She Walks In Shadow

Chapter 2

Later, Bilba wouldn't be able to say just how long she simply...stayed there, lying on her back, staring at the roof over her head.

She knew it was long enough to watch the shadows lift, for the first rays of sun to creep over the sill of the open window, for the crickets outside to fall silent as night gave way to day.

She didn't stay out of any confusion about where she was. It might have been decades since she'd last seen her home, but that didn't mean she'd forgotten it.

On particularly miserable days in the wild she could, with relative ease, conjure memories of every beam and floorboard. She'd trace them in her mind just as her eyes tracked them now, would fantasize about the press of an overstuffed mattress instead of the hardpacked earth, pretend her stomach was filled with delicious food from her larder instead of whatever, often meager, rations she'd managed to procure for that day.

No, it certainly wasn't confusion about where she was that kept her trapped in place for so long.

Rather, it was more surprise that the afterlife would resemble Bag End.

The chatter of distant voices caught her attention from outside her open window and she sucked in a sharp breath. Her heart gave a small jolt and adrenaline raced through her as the voices seemed to grow louder, closer, before fading again until they ultimately vanished entirely.

Still, they had managed to snap her out of her trance. Bilba pressed her hands, palms down, into the mattress beneath her and slowly began to push up into a seated position.

An area on her back protested, sharp pain radiating out from a central point, and she stopped mid-motion with a hiss of pain.

Wait...pain?

She might not know much about the afterlife, but it was generally accepted across all races that death afforded one a relative lack of pain, didn't it?

She pushed her blankets away from her legs and shivered as the cool air of the morning made its presence felt. She was dressed in what had once been her favorite nightgown; light yellow and long sleeved, it fell all the way to her feet in heavy cotton folds. It had originally belonged to her mother and, after her loss, Bilba had worn it to feel closer to her.

Speaking of which, butterflies started to act up in her stomach and Bilba took a deep breath to try and calm them. A smile, a mix of half nerves and half unbridled happiness pushed at her lips without her permission and she let out a second breath, fingers digging into the fabric of her gown where it draped across her legs.

"Mother?"

There was no answer so Bilba slid out of bed, only to grimace as her back once again protested. It wasn't as bad, however, the sharpness fading to a deep soreness, so she set it aside in favor of more important things.

"Mother?" She padded out of her room into the darkened hallway, toes curling instinctively as they transferred from the thick rug in her bedroom to cold floorboards. "Father?"

Silence was her only answer.

Her smile faded a bit, and she headed toward the room at the far end of the hall. After her parents had died, she'd shut the door and never opened it again. Not even when she'd left the first time, not knowing if she'd ever come back, or when she'd left the second time, when she knew she'd never be coming back.

Now she faced a flood of trepidation mixed with nervous anticipation as she closed her fingers around the doorknob, iron icy against her skin.

With a deep breath to try and calm the butterflies still dancing in her stomach, she pushed the door open. "Mother? Fath--"