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The Distance to the Stars
['Lord of the Rings', post-'The Return of the King', Sam-angst.
500 words.]
******
Elanor was only thirty-four, the first time.
She had been walking back from a visit to her mother's cousins in
Bywater, cutting through the woods on paths she could follow even
when darkness had fallen. A faint slice of moon hung high above,
often disappearing behind the heavy grey clouds scudding north.
She'd found her father lying under a beech tree, resting on a
deep drift of copper leaves as he stared up at the sky between
the bare branches.
"Daddy?" she said, kneeling by his side to take his
hand, which felt cool and clammy. Leaves crunched beneath her,
dying small deaths.
"Oh, hello, Ellie," he said, face still turned upwards.
"I can't see the stars, pet. Did someone put them out?"
"No," she said wondering if he had a fever. "No,
they're there. They're just behind the clouds, is all."
"Oh. Yes, I see. How stupid of me. Silly old Sam Gamgee."
He stared up to the dim heavens for a moment or two more, and
then looked at her...or through her, it felt, as if at something
far distant. "I'm sure Mr. Frodo sees them," he said,
sounding as though he was speaking to himself, inside a private
dream of his own. "You know, where he is. I don't suppose
there's anything in that country to come between him and the
starlight."
Elanor curled her fingers more tightly around his. Tears prickled
hotly behind her eyes. "I'm sure, Daddy," she said, her
voice rough. "I'm sure that's the way of it."
To her Frodo was no more than a collection of names - Mr. Frodo,
the Ring-bearer, Frodo Nine-Fingers, Mr. Baggins-who-went-over-the-water.
Names, and stories told in quiet voices sometimes, on cold nights
when the fire was low. She had only ever seen one portrait of him,
a picture copied from a sketch drawn by some Man in far-off
Gondor after the Ring War. The King had sent it nine years ago,
along with a letter that her father had wept over a little, in
his clumsy, open way. It hung over the mantel in Bag End; a
gentle, weary face, eyes like the Brandywine lying under a summer
dusk. There was a sorrow sunk somewhere in those painted eyes, a
faint shadow, and she saw it now lying over her father's face.
She helped her father to his feet, and arm in arm they set out
for home. "I'm sorry, love," he muttered. "Just...I'm
just a bit tired is all. No need to tell your mam, eh?"
He stumbled on a tree-root, and she held him up, but she thought
that he felt heavy, as if the ground were pulling at him through
the soles of his feet. "Look, Daddy," she said, as they
came out of the woods and started up towards the bright windows
of Bag End. "The even-star's risen."
She watched his face as he looked up into the far western sky,
and wondered how long it would be before he left them.
*****
FINIS
*****
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