Sméagol's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Sméagol crouched on wet stone and sniffed the air. The ring had passed this way. Someone carried it out of the mountains, and Sméagol meant to get it back. He wanted it more than fish, more than sleep, more than his own thin skin. But three days of rain had washed the trail clean. He could not tell which way the thief had run. "It's gone, precious," he whispered. "The nice smell is gone." He pressed his nose to the ground and found only mud and rot. He turned in a slow circle. Trees crowded him on every side. Every path looked the same. He had lost it. The word made him shake. "Lost, lost, lost." Hunger clawed his belly. He had not eaten since the mountains. He crawled toward a dark hollow between two roots and found a grotto sunk into the earth. Moss covered the walls. Something inside had once been a home. He dragged himself in to hide from the rain. Against the far wall leaned a painting in a heavy frame. Sméagol froze. He knew the faces. His mother stood behind, her hand on a boy's shoulder. His sister bared her teeth. And there, in the middle, thin and staring, was Sméagol himself, long ago, before the ring, before the caves. The painter had made them close. Their eyes were sad. "We knows this place," he breathed. His hand shook as he touched the frame. This was the river country. This was where he was born. He had wandered in a circle without knowing it. The ring had drawn him home. He stared at the painted river behind the family. Water. His people had always followed water. A thief fleeing the mountains would do the same. Water meant fish, and roads, and easy walking. The trail was not truly gone. It had only moved to the river. Sméagol laughed, a wet and ugly sound. He grabbed the painting and turned it toward the grotto's mouth, matching the painted bend to the land outside. The real river lay to the east, past the trees. "That way, precious. The thief goes where the water goes." He crawled back into the rain with the certainty burning in him. He would follow the river until it gave up the ring. He would eat the fish he caught along the way, one after another, forever, and he would take back what was his. But the river was long. He did not know how far ahead the thief had run, or whether the thief still lived, or who else hunted the same shining thing along the same wet bank. Sméagol only knew the direction now. He crept east through the dripping trees, hungry, and did not look back at the sad faces on the wall.