Wight Fright: "Fog on the Barrow-Downs" RPG

[Mithalwen]

The life of a farmer’s wife was always busy but now that three of her children were no longer living at home there was a reduction in Sukebind Woodseaves' workload that almost disconcerted her. She had spent years cooking for a family of seven and now there were only four of them. Less food to prepare, less laundry to do and the house seemed to stay a lot tidier even though Jessamy was one of those still living in it. Things had almost seemed normal during harvest when all the boys had returned to the farm to help - as was the custom in Breeland. The welfare of all depended on a successful crop gathering so many were diverted from their usual occupations. But Harvest had finished some weeks ago and Bryn had returned to the forge and Filbert to the Pony and the farm seemed very quiet again.

It seemed particularly quiet today - Seth and Erling were ploughing and had taken food with them so not to waste any of the short day and dry weather and she didn’t really expect to see Jessamy much before nightfall. She had made quick work of preparing a stew for supper and it was already simmering gently on the range. Dough was proving in a covered bowl by the hearth and she decided there were enough eggs to use up the old loaves in a bread and butter pudding. but this too was the work of few minutes for a skilled cook. She thought of the the skein of fine white wool she had bought at market a couple of months ago and had put aside fearing that she would tempt fate if she crafted too soon for her first grandchild due in early spring. Maybe it was not too soon now. She smiled at the thought and went out side to rinse her hands under the pump. Returning she admired the winter jessamine that flowered by the kitchen door its flowers like yellow stars against the green. A welcome bit of colour in the darker days she always thought and like many Breelanders, Sukebind had named her daughter for a favourite flower. As she passed into the parlour to dig out her needles and patterns she thought of Jessamy and hoped she was having a nice time.

[Mithalwen]

At that moment Jessamy was not having a nice time at all. Shrouded in her cloak, ghostlike save for the bright tangle of her hair as she stood on the top of the barrow the folly of the venture was beginning to hit home.

Although the downs started only a few miles from Bree she knew that they spanned about ten miles at their widest, from the Greenway to the Old Forest and from her vantage point she saw that the shadows of the trees were much closer than she thought they should be. How could they possibley have wandered so far... there wasn't the time. Yet she could see the trees but neither the Greenway nor the Shire Road. Then she remembered one of the stories she had heard... that the trees of the Old Forest were said to move. She had dismissed it at the time as just one of those things elder brothers tell you to scare you but now she recalled her father saying there were legends in the South of trees that walked. As the light dimmed it seemed all more plausible.

Jessamy could not decide which possibility was worse - either they were too far away to have any hope of getting home before night or she was far too close to a living moving forest.

Then she heard the howl and courage failing she added her own wail to the air.

[Mithalwen]

"This is no good" thought Jessamy. If she could climb up here on two legs she was pretty sure whatever was howling could make it on four and she was just making herself conspicuous. The sensible thing to do would be to set her back to the fading sun and try to bear left a little - that way she should hit either the East Road or the Greenway sooner or later. She wouldn't get home on time but she would get home. She had her cloak she had food she would be alright.

"But what about the others ..." she thought. They wouldn't know she had gone and they might be looking for her, she reasoned. Part of her mind argued that they had probably gone already.. and even if they hadn't she could get help as soon as she got back to the town. Another part reminded her that she had wandered away. Jessamy was torn, the longer she delayed the less likely she was to get back on familiar terrain before dark but she couldn't just abandon the others without trying to find them.

She slid down the barrow and started to call the others' names:

"Edwin... where are you?"

[Durelin]

Karl caught up with the dog to find it staring and sniffing in the direction of one of the barrows in the Downs. It had caught the scent of something, and Karl now could smell it as well.

"Duke," he called, "shut up and get away from there. I'm not bringing you home again if you go after a skunk."

With one more urging, the dog gave up its sniffing. Karl grumbled under his breath about Duke being "worthless" as the dog attempted to follow him from ahead rather than behind. He had a single rabbit in the sack over his shoulder. He had almost had a bird...

Since the cur had broken the edge of the forest into the Downs, Karl decided one rabbit was enough to last him. He was comfortable in the Old Forest -- though obviously he avoided it at night -- but the Barrow-downs made him shake and feel like a hundred eyes were on him.

So he stopped dead in his tracks when he thought he heard a voice. Duke gave a short bark in response and Karl hastily shushed him. The man scanned around him, focusing especially on the barrows, but saw nothing. While he was straining to find whatever it was that was causing goosebumps to rise on his skin, Duke took off toward one of the barrows a good way off.

"Duke! Get back here! Duke!"

~*~

Edwin heard Karl berating his dog, and breathed a little easier for the moment. Part of him wished to leap out of the barrow and beg the man to take him back to town, but the rest of him was more concerned with what the man might think of a boy in the middle of the Barrow-downs smelling like a skunk...and what the others might think when the man brought him home.

He steeled himself, trying not to inhale too much and keeping his eyes on his feet until he was sure Karl and Duke had moved on. He rushed out of the mound, kicking up dust and stone. Perhaps he could find somewhere to wash up...though he dared not enter the Old Forest. If he managed to get lost in the Downs, he could only imagine how long he might find himself wandering that tangled, unfriendly mess of trees.

[Mithalwen]

At Woodseaves Farm

"Mum? Where are you?"

"In here Seth.... I mean Silas". Sukey had seen the tall figure looming in the shadow of the kitchen doorway and not unreasonably had assumed it was her resident son not her first born. The two eldest were fairly alike having their father's height and lean build but their mother's hair.

"Can't you tell us apart yet, Mother?"

"Of course, I can dear - I just wasn't expecting you. What brings you here?" She left her wool and returned to the kitchen to put the kettle on the stove, correctly anticipating that tea was unlikely to be refused.

"We broke a haul chain this morning - I have been in the workshop trying to mend it but it's no good. I'll have to take it to the forge and get Bryn to fix it properly - I have to take a load of firewood to the Pony anyway later and I thought Seth might lend me a hand in return for a pint" .

"I think you can take that as a given - he is up in top field ploughing at the moment but they shouldn't be long now... why don't you bring Fern with you and she can stay with me while you go into town and tell me what she wants me to do with that wool. Then you can both stay to supper.. I have made too much again" she added ruefully.

"That sound's like a plan... what have you done with Jessie?"

"Oh she has gone to see Cal Boffin - you can round her up for me if she isn't back by the time you go". This information stirred something in Silas' memory but it was only later, back in his own cottage, when he relayed the invitation to his wife that he remembered that the Boffins had gone away to the Shire and that it would be odd if Jessamy hadn't known that full well.

On the Downs

Jessamy's imagination was too full of wolves to pass off the faint regular thudding noise as merely the sound of her own blood pounding as her heart rate increased with her fear. She knew the sound of a dog running well enough but now was convinced that this faint beat belonged to a larger fiercer version. She started to run full pelt no longer heeding the direction of woods or fading sun only caring to get as far away as possible from the beast that followed her. She hurtled along seeking a route between the mounds having dismissed the idea of sheltering in one... the skunk incident hadn't dismissed the notion that things more sinister might lurk within. She'd take her chances in the open.

However quick she was, two feet were never going to outpace four. The footfalls got closer and closer; she did not dare to look round yet even so, in her haste, she tripped and fell for the second time that day and as she fell she knew that the beast had caught her up. She closed her eyes and steeled her self for whatever was to come, curling into a ball her arms over her face.

The lick to her hand was not what she expected at all she uncovered her face and opened her eyes to see a dog, large and dark and a bit rough looking but still a perfectly ordinary dog. And one she thought she knew.... Prince was it? No.....

"Hullo Duke" she murmured stroking his ears, "you did scare me, you silly thing, what are you doing up here?"

[Durelin]

As Karl went after Duke, jogging a bit but not really rushing to catch the dog, he thought he heard a voice -- a female voice. Soon he discovered the source of it, as he came upon Duke and what he had found.

"Jessamy!" Karl could not help by cry out. "What...what are you doing out here?" he asked with great concern. "And alone, that's even worse..." he continued, rambling a bit in his surprise.

~*~

Edwin wandered in what he believed to be the general direction of home. He was surprised when he came across a small pool of water, really a puddle, though it had been several days since it last rained. He eyed it for a moment -- it was not the most pleasant looking water -- but shortly he bent down and splashed some of the water on his face to feel at least a little less...disgusting.

Drops of the water unavoidably passed his lips, and when he found himself licking them off the inside of his lips by habit, he discovered he was quite thirsty and the water did not seem so bad after all. It tasted almost...sweet. So he cupped his hands in the pool and put them up to his mouth. Feeling refreshed and, strangely, far less afraid, Edwin went to stand from his crouched position, and instead only wobbled a bit before he fell over beside the pool, the world suddenly lost to him.

~*~

Meanwhile... There was a crispness and coolness about the air, and the whole world had turned a bit grey even as evening approached. It always snuck up on you around this time of year, the approach of darkness and supper time. Soon pieces of heaven began to fall from the sky, white flakes fluttering down to stick tentatively to the cold grass.

[Mithalwen]

On the Downs

"Hullo Karl" , answered Jessamy. She didn't know Karl well - noone seemed to really - but so relieved was she to see someone that wasn't a spectre or a werewolf that she couldn't care less that most Breelanders thought that he was a queer fish. Besides she remembered her father's words when he had chided the youngest of her brothers for some derogatory comment about him "He walks to the beat of a different drum but that doesn't mean there is any harm in him". Erling Woodseaves had been an outsider himself, having migrated up the Greenway after the floods that followed the Fell Winter destroyed Tharbad. Nearly thirty years on this was seldom remembered save by the few who bore a lingering resentment that he had acquired by marriage a fine farm as well as a fair wife. He had become a part of the community but he would not tolerate narrowmindedness in his children.


"It was meant to be an adventure...but it has turned out quite horribly ... and I didn't come alone ...Edwin and some others were here but we got separated and I didn't like to go home without them... and now it is getting dark and I am going to be in so much trouble... " her voice tailed of and she was trying hard not to cry with the relief of no longer being alone.

Breeland

Knowing Jessamy could not possibly be where she was placed her eldest brother on the horns of a dilemma. Silas was torn between sibling loyalty and the fear that something bad might have happened to his sister which would be exacerbated by his silence. Their mother’s heedless request that they fetch her home with them now filled him with guilt.

He hoped in vain that Jessamy would be already home when he returned to the farm and it was only when Fern was safely installed in the cosy parlour with Sukey and the knitting wool that he confided his fears to Seth as they set off.


Seth had laughed at his worries teasing him that it was impending fatherhood that had made him overly concerned and rather enjoying the opportunity to lecture his elder brother. “No, I don’t think we should tell Dad. We skived off enough when we were her age and no harm done. Jessie won’t thank you for getting her into trouble for nothing. Chances are we will find her in the snug of the Pony, pestering hapless travellers for stories and drinking Mrs Butterbur’s hot chocolate - besides Dad’s done in, he was asleep in his chair more or less as soon as we got in. And mum would be frantic... no need to worry them until we know there is something to worry about”.

Silas nodded but his mood did not lighten. Maybe Seth was right and he was going soft but he was particularly fond of his baby sister - after a succession of brothers she had been a novelty, like a foxcub, with her russet hair and bright blue eyes, and when she had curled her tiny fist around his finger she had set a grip on his heart that had not weakened a decade later. And nothing Seth could say would dispel the fear that he might not see her again. It was as well the sturdy ponies that drew the waggon knew the road for they got little guidance from their fretful master.

Soon the waggon reached Bree’s South gate. They stopped first at the forge, dropped off the chain that needed mending and learnt from Bryn some news of their sister. Jessamy had passed by first thing in the morning but he hadn’t seen her since - though he was of a mind with Seth that she was probably fine. Shorter and stockier than his elder brothers he had an easygoing nature that wasn’t prone to flights of imagination. “I’ll just finish off here” he said wiping his hands on his leather apron, and I’ll join you at the inn - if she’s not there I’ll help you look and if she is you can buy me a pint”.