Settling an Old Ghost to Rest by Kathryn Ramage

"So that's a ghost..." Thimula said in a dazed voice. "I've never seen one before."

"What're you doing here, Miss?" asked Sam as he scrambled after Frodo up the bank of the dell to reach her.

"I saw the lights," she answered, still dazed but pulling herself together. "After dinner, I thought I'd go and have another talk with Mr. Bogwater--not about the ghost, but about Selbry and his friends. It occurred to me it would be fitting to have them do some of the heavy work in fixing the place up, since I didn't leave the fish for them to clear away and I wouldn't dream of asking them for the money they made from the trout. I thought they might knock down and bury the rubble of the old kitchens." Her eyes had remained fixed on the darkness under a line of trees while she was speaking, but now she turned to Frodo. "On my way across the Hodberry fields to the cottage, I saw candlelight flickering up here through the windows. And I knew who it was." There was a note of reproach in her voice. "I should've known right away that you'd come back here tonight and leave me out of it!"

"I didn't want you running into the ghost," Frodo said apologetically, since that was precisely what Thimula had done.

"I was trying to follow the lights within the house whenever I saw them, to find where you were," Thimula went on. "It looked as if you were headed toward the back of the house... and then that door flew open." She indicated the door Sam and Frodo had just emerged through. "That thing came rushing past me. I felt it before I saw it--like a dark blast of wind." She shuddered.

"Are you all right, Thimula?" Frodo asked her, taking her arm.

"I'm fine," she insisted, but she still looked somewhat shaken by her experience, and Frodo led her away from the house to find a seat on a fallen tree not far from the remains of the bonfire Thimula had built earlier in the day. There were still some embers glowing within the pile of ashes and warmth radiated from it, a slight but welcome comfort to all three hobbits as the night grew chilly.

"You ought to go back down the hill to the farm, Miss," Sam suggested.

"I ought to stay," Thimula answered with surprising determination. "Surely the worst has occurred. I've seen the ghost--it was rather a shock, but I'll be better prepared for it next time. Besides, it is my house. I know I engaged you to investigate the haunting of the Old Sackville Place, but it isn't fair that I go back to the Hodberries for a cup of tea and a good night's sleep and leave you here. I couldn't, knowing what you'd be facing."

"But we might be out here all night, chasing after it," Sam responded. "We're used to such odd business, but `tisn't fitting for a lady and, begging your pardon, Miss, but atop all else, it wouldn't be proper for you to stay on."

Thimula stared at him. "Improper? How?"

"It'd cause talk," explained Sam. "An unmarried lady spending the night out with two- ah-"

"Gents," Frodo supplied, amused.

"Yes," Sam went on, bashful at having this word applied to him, but ploughing on to make his point. "If you're meaning to make a home here in Sackville, Miss Bracegirdle, you don't want to have the neighbors gossiping about your comings-and-goings before you even settle in."

Thimula also looked amused but touched as she said, "I daresay you're right, Mr. Gamgee, but I am here and any damage to my reputation is done. So I might as well stay at least a little while longer and try to help you to rid my house of that thing. If we can't do so, it doesn't matter what the folk of Sackville have to say about me."

After four and a half years of marriage, Sam knew when it was useless to go on arguing with a woman. He relit the candles and Frodo settled down in the grass to discuss the problem with Thimula. If the flickering lights were seen in the village, they might be taken for new evidence of the haunting, but none of the three needed further proof themselves.

Now that she was recovering from seeing Wormtongue's ghost for herself, Thimula seemed more angry than frightened. "I can't live in a house with that horrid thing! I certainly couldn't bring children here to live. And I couldn't rent it to anyone else."

"You can still marry and live in Hobbiton," Frodo tried to console her.

"Yes, I know, but this house seemed perfect for what I wanted. I felt so the moment I saw it. It's in shambles, but I could see what it had once been, and what it might be again if it had someone to care for it. And I do care for it! You have such a lovely house yourself, Frodo. You and the Gamgees. You must understand what I feel."

Frodo said that he did, and Sam nodded in sympathetic agreement.

"Did you see him in the house?" Thimula asked them. "Did he say anything to you that will help me get rid of him?"

"He didn't speak, but I think Wormtongue was trying to tell us something," Frodo told her. "He led us deliberately outdoors. Where was he going to?"

"I really couldn't say," answered Thimula. "It brushed past so quickly--it almost touched me! That was all I could think about until you came out the same door. It went into the trees and disappeared..."

Frodo twisted around to find the trees Thimula had been staring at; only the tops were visible from where he was sitting, but he could see that they were planted in two straight lines, like an avenue, leading away from the back of the house. Surely they must be leading to something as well? A back entrance to the garden? A terrace? He couldn't recall noticing any such features when he and Sam had walked around the foot of the hill earlier in the day. "What's over there?" He wondered aloud, and then a memory of his previous visit to the Old Sackville Place came to him. He'd sat on the lawn while his friends had disposed of Wormtongue's body. "Sam, is that where the family vault is?"

"That's right," Sam confirmed. "There's a path under those trees, all but grown over. It goes down the side o' the hill a bit, and there's a door."

"You put his- ah- him there?" asked Thimula.

"Yes, Miss. It seemed only decent. We couldn't leave 'm lying out for the rats--and only think what the next person to come into the house would've found!"

"Instead of only an odd stain on the floor," said Thimula musingly. "I wondered what that could be. Do you think he wanted to show you where he was buried, Frodo? Perhaps he doesn't like it, where he is."

"If he doesn't, then there's not much we can do," said Sam with an eye on Thimula; he didn't wish to distress her by discussing these distasteful subjects, but Thimula seemed unmoved by the grisly details of burial. She had, after all, recently managed the funeral arrangements for her aunt. "We couldn't move 'm now. I wouldn't like to try, not after four years. There might be naught left to 'm but the bones, but I wouldn't like it all the same. Best to let 'm lie there in peace."

"But he isn't at peace, Mr. Gamgee. What's left of his mortal remains might be lying at rest, but something's disturbing his spirit and making it unable to rest."

"Sam..." Frodo's mind was still turning as his friends talked. What could be keeping Wormtongue's spirit bound to this place and in torment? Was it guilt for his crimes, or could it be something more tangible? An idea occurred to him. "Sam, when you and Merry and Pippin carried him out there--how? How did you bear him?"

"`Twasn't easy, even with the three of us to give a hand," Sam answered. "A Big's a heavy burden, even a shriveled-up little Big like that feller."

"What did you use?"

"Use?" Sam echoed.

"Yesterday, when we first went into that room where he and Saruman died, I noticed that Saruman's robes were gone." Frodo explained to Thimula: "When the wizard died, his physical form dissolved immediately. Only his clothes remained--a long white robe and cloak." Then he turned back to Sam, "You wrapped him up in them, didn't you? You used them to carry him out to the vault?"

Sam nodded. "It wasn't wrong of us, was it, Frodo? It seemed fitting, and there wasn't anything else to hand but the dirty bedsheets and the dustcovers."

"No, Sam. You did what seemed best at the time."

"But could that be what's keeping him here?" asked Thimula. "The robes have trapped his spirit--is that what you believe, Frodo?"

"I don't know, but it is possible. A wizard's robes aren't simply clothing. The Elves weave the cloth and embroider it with their own symbols. They wouldn't call it magical, but it does hold powers we don't fully understand. In any case, he meant to lead us toward the vault, and to the vault we ought to go. While we're there, I suggest we take and destroy Saruman's robes. If that's not what Grima Wormtongue wants of us, I feel sure he'll let us know."
You must login (register) to review.