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Each morning, Caranthir asks you if you are ready. And each morning you wish you—the other you—could box his red ears redder.
You (the other you) were bold, before. Careless and insolent, as Celegorm is when he is happy. When he was, maybe. You haven’t seen Celegorm happy in a long while.
Celegorm can’t forget me.
Leave me alone, you murmur, but you’re glad to see him in the water barrel, all the same.
The other you (Amrod) says, I thought we were finished with that game.
With seeing you?
No, blockhead. Pretending you don’t.
You blink, Amrod blinks. You know it isn’t Amrod, but you listen for his voice.
Go. Go to Maitimo, he says. He misses you. He wants his littlest brother back.
You’re cruel. He can’t have you! And anyway, I’m as tall as Caranthir now. Who’s littlest?
You shouldn’t quarrel with me when I’m gone.
I’m frightened, you say. I don’t want to see him ugly.
A failure of love, to admit it. But you didn’t say it aloud.
You help dig onions and potatoes, and gather tightly wound cabbages from the Mithrim garden, instead of sitting beside the brother brought back to you. Tabitha and Nora and Caranthir appear by turns among the tilled rows, moving like ghosts.
Maitimo used to tend the garden. Maitimo used to be tall, handsome like Athair, warm like Mother, laughing and smiling and listening like himself.
Jib and her kittens are well. Sticks has named one of them Spot, which you think is a plain and foolish name. Frog calls another Red, despite Sticks’ hypocritical scolding.
“Amras,” Estrela says, when you have your hands full of downy fur. A tiny claw catches against your thumbnail. You wince.
“Yes?” You don’t look at her. She has a mother-voice, even if her scarred lips mangle the edges of it a little. You can guess, with a voice like that, what she is going to say.
Are you ready?
“Would you like to go with me?”
Oh.
When you close your eyes at night, you hear Caranthir breathe. Sometimes you can hear Curufin or Celegorm, too, if they hate the world enough to hide with you.
When you close your eyes at night, you are alone.
You return Spot to his mother. Your hands feel strange. You used to take Amrod’s hand in yours, when you wanted him to stop talking and listen, or when you were frightened, and he was the closest one to hold.
“It won’t do any good,” you say.
“You don’t have to do any good,” Estrela says. “But it will be easier next time.”
Sticks and Frog are wrestling in the loft. Mollie is helping the women with laundry—she says they have not been unkind, of late—but you know that Mollie would offer the same advice.
See him. See your brother.
“I’ve waited too long.” You kick at the hay. “I’m a coward, now.”
She shakes her head.
The offer is kind, but you hide from kindness. You hide from yourself.
Amrod stops talking to you. You look for him in the water, where he should always be, but all you see is you. Your twisted face. Your wavering eyes. You are taller, stronger, than he will ever be. Your voice changes from what his was.
It’s been days. Days and more days. You’ve counted time like this before. You wait for night, and then you slip out of your bed, away from Caranthir’s breathing—Caranthir is the only one here tonight—and down the corridor.
You wait at the door.
Amrod wakes, whether Maitimo does or not.
Are you ready?
You answer, No.
You don’t know why you came, if only to wait. You can’t force your way in like a—a common thief. Like the rest of your brothers do, in truth. They say they have all been to see him, even if Maglor will not go back.
Yes, you are like Maglor, sometimes. You do not know what to do with the rest of your life.
When Fingon comes outside on some errand, he nearly collapses, startled at the sight of you. You are silent; your hands dangle at your side. Two hands, two eyes, two ears, two voices.
“I want,” you say, close to your first words. Maybe your last. You always wanted, and Amrod always went ahead to find the world for you both.
“Ah, Amras.” Fingon is not especially patient; he likely does not remember the old friendliness you shared. You and him, and Amrod. Amrod all but lays a hand of comfort on your shoulder now, all but whispers in your ear. “He is awake, if you…if you want to see him. Briefly. Please don’t stay long. It tires him.” He lowers his voice, saying that.
He thinks you are a baby. Someone to be condescended to and ordered. You thought you knew a different Fingon, but for now, you nod.
It is not so many steps to the other side of that door.
Didyoulookforhimdidyoufindhimwhycouldyounotfindhimandbringhimbackbringbothofyoubothyourselves
Amras. He won’t know.
Amras…
“Amras,” says Maitimo.
For some mad reason, you are surprised that he remembers your name.
“I came,” you say, shyly. Amrod would not have been shy.
“I am sorry,” Maitimo murmurs. You knew what he would look like, bones jutting in his face and his body swaddled, but you did not know what it would be like to see his eyes. To see his eyes, as he and you stand on the edge of that name, that story.
“No,” you say, before he can fall, and take you with him. “No, don’t.”
And that is all that passes between you, about Amrod-in-the-water.
They keep one lamp burning. By its light, you can see one hand. If he still had two, you would reach for the left, nearest you, and clasp it firmly in your own. As it is, you cannot steal the rest of him.
You leave before long.
You (the other you) promises to return.