Chapter Text

Chapter 1: In the End is the beginning

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.” 

―  Pat Conroy ,  The Prince of Tides

“Die Orc. Back to the foul nest of Sauron,” yelled Anne, speeding past the barking dog. She flicked a stick up with her foot and brandished it at a tree. “You want some too, evil Huorn? Go back to the forest and the Ents and cast from you evil thoughts about axes. Or I shall teach you the meaning of courtesy.”

She ducked and weaved, one arm held back, the other swinging the stick like a rapier, then switching to both hands and wielding it like a broadsword. Once the tree was comprehensively slaughtered, she laughed and ran on.

It was going to be a good day.

A Tolkien kind of day.

Quite appropriate she thought, running around the corner towards home. She was going home to Smaug, after all. She stopped on the corner, panting, getting her breath back. One last lung full of fresh air before she headed into the dragon’s lair.

It was, she knew, the despair of the neighbourhood. In a relatively well-off suburb in inner Melbourne, it would have been worth quite a bit of money. Except for the pile of stuff that cocooned the house like the shell of some alien garbage hoarding monster. Layers of things, some identifiable, some not, layered the house in a stratigraphic nightmare of archaeological proportions.

Anne heaved a sigh. There was nothing she could do now. The sun was well up and she needed to get to work. She wove her way through a pathway she cleared again every night along the fence, ducked under a couch, a bale of wire and eyeing in surprise a teepee that hadn’t been there yesterday, she pulled the chain and padlock and unlocked the rope ladder to her balcony. It unfurled and she climbed the ladder to her balcony. Swinging easily over the railing, she picked up four teddies her Mother had thrown up there and pitched them far into the yard. They squeaked in protest, she could hear their dying cries as they disappeared into the morass of junk. No child would play with them, they would moulder with the rest of the stuff.

“It’s a teddy eat teddy world out there,” she muttered to herself, heading off to the shower. Thoughts of a teddy lead rebellion entertained her as she showered quickly and wiped down the cubicle.

 “What would teddies evolve into?” Her face in the mirror had no answer. She did her best with her short hair, blondish with some curls, she mashed some gel through it and dried it off with the hairdryer. “Something fierce, I reckon,” she answered, smearing cream on her face and glaring at some frown lines. “With big teeth.” She bared hers at herself and carefully hanging the towel up to dry and making sure the sink was clean, she went into the bedroom.

Over her desk was a small calendar, the kind with inspirational quotes on it. Today was ringed with red texta, with ME written on the page. 

“If adventure came, would you be ready?” 

“You bet I would,” said Anne. Once books had been an escape from the world, and she had read them while eating chocolate bars, biscuits, anything to block out emotions, block out the steady increase in the garbage piles around the house. The darkness of the horde surrounded the house like a shroud, the windows getting dimmer, her parents getting more obsessed by stuff. As she grew older she had had an epiphany, if she did ever end up in an adventure, then she needed to be ready to do anything. Fight orcs, ride unicorns, paddle a canoe, climb the tallest tower, outrun the enemy, chase after the good guy… it wouldn’t be enough to get fit on the adventure. Sure she had examples of this to follow. Frodo walking gradually to Rivendell, Linden Avery walking and riding in Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series.

Not quite enough for Anne. She wanted – needed - to be ready.

So over the years Anne had set herself intensely private goals. The few times she had spoken of them to her friend Garth he had stared at her in disbelief. He was obsessed by gaming, and Anne - while she could see the attraction in battling on the computer, well, she just got twitchy sitting too long without a book. Not to mention she was too violent and defeated her enemies with a deadly energy. So, over the years since being a fat teenager, she had changed herself with self-defence classes to beat off villains and running with sprinting to live to fight another day. She stopped to add 5km to her total on the whiteboard. She had started a run to Mordor challenge, and she realised she was now in Rivendell with the elves. “Go Frodo, go Sam, go me,” she smiled to herself. She aimed a kick at the punching bag in passing. “Ha, take that,” she said.

“Now, a Tolkien kind of day,” she faced the small wardrobe and picked out some brown cord pants, a green woolen vest with brass buttons, and a shirt with faded stripes of some colour that had long given up trying to be identified. Some comfortable shoes, and she was off.

She walked across the top floor attic renovation that had been done many years before the mess downstairs had accumulated. Before her Father had died and before her Mother had started collecting.

“Back when the world had made sense. Confined to a book, for instance.” Anne muttered to herself. She glanced at the room, automatically picking up her running gear and putting the clothes in the washing machine and her shoes out to air on the balcony. Absently she picked up another teddy, this time a virulent purple one, and glared at it. “Godammit, you bastards are breeding.”

“Fly and be free,” as she sent it out to join the rebellion in the backyard. A rumble in a rubbish pile announced her Mother was in the yard. Putting off facing her Mother for a few moments, Anne went back into her room, tidying it up, although the room was pristine. She flicked a duster along the bookcases, placed her weights in an even neater row along the wall. Going into the small kitchen area, she rinsed her breakfast dishes out in the small sink, placing the one bowl, spoon and mug into the dish rack and wiping the bench.

She took one last look at her books, as she always did before leaving the house. Hope seemed to shine from them in an inner glow that shone for Anne’s eyes alone. Hope that the fat bullied teenage girl could metamorphose into a runner, hope that one day she might wake and the hoard would be gone...

“Now that’s crazy talk. It would take a real live hero to clear this place.” Anne muttered, picking up a duster cloth.

Bookcases lined one wall, filled to the brim with row upon row of neatly categorised books. Hardly any gleamed with the fresh new look of a recent publication, most had the slightly beaten-up look of a book that had sat on a shelf for decades, spun through a couple of opportunity shops, garage sales and narrowly escaped the bin before landing here. “You are all safe here, my friends,” Anne said, running her fingers lightly down the somewhat tattered spines.

Tolkien had a small section, with a large gap near “The Hobbit” since “The Lord of the Rings” was being re-read. Next to Tolkien was a new set of “The Dwarves” a set with some fiercesome faces on the covers. Stephen Donaldson’s Covenant series took up quite a bit of space but was itself dwarfed again by the shelf of Terry Pratchetts. Near Tolkien were a few Henry Rider Haggard books, “King Solomon’s Mines, “She” and “Ayesha” rubbing shoulders with “Treasure Island’, “Robinson Crusoe” and the “Man in the Iron Mask’. Jules Verne had a small section he shared with a set of Star Trek episodes and several HG Wells. Tarzans lurid paperbacks shared space with a couple of Conans and some Edgar Rice Burroughs. Enid Blyton had several shelves to herself, with the Famous Five, The Five Find Outers and Dog, along with The Magic Faraway Tree and the Adventurous Four. Anne’s hand paused at the Narnia books, her special pride. She had spent so many years of her childhood immersed in them she could see the pictures, hear the voice of Aslan in her head, had fought the last battle with Jewel. The thrill of the suddenly unlocked door into Aslan’s world in “The Silver Chair” never failed to send a quiver up her spine. The bottom row was the domain of The Doctor. There were so many episodes of Dr Who that Anne had reluctantly confined herself to just getting her favourites, the dawn of the Daleks, the first Cyberman episode, the ones where one Doctor regenerated into the next one. There were a few DVD’s as well, and in her head played the familiar wheezing sound of the materialising TARDIS.

Beside the bookcase was a velvet covered wing backed chair, the velvet bottle green in some lights, mission brown at night. A small footstool and a side table stood comfortably within range, and a tall angle light focused precisely at the right point for someone reading. On the back of the chair was draped a crochet blanket, lined with flannelette, the perfect warm blanket for a chilly night. Anne smoothed out a wrinkle in the blanket and set it so the folds produced a perfect triangle over the back of the chair. She shook out the tapestry cushion and arranged it on the chair, patting it into its comfortable squashed form. A beam of sunlight slanted across the room, hitting the bookcase. For a moment the titles seemed blurred and distorted.

Goosebumps rippled up her arms and she shivered. “Time to get going,” she muttered, rubbing her arms.

She picked up her backpack and checked the contents. Anne liked to feel that she would be ready physically, and it had not been a big stretch to consider what might be needed on an adventure. But this had also led to a lengthy “list of things that might come in handy on an adventure.” It made her backpack a heavy weight and in itself a formidable weapon. She flipped open the top and fished around inside. Yep, book, check, first, last and always Anne had a book with her. Pocket knife, protein bar, drink bottle. Then in the pockets were various things on the list, fishing hook and line, a candle, matches in a waterproof tin. Chalk for finding her way out of a tunnel, and a knotted bracelet of army cordage as a backup for when she ran out of chalk. Bandaids, antiseptic cream, tweezers, a sewing kit with needles, duct tape, a small compass and a wind-up torch. She grabbed her purse and stuffed it inside the backpack.

It was a small room, she thought looking around at the familiar confines, but it was hers, and every single thing in it served a purpose, was used and loved. She chanted the decluttering mantra to herself “is it used, is it loved, if not, out it goes.” The tidiness calmed her, and she checked the connecting trapdoor to the floor below was still nailed shut. No one had access except via the ladder. Many years ago her Mother had tried storing her excess up here, and not long after that the stairway below had become blocked with things that lined the walls, step by step creeping up to smother her, Anne thought.

One day a desiccated rat body had fallen on her as she climbed over the piles on the stairs to her room, and she noticed a box of takeaway containers had appeared inside her doorway. That night she had found a rope ladder in the yard and with that access into the balcony she had nailed the trapdoor shut and denied her Mother access to her private room.

None too soon. After her Father died the hoarding had gotten out of control, and tottering piles of stuff grew across the floors, spilling out onto the veranda, sealed rooms to the ceilings and made even seeing her Mother a feat requiring a team of sherpas and an attack dog for the rats that took up residence and fought the feral cats of the neighbourhood.

Anne chained up and locked her rope ladder so it was looped around her balcony, and taking a deep breath headed in to see her Mother.

“Mum, want some breakfast?” she called. She slid sideways down the hall and ducked under an archway of newspapers that leaned towards each other like twin towers of Pisa, and grabbed a packet of cereal. Shaking it, she looked around for a clean bowl. Not a hope. A drowned rat eyeballed her from the dishwater, where small lily pads of mould floated and grew a kaleidoscope of colours.

“Geez, how long has it been since I did some cleaning?” Anne asked herself. She couldn’t remember, but weeks if the state of the sink was anything to go by. She held her breath and leaned across the sink to open the window.

Her Mother hated her cleaning as it was an opportunity for Anne to possibly throw out her “treasures” and she followed her around, checking nothing got thrown out. Nothing. The last time she had tried cleaning the kitchen she had been reduced to shovelling the floor debris into the spare room, but she knew that option wasn’t going to last too long, the spare room debris was hitting the ceiling. Even opening the door scared her as the piles of stuff would rumble and quiver, sliding towards her as if they sensed her intent. The cereal box rattled in her hand, and in a reflex action she hurled the box out of the window.

A rat tumbled out of the box, fat as butter. He shook himself and turned, dragging the entire box of cereal in under an old couch. As she watched, a large orange furred cat poked its head out from under a garbage bin. It prepared to leap, flattening itself along the grass and making a small chittering sound with its mouth. Suddenly it leapt, and there was a fat squeak in the boxes and flakes of newspaper floated into the air. The cat stalked out, the fat rat dangling from its mouth. For a moment Anne and the cat stared eye to eye, and then the cat lost interest as the rat wriggled in its mouth. It carefully put it down, patting it gently. The rat jumped, the cat pounced, flinging it up in the air with every sign of enjoyment in the game.

“Can’t be too hungry then,” Anne told the cat. It paid her no more attention, and feeling only slightly sorry for the rat, Anne frowned, remembering her Mum’s breakfast.

Opening another cupboard she was confronted with a wall of the small single serve sized cereal boxes. Opening a fresh one, she found some milk and poured it straight into the box. Gritting her teeth, she turned to go into the next room.

“Where’s my breakfast Anne?” her Mother called from her armchair in front of the TV. A fog of cigarette smoke made Anne’s eyes water, and she groped for the light switch, her fingers flinching as they touched something sticky. Best I just don’t look at what that was she thought, making a firm mental note to wash her hands in oh, say acid before she got to work.

She placed the cereal box beside her Mother and stepped carefully back. The chair was surrounded by boxes from the shopping channels, most unopened. Anne had long since stopped being amazed at what you could buy, since a teenager she had seen all the excesses of consumption happening right before her eyes. She sneezed, the room was yellow with years of nicotine, even the air looked bilious. She glanced at where the window had been, long since covered by a pile of unworn clothes in a chair she remembered her Dad sitting in. She couldn’t even see the window now, let alone the chair.

“You all right Anne?” her Mother asked, smashing out her hand rolled cigarette into a plate beside her. “Happy Birthday, sweetheart.” Ash and yellowed butts fell to the floor to join others, unnoticed. Her voice was rough now from all the smoking. Once it had been soft, gentle even, but no more, she croaked like a raven, gasping and cawing as though her throat denied conversation, the words trapped in the glutinous tar ridden depths. “You did a big run this morning. I was out looking for something for your birthday.” She looked around the room at the tottering piles of debris. “I am sure I got you something you would like…I just can’t find it...” she sniffed, her lower lip trembling.

“That’s all right Mum, I don’t need anything for my birthday. What say we spend it together have a bit of a tidy up?” Anne made her voice gentle, as she patted the woman on the shoulder, frowning as she felt how thin she was. “Maybe we can get some takeaway for dinner together, hey?”

Her Mother had hoarded things for many years, and the thought of throwing things out, even if it was a pile of empty boxes, made her weep as though her heart would break. Anne had tried a few years ago, getting a skip bin in and spending a day throwing the worst of the garbage in until the massive bin was full. She had gone in for a shower, and when she returned, had found her Mother in the skip, curled up in an old blanket, crying, her carefully made up face running like the mask of a tragic clown.

After that, things had got worse. From collecting things that may have been used one day she had descended into never throwing things out. Garbage accumulated, and Anne had been forced to drag bags out on bin night, only to find her Mother got up before the garbage truck came and dragged it back in again. Anne looked at her Mother again, that had been what, fifteen years ago? She realised that today would be her thirtieth birthday. Fifteen years of stuff, the steady collection of her treasures, as her Mum called them. It was a fight Anne had given up.

She looked at the latest collection of treasures. Some purple fluffy slippers, a silvery glomesh bag- did they still even make those- some jousting sticks propped on the wall. What the?

“Mum, jousting sticks? Really?” she folded her arms and faced her Mum.

“Never know when you might need them,” she started. “They were a bargain, I found them on eBay.” She smiled and reached out to stroke them. “You might find a Prince who needs them, it’s about time you settled down. Your Dad always hoped you would find someone special and settle down with some kids.” She smiled at Anne.

“A Prince, right, well you keep a lookout for me.” Anne patted her Mum on her shoulder. “What say we get started when I get home, get a bit tidied up? I’ll ring for a pizza afterwards.” She had found tidying up easier than throwing things out, at least she could have another go at the kitchen. She glanced at her fob watch, pulling it out of her waistcoat pocket by its chain, yes, she had a bit of time to start now.

As she left the room, she could see her mum switching on the TV and picking up the phone. No cleaning would get done today. Or tomorrow. It was no use, she had just seemed to stop after Dad died. She had used shopping to cope with the long horrible months of his sickness that attacked his mind, plummeting him into a black despair. “I’ll just do the dishes. You make sure you eat some lunch today as well, I’ll leave the kitchen tidy for you.”

Anne found a long handled spoon and used it to fish the dead rat out of the sink. Flipping it out the window, she drained the sink and stirred the disgusting mess around until the water ran clean and then poured in a steady stream of dish liquid. Gritting her teeth, she washed the dishes, and cleared a space on the bench. Unearthing the dish rack, she wiped it clean and set it on the bench. A pile of empty margarine containers wobbled, so looking quickly over her shoulder to make sure her Mother wasn’t looking, she flung those out of the window. It wasn’t the greatest cleaning method, she knew, but from long experience knew her Mother could smell a plastic garbage bag and went into hysterics.

There, Anne stood back. A clear and clean space of 50cm. She wiped the sink down, and let the water run out. The sink gleamed, making the contrast with the room all the more apparent. The rest of the bench was covered, the floor was sticky and grey, the table covered in shopping catalogues from many a Christmas past. But Anne had had enough for the morning.

“Bye, Mum,” she called, and fled.

Stopping at the front gate, she fished in a small gap in the brickwork. She pulled out the bottle of hand sanitiser she kept there and used it liberally, the strong chemical smell acting as a balm to her soul. She breathed it in, and brushed down her clothes, making sure nothing awful was clinging to her. There was a letter sticking out of the mailbox, and she pulled it out, stuffing it into her backpack to look at later on.

As the house faded into the distance, so it did in her thoughts. As usual, she blocked it off, keeping it firmly tucked away in her mind. She wouldn’t think about it today. The tram rattled around the corner, and she sprinted, hair flying into corkscrew curls. She leapt onto the tram and squirrelled into the corner, bracing herself for knocks, bumps and the occasional groping pervert.

Fishing in her backpack her fingers curled around today’s book, and peace and happiness flooded her. Today she would be with Frodo and Sam. Together they were walking to Rivendell, to meet the elves and catch up with Bilbo. Absorbed, Anne forgot everything else.