Baradar and I left the pond a little over a week ago now.
The night before, Davick visited one last time. I had certainly not expected it given the manner in which we had parted ways not a day before. I can only assume that he came to ensure that I was, indeed, leaving and had not just told him so in order to escape the consequences of my admission.
He informed me that I had engendered in him a sense of guilt. Why should he feel any guilt for me? He has helped me more than he knows, shown me a new way to be and set me on the path to being a new woman. He cannot help it if I have feelings for him that he does not return. It was but one last lesson from him: Love hurts and, for me at least, is not worth the price it demands.
As if he had not done enough damage the day before, he had the gaul to apologise to me along with the words "Goodbye for now, dear heart." How dare he? How dare he say such a thing when he knows that I have no intention of returning to Bree-land and he has no intention of coming to visit me? How dare he call me such a thing? Dear heart! It is like a final slap to my face! I could have hit him for that. I should have!
Baradar came to me the next morning and thus we left.
Given the nature of the people looking for me, we decided to avoid roads and any area that may be infested with bandits. Unfortunately, this resulted in Baradar taking me through the Barrow Downs.
Is there a worse place than that? I had never stepped foot in that area before and now I wish that I never had! Everything about it was terrible. There were corpses strewn along the floor. Fresh ones, as if previous wanderers had been found there and slain by the inhabitants. To make matters worse, there are old corpses also, but these ones are walking around! The stench is terrible, the sight of them even more so. I will have nightmares of the walking dead for months to come, I believe. Even now, I shudder to think of what I saw.
The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. We passed through a dark and creepy forest and out into Buckland, from there crossing the bridge into the Shire. Another two days travel brought us to Harwood and into his home.
I have seen nothing like it before. From the outside, it looks like a small earthy shack built against a cliffside. Only when one walks through the door does it become apparant that the house is built into the cliff itself. It is huge! I have never seen a house so big!
It is warm and sheltered, though. I have my own bed and my own room. The area seems very peaceful indeed. There are brightly coloured ribbons and tents in the village square and, staying here, one could believe that nothing bad will ever happen.
However, every time I close my eyes, I see visions of burning houses and dying hobbits. It is my experiences from Archet talking, this I know: images of the past transposed on a place of the present. Thus do I push the thoughts away, shake them off and get on with my new life here.
The hobbits watch my every move, frowning at me with suspicious little eyes, as if it is just a matter of time before I turn into a rabid monster and eat their babies. It is unnerving, but there is naught I can do about that. Sooner or later they will become used to me, or so I hope.
As I sit here now, writing this account of the past, I wonder what it is worth to do so. In every other way, I have started as I mean to go on. I have walked away from Bree-land and my life there with no regret or second-guesses. I have come to this place with my head held high, my scarred face revealed for all to see. I have even purchased a roll of material and spent a day or two fashioning myself a new dress and, to top it all off, I have had my hair cut short.
This is a new day, a new life with a new future awaiting me. I shall treat it as such and live the best that I can from this day onward.
