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It was one of those crisp Autumn days that could almost beat high Summer for sheer beauty, the leaves pleasantly dry and crunchy underfoot and those overhead still glowing red and gold in the bright sunlight. Though it was Hallow’s Eve, the weather didn’t seem to have been informed. Bilbo and Thorin walked hand in hand on their way back from the market, chatting idly about nothing in particular, each carrying a heavy basket filled with good things to eat.
The trip to market had been a little longer than planned, but then, the harvest had been particularly good this year, and they were laden with all manner of delicious treats, from spiced cured sausages to apple chutneys and bramble jam pastries. These last were particularly for the half-dozen faunts waiting in Bag End, invited over by Thorin’s nephews without warning that lunchtime. They had shown no signs of wanting to leave by the time Bilbo and Thorin had to go to market, and Fili and Kili had assured them both that it would be no trouble to leave them all in their care.
Bilbo and his husband were barely halfway up the hill when Bag End’s green door burst open, almost knocking one of the carved pumpkins from the doorstep. Clattering down the stone path came Fili and Kili, wild-eyed, and Bilbo felt his stomach drop.
“What’s happened?” asked Thorin, dropping his hand and striding forward to meet his nephews.
“It’s the pebbles - the faunts!” wailed Kili. “They’re not scared!”
Bilbo caught up to the gate and exchanged a look with Thorin. “...not scared?” he asked. If this was a joke, it was hardly amusing.
Fili seemed to realise the alarm they had caused and held out his hands placatingly. “They wanted spooky stories,” he explained. “Only now we’ve got a revolt on our hands, because none of ours are good enough.”
“I told them about Bolg and they didn’t believe me!” spluttered Kili, clearly outraged. “That Pippy one kept blowing raspberries!”
In fairness, clad in Shire-style clothing and with jam and cake crumbs still decorating his sparse beard, it was a little hard for even Bilbo to believe Kili could have felled such a foe, and he had seen the body for himself. Still, a tale had to fit its audience, and the various Baggins nephews and relations could be a demanding one.
With a longsuffering sigh, he passed his basket over to Fili. “His name’s Pippin, Kili. You and your Uncle get in the kitchen and make yourselves useful unpacking this lot. I shall go and see what can be done.”
--
In Bag End’s parlour it appeared a small explosion had taken place. Several chairs and quilts had been pulled together to form some sort of ramshackle den, and the loveseat had been pressed into service as a trampoline. Bilbo set his shoulders, strode into the thick of the maelstrom, and clapped his hands loudly.
“If there’s a single Hobbit bottom in this room that hasn’t been put on this rug by the time I count to five, I shall tan it myself with a willow switch, twenty strokes!” he bellowed, without the least intention of following through on the threat. Of course, only he could be certain of that.
To their credit, the two Brandybuck faunts who had been bouncing on the loveseat scrambled immediately back to the rug, their eyes wide with terror at having been discovered by the Master of Bag End. In short order the Gamgee children and his Baggins cousin’s son had emerged from the den and all were seated, legs crossed, before Bilbo had even reached “three”. The state of the room was still deplorable, but that would be a matter to deal with later.
“What about your bottom?” asked Frodo. “That’s not on the rug.”
“I didn’t get to five,” replied Bilbo loftily, and settled himself in the armchair. “Now, what’s this about scary stories?”
There arose an immediate pleading clamour, and Bilbo could not help but smile at their enthusiasm. He was not as young as he had once been, and could have fancied a cup of tea after that walk up the hill, but surely he could manage one story first.
“Very well,” he began. “I shall tell you a tale of my own mother, Belladonna, and every word of it is true. Not like silly fairytales of battling Orcs, eh?”
The assembled faunts giggled delightedly, and if Bilbo heard a bitten-off yelp of outrage from the kitchen, he ignored it. “Once upon a time, in the early morning of a Hallow’s Eve much like this, Belladonna Took woke up in good time for first breakfast and well before any of her family. She washed her face, dressed neatly, and walked down to the kitchen of the Great Smials, only to find every single cupboard… empty.”
He waited a moment, letting the horror sink in, and was pleased to find his audience already agog.
“Belladonna, as you may suppose, was not one to be easily dismayed, and the Great Smials have deep cellars. So she lit a candle and took herself down the dark, cold steps to the pantry, and what did she find?” He raised a hand dramatically. “The entire place, every shelf, every nook and cranny, where only the day before had been pies and hams and boiled eggs enough for a feast, was entirely bare.
“No food, not a scrap, anywhere in the building. Belladonna had not the least idea what had happened, and she ran back up the stone steps into the kitchen and out of the back door. The Old Took keeps chickens to this day, of course, and she went to check the coop, sliding a hand cautiously under each hen. But there were no eggs there, not a one.”
“‘What on earth is going on?’ she asked herself aloud, and at that, the nearest chicken to her turned its head. ‘It’s the Witch!’ it clucked. “The Witch from the woods!’”
Bilbo glanced at the rapt faces before him. If they were caught up enough to excuse the talking chicken, then the story was working, and it appeared not a one of them was remotely bothered, so he continued.
“At that, my mother returned to the house and put on her travelling cloak. She set off just as day was beginning to dawn, with bats still swooping and squeaking overhead, and before long she reached the edge of the woods. Along a narrow line, the trees and flowers seemed withered as if touched by sickness, and she followed the path they drew until she came to a clearing, where sat the horrid witch, clad all in black, a scrawny creature almost as thin as a wraith. Surrounding her were mountains of food, and she cackled to herself as she dropped all of it, piece by piece, into a great bubbling cauldron, where it disappeared.”
There was an audible gasp of fear.
“‘Stop, wait!’ cried Belladonna, and ran forward, grasping the Witch’s bony wrist as she made to pick up a whole roasted chicken. ‘What are you doing?’
“The Witch cackled again. ‘Teaching a lesson to greedy glutton Hobbits!’ she cried, wrestling free of Belladonna’s grip. ‘You’ll thank me one day!’
“Well, Belladonna was furious at once. ‘How dare you!’ she cried, ‘as if it were any of your business! You must put all of these stolen things back at once, you wicked thief, I insist upon it!’
“The Witch’s face grew sly. ‘How will you make me?’ she asked, and my mother had to think quickly then, I assure you, for witches are cunning creatures.
“‘A game of riddles,” said Belladonna. She was a clever woman, for it is a fact that no magical being can resist a game of riddles, so though the Witch pulled the most terrifying faces, she could not help but agree.
“‘And what are the terms?’ asked the Witch, grumbling mightily.
“‘If I win,’ said Belladonna, her heart beating fast in her chest, ‘then you must return all this food to where you found it, and trouble the Shire no more with your wicked meddling.’ She paused then, and added, ‘and I should like a large bowl of porridge, too, since it is long past first breakfast and I am terribly hungry already, you old hag.’”
“‘Agreed,’ said the witch. ‘And if I win, I keep every scrap, and since we’re asking for extras I’ll have you as well, to be my serving girl for the rest of your life.’ The Witch’s eyes were glinting with greed, and Belladonna briefly considered the irony of that, before bravely nodding.
“‘Let us begin! Me first!’ cried the witch, and began to recite.”
“‘Alive without breath,
As cold as death,
Clad in mail never clinking,
Never thirsty, ever drinking.’”
Bilbo raised an eyebrow at his audience. “Do you know it?”
“Fish!” they chorused all together.
“Well done,” he nodded. “And Belladonna knew it too. So then it was her turn, and here was her riddle: “A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.’”
The faunts upon the rug looked bewitched themselves, and yet, as he had hoped, not one knew the riddle or could guess the answer. Bilbo shook his head.
“Well, nor did the witch,” he told them. “The answer is an Egg, as it happens.”
“I knew that,” muttered Meriadoc, and was sharply elbowed by Frodo. Bilbo continued his tale.
“Oh, how furious the Witch was to have lost the game! She shrieked like a wounded fox and green smoke came billowing from her ears, as with a twinkle of magic all the food piled up about the clearing vanished again, returned to its proper pantries and cellars and cupboards. My mother, being a Hobbit of very good breeding, curtseyed despite the alarming spectacle, and was about to take her leave when the witch stopped her with a terrifying glare.
“‘We are not done yet, are we? The terms must be fulfilled!’ she hissed, and waved her hands in a complicated motion. Upon the grass between them both appeared a wooden spoon and a bowl of porridge so large I dare say Pippin could have swum in it,” said Bilbo, and Pippin Took, the youngest present, squeaked with delight.
“The terms were as Belladonna had set them, and she had no wish to be a witch’s servant so she could hardly break the deal now. Besides, she was hungry enough, and it seemed no impossible task. She took up the spoon. ‘Every bit of it,’ cackled the witch, watching gleefully, and as my mother took the first taste, she realised with terror her mistake.”
Bilbo paused for effect, regarding the sea of enraptured faces before him.
“For she had only asked for porridge, and porridge was all that was in the bowl, that enormous bowl of which she was beholden to eat every last bit. Just porridge…” he said, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “No honey, no sugar, and no cream.”
He sat back to a most satisfying chorus of low moans as the full horror sank in to every faunt present. Not a one of them moved, their faces pale with shock, and several had trembling lower lips.
From the doorway to the kitchen Bilbo heard a quiet chuckle and turned to find Thorin leaning against the frame, smiling fondly. Beside him, his nephews looked somewhat disgruntled.
“That’s… a scary story?” asked Kili.
Bilbo stood, stretching his arms over his head. “It is for Hobbits,” he said simply. “Is there tea?”
“Of course,” said Thorin. He stepped back to let Bilbo past, laying a delightfully broad hand upon the small of his back as they returned to the kitchen. The shopping baskets lay empty on the windowsill, their contents neatly packed away, and the room was quite as spick and span as Bilbo could have wished. Late afternoon sunshine poured through the window, gleaming on his mother’s old green West Farthing tea set where it sat at the centre of the table. “Yours is in the pot.”
“Marvellous,” said Bilbo gratefully as he poured his cup. “I’m glad I don’t have to do everything around here.”
“Yet you are so good at it all,” teased Thorin, before the unmistakable sound of Samwise Gamgee bursting into tears reached them from the Parlour. “Perhaps too good,” added Thorin anxiously.
Bilbo snorted, curling his hands around the warm mug and leaning back against Thorin, who obligingly encircled Bilbo’s waist in his arms, resting his cheek against the top of Bilbo’s head. Any minute now it would be time to start cooking Dinner, and really, folk their age deserved five minutes break with a cup of tea now and again.
“I believe it’s your nephews’ turn to babysit again,” Bilbo replied, and blithely took a sip of his tea.