I felt my eyelids getting heavy, I went over to Frodo and curled up near his feet, letting the sleep wash over me. I dozed for a few moments, and then woke when I heard my name. Frodo had been saying he thought his going was a secret known only to Gandalf and me, his faithful Dawn. I maintained the look of sleep as they talked, hoping to hear something I could give to the conspiracy. They discussed more of Frodo's mission, though Gildor knew but little, and gave the best advice he could.
Frodo grew tired then, and Gildor led him to a bower as well, while another Elf carried me to a bower next to Frodo's. When I sensed he was asleep, I stood and meant to join him, but then I sensed eyes on me, and I looked over to see Gildor staring at me. He motioned me over to sit with him, and so I joined him. He spoke first: "You are strange, to be a hobbit and a woman and have come this far."
"Frodo is my husband, and my friend," I replied. "I will not let him journey alone, not when he may never return from the journey. If he goes into danger, I will go with him and give him what hope and courage he may have need of."
"That is reason enough, yet there is something more, I feel. Something different about you that I cannot place. It is as if you are not of this world, but that cannot be possible, for you are no Elf."
"Gandalf also has said this. I know not what it is that makes me appear this way. It is simply who I am. Any otherworldliness is just a part of my personality."
"So it would seem. But no matter. If you are intent on going with Frodo, then I say this to you: Don't ever leave him!"
"Leave him? When I have already said I will go wherever he goes? I never mean to leave him, even if he tries to climb to the Moon. And if any of those Black Riders that follow try to harm him, they will have to go through me first."
Gildor laughed and said, "I'm sure they will take great fright at that. There is nothing more fearful than a woman separated from one she loves." I agreed, and then went back to the bower in which Frodo slept and curled up beside him for the rest of the night.
When I woke, I was the earliest riser, as is usual, and found that the Elves had left us fruit, bread, and drink. Pippin woke soon after, and set to devouring the food. I stopped him and divided it evenly among the three of us, saving Frodo some of it. Then he woke and began to eat, and Pippin peppered him with questions, as was also usual, until Frodo snapped at him. Pippin took no offense, though, and walked off with a last remark, and began singing and dancing upon the green grass.
I watched Frodo watch Pippin dance, and knew the silent debate that took place in his head. He turned then and saw me watching him, and said, "Well, Dawn, I have made up my mind now not even to wait a day at Crickhollow, if it can be helped."
"Very good," I replied. I took a drink of the sweet liquid they had left for us.
"You still mean to come with me?"
"I do."
"Neither of us may ever come back."
I sighed and set the cup I was using down, then moved closer to him, took his hands in mine, and said, "Frodo, I know all this. And even though I know you wouldn't have me risk this just for you, in your heart of hearts I know you want me with you. And in my heart of hearts, I know I would rather die a thousand times at the hands of the Black Riders than leave you to go on this quest alone and unaided. If you do not come back from this journey, I will not either. Yes, I would grieve to make Bella an orphan at such a young age, but I could not bear to live without you. And besides, I promised the Elves that I would never leave you."
"The Elves?"
"We had some talk last night, as you slept. They told me to never leave you, and I don't mean to. Besides the fact that I love you, there is something else telling me that before the end, I will have a part to play in this, something very important to do, and I can't go home until it's done. Does that make sense?"
"I don't really understand that, but I understand that I chose a good companion, and wife. I am content." He finished eating, and then he and Pippin argued about which way we should take to get to Bucklebury Ferry. We ended up deciding to cut through the woods and fields instead of staying on the road, both to cut the miles and avoid the Black Riders. There were a few incidents in which we saw them, and in which they undoubtedly saw us, but we managed to avoid another direct confrontation with them. Then we reached Farmer Maggot's fields, and Pippin led us on to visit old Maggot.
As we approached the gate, we heard the baying of hounds and a voice goading them on. Then through the gate came three large dogs, all very wolfish, and they came towards us. They ignored Pippin, for some reason, and came to Frodo and I. The two smaller ones cornered me on the fence as the bigger one growled at Frodo. Farmer Maggot appeared then, and had some small talk with Pippin, and called off the dogs, for which I was thankful. (I've always preferred cats.) Then he invited us into his home.
We had dinner with he and his wife and nine others, and there were many kinds of food, including mushrooms fried with bacon. We were quite full when dinner was through, and I had more than forgiven Farmer Maggot for the terror of his dogs. Although, as he was talking with Frodo about the Black Rider that had visited him that day, he mentioned that folks in Hobbiton were queer, and that he shouldn't have gotten mixed up with them. I took back some of the forgiveness I had given, for I and my family were from Hobbiton, and there was nothing wrong with us.
Maggot offered to give us a ride in his waggon to the Ferry, and we agreed. So we wrapped up in blankets and cloaks to hide ourselves and rode on to the Ferry. There we sat for but a moment when the sound of hooves was heard on the road. I knew it was Merry coming to check on us, but the others did not, and Maggot got down from the waggon to confront the stranger. I said to Frodo, depending on my meager skills as an actor to seem anxious, "Get down in the waggon and cover up with blankets." He did as I said, and I sat closer to him, to seem to be hiding him.
I was having trouble hiding a smile, so sure I was of it being Merry there in the fog. Then, a shiver ran down my spine as I sensed that something was not right, not right at all. Farmer Maggot cried out, "Hallo there!" and the hooves stopped coming. To my growing horror, I could barely make out a sound of sniffing, as if the advancing rider were smelling for something. "Now then!" continued Maggot. "Don't you come a step nearer! What do you want, and where are you going?"
Fear took hold of me, and I threw myself onto the waggon floor boards next to Frodo as the rider replied, "I am searching for Baggins. Have you seen him?" It was the voice of the Black Rider. I heard the hooves move again, coming closer.
Maggot said, "You again? I told you Baggins wasn't here any more; he's up in Hobbiton. And if you say he's gone now, then he isn't here, for sure. He wouldn't come visit me; I beat him when he was young, for stealing my mushrooms."
"What's in the waggon?" I heard a rustling beside me, and in the space between the blanket and the floor board I saw Frodo's hand moving towards the chain around his neck, which had fallen out of his shirt and revealed the Ring. His fingers were almost touching it. I quickly but quietly grabbed his hand to keep him from putting on the Ring and revealing us to the Rider. He looked at me, and I sqeezed his hand, trying to look reassuring.
"Just my friend, young Pippin, and some blankets and such for us when we get cold."
"I wish to find Baggins. If he comes, tell me."
"I'll be telling what I think I should be telling. Now away with you!" The Rider hissed, it seemed, and for a moment I feared it would attack, but then I heard the hooves receding into the distance and breathed a sigh of relief. Pippin pulled the blankets back from Frodo and I.
"Now I can't decide," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "Whether you two were hiding from the rider, or were just taking a chance to have some privacy." Frodo and I laughed weakly, but looking at each other, we both knew what we had really been doing under there. We had both been scared to death, and one of us had almost given in. We climbed down from the waggon and stood next to the ferry as Farmer Maggot said his goodbyes. Then he handed Frodo a basket of mushrooms and headed back the way we came.