7
An Odd Occurrence
I woke up with a yawn but did not get up. As with most mornings, I much preferred to just lie in bed and sleep in. With a pleasant smile on my face, I pulled up the covers and rolled onto my other side. Then I saw something which scared the wits out of me.
The sword lay right beside my pillow.
I froze. It wasn't glowing or humming, but it was definitely there nonetheless. I blinked a couple times, wondering if I were still dreaming. I felt a breeze coming through the open window, and the thin white curtains danced in the air. No, I didn't think it could be a dream. Still, I had to be sure. I reached out to touch the sword, then realized that was a bad idea and jerked my hand back under the covers.
And then I knew it was happening again. I was falling into the trance-like state. I kept staring at the sword. Every so often, I took a glance at my watch. The minutes were going by like seconds. I don't believe the sword actually manipulated time; it was just my perception of it which changed.
In a sudden and desperate reaction, I kicked away the covers and jumped out of bed on the side opposite the sword. I just stood there staring at it for a few more seconds before making a dash for the door before I could fall under its spell again.
As I reached the door, though, it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't just leave the sword lying on my bed. I wasn't sure if the others would believe me in that it just appeared there all by itself (even though magic was a common thing in Middle Earth), and I didn't want them thinking I had stolen it. In a decisive move, I picked up a bunch of the white bed sheets and wrapped them around my right hand. Then I approached the sword. Fortunately, it still hadn't started humming or shining. My one fear was that it might begin to do that again once I grasped it, and I didn't want to draw attention here.
Taking a deep breath, I brought down my sheet-covered hand and firmly took hold of the hilt of the sword. It didn't react. Good. I then looked around the room for something to put the sword in. After searching thoroughly, I found nothing of sufficient size, so I carefully wrapped the bed sheets around it, taking care not to rub them against the sharp blade. I then opened the door, looked about to make sure no one was watching, and stole down the stairs.
Once outside, I bolted for the library. Thankfully, I encountered no one along the path I took. I decided to switch to walking inside the main hall, as I didn't want to seem suspicious if seen (although carrying a bundle of bed sheets around would no doubt already seem kinda weird). I reached the library doors and turned the handle. There was a "click-click" sound, and the doors wouldn't budge. They were locked!
Then I remembered the way Legolas had brought me down the first time I had entered the place and ran back outside. I could only hope that method of getting in wasn't barred as well. As I climbed the outer stairs, I heard voices and the sounds of utensils on plates, and I stopped where I was. Argh! There were people up there having breakfast!
Now what would I do? I couldn't afford to wait too long, for Elrond might go into the library to check on the sword at any time. Even if I could hide the sword, what would be my excuse for going into the library alone?
"Okay, calm down, James," I thought to myself. "There's a perfectly logical way to accomplish this. You just haven't found it yet." I quietly walked back down the steps to the base of the stairs. "I know!" my sarcastic side commented within my head. "I'll just use this magical sword to summon Houdini! He'll get that ol' sword back in its casket, no problemo!"
Then a decent idea actually came to me. The windows! Maybe I could get in there somehow. I glanced about to make sure no one was there to see me and darted towards the base of the library windows. To my dismay, they were all closed and all out of reach. There was no way I could climb up to them and no way of getting in from there, short of breaking the windows.
"Damnit," I cursed softly to the bundled up sword. "You just couldn't stay away from me, could you?" Then I realized I probably shouldn't aggravate it in any way, lest it might start glowing and making its sound again.
I looked up to the library windows again, just to be sure I hadn't missed any opportunities. One quick check told me I hadn't.
All of the sudden, the voices from the balcony started coming down the stairs. My head swung from side to side as I searched for a good hiding spot. I quickly came to the conclusion that the bushes under the library windows were my only hope for the amount of time I had left until the people on the stairs came down to ground level. I moved behind the bushes as fast as I could without creating too much of a rustling noise. The bushes had a good deal of foliage, and I was pretty sure no human could spot me. The problem here was that these were elves I was dealing with. If their keen eyes didn't discover me, their ever attentive ears certainly might.
To my relief, the two individuals walked away in the opposite direction. I crawled through the dirt, being careful not to dislodge the sword from the sheets. Once back on the open grass, I snuck around to the bottom of the stairs. The two elves were already out of sight. Excellent.
Walking up the stairs once again in a crouched position, I listened for further sounds. As I neared the top, I heard the washing of dishes and someone singing a hymn. Taking a big risk, I poked my head up above the wall. There was no one on the balcony. I immediately dashed up the last few stairs so quietly that I surprised even myself. I then ran to the inset of stairs leading down into the library and followed them down, only to discover another door at the bottom. I must not have noticed it the day before, because it had been wide open. Not ready to admit defeat, I tried the handle. It was locked.
"Great," I thought. "Just great. Why'd this door have to be locked too?"
Then, as if things weren't bad enough, the sword started to glow from under the sheets.
"No, no, no!" I thought, exasperated. I started to mentally beg the sword not to begin humming too.
Then a very shocking thing happened. I heard the lock in the door make a clicking noise. My head snapped up, for I was afraid someone in the library was opening the door! They would see me! A good twenty seconds passed, though, and the door wasn't opened. I looked down to notice the sword was no longer glowing.
"That's funny," I thought. My curiosity finally got the better of me, and I reached out and turned the handle. The door swung open. I walked into the room, just waiting for Elrond to stick his head out from between a row of shelves to see who had entered the library. There was no such appearance, though. I quietly closed the door behind me and did a quick examination of the room. There was no one here!
"That's very odd," I actually said out loud this time. "I could have sworn that door was locked when I first tried it. Besides, I heard the door unlock."
I'd have to ponder this weird occurrence later. Now was the time to put the darn sword back where it belonged. I strode over to the table where the casket had been, only to discover it was gone.
"Uh oh," I thought. "What if Elrond already found that the sword was missing and took the casket elsewhere as a result?"
Hoping that wasn't the case, I frantically searched the entire library, being very observant of where things were and the positions they'd been in before moving them around. After almost fifteen minutes of rummaging, I finally found the casket behind a pile of books. So Elrond had hid it. A smart move.
I hastily swung it open. To my complete shock, the sword was already in the casket. I looked down to see my hand holding a bundle of bedsheets that had lost their form.
"What the...?" I started in utter disbelief. There was definitely something very wrong here. I slapped myself across the forehead several times, along with some good old fashioned pinches, in the hopes this was all one extremely wacky dream. If it was, I didn't wake up.
"Okay, whatever," I said, again remembering that I couldn't stay here to figure this all out. Shaking my finger at the sword, I lectured, "Don't you go disappearing again. Stay there!" I truly wished I were joking.
Then I closed the casket, put it back up in its hiding spot, and placed the books right back where they were in front of it. I then ran to the door, opened it, jumped out, closed it, and suddenly realized I had no way to lock the dead bolt from the outside. I would just have to hope Elrond didn't notice that.
I scrambled up the stairs, scampered along the balcony, went down the side stairs, and made a wild run for the building containing my bedroom. As I dashed up the stairs in there two at a time, I almost crashed into Shea coming down.
"Whoa," she commented with a yawn. "You're up early."
"Uh huh," I affirmed, getting around her and continuing my manic run up the stairs.
"Nice seeing you," she said in a tired voice. Then, being so sleepy, she finally noticed out of the corner of her eye that I had been dragging what looked to be bedsheets along. "Okay then..." she commented and kept walking on down the stairs.
I ran into my room and closed the door behind me. I had seriously been half expecting the sword to be back on my bed, just to play further havoc with my life. Fortunately, it wasn't. I gave a huge a huge sigh of relief and fell down onto my bed.