[Child of the 7th Age]

Cami had finished delivering her entire packet of invitations. She had run as fast as she could from one house to the next, knocking on each door or pulling down on the bell, then curtseying neatly whenever a hobbit came forward to answer her summons.

The hobbits to whom she had given the invitations were quite delighted at the prospect of attending Frodo's party. Bilbo had a reputation in the Shire for being an eccentric who chased after Elves, but he was also known for his unstinting generosity and his lovely celebrations at Bag-end.

That afternoon, Cami was feeling quite pleased with herself. She had not fallen into any mudpuddles, been chased by dogs, or managed to lose any of her precious invitations. For once, she had managed to do things right. She decided to walk over to Bag-end and pick up one more packet that she could finish delivering the next morning.

As she skipped along Bag-shot row, she kept a sharp eye out to make sure Frodo was nowhere to be seen. Cam breathed a sigh of relief as she came tripping up to Bilbo's round green door and tugged down on the bell chain. Bilbo's voice rang out cheerfully from the kitchen, "Come in. The door's open. I'm making tea."

Cami pushed against the door, all the while peering about to make doubly certain Frodo was not there. Then, she walked over to the table. "Would you care for a bit of tea, Cami?" Bilbo asked. "How did the invitations go"

Cami politely declined Bilbo's offer of tea, as she knew she'd best get home to finish her chores. But she did stop to give her teacher an animated description of her activities that afternoon, crowing a bit over how successful her deliveries had been.

Bilbo suddenly fixed a far more serious eye on Cami, "You wouldn't happened to have seen Belle, now, would you? I was expecting her home for lunch, but she never came. That's not like her. I expect she just ran into a friend and stopped to play, but she usually doesn't do something like that without telling me."

Cami hadn't seen Belle all day, and told Bilbo so. She did promise to keep her eyes and ears open, and send word to Bag-end if she heard anything more.

Cami didn't want to say anything, but she had developed a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach at the mention of Belle's name. She reassured herself that it was probably nothing, just a case of nerves. But it was not the first time the girl had strange premonitions, either in dreams or in fleeting images during the day, and at least some of those had turned out to be more than fancy. She sincerely hoped she was mistaken.

[ January 19, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]