By Vanessa Parry (alias Elwen)
Word Count: 513
Rating: G
Summary: Frodo’s aunt and uncle try to help him get over his fear of the Brandywine River.
Brandywine looked peaceful in the spring sunlight but Frodo knew better. Only weeks since, this peaceful river had swallowed his life, spitting out his parents bodies like unwanted titbits a mile downstream. He turned his back on the treacherous flow, returning to the safety of Brandy Hall.
Frodo watched from a high bank as youngsters shrieked and splashed in shallows at the rivers’ bend. Saradoc tapped his shoulder. “Don’t you want to play, Frodo?”
“No thank you, Uncle. I’d rather finish my book.” He turned the page, trying to lose himself in the history of his Brandybuck forefathers.
Like the river, summer rolled by but Frodo could be neither enticed nor cajoled into the waters of the Brandywine.
Frodo awoke with a start, to find a large trout wriggling upon the grass at his side. Esmeralda called up from the shallows, “Put it out of its misery, Frodo. There’s a good lad.”
Lifting it by the tale Frodo wacked the fish firmly against a rock before wrapping it in a napkin and tucking it into the empty picnic basket. Curious, he stepped down onto the rocks at the river’s edge. Esmeralda had tucked up her skirts and stood ankle deep in the water, bent double beneath the shade of a willow.
“What are you doing, Aunty?”
Esme straightened putting a finger to her grinning lips, so Frodo moved closer. “Don’t tell me there’s a bairn under my roof that doesn’t know how to tickle trout? Come here and I’ll show you.”
Frodo eyed the river suspiciously but his aunt beckoned a trout supper sounded very interesting.
“The bed’s mainly flat rocks here but mind you don’t make too much of a splashing or you’ll scare them away,” Esme instructed as Frodo stepped warily into the water.
It was unexpectedly warm and it was also a little deeper than he expected and Esmeralda grinned again as she helped him turn up the cuffs on his breeches and shirt.
“They like to rest in the shadows here. The trick is to make a cradle of your hands, like this.” She turned her hands palm up and laced the fingers. “Then you slide along beneath them, slowly mind. When you’re well under you flick upward and toss them onto the bank.” She demonstrated the action and Frodo nodded, lacing his fingers appropriately. “Good. There’s one just by your left foot, can you see it?”
Frodo bent and, sure enough, pale shadow coalesced into the outline of a fat trout. He dipped his hands silently beneath the water, slowly gliding them beneath the unsuspecting supper. With the quick deftness of youth he flicked and the fish flew onto the bank in an arc of shimmering water. Squealing with delight he leapt after it, smacking the head smartly before slipping it into the basket with the first.
Esme smiled softly, watching him race back to wade carefully into the shallows with her. Maybe they’d try fishing with rod and line from a boat next week.