Bells

        We came into Dol Amroth as the sun was rising. I had never visited before, and my first impression was that it was a bleak sort of place. I dismounted and found myself up to my ankles in a thick white fog. It deepened as I looked westward, and though I could not see the ocean, I could hear it, a somber sound to befit the mist.

        "When are we to meet with the Prince?" I asked my father.

        "Not for two or three hours yet," came his response.

        "Than I shall take a walk to stretch my limbs, if you wouldn't object, Father. I'll just go a ways along the coast."

        "Very well," he nodded. "But do not be late."

        I promised him that I would be punctual, and then set off to the seaside with his leave. The gloom deepened as I advanced, but I found it not so thick that I couldn't make out my surroundings a few metres in each direction. Heartened by the fact that the fog was not so opaque as I had imagined it would be, and energized by the cool morning air, I pressed on further.

        Presently the ground began to rise a bit, and trees sprung up here and there around me. I came to the crest of the hill, and looking down saw that it dropped steeply for some feet, and the ground below was littered with craggy rocks. A little ways further, I could make out the very edge of the sea, though the fog there made it near impossible.

        "Are you lost, sir?"

        The voice startled me so much that I turned around swiftly, and had to grab hold of a tree branch so as not to stumble off the edge of the cliff. "No indeed," I replied a little shakily. "I am out for a walk, that is all."

        "You are out for a walk? That is very strange indeed. I thought I was the only one who dared venture up here. Ah, but that must mean you are not from here. Are you travelling with the Steward?" The speaker was a child, a young girl, sitting and leaning against a large grey stone set beside a towering, knotted oak. Her dark hair hung down about her shoulders, and was lost in the mist which rose to her elbows. Indeed, had I been a child myself I should have run terrified from what was plainly a wraith.

        "I am his son," I said in answer to her question. "You speak of this area as if there is some danger - what then is a little girl like yourself doing up here unaccompanied?"

        She gave me a withering look. "I am nearly ten."

        "My apologies," I suppressed a smile. "If there is some sort of danger, why is a young lady such as yourself up here all alone?"

        "There is no danger, really," she replied, "only people don't like to come up here. It is haunted."

        "Haunted?" This time I did smile, though I shivered slightly recalling my first impression of the girl - a wraith. "Surely the people of Dol Amroth are above such nonsense. How would one get the impression that this hill is haunted?"

        "Because, this is where they bury the children," she said simply. "My cousin is buried here, right under this rock," she patted the grey stone. "She died here too when she was very little. She fell from this very tree, and landed on those rocks down there."

        "You do not jest?" I thought she perhaps imagined me a gullible traveller, and was trying to frighten me with nonsense tales.

        "Certainly not, sir, and especially not about my own cousin! Why, do you not see the bells? They're hanging from the branches."

        It was only then that I noticed them. Small bells, most rusted brown and some looking quite weathered indeed, were suspended from the lower branches of the oak by pieces of twine that seemed to drift to the earth and disappear into the ground. On further examination, I saw that some of the twine had broken over time, and a few of the bells lay scattered and broken or half buried in the ground.

        "What is their purpose?" I inquired.

        "You don't know about the bell trees? No, I suppose you wouldn't. Well, I shall tell you if you wish."

        I nodded that I wished to hear, so she continued.

"Many years before even my grandfathers' time, an illness struck the children of Dol Amroth, and many died. They were buried in little wooden boxes at the bottom of this hill. But the gravedigger was careless; because he had so many graves to dig, he dug them shallow."

        "There was one night during that time when a great storm came off the sea, and brought with it a howling wind. A woman was sitting all alone in her house, and thought she heard something outside her door. She went to the window and, finding nothing, attributed it to the wind. But the noise persisted, sounding almost like a voice calling, and soon faint tapping joined it at her door. She rose from her chair, and went to the door, and opened it, and lo! there was the daughter she had buried the day before, very dirty, and very cold, but very much alive. The grave was shallow enough that she dug her way out."

        "What a frightful story!" I exclaimed.

        "Please sir, I haven't quite finished. Well, this frightened the people of Dol Amroth a great deal. Had they been burying children who were really alive? All the men rushed to the hill, and began uncovering the little boxes in hopes of saving at least some of the children. But it was too late. On many of the insides of the lids, they found scratch marks. Some of the children had been alive, but now they were dead."

        "The people knew that this tragedy might have been prevented, had there been a way for the children to signal from their graves if they were alive. So from then on, everyone was buried with a piece of twine tied around their finger, that ran up out of the earth and was attached to a bell hanging from the branch of a tree. A man sits beside the grave for three nights, so that if the person in the grave awakes and rings the bell, help can be summoned fast."

        "It all sounds a bit foolish to me," I said, though now I was quite uneasy.

        "Perhaps," said she, fixing me with an unnerving gaze. "But how would you like it, my lord, if you awoke in your tomb beneath the earth, and had no means of escape?"

        "Upon my word, you certainly are an unnaturally morbid young lady, if you'll forgive me for saying so. Why do you come to a place like this for your amusement?"

        "I like it here," she answered. "It feels calm, peaceful. There is nobody here to disturb me. I can read without interruption. And besides, it doesn't make much of a difference where you are; the whole of Dol Amroth is a haunted place, especially right by the sea."

        "Oh, is it now?" I humoured her.

        "Indeed," she replied. "There is a ghost who walks these very shores."

        "A ghost walks these shores, does he? Who told you that?"

        "My grandmother first told me. She told me that her grandmother saw him when she was a girl. She told me that very few people have even caught a glimpse of him, and then only for a brief second - he doesn't want to be seen. He walks all alone, and he's a mournful sight to behold."

        "And you've seen this apparition as well?"

        "No, not seen him. I have heard him, though. He sings the saddest song you'll ever hear. He sings like the sea." She looked annoyed. "Oh, you need not believe me; nobody else does. I don't mind so much, though. Perhaps if they thought there really was a ghost, they wouldn't let me down here."

        "So it does not frighten you, to think that a phantom is roaming the coast, and you may come upon him one day?"

        "No," she said, and turned her gaze to the grey outline of the sea. "What would you do if you met a ghost, my lord?"

        "I thought I had met one when I first beheld you," I said with a laugh. "Again, I hope you will forgive me for saying so, but you seemed like such an apparition with your white skin, and your black hair all about you, sitting half-submerged in the mist, and beside such a ghastly tree."

        She rose from the mist then, and cocked her head to the side a bit, giving me a strange smile. "And how do you know that I'm not an apparition, my lord?" She observed the bemused look on my face, and courtseyed. "Forgive me," she said, "I must disappear now," and fled off through the mist. I thought I saw her figure emerge from the fog on the beach below, but the gloom was too dense to be certain.

        Not wanting to remain alone on the hill with the dead children under the earth, and the spectre of a tree with its silent bells, I hurried down the slope, musing over the odd little girl I had just encountered.

        When I arrived back at the tower, my father was standing in the entrance hall, speaking with Prince Adrahil.

        "Ah, here is my son," said my father as I entered. "Well Denethor, how went your walk? Did you go down to the coast?"

        "I did," I answered, "and I came to a hill with a great haggard tree. And there upon the hill, I met a ghost of a little girl, who told me such frightful stories that I'm sure I'll not sleep for a fortnight."

        "Ah," said Prince Adrahil, "that would have been my eldest daughter, Finduilas. Yes, she can seem a bit eccentric at times. I apologize if she has been irritating-"

        "No no," I assured him. "I found her quite entertaining, really. She seems a clever little girl, if a bit unrealistic."

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        That night sleep did elude me for some time. When it finally came, it was of a restless sort. I dreamt, and I dreamt of strange things. The spectral tree wreathed in mist, a mournful ballad that sang with the sea, nails scratching at the lid of a coffin; Finduilas walking on through the gloom, and disappearing into the grey ocean.

        Something awoke me from those dreams in the middle of the night: a tree branch tapping at my window. The wind was blowing and, though later I attributed it to my half-concious state, I would have sworn that it carried with it the sound of bells.

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A/N: If Denethor seems out of character, it's because I was trying to write him as a young, sane man. ;-) For anyone who doesn't know, the bell thing is real. People got a bit nervous when their loved ones started waking up during their funeral services, so some people started getting buried with a method of summoning help if they woke up in their coffin. I've always been a bit fascinated with morbid things like that, and I suppose it comes through in my fan fiction occasionally. As always, feedback is appreciated!