Heart's Cord

** many thanks to the gang at the Garden for wading through the drafts with me and to Neume for the final beta and polish.

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No, no and no. Bebothered. Not that bunch either.

I slapped a gnat off the back of my neck – a handful of gnats – and waded through the tall water leaves and reeds back up the bank of the Withywindle. I hadn't come all the way from Tighfield, through the Shire, across the Brandywine and into the verges of the Old Forest itself for gnats.

Frustration frayed in my belly and splintered the back of my head as desperation rolled up over it. My birthday was coming up, and I'd always made a rope for Da's gift. But I'd always disappointed him. I couldn't face another forced smile and another round of back-clapping and "well done, son" when I could see the disappointment in his eyes. His Da, and his Da before… I couldn't disappoint them again.

No. Not again. This would be the year Da would run the length of birthday rope through his calloused old hands, his eyes would get that sparkly-shine and the tip-end of his lip would quiver like it did when Ma made her special crème pie. He'd only nod, but that would be enough.

"Heart's Cord" he called it. But what if I couldn't find the special fibers… he had never even told me if they were leaves, vine, root or bark. "You just have to look until you find what you need" is all he would say. I'd looked.

I'd looked through the Shire from the Far Fox Downs to Greenfields and even through the Hills of Scary. Until here I was.

I slapped at the gnats again – useless – and wriggled my toes in the squishy mud, soft and cool as cucumber pie. If those crazy Bucklanders didn't have what I needed tucked back up in the edges of the Old Forest, maybe I wasn't meant to be a Roper. That fear settled in the pit of my gut like old milk.

My tummy rumbled, as if I needed the reminder of how long I'd been searching, how close to dinner time it was and – I suddenly gulped. I hadn't realized how far I'd come.

Aunt May's steaming dumplings called me back to the inn, but that next patch of lilies drew my eye. The way they swayed just at the edge of the water, swayed as if they beckoned… beckoned... I stumbled forward.

I stumbled forward, past the lilies to the old willow and past that into a grove of supple saplings. My heart pattered as if I'd walked into the kitchen just as a cherry pie was pulled from the oven. This was it. These were the ones I was looking for.

Carefully, oh so carefully, I pulled strips of bark. A long thread here, a long thread there. It wouldn't do to harm the little ones – I could take the slender lengths I needed for cording – they'd heal easily from the narrow, shallow cuts. From tender trunk to soft tender trunk, I took what I needed, murmuring thanks and praise to them all the while.

I fought the urge to look over my shoulder, to find the eyes that burned eerily into the back of my head, but I failed on occasion and found myself stopping my work to glance behind me. A glance would turn into a worried searching stare – all for naught. Only the quiet woods surrounded me, and doubtless, myriad woodland creatures. Harmless – or so I kept telling myself.

As I worked deeper into the grove, the uneasiness drifted away and I fell into my work. I loved the sweet easy rhythm that brought up the encompassing being of all that was and is and will be. Da never spoke of such things, I don't know if he felt them, but I did. Or, at least, I'd felt hints of it, sometimes, when I worked the rope, I thought I knew a sense of where the fibers had been and where they might go. It made the cord in my hand seem more than simple twisted fibers, it gave them life and stories of their own.

My fingers touched the fresh young bark, soft. The trunks seemed to offer themselves. How was that possible? I took only the thinnest slice of fiber from each one, yet my arms filled before I knew it. I lashed the bundles together and slung them over my back.

Da would condemn such musing as fancies better left to old women and children, and he'd mutter under his breath about how I'd been left too many times with my old Gram. That she'd been too fond of her apple cider and that she spoke too much of things that shouldn't be said, old tales, Elves and dragons and such. I always kept my mouth shut when my thoughts whirled, but I dreamed of ropes that were more than just last years roots and leaves.

Elves and dragons and such. I suddenly realized it was full dark. I'd only been working by the grace of a silver-bright full moon. The hair on the tops of my feet prickled as I slowly spun. I had no idea where I was. I'd worked in crazy circles; I couldn't trace my way back. Dark tales of the old wood flooded my mind and chilled to the pit of my empty stomach. I hoped Da was right about Gram's tales… too many of them didn't end with a cozy plate and a mug by the fire.

A warm whisper touched my cheek. I spun, stumbled back and caught myself from falling. Did I hear sparkling laughter? Did I feel the caress of a friendly kiss? A cluster of lightbugs danced in the path. The grudge of the days work suddenly weighed on me. I was still near the river, I could feel it in the air, but I hadn't had a drink in hours. The bugs winked through the saplings as they trailed off into the night. Their kind frequented the banks; I'd follow them back to the river and follow the river bank home.

#

The simple coils of pliant rope seemed to weigh more than the bushel of rocks I'd pulled from Gram's little garden last spring. My shoulders and forearms ached more from twisting the cording than they had from digging those rocks and filling Gram's old baskets. My eyes scratched and burned from tiredness, my raw hands ached and my fingertips bled – worn clear through the skin from the work.

But it would be worth it… if ….

Da took the rope from my outstretched hands. He held it, testing the weight and feel of it. His thumbs caressed it before he closed his hands on it, then he slowly, oh so slowly uncoiled and recoiled, then uncoiled a length of it again.

Why wouldn’t he meet my eyes?

"What is this Andwise?"

Did I hear a quaver in his stern old voice? Mine quavered. "It's a rope, Da. For you, for my birthday." What could he mean, what is it?

He shook his head – just one quick twitch – and his hands tightened on the rope I'd made. "No, I mean, what is it? What's it made of?"

I slowly shook my head. "I don't know Da." My innards quivered. What had I done wrong? "I don't know. Saplings. Bark, Da. Strips of soft bark. I – "

Da caressed the rope again before he carefully coiled it and handed it back. My heart stopped in mid-beat. He refused it?

"Da – " I couldn't find the words. "Da – You don't want it?" I was too old for tears.

He finally looked me in the eye as he placed the coils back in my hand. If I was too old for tears, he certainly was, but his old eyes gleamed too bright.

"It's your gift," I stammered out.

He smiled then. "It's your rope," he said. "I'll wager you don't have another one on ya, and a Roper can't be going about without one."

"But…"

His hand waved me silent. "Just holding it was enough for me. You have a gift with cord, son, I knew ya did and it's enough for me to see ya find it. Keep that cord close to your heart." His hand dropped to cover the well-worn rope at his own waist. "Old Gammidgy would be proud."



~ The End ~



a/n: I'm another one that tried and then pretty much trashed the challenge criteria. I've planned and outlined and written from that and also written stories that just flowed along on their own, but I tried a particular form of plotting, using note cards and individual scenes and it didn't work that well for me. It did give me the bones of the story, but it grew on it's own from there. Maybe the most interesting tidbit is that my son watched a YouTube with me about rope making and has since made a nice rope from some cord he found at the barn.