The Trees

He heard the music before he opened his eyes. More, he kept them closed deliberately, the better to listen.

The singing reminded him of Lothlorien, and he thought it must be Elves. But the language was nothing he had ever heard, and there was a rhythm he had never felt in Elven music. Familiar, that rhythm was, and he held very still, trying to place it. Finally he realized that it marched with the beat of his own heart, and his eyes flew open all on their own from surprise.

What was this place?

There had been a tree – he thought he remembered that. An enormous mallorn, all golden in its winter foliage. He looked around. There were still trees, but not mallorns. Fruit trees, but not any kind he recognized. He got to his feet and started wandering among them, looking closely at leaf and bark and fruit. There was something very strange about them. They seemed all the same kind, but some were in blossom, others had small green fruit just beginning to form, on some the fruit was full-formed but not yet ripe, and on yet others the fruit was ripe and fragrant. The ripe fruit was beautiful, mouth-watering, and he was tempted to taste it.

He put his hands in his pockets. The trees were well-shaped and cared for, the grass under his feet neatly trimmed. Plainly this was someone’s garden, and he had no permission to help himself.

How had he gotten here?

There had been the mallorn. In the Party Field, that was it. The mallorn he had planted long ago, the seed hidden in Galadriel’s little box of earth. When they came back from the Quest, he had planted it. And it sprang up that first spring, and grew and grew until it was the grandest tree anywhere in the Shire, towering over Hobbiton, majestic, giving his spirit a lift every time he looked at it.

That was his real gift from Galadriel – not the box, but the mallorn. And it was fitting, now he thought about it, that his gift had been a seed that he had to plant, and wait for it to grow. Just like it was fitting that Frodo’s gift had been a phial of light…

Frodo.

He’d been under the mallorn with Frodo.

No, that couldn’t be right. The mallorn was enormous, its branches nearly touching the ground, the area underneath a spacious room all full of golden light. The Party Field mallorn had been young, a sapling only, when Frodo left the Shire.

His eyes caught a flash of light off to the right, and he turned aside. A few dozen steps brought him to the bank of a river that seemed to sparkle like crystal, and on the other side another grove of trees. The light on the water glinted and flashed in his eyes, and he looked up, expecting to see the sun high in the sky. The sky was bluer than any sky he had ever seen, the very essence of blueness without the least hint of a cloud, but no matter how he strained his eyes, he couldn’t find the sun.

A very odd place this was, however you looked at it.

I must be dreaming, he thought. Wasn’t I going to have a nap? Under the mallorn it was, and we’d been talking and having a smoke, and I said, I’m going to have a nap –

I said to Frodo, I’m going to have a nap. And he said, we have to go home, Sam, but we’ll go together. And I said, you don’t mean the Shire. And then he went to sleep, but it was more than sleep, he wasn’t breathing right, and I closed my eyes and hurried to follow him…

I’m dead, then. This is death.

He looked out over the shining water, the groves of fruit trees lining both banks and the golden light lying all around him. He stretched out his arms and looked at them, flexed his fingers, looked down at his feet and wiggled his toes. Suddenly he let out a shout of laughter and slapped his knees.

“Stars and glory, this is death? But I’ve never been so alive, never, in all my life!”

“No, you never have,” said a voice behind him, and he stopped still, listening. He had heard that voice before. Where had he heard that voice before? He turned slowly.

It was the Man he had seen by the waterfall in Tol Eressea. His memory was coming back, and he remembered being there with Frodo, sitting wakeful by the water while Frodo slept, and this Man had been there too. Had been there, and somehow had taken the weight from his heart, the long years of missing Frodo and fretting over him.

“You’re Iluvatar’s Son,” he said, and he knew it was true, but not what it meant.

“Iluvatar’s Son, the Prince of Peace, the Everlasting Father, the Beginning and the End. I am all of those.”

“You healed him.” Sam knelt, looking him in the eye. “He told me how you healed him. Thank you.”

The Son came and lifted him up, wrapped his arms around the hobbit and held him close, rocking him back and forth. Sam closed his eyes and yielded to the motion, and although he had felt no need of comforting, he was comforted to the depths of his heart.

“Oh Samwise, you make me glad that I created hobbits! But you’ve come now to where there is only one Master. Will you give your loyalty to me, as you gave it to Frodo?”

Sam leaned back to look up at him. That was a hard question, that was, and he wasn’t sure what was meant by it.

“Do you mean I can’t love him no more, sir, nor be his Sam?”

“You can love him, but you must be my Sam, as he is my Frodo, and Rosie is my Rose.”

“Because it was you that made us, made all the hobbits.”

“Hobbits and Elves and Men, Wizards and Valar and everything that is. Yes, Sam.”

Sam remembered something else, and he twisted in the Son’s embrace and took one of his hands to look at it. It was just as Frodo had told him, pierced through, the wound open and unhealed, raw, painful to look at. This was worse, far worse, than Frodo’s missing finger.

“Seems like you’ve paid a mighty price, sir, caring for what you made.” He looked up into the Son’s face, his eyes clear and direct. “I’ll be your Sam and thank you for asking. But I’d dearly like to see Frodo again, if you don’t mind.”

The Man’s face shone like the sun that Sam had been unable to find. “You will see him, Sam. You’re home now, so go search out the land, and you will find all that your heart desires. And, Sam,” he added, “you may eat the fruit. As much as you want.”

Sam blinked in a dazzlement of light, and when he could see again, he was alone.

The River

He was wading, the water cool around his knees, and the water sparkled as if it were more than just a trick of the light. He could feel it sparkling, as if it burst in invisible bubbles against his skin, and the sensation delighted him. He waded deeper and deeper, until the water lapped his chin, and then he began to swim.

He hadn’t swum since he was a boy, playing in the river with his Brandybuck cousins. Hobbits didn’t swim, not usually, but the Brandybucks did, and he had been among the best. When Merry got old enough, he taught him, and they’d had races – underwater, so the onlookers on shore couldn’t tell who was winning until one of their heads surfaced by the mark. He grinned, remembering, and got a mouthful of the effervescent water.

It surprised him, and he breathed in without thinking. For a moment he was afraid, out in deep water for the first time in how many years? I’m going to drown, he thought, just like my parents – then realized that he hadn’t choked or coughed, he had breathed the water, as if he’d been transformed into a fish!

He turned over, startled, and looked down his body. No, not a fish. But where had he lost his clothes? No wonder the water felt so marvelous; he was skinnydipping! And what would Aunt Eglantine say to that, he thought mischievously, and chortled at the idea.

But he had breathed that water, or so it seemed. Could he do it again? He put his face in and tried it. A little, shallow breath to experiment – there was no discomfort; it was just like breathing air. He lifted his face and laughed, triumphant, in the open air; then he dove, down and down to the sandy bottom, graceful and swift as a minnow.

This was swimming as he had never dreamed of it. No trace of fear, no rush to get back up to the air before his breath ran out. The water tingled deliciously against his skin, but didn’t burn his eyes. He swam leisurely, eyes wide open, exploring a world he had never imagined.

Fish streaked by him, in every color of the rainbow. A little one, just the color of green apples, bumped his nose and veered off to one side. He tried not to laugh, then remembered that he could breathe water and laughed anyway. A stream of bubbles erupted from his mouth, and he rolled onto his back, drifting like seaweed a few feet above the bottom, and watched the bubbles rise to the surface, a sheet of gleaming silver far above. He laughed again, half for joy, half for the pleasure of watching more bubbles.

He trailed his fingers along the sandy bottom and disturbed a crayfish. He stared at it – no common crayfish, this, patterned in pale pink and lilac, iridescent like mother-of-pearl. It skittered away – it moved like an ordinary crayfish, anyway – and his attention was caught by the rock it had been sheltering behind.

The rock was rough and craggy, the size of his fist, and it shone purple in the clear water. He took it in his hand and ran his fingers over it. Rough, many jagged spires and indentations, yet each face individually was smooth as glass. Amethyst? A large purple fish swam past him, slowly, just a shade darker than the rock in his hand.

A purple fish. A hunk of amethyst in a sandy river bed. Breathing water, for that matter.

This was the strangest dream he had ever had, and he thought he’d had some strange ones in his time. Never one so pleasant, though.

Something caught his ankle, stopped his forward movement. Fear nibbled at his mind again, and he twisted to see what it was. What he saw made him drop the amethyst and gape in blank astonishment.

Pippin?

Decidedly this was the best dream ever. He was never waking up from this one, not if he could help it. He hadn’t seen Pippin in – was it sixty years? He’d lost his sense of time in Tol Eressea, but hadn’t Sam mentioned sixty years? (And where was Sam? Shouldn’t Sam be in this dream too?)

“I didn’t know you could swim,” he said, sending up another stream of bubbles. His voice sounded strange underwater, hollow and slow.

Pippin grinned – how well he remembered that lopsided grin! “It’s not much of a trick when you can breathe water. Are you going to stay down here all day, cousin?”

Frodo twitched his ankle out of Pippin’s grasp and tried a handstand on the river bottom. He managed to hold it for a couple of heartbeats before the current toppled him over. A crab scuttled between his hands. A brilliant blue crab. He followed it with his eyes.

“Why not?” he said. “I like it down here. I may just live here from now on. I’ll dig a hole in the sand and be the world’s first water-dwelling hobbit.”

“You can do that later. There’s someone waiting for you topside.” Pippin grabbed his wrist to drag him bodily up to the surface, but an odd look passed over his face and he stopped.

“Frodo? What happened to your hand?”

His enjoyment of the dream vanished in an instant. If he had to explain about his hand – and to Pippin, who knew well enough what happened to it –

His hand had been a burning shame to him since Mordor, his missing finger an ever-present reminder of his failure. His -- unworthiness. He wrenched himself free and pushed off the bottom with both feet, thrusting for the surface as fast as he could. Pippin caught up with him as he reached the shallows and stood up, waist deep in the water.

“Frodo, wait! Look at your hand!”

He looked, and did not believe. He held up the other hand – impossible that he could have forgotten which hand had only four fingers! – but no, they were both alike. Five fingers on each hand. There were no scars; the skin was smooth and unmarked, only his fingertips wrinkled from the water. He held them up to the light of day, staring in astonishment and relief, and tears ran unnoticed down his face. His shame was taken away.

“Every time I meet you, Frodo, you’re crying,” said a voice from the riverbank. “Come out now, child.”

Close by the water stood the Man he had met in Tol Eressea. Only once had he seen him, and then, indeed, he had cried – cried as he had not since the day they told him his parents were dead.

Iluvatar’s Son, this Man had named himself. And he had made Frodo face his sorrow and pain over the Ring and the manner of its destruction, and then he had taken it all away. Frodo had been heart-whole again, and only his maimed hand had been left to remind him of his failure. Now even his hand was healed.

“You! You did this!” he cried, holding his hands up for the Man to see. “How did you – ? Thank you!”

He began wading out of the water, then stopped in confusion. “Lord, I – uh -- ” He looked down at himself and blushed.

“You are as I made you, Frodo. Come out of the water.”

He waded out, his eyes fixed on the Son, trying not to be embarrassed. He stood before him, dripping wet and naked, and it didn’t matter – he forgot everything else in the total understanding of the eyes that held his own. Here was One who knew him better than he knew himself. And loved him – better than he loved himself.

“I would not have you be ashamed, Frodo. You are my servant, and my very dear child.”

The love reached out to him and filled him. As if he had been waiting for this all his life, some empty place inside him filled, and he was complete. The Son opened his arms and Frodo walked into the embrace as if he were in very truth a child, as if the fate of Middle Earth had never hung round his neck and dragged him to the edge of destruction.

And Pippin stood watching, glowing with reflected joy.

A Hole in the Hill Sam roamed among the trees, munching on ripe fruit. It tasted like nothing on earth, he thought with a grin. A funny expression, that, and perfectly true in this case. It tasted better than anything in Middle Earth, or Tol Eressea either. The juice dripped down his chin and he wiped it on the back of his hand and jumped to pluck another piece from the nearest tree.

He jumped for the sheer joy of it; there was plenty of fruit within easy reach, but his knees would bend and send him leaping up among the branches, just for the delight of doing it. He threw away the fruit pit and jumped again, catching hold of a branch far above the ground and swinging back and forth.

He looked down. Pretty high up, Sam Gamgee. Suppose you’ll break a leg if you let go? Can’t kill yourself, old lad – you’re dead already! He laughed and dropped lightly to the ground.

Ah, well. He could amuse himself for a long time, jumping in and out of these trees, but he really wanted to find Frodo. And Rosie! Rosie should be somewhere about. Suddenly he was in a hurry, and he loaded his pockets with as much fruit as he could fit in them – he wasn’t really hungry, but it never hurt to have a supply of food at hand -- and strode away from the river toward whatever lay beyond this grove of trees.

At the end of the trees the ground rose up in a grassy bank higher than his head. He walked along the bottom, looking for a path, and stumbled suddenly over a stone. A little square of rough paving stones, and set into the hill was a round blue door. A door, and next to it a small, round window.

A hobbit hole? What else could it be? Well, he had hoped to find other hobbits, and seemingly now he had. Suddenly he felt unaccountably shy. He wiped his still-sticky hands on his breeches and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he stepped up and knocked on the door.

It flew open as if his very knock had pushed it, and a whirlwind blew out the door and into his arms.

“Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam!” the whirlwind cried breathlessly, and spun him around until they fell in a dizzy heap on the grass.

“Yes, well, I’m glad to see you too, Rosie!” he said from flat on his back. He looked up at her and marveled. This was not the Rosie he had tended through her last illness, wrinkled and pale and old, the suffering she would not admit plain in her eyes. Even then she had been beautiful to him.

Nor this wasn’t the Rose he’d wed, neither, standing by the little mallorn in the old Party Field back home. Young and lovely, she had been, glowing, like any bride. But this Rosie…..

Ageless. Deathless. Radiant and tender, shining, glorious – oh, he’d never be able to put it into words, not if he kept at it all day. His Rosie.

Well, no. Not his Rosie, not anymore. Only one Master here, and he had an idea that applied to more than just him and Frodo. He felt a qualm for the first time since he’d awakened to the music. What about him and Rosie?

“It’s not less, Sam,” she said quietly. “It’s more.”

“What is, lass?”

“The – the closeness, Sam. It’s because we’re all wedded to Him, all of us, and so we’re wedded to each other too. He makes us all one, and the love goes through everyone and everything…. oh, you’ll see. Wait; you’ll see.”

He picked up her hand and traced his fingertip over it, down each of her fingers; turned it over and softly traced the lines in her palm. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the palm.

“Better, lassie? For true?”

“For true, Sam. You’ll see.” She stood up and tugged at his hand, and he got up. “You just missed Frodo,” she said. “He was here, with Pippin. They came to get him some clothes.”

Sam stared at her. “Clothes? Why didn’t they wait?”

“Well, I suppose they didn’t know you’d be coming so soon. They went off looking for you, into the City. You and Merry.” She laughed delightedly. “Frodo was that funny! ‘Don’t you say a word, Rosie,’ he said. ‘I am the way He made me. Have you got anything here I can put on?’ He looked a lot more comfortable when he got some clothes on!”

“You mean to say he was walking around naked? I’d just bet he was uncomfortable! But why?”

Rose shrugged. “That’s how he found himself when he woke up, is all. The Son told him not to be ashamed – oh, and Sam, his hand is healed! His finger has grown back!”

“Has it now!” Sam grabbed her and spun her around again. “That’ll make him happy, that will, more than anything! Come on, Rosie, where did you say they’d gone? Let’s go after them.”

The City

Rosie walked with them a ways, to show them the path to the city. Frodo watched her covertly, holding back a chuckle. She was like a lass barely out of her tweens, dancing along between them holding their arms, bubbling over with exuberance.

"I'm that glad you've got here at last, Frodo," she said, "and I just wonder where Sam's got himself to! Which one of us will he stumble on first, do you think?"

Frodo laughed. "Well, whichever one it is, must take him in hand and come find the other! Agreed, Rosie? I know where you live now, but will you be able to find me, if he comes to you first?"

"No trouble about that, Frodo Baggins. You can't lose the people you love, not here! I'll find you right enough."

She left them where the path wound up the hill. "Mind you come right back, if you find him!" she said sternly. Then she spoiled the effect by laughing, turning back toward her smial, looking over her shoulder to wave at them.

"No more 'Mr. Frodo'," Pippin observed.

"No, I noticed that. I don't know why she dropped it, but I'm glad she did."

"Something about the air here," Pippin said thoughtfully. "I can't imagine that anyone is better or more important than anyone else – except Him, of course. Everyone else must be like – cousins, maybe. Family.'

They reached the top of the hill, nicely invigorated by the climb. Frodo turned and looked back the way they'd come.

"Oh, Pippin, look!" he breathed. They were high up now, high enough to see over the tops of the trees. Far in the distance the river wound away in grand, generous curves, and even from where they stood it glittered like diamonds. There were other hills far off, sharply outlined against the blue of the sky, and a crystal clarity to the air that made everything seem –

"It's more real, or something," Pippin said. "I don't know how to say it, exactly."

"It's as if the whole world we were used to, was only a dream, or a reflection in a mirror. Now we see the reality." Frodo's voice was soft with wonder, and he sat down in the grass on the brow of the hill. "There's no hurry," he said apologetically, and Pippin sat down cross-legged beside him.

They never could remember how long they lingered there, trying to take in the beauty and the startling immediacy of the scene before them. It was so quiet that they could hear each other's breathing, and then there was a step behind them and there was someone else there, a pair of arms around their shoulders. Pippin leaned back against the arms without looking, chuckling.

"Merry. Oh, Merry! I knew you'd find us."

But when they turned to greet him, Merry was smiling through tears. He knelt by them, wrapping his long arms around both cousins at once, and all he said was their names, over and over, till Pippin twisted free and gave him a push, toppling him over on the ground.

"No crying, Merry! Help me, Frodo – we'll have to tickle the tears right out of him!"

"No! Stop it, Pip!" Merry was laughing now, trying to fend off his cousin's hands, rolling to one side, rising up to catch his wrists. He wrestled Pippin to the ground and held him there, laughing in his face.

"Are you done, you fool of a Took? Will you behave?"

"I always behave, Merry." Pippin sounded aggrieved, but his eyes brimmed with mirth, and in another instant he threw off Merry's restraint and jumped to his feet.

"Come on, we're going into the city to find Sam. Where did you drop from, Merry?"

They started along the path again – it was widening into a road by now – their arms around each other with Merry in the middle. It seemed natural, somehow, to want to hold on to each other, and they didn't even talk for awhile, basking in the happiness of being together again.

There began to be houses along the way, set back from the road and sheltered by trees and bushes, surrounded by gardens. The road itself changed from white stones to smooth paving blocks.

"How did you get here, Merry?" Pippin asked again.

"Came in the gate," Merry said, then stopped, standing in the middle of the road. "That's not much of an answer, is it? How did I get here?"

“Do you remember anything?” Frodo asked. “All I remember is the river. I was in Tol Eressea with Sam, and then I was wading. Nothing in between.”

“We were in Gondor,” Merry said slowly. “I had a message from King Eomer, that he wished to see me again, a Knight of the Mark, before he passed to his fathers. So we went, Peregrin and I, and we were there when he died. And then we went to Gondor.”

“I remember that,” said Pippin. “The city was beautiful, all restored; Gimli and Legolas had brought their people to repair the stonework and plant gardens everywhere they could possibly fit one, and little Bergil had grandchildren as big as he was when I met him! He took us round the city in the daytime, and at night we sat with Elessar and Arwen….”

“Yes,” Merry said softly. “Until you fell sick, Pippin, and couldn’t leave your bed…..”

“I don’t remember that.”

“But I do. And one morning you didn’t waken; I couldn’t rouse you, no matter how I tried. Elessar came then, and tried to comfort me. They carried you to the Silent Street, to Rath Dinen, and laid you to rest among the great ones of Gondor.”

He turned and gripped Pippin’s shoulders, as if to reassure himself that Pippin was really there with him, alive.

“Oh, Merry. My poor Merry.”

“And I wouldn’t leave you. I sat beside you, there in the quiet, and I promised myself I wouldn’t leave, not unless they dragged me away. I suppose I fell asleep. And – the next thing I remember is standing outside the gate this morning. There was a child there, playing with a little dog, and I asked her where I could find someone who looked like me. I didn’t think she would know about halflings, but she said, ‘Oh, the hobbits live down by the Trees of Life. Follow that road till it ends and go on down the hill.’ So I did, and there you were.”

He leaned his forehead against Pippin's and closed his eyes. "There you were," he repeated. Pippin pulled him into a hug and Frodo stood as close to them as he could get, massaging both their backs, and finally just holding them.

“Here we all are,” Pippin said at last. “And all’s well that ends well, as Sam would say.”

Frodo laughed and pulled away. “Yes, that’s exactly what Sam would say! But where is he? What did you call those trees, Merry? Trees of Life? I didn’t pay much attention to them. I wonder if that’s where Sam is.”

“Well, it sounds like where he’d be, unless he's found a garden to ramble around in,” Pippin said, “but we didn’t see him there. Rose will tell him where we’ve gone, Frodo. He’s bound to turn up on her doorstep eventually.”

“I hope so. I wouldn’t want him to think I left him again.”

They had started walking once more. Pippin reached over and lightly thumped the back of Frodo’s head. “He’s not going to think that. He’ll find you – he always does.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to worry here, Frodo,” Merry told him, sounding only half in jest.

“I wonder what the cure for that is?” Pippin mused. “If you ask me, I think you woke up naked to teach you not to be ashamed, so what would cure you of worrying?”

“I don’t want to know!" Frodo said hastily. "I’m not worried! Sam will turn up – look, isn’t that a hobbit up ahead?”

They were well into the city now, the street lined with houses and crowded with people of every size and description. Most of them were taller than the hobbits, but there were a fair number of children, even babies who looked too young to be out of their mothers’ arms, running in and out among the adults, playing. They bumped into people sometimes, but no one seemed to mind – in fact, there was a holiday atmosphere to the whole scene, and many people were walking arm in arm like the hobbits, or clustered in little groups that looked like reunions of long-lost friends, laughing and crying in each other’s arms. Under the sound of laughter and voices there ran a current of music, jubilant, wordless, as if all the birds that ever were had formed a choir and begun to sing in harmony.

Up ahead where Frodo pointed, a short, rather stout figure was moving with the crowd. As they watched, he was joined by a woman of like stature, who took his hand with casual familiarity. For a moment her face was turned toward them, and Frodo gave a cry and took off running.

“Mum! Dad! Mum!”

He caught himself just before he crashed into them and threw his arms round them, trying to encompass them both in one hug. It was impossible; they were both of far stockier build than he was, but they gathered him in, the way a hen tucks an errant chick under her wing. He disappeared into their embrace in a confused murmur of “Dad!” “Frodo! Little Frodo!” while Merry and Pippin stood leaning against each other, shaking their heads and grinning.

“Right,” said Merry, “well, we won’t see him again for a while. Come on, Pippin, I want to show you the gate. You won’t believe it; the new gates they made for Minas Tirith are nothing to it! I don’t suppose they have anything like it even in Avallone, over the Sea.”

“There’s another thing they haven’t got in Minas Tirith, Merry – I don’t know about Avallone. Have you looked at what we’re walking on?”

They halted and looked down, Merry rubbing his toes back and forth over the pavement. “It’s so smooth,” he said. “Smooth and cool. It’s nice to walk on.”

“It should be. It’s gold, Merry! The street is paved with gold!”

Merry looked blank. Gold? He stared up and down the street, tried to count how many streets they had already wandered down. He looked at the houses alongside, set all about with flowering trees. The houses appeared to be made of the same material as the pavement, and he remembered the Golden Hall of Meduseld. But the streets?

“They can’t be. Look around – there isn’t that much gold in all of Arda! It must be something else, something that just looks like gold. Anyway, nobody would pave a street with it!”

“Well, somebody did. They don’t pave the streets with it in Minas Tirith, but I saw enough gold there to recognize it when I see it. And what makes you think we’re still in Arda?” He looked sideways at his friend. “We’re dead, Merry; you realize that, don’t you? We’re right outside the circles of the world. We don’t know where we are!”

Merry’s arm tightened around his shoulder.

“No, we don’t know where we are. But we’re together, Pip. And there’s an air to this place – I don’t know. As if no one could ever do anything cruel here, or underhanded…. It’s like the Elves, only much more so. Noble, if a place can be noble.”

They went on, winding their way through the crowd, two little figures hardly to be noticed among the tall people around them. And not just men and women – there were other, even taller beings, strange and luminous, as if they were made of light. They were substantial enough, however, as Pippin found out when he bumped into one. The force of the collision knocked him to the ground. Before Merry could help him, the stranger had lifted him right up, brushing him off and setting him on his feet with tender care.

“Forgive me, Master Hobbit! My mind was wandering, and I forgot to look down.” The voice was deep and musical, the words kind, but for all that, the hobbits drew back in alarm; they could not have said why.

The shining stranger laid a hand on each of their heads. “Do not be afraid, small ones. I am a Messenger of the Most High, whom you call Iluvatar. You are newly arrived, are you not?”

“Yes,” said Merry, screwing up his courage. “Only today. Or – ” He wondered suddenly. “I think it was today. Pippin? When did you get here?”

Pippin didn’t answer. Today? A week ago? He had no idea. He had found himself standing by the river, watching the play of light on the water. Someone had come behind him, wrapping arms around him, and he had relaxed into the embrace without thought or fear.

All the dark memories he had hidden even from himself, ever since the Quest, had arisen in his mind, and with the arms around him he had felt strong to face them at last. And the memories had peeled away, one after another, like the layers of an onion. Peeled away and vanished, until the solid core was revealed: the stolen palantir and the encounter with the Dark Lord, and then he had trembled and been afraid – but the core of darkness shrank and shrank away to nothing at all.

Lightness, dancing lightness, had filled him, and the Man holding him had grabbed his hands and swung him in a wide circle, around and around, till his feet left the ground and he laughed aloud, and the Son laughed with him, for that was who it was. At last the glorious spin had slowed and stopped, and the Son steadied him on his feet and pointed to the water.

"Go down and get Frodo for me," He had said, and Pippin had waded in on the instant, never thinking that he didn't know how to swim, eager to do as he was bid.

Now he looked up at the Messenger who stood awaiting his reply, and shrugged helplessly. The bright one laughed and took him and Merry each by the hand. “Come, I will take you to one of your own kind. Bilbo will make you at home.”

“Bilbo! Is Bilbo here? But he went with the Elves…… no, wait, Frodo did, too, and he’s here.” Pippin was beginning to feel very muddled.

“Can you tell us where we are, sir?" Merry asked. "Frodo and Sam went to the Undying Lands, and we stayed in Middle Earth, yet here we all are. And you say Bilbo is here, too! But where is ‘here’?”

“It has many names, Master Hobbit. Some call it the Celestial City, or the Land Beyond the Sunset. It is the long home of mortals, the goal of all your journeying. This is the place prepared for you.”

The Gate

Bilbo greeted them absently, as if he’d seen them only yesterday. He sat in a small, round room like the inside of a shell, the colors blurring from deep coral on the floor to a translucent white at the ceiling, so the light from outside filtered in. The doorway was low and their guide did not attempt to enter, bending down to say, “I’ve brought you some little cousins, Bilbo. Help them find their way around, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes, as soon as I finish this bit of music. Thank you, yes, they’ll be fine with me. Hullo, Merry, Pippin. Just sit down, will you, while I finish this.”

Merry raised an eyebrow at Pippin and gave an exaggerated sigh. Then he advanced on Bilbo and extricated him from his place behind a small desk of polished wood, pulling him into a proper hug.

“First, you say hello to me, Cousin Bilbo! And then you say hello to Pippin – go on! It’s been quite a while, you know! And now you can get on with your work – what are you doing, anyway?”

He leaned over the papers on the desk. They were covered with some kind of squiggly notation that made no sense to him.

“It’s music, my boy, a new song. It’s almost done; just be patient for a little while, there's a good lad.” He sat back down and rifled through his papers, adding a mark here and there, humming an odd, compelling melody under his breath.

Pippin took Merry by the elbow and drew him to the door.

“Leave him alone – he’ll get done that much faster." They stepped outside and stood leaning against the wall by Bilbo's door, shoulder to shoulder. It was good, very good, to be together.

Merry looked around, trying to take everything in. There was light, a radiance of light that shimmered and danced on every surface, yet didn’t hurt his eyes. It almost seemed alive, that light, teasing him, making him want to laugh and shout, to run and leap over things and turn handsprings down the street.

Handsprings? He smiled to himself. Well, he used to be able to do them – when he was about ten! Why did he feel as if he still could? He glanced at Pippin from the corner of his eye, and was tempted. It would be funny to see Pip's face…….

This street wasn’t crowded like the other. A horse trotted by, ridden by one of the bright Messengers. A small boy sat in the middle of the pavement, a brilliant yellow bird perched on his hand. He seemed to be talking to it, then without warning they both burst into song, boy and bird together. It was Bilbo’s melody, suddenly focused and clear, and it pierced Merry's heart, brought the tears to his eyes again. He wanted something, oh how he wanted it! but he didn’t know what it was.

He turned to Pippin with tears running down his face.

“Come on, Merry,” Pippin said softly. “I know what you need.”

He led him down the street, past the singing boy and out onto a broad thoroughfare. There they stopped for a moment, and Pippin watched to see which way the crowd was moving. The hobbits joined the flow, Pippin’s hand on Merry’s shoulder, steering him. Finally they stopped, and he gave his cousin a little shove forward.

“Now, Merry,” he said.

Merry looked up and into the heart of his deepest fear and his deepest longing, and the tears came in a flood, blinding him. He fell on his knees, reaching out, groping with his hands, and his hands were caught and he was swung up into someone’s arms, weeping on someone’s shoulder.

He cried, and then he looked up, bleary eyed, and smiled. “I've been waiting for you, Meriadoc,” whispered Iluvatar’s Son, and Merry laughed out loud and hugged Him around the neck.

He was set down, then, but he held tight to the Son’s hand, and Pippin grabbed him on the other side. The Son began to lead them down the street, in and out through the crowd. They passed Bilbo’s door again, and Bilbo ran out, pushing between Merry and the Son, taking both their hands. The Son smiled down at him, and Bilbo cleared his throat and began to sing the song he had been humming, strong and clear. After a moment’s hesitation, Pippin joined in, then Merry, and they continued down the thoroughfare, singing all together, with the Son in the lead, pulling them along.

Someone broke in between Pippin and Merry, gripping their hands firmly. Pippin looked up – way up – and it was Boromir. Boromir! He lost the melody for a moment in his astounded joy. Boromir squeezed his hand.

“Well met, Peregrin Took!” he said, and his deep voice joined the song. Pippin took a breath and found his place in the music again.

Other people kept breaking into the line, Big People and Little alike. The boy with the bird ran up, the bird perched on his head now, and found a place the other side of Merry. Frodo appeared suddenly and slid between Bilbo and the Son, gazing into His face with shining eyes. But before he could begin to sing, his face clouded over and he looked down. His thumb had found the deep wound in the Son’s hand, and he stroked it thoughtfully.

The song rose around them, but Frodo couldn’t sing.

“Why?” he asked urgently. “My hand is healed now – why aren’t yours?”

The Son’s voice was quiet, for him alone. “These are the marks of my Quest, Frodo, a sign to everyone who sees me. As your finger was, also – a loss to yourself, but to Middle Earth it was great gain. But it grieved you, and I would not have you grieved; therefore your hand is whole now. Do you wish to carry your mark again?”

“No! Please, no. Your marks can count for mine as well – mine was only a little part of your Great Quest, really.”

“It was.” The Son leaned down and kissed him quickly on the brow. “Go now, Frodo. Get to the end of the line, and be ready.”

Ready? Never mind. Frodo slipped out and the gap closed up as Bilbo linked hands with the Son again. He stood and let the line pass him by – it was long now, a hundred or more, children and grown-ups, hobbits and men and women. Estella had Merry's hand now, and he thought it wouldn't be long before Diamond found Pippin. The singing was rich and full, and the line dipped and twisted as it passed through the crowd on the street. It had become a dance, a long chain of dancers. Pippin was at the tail end, and Frodo latched on and began to sing at last, wondering what he was to be ready for.

###

Sam and Rosie walked hand in hand through the City, but he only half saw its wonders. His eyes flew to every small figure they passed, but it was never Frodo.

He said I would see him, he thought. He promised.

They came at last to one of the gates, and he blinked and shook his head in disbelief, stroking the cool luster of pearl.

“It’s not possible, you know, lass. They don’t come this big.”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist. “And how would you know how big a pearl can be, Sam Gamgee?”

He had no answer for that, and he stood in her arms by the open gate, staring out to the horizon. It seemed as if the whole world was spread out before him, mountains and prairies, woodlands and immense lakes whose blue reflected back a boundless depth of sky.

It’s not possible, he thought again. Not even an Elf can see the whole earth in one look-see. He clung to Rosie, burying his face in her hair, feeling the solid reality of her, afraid in case he woke up and she vanished away.

"Oh, Sam, it’s not a dream! Nothing is impossible here, nothing,” she said. "Listen!"

There was a sound of singing, far away at first, then coming nearer. He listened, remembering the music that woke him under the trees. This morning, was it, or a month ago? He hadn’t understood the words then, but he understood this song.

Nothing is impossible,
With Him all things are possible,
Nothing is impossible with God!

The singers came sweeping around the corner, Iluvatar’s Son in the lead. He laughed and stretched out his hand. Sam reached out and the Son slapped his hand as He went by, dancing at the head of a long chain of dancers.

“Come along, Samwise, Rosie! Catch on at the end!”

He went out the gate and down into the world beyond, and His chain of dancers followed Him. The music flowed around Sam and swept over him like the waves of the sea, and the dancers passed by him, through the gate, hundreds and hundreds of them, Big People and hobbits alike. And he stood waiting.

The line had nearly all passed now. Here was the last dancer, not singing, but laughing and holding out his hand. Sam looked, and looked again, and their eyes met and held.

“Come on, Sam!” Frodo called to him, his hand outstretched. “What are you waiting for? Come on!”

Sam ran, pulling Rosie after him. He caught Frodo’s hand, and the music pulsed through their clasped hands and into his feet and through his other hand to Rose. Music and joy, laughter and love, coursed from the Son through all the chain of dancers, uniting them with each other and with Him. The hobbits kept pace, at the very end of the chain, caught up in a rollicking joy that held no shadow of the past. And Sam began to sing.