[Pitchwife]

He hadn't haunted the Barrow Downs for a long time, the wight called Pitchwife. Years ago he had discovered a portal into another world, ventured through and been seen no more on the green hills of Tyrn Gorthad. Far had he travelled through spheres beyond the realm of Arda, become engrossed in alien (not Alien) lore, worn other names and faces and met other kindred spirits.


But in all his adventures he had never quite forgotten the cosy necropolis where he had been born into the digital afterlife. "One of these days," he used to tell himself, "I'll pay a visit to the good ole Downs, check what's happening and who's still around." Somehow, though, that day had never come - it had always been another day and yet another, and there had always been something else claiming his attention, and so days had agglomerated into years.


By and by, however, he found himself getting homesick, for what is a wight without a barrow but a wisp of ectoplasm adrift on the winds of the ethernet? So one day he said to himself, "Tomorrow never comes. It's now or never."


Even after all his years, he still would have found the narrow path blindfolded that branched off the King's Data Highway (formerly the East Road) and led southwards up into the mist-shrouded hills, but to his dismay it was overgrown with brambles and nettles, and when the fog cleared it revealed a view to rival the Desolation of Smaug. Where once luscious grass had covered the hills there was now only scorched earth, all the mounds and barrows had been bulldozed, and the whole site was cordoned off with black and yellow tape.


Serves you right, said a snarky little voice inside his head. One does not simply walk away from the Downs, come back years later and expect to find everything as if time had stood still.


There were places in space and time, it seemed, you could never go back to. But even if that was so he still felt he had at least to find out what kind of catastrophe had come over the Downs. So he made a trip to the nearest hardware store and came back a few days later armed with a shovel, resolved to dig up the virtual soil until he knew what had happened.


But lo and behold! The path had been cleared, and the tape cut up and woven into pretty garlands with cobwebs and mistveils to adorn the standing stones; and young grass was growing on the hillsides, and the earth had opened and released its dead, and a good many merry ghouls, wights and liches of yore (and a couple of new ones) were dancing on the fresh verdure, gaily lit by corpse-candles and will-o'-the wisps, and drinking mountain dew from skull cups and singing.


Then the shovel fell from his hand, and joy pierced his undead heart like a blade of the Dúnedain, and tears welled up in his empty eye-sockets.


Whatever you say, said the snarky little voice in his head, don't use that Sam Gamgee quote. You know which one. It's so hackneyed.


"Oh do shut up," Pitchwife told the little voice. He gazed at the Downs, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide.


"It's a gift," he said.