Author notes: This chapter includes references to The Gift of Sight, The Lay of the Black Lake, and hints at events taking place in A Stormy Night.

~*~*~

Chapter Two: Sight

Year: 1395 (46 years later)

Merimac yawned widely as he shuffled down the corridor on his return from the privy. He could hardly keep his eyes open, but he knew the way and the candle flickering happily in his hand was nothing more than an object of habit – he might run into someone even in the dead of night.

As he rounded the corner he found that there was indeed someone roaming the smial. Merimac struggled to force his eyes open for longer than a split second but he could not make out the figure that hastened through the shadows as if it were one with them. He straightened and shook his head, as if that could help him to get rid of his sleepiness. He wasn’t worried. Though folk in Buckland locked their doors at night, unlike those on the other side of the river, Brandy Hall was still the safest place east of the Brandywine and its corridors were never quite empty. Nonetheless, Merimac decided to follow the stranger.

Lights flickered whenever he passed and eventually he had to draw his robes closer. The figure went straight into the deepest passages, walking without turning around once. Whoever it was knew his way, and wakened Merimac’s curiosity. He quickened his pace and blew out his candle when the scones grew few and the dimly lit corridors led into passages plunged entirely into darkness.

And suddenly he knew where the night-wanderer was heading to and he also recognised him as Paladin Took. A shiver ran down his spine. It was many years since his cousin had last led him here. Night after night Paladin had wandered the smial and day after day Adalgrim had grown furious at his insistence that something was amiss with the Hall’s most western corridor until his father had told him the story of the Great Flood in 1226, in the times of Gormadoc Deepdelver Brandybuck, who had wanted to make his smial more spacious and splendid than any other in the Shire, and had paid a great price for it.

As he had done when he was a teen Paladin was feeling the wooden wall again. His fingers trembled as he did so. His face, shining golden in the light of his candle, was a mask of worry. Merimac watched in silence, hidden in shadow. Paladin glared at the wall, slammed his fist against it and paced up and down in front of it. Merimac frowned and stepped into the corridor which caused Paladin to jump with surprise.

“The last time I followed you here you were young and devastated,” he said. “Now you’re far from young and…”

“… you’re still charming, eh?” Paladin replied but the humour his words suggested did not echo in his voice.

“If you say so,” Merimac answered and waited, silently weighing whether he could dare to speak on. “You caused quite an uproar with your story of a girl.”

Paladin looked at him, sighed heavily, and leaned against the wall facing the one he had so closely examined. “There was a flood that caused the western tunnels to cave in,” he said and slid onto the floor.

Merimac didn’t object. He knew about his cousin’s gift though he didn’t always believe in it. He yawned again and sat down next to his cousin lighting his candle on the one Paladin carried. In silence they gazed at the wall. It had grown dark with the years and at places it was decayed and crumbled.

“Pippin sees her too.”

“Pippin?!” Merimac was stunned.

Paladin nodded and gave him a grim smile. “I think he inherited more than his father’s looks.” He sighed and closed his eyes as if in pain. “Tina doesn’t know yet, at least that’s what Pippin told me. He said he knew I was dreaming too. Do you understand, Merimac? He knew.”

Merimac looked into his cousin’s troubled face and could not understand why he worried so. “That doesn’t prove anything. Everyone dreams and everyone knows that.”

“It’s different,” Paladin insisted angrily.

“It’s not,” Merimac said, too tired to argue much about obvious facts, “even Frodo’s been sitting here at times during his first years in the Hall.”

Paladin stared at him with wondering eyes and Merimac knew immediately that he had made a mistake. “Frodo? Do you think he could have inherited the Sight as well?”

“Don’t be stupid!” Merimac waved the assumption aside. “He’s only a quarter Took. There’s not more Took blood in him than there is in me and…”

“You hardly count,” Paladin interrupted. “Your mind’s not open. But Frodo,” he thought hard for a moment. “There’s as much Took in him as there is in me – and you, for that matter. Have you forgotten that much of your genealogy? Uncle Rory wouldn’t thank you for denying your own Tookish ancestry. We’re all Gerontius’ great-grandsons, though you...” He chuckled and his eyes took on a distant look. “Remember calling me a ‘fanciful Took with nightmares’?”

Merimac grinned and leaned his head back against the wall. He would never forget that night – the forest, the shed, and The Lay of the Black Lake. He had come to reconsider his opinion for there was truth in whatever Paladin saw even though his cousin couldn’t always make sense of it. There was something eerie to his gift and sometimes Merimac thought that even Paladin was afraid of it. The concern he saw in him tonight was all the evidence he needed.

“I don’t think Frodo Sees anything the way you do,” he said eventually and smiled at his cousin. “Still, why not ask him? He and Bilbo arrive tomorrow.”

Paladin raised an eyebrow. “And what should I say to him? ‘Hullo, Frodo! Do you dream true?’”

“That,” Merimac chuckled, “could turn into an interesting conversation.”

He laid a hand on Paladin’s shoulder and looked at his profile. His eyes were still focused on the wall and the deep lines of worry on his forehead seemed to carve themselves deeper into his skin with every passing minute – a fact that troubled Merimac more than he would have liked. He tilted his head to one side, wondering. “Even if Pippin shares your gift, what’s so bad about that?”

Paladin looked at him, brow a-frown, and Merimac smiled in a, what he hoped was an encouraging way. “You say you didn’t always know what to make of it but Pippin has you, hasn’t he? You could guide him. You could help him understand whatever it is he Sees. Besides, it’s yet another trait that makes your son special.”

It was the first genuine smile Merimac saw on Paladin’s face that night, even though his cousin did not look at him. “You’re probably right,” he said to the wall and Merimac clapped him hard on the shoulder.

“Of course I am!” he said and stood up. “And I’m dreadfully tired besides. Let’s get to bed now or you’ll run the risk of having to carry me back to my quarters.”

Paladin chuckled. “I’d sooner leave you here for the night.”

“In this cold?” Merimac scolded while helping Paladin to his feet. “Who’s charming now?”

~*~*~

Paladin spent the following days thinking and observing. The hubbub surrounding Frodo’s arrival was amazing. Esme fussed about him almost immediately, while the children, including his own, were all eyes, ears, and jovial chattiness. It was they with whom Frodo spent most of his time. He enjoyed their attention, blushed at Esme’s and seemed to grow whenever Saradoc clapped his back and spoke with pride of his former fosterling. He had grown into a fine young gentlehobbit, indeed. Only his ruffled hair didn’t quite fit his appearance, but that was one of the first things Esme said she would take care of. Several girls of his age-group, however – Pearl among them – didn’t mind the bit of wildness in his looks and Paladin was only too aware of the admiring looks his eldest daughter cast in Frodo’s direction. The lad definitely had the potential to become a son-in-law and while Paladin watched him, he didn’t think he would mind much to one day welcome him into his family.

Yet a memory was constantly nagging at the back of his mind: It was an evening during his first stay at the Hall with Eglantine at his side. Frodo had been but a few years old and Paladin had not immediately recognised him. Besides, what he had seen when he first laid eyes on him was not the cheerful lad Frodo had become again. What he beheld was loss, fear, and sorrow; and an odd connection to a child that was but a distant cousin.

It was that connection over which he kept brooding. Frodo had shown remarkable insight that night by placing his fingers just where Paladin’s headache had pounded, but he had never been sure whether it was the Took Sight or coincidence that made the child touch him.

True, apart from one other occasion – during the funeral of the lad’s parents – Paladin had never felt a similar bond to his cousin. He would never forget the lost little boy clutching a stuffed pony to his chest while Esmeralda tried to be as much comfort to him as she could.

As he rummaged his mind, Paladin realised that it had been a moment of distinct sorrow when he connected with the boy the second time; and he understood why a newly orphaned Frodo had found his way to the wooden wall on the passageway to the wine cellars. Even if the boy was not capable of the Sight Frodo had been open to the girl’s grief, being himself anguished over the bleeding wound that was his parents’ death. Loneliness, sadness, abandonment.

Just what he had felt in last night’s dream – the same dream that had troubled him years before; just what Pippin had spoken of the other morning.

“She is sad, dad. So very sad.”

Paladin knew he had to find out more, so after the general excitement of Frodo’s arrival subsided he asked the lad for a private moment in which he led him into Brandy Hall’s darkest cellars until they stood in front of the wooden wall.

Frodo was baffled at his choice of place for a quiet conversation. His brows narrowed in a frown and he wrinkled his nose while he looked in utter confusion at the planks of wood. His face glowed in the candlelight and the dancing flame’s flickering reflection caused his eyes to sparkle. “What are we doing here?”

Paladin didn’t know what he had expected from this but somehow it had been more. “Well,” he began, slightly discouraged and struggling to find the right opening words. “Mac told me you’ve come here time and time again.”

“I lived here.”

The words erased every supposition Paladin might have had, yet he did not want to give up hope straight away. “Of course,” he smiled. “But why here? Why this remote corridor?”

Frodo’s frown deepened and he shrugged. Paladin felt his nerves tingle. His grip on the candleholder tightened as he watched the tween’s thoughtful expression. “I don’t know. I was drawn here, I think.” Unseeing eyes stared at the wall and the voice that spoke to Paladin was distant. “It was just a feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?” Paladin enquired. His heart raced and a seedling of hope prospered. He knew that look, that far-away voice, and the effort it sometimes took to come back to the here and now.

“Why do you ask?”

The boy tilted his head to face him with curious eyes and Paladin felt like a house of cards collapsing. Frodo didn’t know about her and yet Paladin had to ask him. “Have you ever seen a girl?”

“I’ve seen many,” Frodo grinned and there was the hint of a blush on his cheeks.

“Of course, you have.” Paladin chuckled and laid his hand on the lad’s shoulder. The boy equalled him in size and as alike as the tween was to Drogo, Frodo couldn’t deny his Brandybuck kinship either.

“What I mean, Frodo, is,” Paladin took a deep breath, “have you ever dreamed of a girl that wasn’t real? A girl that perhaps led you here and, “he gestured at the wood, “and disappeared behind this wall?”

Frodo shook his head and raised a critical eyebrow which caused Paladin to look away and hide his disappointment. If Pippin’s account had not proved Paladin’s vision was more than just a dream Frodo’s affirmation would have verified everything.

“But you do.”

Paladin looked up to see those blue eyes inspecting him with the same curiosity and interest they had bestowed upon him years before. A chill ran down his spine and for a moment he thought he felt that strange bond again. He nodded. “Have you ever heard of the Took Sight?”

“The fairy-blood?” Frodo asked eagerly.

Paladin smiled. He would not have put it that way but: “Yes.”

“Do you have it?” Paladin could see those blue eyes sparkle with more than just the candle’s reflection. “Do you really See?”

“It’s not seeing,” Paladin corrected him, “not always. It’s more like feeling and dreaming. Dreaming true.”

“That’s amazing! It’s like magic! It’s,” the lad grew twitchy with excitement. “Can you teach me?”

“No, Frodo,” Paladin smiled and brushed his hand across the back of the boy’s head. “No, it cannot be taught. It’s inborn and cannot be controlled. It’s like doing a puzzle you don’t know whether you’ve got all the pieces. I hoped you could help me to put what I have together, though.”

“Oh.” The disappointment could not be denied and it was Frodo’s turn to look away. His voice was quiet again, and sad. “I’m sorry I cannot help.”

Paladin did not answer at once. As he looked at Frodo it seemed to him that he had never seen a light that much hidden under the bushel. It wasn’t just knowledge or any special ability. There was, indeed, a soft glow radiating from the boy that had nothing to do with the candlelight surrounding them. It was a light brighter than any he had yet seen and it seemed to vibrate from deep within Frodo. If he hadn’t thought the idea ridiculous Paladin would have reached out to it for the light was definitely touching him.

“Don’t be sorry, Frodo,” he said, touching the boy instead and placing his hand once again on the tween’s shoulder. “You can help. I’m sure you were drawn here because you, too, sensed something. You have a gift, lad, even if it isn’t the Sight, of that I am convinced. Together, and with your cousins’ help should they assist us, we will solve this riddle.”

Frodo nodded, and smiled. He did not protest when Paladin led him back to the main corridors.