Water Flowing Underground - by Feather Silver
Morning brought a sweet rush of chilly air that pooled upon the surface of the pond. A light fog formed in whirls and eddies upon the still, dark surface - like magic rising from an elvish mirror. Frodo stood with one foot in the water, testing the feel. He had no jacket. The air was cool, but not spiteful as early spring weather sometimes was. The water was very cold.
He stepped in, relishing the stinging, frozen rush up his legs. He shook his head and made jittery noises, laughed as his teeth clattered together. From further back, Samwise watched timidly. Cotton grass and moss curled against his toes. Grouse muttered awake in crowberry shrubs. Sedge and heather ran flat against the hard ground; it grew so thick sheep and cattle could not chew it. Here and there, little pools hid beneath blankets of peat that colored the water a rich, shadowy brown. The smell and taste was bitter, barren – no fish lived in it. Only dead and dying things dwelled beneath the surface. Encased within ancient bark, wood from a time before the Marish grabbed whatever careless foot fell too near. Black and hard as stone, the wood fetched a good price at market. Every year an unfortunate few perished while harvesting the bogs. Sometimes they were found years later - brown and silent, pickled as herrings. It was said their bodies never rotted because they clung to a separate life, waiting beneath the bogs until called forth by the Great Enemy. Sam thought that was rubbish, however, he had no desire to prove otherwise.
Sam didn’t trust water, but he did trust Frodo. He’d watched Frodo swim though worse and enjoy it. Water held no mystery for him. Frodo was raised with river-people and knew what water could do, and so he’d brokered an understanding with it. That’s what Frodo did; he negotiated with fear. He always strived for mutual agreement because he was polite. He did not abuse the water, and in turn, it did not drown him. Sam lacked the necessary detachment for such diplomacy. What lay beneath the dark glass simply frightened him to tears.
A nauseous swirl soured the pit of Sam’s stomach. Frodo had insisted he resolve his fear, that day, that hour, or else they were both going home. There was nothing polite in his declaration; he plainly meant it. Brandy Hall bordered the Brandywine River which was notorious for drowning hobbits. Both of Frodo’s parents had perished in it, and he wasn’t about to let Sam within screaming distance of that dreadful, fast water unless he proved he could swim. After a nasty argument both could have done without, Sam negotiated a settlement; he agreed to float. Because he loved and understood Sam, and appreciated the sacrifice his nerves were making, Frodo agreed. Later, in a quiet place, they could work out swimming. Until then, floating would do.
They found a small pool free of peat where the water was sweet and mild. Sam walked the perimeter, searching for treachery. There was nothing unusual, save an unusual number of frogs. They’d found an oasis among the acrid bogs, and celebrated by producing multiple generations of jubilant progeny. No predatory birds lurked near the pools; there usually wasn’t anything to eat in them. The frogs were untouched by violence until Frodo frightened them all away. Sam thought they would remember this, and found it mildly satisfying.
Frodo dove. Arcs of silver bubbles boiled on the skin of the pond. The water swallowed him whole. Sam shivered, and waited. In that void, it was as if Frodo never was. Sam could have imagined him.
A full minute later, Frodo broke the surface. Water sluiced down his face and shoulders as he took a deep, thready breath. He bobbed a little, then nearly sank again. The water was well over his head. Sam felt a rush of panic. Water was a jealous bitch; it hated yielding secrets and when it did, they were lies. Water changed things around, made them disappear, and ruined familiarity. Everything needed water to survive, however, too much or too little killed you. Sam thought that no accident.
Frodo righted himself. His dark hair lay in flat ringlets pasted to his flesh, which was ridiculously pale. Brushy eyebrows and stark, black lashes looked false against the surreal blue of his eyes. He floated for a moment, then punched at the water, churning it to warm himself.
Sam thought it looked like fighting.
Once he had his bearings, Frodo swam to the edge of the pool. He stood up. Water fled in runnels down his sodden clothes. Sam noticed that the water only came halfway up his knees.
“There’s a rather steep drop just there. The bottom is sandy, clear. I didn’t feel anything you might catch on,” Frodo said. The unnatural pallor of his face slowly filled with color. A stark hint of rose on his cheeks, a bit of red on his lips; Sam studied the transformation closely. What sort of shock could strip the life right out of you then send it back with such force?
“It’s refreshing – though I dare say you won’t think so at first,” Frodo smiled. “Come on, then. Give me your hand.”
Sam did as he was asked. Frodo’s fingers felt like frigid little claws. Disjointed images flashed through Sam’s mind. Something familiar yielded; a far off memory of unnaturally soft, wet flesh. The images were frustrating – glimpses that made no sense; swollen lips, a feeling of fear, the ashy taste of horror. Gradually, fear forced the rest to the surface. Sam had experienced all this before.
When Sam was small, a lass fell in the By-Water pool after a dance and wasn’t found for three days. The Gaffer and his mates fished her out; she was swollen as a toad and fish belly white. Her mouth was open. The inside was as white as her skin. Her tongue looked like a fat maggot.
This was not what sickened Sam; the girl lay hidden under the pool for three days without a soul suspecting where she was. She disappeared, and the water would have hidden her forever if Sam’s father hadn’t gone to look for a ball lost during a game with the Cotton lads. The Gaffer found her, and before he could stop him, Sam toddled forward for a look. The girls frozen, dead hand floated gently in the reeds – nails embedded in flesh so swollen it resembled veal sausage. The fingers were splayed open like rigid, meaty stars. Her face had lost all character. The Gaffer looked so sad, then. His usual gruff demeanor folded into a grief so painful that Sam thought it must have been his mother lying there, and that’s where she’d been hiding for years.
“That wasn’t her,” Sam shouted. “That wasn’t her!”
Frodo jumped. At once, he was filled with anxiety and remorse for pushing Sam so hard. He gripped his hand tighter, scared Sam was caught in panic.
“Please, Sam - tell me what’s the matter?” Frodo said gently, willing him calm.
Sam looked at him incredulously. How could he not know?
“Your mother?” Frodo said next, guessing. He waited for Sam to respond. When he didn’t, he decided to press. “Your mother didn’t drown, did she?”
“No.”
This did have something to do with his mother; Frodo was certain. She was a huge subject that remained largely off-limits. Frodo knew she was dead because Bilbo had warned him off asking about her. He’d often wondered if this was because Sam didn’t know how his mother died. According to Bilbo, Sam was quite small when she passed. The poor woman died giving birth to his younger sister, Marigold. It was possible Sam’s family felt it best for all involved if they simply moved on. “Do you know, then?”
Sam stared at him. “I ‘ent sure.”
This verified Frodo’s suspicions. “No one ever told you?”
“No,” Sam answered. He looked stunned. “She were there, then gone. Da’ and May tol’ me she passed. I weren’t more than a bairn. I can’t...remember?”
“I thought so,” Frodo replied as his own thoughts trailed off into a mix of intuition and his own painful memories. He’d often found necessity did not mesh with expectation. The presence of Sam’s family hung in the short space between them. They never told Sam how she passed, only that she was never coming back. “Do you want me to tell…”
“She didn’t drown!” Sam’s breathing picked up, his eyes fixed on the water. The pool rippled passively. Dawn blended with morning across the flat horizon. Chimney smoke from Stock faded into wan, brown ribbons. The Shire woke in a sideways, lazy drift upon the Marish. Already, the air was growing warmer.
Frodo tugged on Sam’s arm, willing him closer.
Sam resisted for long moments before taking a step. “I know she didn’t drown,” he repeated.
Frodo was ready to give up. It wasn’t his place to push Sam to crisis. Moreover, he didn’t wish to hurt him, impose on his privacy, or increase the chances of Marigold finding out. These secrets belonged to the Gamgees. “Perhaps…that was best.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
Sam realized what was wrong – but the panic remained sharp. Fear had mixed up his memory, making it seem like the water hid his mother’s secret. The girl and his mother had changed places. He could not look at water and not think of her lying there, drowned and empty. There was no truth to it - just lies and the confusion of a lonely little boy who missed warm arms he barely remembered. “Not knowin’ what happened caused me to wonder. I don’t think I ever stopped? Now I’m not knowin’ what to think!”
Although he expected it, this still struck a terrible note in Frodo. He knew, in detail, the circumstances of his own parent’s death. All of Buckland helped search, but it was Frodo who found them tangled in discarded fishing nets under the Brandywine. Not much was left, and what was there never left him. Every innocent question, every kindness meant to comfort built and built until words drowned him. He became a story. He was the boy who survived and a hundred different identities, all assigned by someone else. All he’d wished was understanding, and all they craved were answers. In response, he’d become a mystery filled with curiosities that made others forget to ask about anything else. This satisfied everyone’s expectations but his. The water wiped out who he was as surely as it took his parents lives.
The water had taken Sam’s identity, too. Frodo understood that now. What the water hid from Sam for all those years was nothing more than himself.
“Better mystery than infamy,” Frodo said hollowly. “They wanted you to move on, thought you did. Your family didn’t think the circumstances of your mother’s death were necessary for you to know. They wished for you to get on with life, and I believe this may have been your mother’s wish as well; she couldn’t have known it would pain you so when you tried to puzzle out who you are, or who you were. Their concern was not to burden you with what could never change, and that you had nothing to do with.”
Memories of fear trickled through Sam’s mind as he filled up with wounded anger. Through it, he reasoned that no one meant for him to suffer. Sam trusted his father implicitly; if the Gaffer withheld this, there must have been good reason. The fault lay within himself. Sam allowed his fear to shape his identity. He could choose to hate this, or move on. An ingrained sense of pragmatism barred him from indulgence, so he resolved to see it through.
Sam told Frodo of what he remembered about the girl in the By-Water pool, then summarized his experience: “Bein’ I was so little, then – I mixed it up. I were thinkin’ ‘mam jus’ left us, an’ no one’s the heart to tell me, like it t’were all a lie. Da said I used to look for her everywhere – under the table, in the garden, out by the Party Tree – like if I jus’ looked hard enough, I’d find her. He said I’d turn me head whenever I’d hear a woman’s voice, and call for ‘mam. When Hal left for the north, a bit o’ me thought he were goin’ off to find her. I knew by then she were under the garden. Da’ showed me, but it ‘ent stuck here,” he patted his chest. “I’m thinkin’ it never will.”
“You never stopped looking,” Frodo looked up at the sky. “How could you?”
“Aye,” Sam agreed, then quickly dismissed any blame. “Da would beggar himself if he knew how it done me. May would, too. I don’t want them knowin’ it twisted me so. T’wasn’t done on purpose.”
“Then you’ll trade that secret for this one?” Frodo suggested.
“Aye, jus’ between us, then,” Sam smiled, relieved.
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Sam rested back against Frodo’s chest. Frodo clasped one arm around Sam’s shoulders, left his other arm free. A cool hand felt about Sam’s face, located his nose, and gave it a playful twist. Sam sneezed. The hand darted back.
“Tha’s what ye get!” Sam admonished. His voice was reedy, thin. The idea of deep water hadn’t settled with him, yet. He still had doubts, but the terror, the teeth of it, were gone.
“Try not to thrash,” Frodo said, then stepped back. Sam stepped with him.
One moment, the sky was shot with silver and a deep, reddish plum. In the next, it was gone. The water closed over his head. Sam panicked. His limbs spasmed out, grasping blindly for purchase. The arm across his shoulders was a steel band, unyielding. Sam’s hands found nothing – only water. He opened his mouth to scream. A great whoosh swept past his ears, and then his head broke the surface as his scream found air.
“Gods, but you’re a heavy beast!” Frodo hissed in his ear. ‘Kick out! Kick out!”
Sam’s mouth closed with a pop. His body raced with adrenaline, shoving back a cold so deep his guts shivered. He smelled the cold – it was everywhere and inside everything. His legs pumped, snaring Frodo’s. Frodo kicked back mercilessly as his free arm stirred the water like a rudder, keeping them both steady. Sam’s legs spread out. Cold gripped his balls as his body drew back inside itself. He kicked wildly, thwarting the pain, then was amazed as he slid back through the water. Frodo moved with him.
Frodo was a good teacher. He’d taught both his younger cousins to swim like minnows by the time they were both out of nappies. They were both smaller, lighter of frame than Sam who had a tendency to sink like a stone. Still, Sam took to floating right enough and even managed a decent dog-paddle that got him where he needed to go. Frodo worked him until satisfied Sam could push-off the bottom, right himself, and then float on his back. These were all the lessons the pool would allow, and they would have to do. The quick-running Brandywine was a different story – one filled with treachery and currents that eagerly snuffed hobbit life. If he’d not been convinced of Sam’s ability to keep above water, they would have returned home. Frodo would not compromise. What that terrible river could do was evident in the ruined bodies of his parents. He’d not endure the water claiming another love. Not Sam. He wouldn’t survive losing Sam.