Aislin had heard stories about 'those folk on the hill' for as long as she could remember. There was always, it seemed, some reason to gossip about them. And oh, how grand they sounded, so many fat little babies running about that even their parents couldn't keep track of how many there were some days. That's what people said, anyway. Aislin didn't know how anybody could possibly forget even one.
Owen was the only brother Aislin had, and a little whiny one at that; older than her in years but smaller in height and less serious of purpose when it came to important matters. He hated the way she never shut up about the Gardner family, but had a fascination with them of his own. It wasn't fair, after all, that those laughing children should have three parents where Owen and Aislin didn't even have one. They were being raised by their Aunty Kiara, who was nice enough but so Tookish in her makeup that she was prone to vanishing for weeks on end, coming back with a lot of sunburn but no explanation.
Once Owen had questioned the fact that they thought of their aunt as just that, an aunt, but that Frodo Baggins, whom the Gardner brood called 'uncle', was the same as a father or a mother, and not an uncle at all. Aislin had looked at her brother in her usual annoyed way and called him a stupid old bald-foot. The Gardners weren't like ordinary people, they were more like fairy story characters, and didn't have to play by boring regular rules in matters of family. They were special.
Aunty Kiara was their father's sister; sometimes when she'd been gone for a few days Owen and Aislin went to see their only other living relations. Mum had had a sister, too, and Aunty Lila was almost as strange as Aunty Kiara in some respects. She insisted that all her children, and Owen and Aislin too, had to wish on stars before bedtime, and kiss the morning hello when they woke up.
Owen didn't like his cousins, he told Aislin that this was because they had a proper family but secretly Aislin thought it might be because they never let him cheat at hide-and-seek. There was Flora, who had black hair and needed a special glass to read books with, she was the oldest. Then came Aster, who was as daffy as her mother and twice as scatterbrained. Basil, who thought Owen was a brute, and wanted to be a leatherworker like his father. Last came Adair, who had been named after the baby that Owen and Aislin's mother had birthed too soon. Both mother and babe had faded away before dawn that night, and the father had been clumsy with the horses a month later out of loss. Neither of the orphaned children liked Adair very much as a result, they felt he was somehow responsible by proxy for their situation.
There was another reason to hate Adair, too, one that seemed far more unfair than things that had happened six years before. Adair was friends with Ruby and Robin Gardner, and Bilbo (when the older boy was feeling magnanimous), and this was more than Aislin and Owen could bear.
"They don't know how many babies they have, it's said. We could walk right in and pretend that we belonged," suggested Aislin once in a while, but they knew it would never work. The Gardner children tanned in the sun, or grew sprinkles of brown freckles on their noses. Aislin and Owen had the same queer orange hair and abundant orange freckles as their parents; they didn't look like anyone except each other.
They liked to pretend they could, though, and creep up to crouch under the windows and watch dinnertimes. There were so many children, some so big they were almost full-grown hobbits, but nobody was squished up on the corner of the table. Everyone had a plate and a mug, and enough food to fill their tummies up to bursting. It made Owen and Aislin's own stomachs hurt to see them; they had good enough dinners of their own usually, but none of the other comforts enjoyed by the Gardners. It wasn't fair at all, but they could never stop looking.
They were doing just this, one night when Aunty Kiara had wandered off again and Aunty Lila's husband had taken his family to visit other relatives near Hardbottle. Aislin and Owen knew well enough how to make themselves a bite to eat and put themselves to bed, but the temptation to walk up to Bag End and spy on their fairy-story family was too great to resist.
"That's Elanor. She's the oldest," whispered Aislin, watching a fair-haired tween mend the hem on a doll's dress.
"Shhh, I know, ninny! Be quiet!" Owen hissed in reply, punching Aislin on the arm. Inside, Elanor looked up and smiled at her uncle as he sat beside her.
"Ouch! That hurt, you mean pig." Aislin shoved at Owen, scowling, and sent him sprawling into the small shovel someone had left propped against the wall. The shovel fell to the ground with a clatter and a thud, and Frodo and Elanor looked at each other in surprise and puzzlement. Aislin and Owen wore matching expressions of wide-eyed terror as Frodo Baggins, who generated more gossip than the rest of his family put together twice over, opened the window and looked down at them.
"Hullo there. You two are the biggest nasturtians Sam's ever grown, I must say," he said with a smile.
Aislin gulped. "We were just... just..." she looked at her brother, hoping he had thought of something. He hadn't.
"Why don't you come inside while you work out your excuses, hmm?" Elanor asked, joining Frodo at the windowsill. "You can have some of my carrot cake, my rotten brothers and sisters wouldn't eat a single bite because they knew I'd made it."
"Doesn't look like they need any more carrots. Or pumpkin, or oranges," joked Frodo.
"Oh, hush, Uncle Frodo, you of all people should know that it isn't nice to tease those who look different." With that gentle chiding, Elanor offered her hand down. "Here, climb in, it's a big window."
Struck speechless, Aislin and Owen stood in the study of Bag End. The sounds of a heated argument were cut off abruptly in another room by the stern tones of an adult.
"That's Rose, the mum," Aislin whispered to Owen. Frodo and Elanor exchanged another smile.
"What were you doing out there, little nasturians?" Frodo asked them in a soft, kind voice, leading them over to the cushions strewn about near the fire, obviously meant for children to sit on while listening to stories. Elanor slipped out the door as Frodo spoke again. "Where are your parents?"
"Dead," answered Owen, shrugging. "Since I was three and Ais was one and a half. She can't remember them, but I can sometimes."
"You poor things." Frodo sat down beside them on the floor, as if he was a little boy himself and not a grown-up gentlehobbit who had written books and gone on adventures and raised lots and lots of children. "My Mum and Dad died when I was small, too. I grew up with my cousins."
"We have cousins, but our Aunty and Uncle don't have enough money to look after us as well as them." Aislin felt that the whole situation was so like a dream that it didn't matter at all if she said too much. After all, they couldn't really be here in Bag End, could they?
"I know that look, Elanorelle." Sam's voice sounded from the hallway. "It's the same one Frodo gets when he's got a scheme up his sleeve. So long as there are no more burns on the carpet or breaks in the windows, I'll turn a blind eye. I know better than to try and meddle in the things you get up to."
"Thanks, Dad," laughed Elanor. "We'll just say you never saw me smuggling carrot cake into the study and be done with it."
"Right."
Elanor opened the door and carried the supper inside, still chuckling from the joke with her father.
"Now that we've got rations," said Frodo. "How would you children like to hear a story with two endings?"
Aislin and Owen looked very puzzled. Elanor, covering a yawn with her hand, departed again, leaving storyteller and audience alone.
"You see," Frodo explained. "This story struck young Hamfast's fancy so much that he's made up a different finish to it. Perhaps you'd like to hear it?"
"Yes!" the children chorused, in agreement for once. Frodo smile, and then began to read the story out of a book with a brown leather cover and rounded corners on the pages.
Once upon a time there was a girl. Maybe she was a hobbit, perhaps she was something else. People didn't worry so much about things like that, back then.
Whatever she was, she was good-natured, and clever, and her eyes were clear and her mouth enjoyed smiling. Her name was Sarah, and she worked as a servant for a very rich family who treated her abominably. Sarah had no parents and no friends, but she had dreams aplenty and was happy, even if she was lonely too.
One day a white bear came to the house of the very rich family and knocked on the door. He wanted to take Sarah away with him, because he loved her, and was willing to give the rich family a dozen chests of gold for her.
Of course, the family said yes, because they were terribly greedy. Sarah was a bit afraid of the bear, and a bit curious too, because nobody had ever loved her before.
The bear carried Sarah on his back for a day and a night, until at dawn they reached a magnificent castle. Then, to Sarah's surprise, the bear transformed into a man; he had white, white hair even though he was no older than she was.
"Sarah," said the man. "My name is Blake. I am king of this castle, and all the lands you see around it. But I am only human once each day, at sun-rise, so it wouldn't be fair to make you my queen."
Sarah cried then, because she had fallen in love with Blake, and wanted to marry him.
"Don't cry, for there is hope for us yet. If you marry me, and then we do not touch for a year, the spell will be broken and I shall be a man always."
Sarah's crying turned to laughing, and she nodded and said yes.
Sarah and Blake were happy, usually. They had to be very careful when they sat down to breakfast, not to brush hands when passing the salt or butter.
When Sarah watched Blake, shaped as a bear, sleep in the sunshine, she longed to touch his silky fur. When Blake saw Sarah braiding her hair and singing, he wished to hug her soft belly. But they couldn't, so they didn't.
What Blake hadn't told Sarah was that the bear-spell had been placed upon him by a cruel sorcerer, who wanted the kingdom for himself. This sorcerer saw that Sarah and Blake were only days away from breaking the curse, so he scowled and waved his hands and enchanted them to opposite ends of the world.
Nobody knows what had happened to make the sorcerer so sour, except perhaps the man himself, and he never told. The fact remains, however, that he was a wicked and hard man, hungry for power.
He locked Blake in a house made of diamond, with only a magical doll made of rags and ribbons for company. Sarah was imprisoned in iron shoes, which pinched her toes and made her heels bleed when she tried to take a step, and the only company she had was a tin soldier with one leg.
Blake had no choice but to sit and wait and sit, inside the diamond house with the ribbon-rag girl. Sarah, however, gritted her teeth and learned to ignore the pinching in her toes, and after a while her heels grew tough and stopped bleeding with each step. She set off, with the tin soldier hopping along beside her, in search of her love.
They walked through deserts, where they found bottles with spirits inside and men who could charm snakes to dance. They walked through forests where witches ate children and wolves ate grandmothers. They sailed over oceans where fish jumped out of the water and eels sparked like lightning.
They had thousands of adventures, Sarah and the tin soldier, some of which are recorded elsewhere, and some of which are forgotten entirely. The iron shoes wore away to nothing, so Sarah went to a cobbler and had shoes of mithril made. Eventually those wore away to nothing too, for these adventures had stretched over years and years. So then Sarah and the tin soldier went to another cobbler to buy a pair of boots made of the two biggest diamonds the world has ever seen, before or since. The left was slightly smaller than the right, and left part of her ankle bare, but Sarah didn't mind that in the least.
And they walked and journeyed and adventured, and bards wrote songs about them, and eventually they reached a land as far away as daydreams. Sarah's shoes had worn away to little more than nothing, and then to nothing at all, when at last they reached a house that glittered like sun on water, made out of diamonds.
Blake saw Sarah, and Sarah saw Blake, and they longed as longingly as anyone has ever longed to touch each other, for the bear-curse had been broken a dozen times over while they were apart.
Now, Sarah's feet had grown tougher with every step on her journey, tougher than iron or mithril or, eventually, diamond. So she raised one foot and flexed the toes and kicked and kicked and kicked, and knocked down the diamond house. Then Sarah and Blake embraced each other, and kissed, and got married all over again, and lived happily ever after.
Frodo shut the book and looked up at Aislin and Owen again. "Now, that's the story as it was written years and years ago, by a hobbit much wiser than you or I. Primrose refuses to hear any version but that one, she feels it only proper to leave the story unaltered."
"I agreed," sniffed Owen, trying to look as if he was too big and brave to be so soppy about a fairytale.
"I want to hear the other way for it to end," demanded Aislin. "That ending's nice and poetical, I suppose, but I'm sure that there's more to it, other ways for it to go."
"Well, in the other ending Ham's writing for it, Sarah kicks down the wall just the same, and hugs Blake, but then they both sort of stand there looking uncomfortable. Because Blake's fallen in love with the rag-and-ribbon doll, and Sarah's grown very fond of going on wild journeys with the tin soldier. So they hug again, and wave goodbye to each other once more. And although this way of finishing the tale doesn't have a misty and distant happy-ever-after for everyone to stay in forever, it has the promise of more stories to come, which some would say is just as satisfactory as a conclusion." Frodo sat back and let the children think about that for a moment. Aislin nodded, a smile on her face.
"Oh yes, I think so. I like that way."
"But it's not true. It's just what somebody thinks would be a nice way to finish it, it's not the really-real end," objected Owen.
"It's all imaginings anyway, no ending's more real that another. At least with both on offer the reader has a bit of choice about it."
"And the characters, too," Aislin piped up. "I bet they like having more than one finish to live in if they want to."
Frodo laughed gently. "Perhaps. People too often forget to give their characters a say in the proceedings, don't they? You've got the makings of a writer about you yourself, I think. Would you like to help Ham write his story?"
Aislin nodded again. "Yes, yes, yes! I would love to."
"It'll wait until morning, though. Time for little nasturtians to be in bed. Now, there isn't a lot of room here, it's a big home but we're a big family, and we only just fit. If you two don't mind a bit of a walk, though, I know just the place for you to stay."
"You don't have to -" Aislin started to say, but Owen pinched her. He was very sleepy, and wanted a rest in a warm bed, and didn't feel guilty at all about accepting hospitality.
Frodo walked them down the hill and along the lane and up a neat gravel path with yellow flowers growing either side. He knocked on the door, then took a step back as if he was afraid of whatever was on the other side. Owen and Aislin couldn't imagine anything in the world that Frodo Baggins could possibly be frightened of.
A lady hobbit with plump cheeks and eyes that didn't look like they were happy very often opened the door, obviously surprised to have visitors so late.
"Marigold, I hope you don't mind me dropping in. This is Aislin, and this is Owen. They need somewhere to stay."
"Two rooms please, I don't want to share with this ninny," Owen said with a grin, elbowing Aislin. He liked the look of Marigold; she seemed the type to hug well.
"I'm sure we'll find the room somehow." Marigold smiled at them, ushering them inside. "Hot milk for you both, and a wash of your faces, and then to bed. The rest can be sorted out in the morning." Then she looked up at Frodo. "You are a queer one, I can never pin what you'll do next... tell that rabble of my brother's that I said hello." Marigold paused. "And tell your lad, Sammie, tell him hello too."
The light from the entryway behind her cast a golden halo around her head, softening her often pinched features and making her smile break brightly through the shadows. Frodo returned the expression.
"They're all mine, Marigold, every last one of them. And Sam's, and Rose's. Family is whatever you make it."
"Ouch, Ais, stop poking me!" a young voice called from somewhere inside. The two grown-ups laughed together, the first time they'd ever felt at such ease in each other's company.
"Well, that sounds like proof of your prophecy." Marigold said through her laughs. "See you later, Mister Frodo. And no more unexpected visits without proper warning for a while, please."
Frodo waved goodbye, and set off home.
~
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