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A Tale That Grew in the Telling  by GamgeeFest

Part III - Where the Road Might Take You

Chapter 1 - A Flight in Panic

Rethe 23–24

“Keep it secret. Keep it safe.”

With those words, spoken in haste and earnestness, Gandalf had left the Shire and entrusted Frodo with the keeping of Bilbo’s ring. Gandalf had also urged Frodo never to wear the ring, just before the wizard disappeared into the night on his mysterious errand.

Frodo had felt the best way to follow the wizard’s advice was to put the ring away where he would not be tempted to use it. He also had to make sure he put it someplace secure, where no one else would accidentally stumble upon it. He eventually decided on keeping it in the pocket of his traveling cloak, so it would be with him always but not on his person while he was at home.

He remembered what Bilbo said about the ring growing on his mind as the years went by. Frodo was careful not to let himself worry about the small band of gold for too long and was mindful to resist any urges to look at it. He added a couple of buttons to the cloak pocket and always kept them sealed. The ring could go nowhere.

Frodo rested secure in the fact that the ring was safe and secret as Gandalf had requested. He was not worried about someone finding it. Only Sam knew where his cloak rested while at home and his trusty servant was not the nosy type. Besides, no one even knew that the ring existed, and so how could it possibly go missing if Frodo did not move it?

Despite his best intentions, he did begin to check on the ring just before any journey he went on. He reasoned it was to ensure that the ring had not somehow managed to slip out of the pocket and into the chest. After all, Bilbo had also told him that the ring had a habit of shrinking, and Frodo reasoned it was perfectly natural to worry about such a thing. So he checked, even though he knew it was silly, and the ring was always right where he left it.

When he was packing for his trip to Buckland however, he found that it was not the ring that was missing, but his cloak. Try as he might, he could not find it where he usually kept it, folded in the chest in his bedroom. Not wanting to admit he had lost his treasured cloak, he had asked Sam where he might find the extra sleeping roll and the spare fire striker, thinking maybe the cloak would be wherever they were. Still unable to find it, he at last had to ask Sam outright where his cloak might be.

Sure enough, Sam knew exactly where it was and Frodo checked the pocket immediately. Feeling the ring through the fabric, he sighed with relief and wondered briefly how the cloak had come to be in the chest in the second parlor. He could not remember putting it there. He dismissed the worry as nothing to be concerned over and carried the cloak back to his room. He would simply have to make sure the cloak was put back in its rightful place when he returned.

Only he forgot the cloak again. Thankfully he realized his mistake before he and Pippin got too far along. Kicking himself for his forgetfulness, he took the opportunity of Sam’s offer of a hatchet to send his gardener back inside to get his cloak. When Sam handed everything over, Frodo resisted the urge to check the pocket again and instead carefully hung it from his pack. When he and Pippin reached Brandy Hall, he placed his cloak at the bottom of his pack underneath the cooking gear and thought no more of it. That is, until the night of the Spring Feast.


“Frodo, you remember Melie don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Could I interest you in a dance Melie?”

Melilot Brandybuck was a sweet young lass and Frodo would be lying if he said he did not think her pretty. She was infinitely kind, and had the added benefit of being both smart and sharp-witted. She also loved to dance. Frodo found to his dismay that she simply never tired of it. One song after another, she kept Frodo on the dance floor, talking to him the whole time.

At first, the conversation had centered around small talk, and they spent the first few dances catching up on various topics. Melilot even listened to a couple of his camping stories and seemed interested in hearing about his other travels as well. Then Frodo caught Berilac getting his revenge on Pippin and lost track of the conversation. When he finally started listening again, Melilot was talking about her parents’ upcoming wedding anniversary. She was telling him about the pillowcases she and her friends were working on and she continued on this most tedious of topics for quite some time. 

Frodo tried to remain interested, but he was soon wishing he could sit down and never have to talk about embroidery again. Barring that, he would settle for the ground opening up and swallowing him whole. He glanced at the clock: a quarter of nine. He inwardly cringed. The Feast had no official end, but the soonest people could politely leave to break into smaller parties was ten o’clock.

Frodo waited patiently. He tried to bring the conversation around to something more interesting, and eventually they wound up recounting previous Spring Feast celebrations. Even with the more favorable topic of discussion, Frodo found that with each passing moment, the desire to get away from this Feast was growing in its intensity until it was nearly all he could think about. He wished to disappear and realized with regret that the answer to his problem was lying in his room, too far away now for his comfort. 

‘What could it hurt just to look at it?’ he thought as he spun Melilot around the dance floor. The desire to see the ring was almost unbearable now. His hands all but itched to hold the small golden band in his palms. ‘It has been a long time since I looked at it last. What if it needs polishing?’ Though of course he could never remember a time when the ring was anything but shining and spotless. Still, he reasoned one never knew and it was better to be safe than sorry. He glanced at the clock again. 10:04. 

“Frodo?” Melilot said, somewhat loudly, cutting through his thoughts. She had been calling him for a while now, since she first realized he had stopped listening to her. She was feeling a bit foolish and put off, especially since the topic was one that Frodo had started. “Are you feeling well?”

“Hm? Oh, yes, I’m sorry Melie. I just realized I’ve forgotten something in my room. I should go get it.”

Melilot laughed. “Is that all it is then? Well go on with you and get it. I’ll be fine until you return.”

So Frodo led her to a table where some young lads were sitting. He noticed their faces light up when they saw her approaching and he knew she would be well left in their care. He promised to return as soon as he could, figuring that by the time he satisfied this sudden obsession with the ring, one of these young lads would have whisked Melilot onto the dance floor. With luck, he could return to the Feast and enjoy the festivities from the comfort of one of the dining tables.

He went quickly through the halls, and as he was the first to leave the Feast, he passed no one. Sooner than he expected, he was standing in his room. He closed the door soundly behind him, opened the wardrobe and lifted his pack from the back corner. He placed the pack on his bed and began to empty it, not even pausing to consider how silly he must look or why he was suddenly being driven to distraction with thoughts of the ring.

He reached the bottom of the pack and with a great sigh of relief lifted out his cloak. Barely registering that his hands were shaking and completely overlooking the unbuttoned pocket, he slid his hand into the folds of the soft velvet fabric and found nothing.

“It’s gone!” he exclaimed in dismay. He searched the pocket again, then felt all the folds of the cloak. Still finding nothing, he tossed that aside and searched the bottom of the pack and its numerous compartments, then everything he had just taken out of it. Still nothing.

“No, I can’t have lost it,” he begged, pleaded, with the room. It had to be here somewhere. He looked around, questing with his eyes until they fell upon Pippin’s pack still sitting in the wardrobe. Hoping against hope, he grabbed the pack and dumped it out, tossing the items aside haphazardly as they each came up empty. 

He then turned his attention to the clothes hanging in the wardrobe. He ripped them out one by one and checked the pockets. He rummaged through the desk and even went so far as to tip over the inkwell on the off chance the ring had somehow fallen into the murky liquid. He went next to the beds and threw off the bedding, hoping perhaps maybe the ring was lost there. He searched under the beds and, still finding nothing, threw his mattress off its frame in anger and frustration.

How could he lose the ring? How? And more importantly – where did he lose it? It could be anywhere from here to Hobbiton. Since it clearly was not in the room, Frodo left it, accidentally slamming the door against the wall in his rush to find the precious heirloom. The door bounced off the wall and tipped over the mattress that had been balancing precariously against the wall and a chair. The mattress fell, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Frodo walked quickly through the halls, checking every corner and turn, muttering obsessively under his breath, “Where has it gone? Where could it be?” He passed a servant, not even registering the other’s presence. He walked right past the banquet room and into the vacant dining hall next door, retracing his steps the day of his and Pippin’s arrival. They had sat at this table. They had placed their bags here. They had come through this door, down this passageway, through this parlor and the first entrance door. He opened it and stepped outside.

The wind was blowing fiercely and it pushed him back against the door. With effort, he made his way down the path to the lane, searching in every direction, heedless of the weather. He tried desperately not to think of the possibility that someone else may have already found his ring and instead concentrated on retracing his steps, even if that took him all the way back to Hobbiton.

Then another more horrible thought occurred to him and he stopped dead in his tracks. There had been times in the past when he had suddenly discovered the ring in his pants pocket, always after he had just lost a battle not to check on it. He racked his brain; he was certain he had not checked on it since leaving Bag End, but what if he had and forgotten about it? That happened sometimes also, almost as if some other will had momentarily taken over, leaving him with no memory of how the ring came to be on his person. If that had happened, then the ring truly could be anywhere from here to Hobbiton, or clear in the other direction to his boulder by the High Hay, or down and across the River to Merry’s stream. 

He turned around, looking into the pitch black darkness that surrounded him at every direction, feeling completely helpless. Which way should he go first? As if in answer to his question, another gust of wind blew through the area and pushed him from behind, toward the east. He followed its lead blindly, grateful to be moving again at last.

How long he was gone from the Hall before the storm broke, he did not know. A roar of distant thunder sounded through the air and the rain came down an instant later, fast and hard. Frodo was soaked within moments. He stopped and looked about him, trying to determine where he was. In the utter blackness that surrounded him, he had difficulty making out any landmarks to guide him. He turned around full circle, lost as to what to do.

He had to return to the Hall, some logical part of his brain tried to tell him. He couldn’t stay out in this storm and he would find nothing in the dark anyway. He could look again once the weather cleared. But he had to find the ring, the frantic part of his brain reminded him. Bilbo would be so disappointed if he lost it, not to mention what Gandalf might do or say. He must continue until his task was complete. 

He turned again in the direction he thought was east and continued on, cursing himself silently for his carelessness, now so blatantly obvious. He should have checked on the ring sooner. He should have relearned these lands better before this trip. He should never have left the ring out of his reach.

Two hours later Frodo had no choice but to admit he was completely lost. He was shivering and wet and could see nothing around him. He would never find the ring at this rate and was more frustrated than he ever remembered being before. And then he tripped. His foot caught upon something protruding from the ground and he fell face first in a puddle of muddy water. 

“Perfect,” he muttered as he sat himself up. He wiped his face clean as best he could and looked to see what he had tripped upon. It was a rock. He looked at it closely. It was the size of a teacup and was pointed at the end. He picked it up and held it close to his face, trying to make out the color: a cloudy greenish-blue. It reminded him of one of the rocks he had given to Merry. Hope flared in him and he looked about wildly. A flash of lightning lit the sky, and in the distance he could see the outline of a large, vaguely-defined structure. The bell tower!

He lifted himself up and ran toward the structure, slipping a few times in his haste. He managed to remain on his feet this time and came to a stop in front of his target. He looked up and discovered not the old tower, but a tall, billowing fig tree. Where did figs grow in Buckland? Frodo could never remember seeing one before.

Frodo slumped against the tree trunk, getting at least some shelter from the storm, and tried to think. The last thing he had passed that he recognized was the sweets shop in Bucklebury. He had been heading southeast then, but his direction had changed numerous times as he ran about with no clear thought in his head other than finding his ring. He could be anywhere now, but he thought that he had been generally traveling east. So if he turned in the opposite direction, he would be going west again. Sooner or later, he would come upon Buckland Road and could follow the lane back to Brandy Hall to start his search again.

With this plan firmly in his mind, he stood up and started back the way he came. Only he soon discovered that he had the direction altogether wrong, for instead of returning to the open field from which he came, he soon found himself standing upon the edge of a vineyard. ‘Well, this is at least promising,’ he thought. A vineyard had to be worked by someone, so somewhere nearby there had to be a house or a smial.

He stepped into the endless rows of vines and attempted to navigate his way to the front of the field. The darkness around him was so complete he felt himself blind, and he had great difficulty making his way through the field. Eventually, he found his way to the other side of the vineyard and looked about him, squinting into the blackness. 

Five hundred yards ahead of him sat a house at the edge of an open field. Frodo ran towards it, joy filling his heart at the sight of secure shelter. He came to the door and pounded upon it. No one answered. Figuring the owners asleep, Frodo knocked again, louder and more persistently. Still no one came, and no one would, for they were at that moment stranded in Brandy Hall, unable to return home.

Not knowing this, Frodo knocked until his knuckles bled, then walked around the house peering into the windows. At the fourth window, a dog jumped up against the glass, barking fiercely. Frodo let out an involuntary yelp and ran away from the house. He was terribly afraid of dogs, especially angry, barking ones. Suddenly fearful of more dogs about the property, he went back to the vineyard and quickly made his way through it until he was again standing in an open field. Only now his tree was gone.

He turned left, thinking that must be north, and continued to walk as he tried to ignore the sore throbbing in his hand. How long he walked he was not certain and he had quite given up paying attention to where he was going. He was discouraged, wet, tired and needed to sleep. He was in another open field – how many fields had he passed? – and there was no shelter anywhere about him. He stumbled forward until he found some low shrubs. He hid himself beneath the bushes and settled himself in as comfortably as possible, no longer able to notice the dampness of the ground. He was entombed in fitful sleep an instant later.


When he woke up, the rain was coming down in a soft drizzle, and the sky was dark still, though no longer as oppressing as the night before. Frodo crawled out from his bush and stretched his limbs, wondering how long he had been asleep. However long it was, he did not feel it had done him any good. He could remember shivering through most of his slumber and always seemed just on the edge of consciousness. 

He stretched again as the drizzle turned to a heavy sprinkle, then turned to look at his shelter and shouted for joy. Luck had graced him at last. The bushes were laden with large ripe blueberries. Frodo picked them deftly, eating eagerly as he went. After a few handfuls, he made a pouch of his shirt and filled it with berries. He then sat on the soggy ground to munch on his meal and think. 

Looking around him, it was clear he had no idea where he was. As best he could figure, he was somewhere in the southern regions of Buckland and still east of the Road. That meant he had to go either west or north. Going north would take far too long, as he had no idea how far south he had come, but going west would take a couple of hours at most. Buckland was only about seven miles long at its widest point, and that was well to the north. Once he got to the Road, he could then head north and be back in Brandy Hall before the end of the day. The question now was, which way was west?

He looked around him and saw a hill in the distance. He could climb that and look for the Hedge and figure out the lay of the land. Slowly, he stood up and made his way over to the hill. It was steeper than he thought, but not terribly so. As he reached the hill, the sprinkle gave way to another steady shower and an instant later, thunder rumbled through the air. Frodo began to carefully walk up the hill, making sure to keep his feet, and reached the top without any mishaps.

He turned around again in all directions. On one side were acres of fields and farmlands. He thought briefly about going up to one of the houses he could see from here. Then again, with his sense of direction being so skewered as of late, not to mention his raw knuckles and the mean dog from the night before, he thought it would be better not to attempt it. He didn’t need to get any more lost than he already was. Not only that, but he would have to give some sort of explanation as to how he had managed to get so far from Brandy Hall, and Frodo could not think of a convincing enough lie.

Behind him were some open fields. He squinted through the quickly gathering darkness. Somewhere back there had to be the Hedge, for the High Hay ran all along the eastern border of Buckland from the Gate to Haysend. He strained his eyes and thought he could just glimpse it on the horizon. 

Then he turned and looked in the last direction, into the west. Somewhere over there had to be the Road. His certainty was jarred when another flash of lightning blazoned the sky and illuminated the river below. Frodo stared down at the sight below him, even after he could see it no longer, his brow furrowed in confusion. That had been the river, hadn’t it? The water had been running fast and swift, but unless he was remembering the map of Buckland entirely wrong, he should still be east of the Road. Unless the road was closer than he thought it was.

With this encouraging thought in mind, he slowly made his way back down the hill and turned slightly to his right. As long as he kept the farm fields above within his sight and to his right, he would be going west. He stopped at his blueberry bush and got a couple more handfuls for later. He would have to wait until he returned to the Hall to satisfy his hunger completely. 

Yet returning to Brandy Hall caused him a particularly difficult problem: Merry and Pippin. They would be getting concerned soon if they weren’t already and they would demand to know where he had been all this time. What could he tell them that would sound both convincing and credible? More than that, how would he then be able to leave again to look for the ring without them insisting on going along? Somehow, Frodo knew a simple ‘nothing’s wrong’ was not going to suffice this time. He would have to come up with some sort of story. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘I’ve got plenty of time to think one up.’

He walked carefully, mindful of the puddles which surrounded him at nearly every step. It took him a long time to pick a path through the bog-like plain and his progress was slowed considerably. Eventually, he looked up and saw the flowing water he had glimpsed from the hilltop a few hours ago. He rushed towards it, but stopped in disappointment once he reached it. The ‘river’ was actually just a stream created by runoff from the farmlands above. Beyond the shallow stream was a woodland. There was no river, and no road. 

“This is ridiculous,” he said out loud. How could he get lost in Buckland of all places? He had grown up here, and it was surrounded by either the Hedge or the River. Was he going around in circles without knowing it? He felt almost as if the land was purposely working against him, keeping him adrift in the storm, steering him to where he could not find his way. 

He sat down in the stream, completely discouraged. He drew his knees up to his chest and hid his face in his folded arms. He tried to tell himself that if he continued to walk in the direction he was headed, he was bound to come upon the Road. This did not help his deepest fear however. For every hour he was delayed here, the longer he spent wandering about his homeland, the more time someone else had of finding the ring first. Frodo had no hope now of ever recovering it and this weighed on his heart and mind heavily. 

Some time later he jerked his head up, surprised to have found himself dozing. He was more tired than he had suspected and had drifted off. He yawned now and stretched. He stood and ran his fingers through his sopping hair, no longer even aware of how wet and cold he was. He reached into his pockets and soon ate the rest of his berries. Again, he looked around him, found the direction he had been heading in before and set out for the next lap.

He came soon to the woodland he had spotted earlier, not even questioning why a woodland would be on the eastern side of the Road. Maybe in the southern regions, the woodlands embraced both sides of the road. Either way, he would have to reach the Road soon and that thought kept his feet moving. 

Only it was not the Road that he came upon. Vaguely, he became aware of a constant, rolling, rushing noise ahead of him. He knew that sound. The woodland opened up. Before him, strong and furious and swelling over its banks, was the Brandywine River. 

Frodo stopped and stared at it, completely bewildered. How had he come to the River without crossing the Road? It made no sense. Had he crossed the Road last night? No, of that he was certain. Then realization dawned on him and he could have kicked himself for not seeing it earlier. That shallow stream had been the Road, flooded over. He had been sitting right on it and had not even known it. 

He whirled around, looked back in the direction from which he had come and relaxed visibly. He had found two of his landmarks. There was only one possible direction for him to go now and he would be back at Buck Hill before the coming of the next day if he could make good time. Relief rushed through him and he smiled for the first time since the Feast.

His triumph however was short lived, for at that very moment, the soggy, waterlogged ground beneath him gave way and crumpled into the River. Reflexively, he stepped backward to keep his balance and realized only too late that there was nothing behind him to stop his fall but the ravenous currents of the swollen river.

He was swallowing water, and lots of it. The river surrounded him and pushed him along on unforgiving currents, careless of his wishes to return to the shore. He forced himself to remain still, to let the river take him, to become one with its mighty force. When he was no longer spinning out of control, he gathered his legs beneath him and kicked against the current, using his arms to propel him upward. 

His head broke the surface of the water, and he coughed and gasped for air. He could just make out the bank. He knew he would have to swim at an angle towards the bank if he wanted any hope of getting out of the river alive. He aimed for shore, took two strokes and then heard a noise unlike any other he ever heard before. It was a thunderous, pounding, unrelenting roar, and it was crashing right towards him. 

The last thing he remembered was feeling the river rising up around him at a horribly out-of-control rate. Then the flash flood was upon him, slamming into him with bone breaking force and pushing him down to the riverbed below. His head smacked upon the rocky floor, and he knew no more.


At that exact moment, away in Hobbiton, in the blackness of Bag End, on the desk in the vacant study, the Ring of Power flashed gloriously with a light of its own, then faded to darkness once more.




To be continued…






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