To Whom It May Concern by Anne Wolfe

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Chapter Two

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To Whom It May Concern

Chapter Two

A Farm in Oklahoma

 

“Arrgh!” Inside her bedroom, Ethel mashed random keys on her laptop. “Why! Won’t! It! Sound! Right!”

 

She glanced at the time. Five-thirty. She had half an hour left until dinner. Only one hour she had needed to unpack, but three hours had not sufficed to give I Have Found a Silmaril - Inquire Inside the proper feel. It was short enough, too. So much grief over so small a thing.

 

“Bother it all,” she muttered for the forty-seventh time since she had found that thing. “I’m not writing some sort of full-blown business letter, I don’t have enough information for that… Well, better slightly inaccurate formality than flippancy. Draft eight… no, draft three… no, draft eight.” That second paragraph still seemed off… No, no second thoughts allowed. The Important Persons probably had senses of humor anyway, especially when the jokester was willing to work with them.

 

The eighth draft of I Have Found a Silmaril - Inquire Inside went something like this.

 

To whom it may concern:

The writer of this letter has found one (1) of the objects known as Silmarils. The writer of this letter wishes to return this object to its rightful hereditary owner; thus, if that rightful hereditary owner shall see this letter, it shall be that rightful hereditary owner’s duty to contact the writer of this letter. The two parties will then decide on a meeting ground where the transfer of the property will take place.

If one who is not the rightful hereditary owner of the discussed object shall read this letter and that person shall attempt to retrieve the discussed object, it shall be understood that that person deserves what is coming to him.

-TheStubbornestShoelace

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A/N So in all seriousness, just pm me if you’re interested. ;)

Reviews will be rewarded with virtual peanut butter cookies, or sugar cookies if you’re allergic.

See y’all next fic!

 

Ethel squinted at the screen for 4.53 seconds, had second thoughts, and deleted the bit about fraudulent claimants deserving what they got. She posted it, and the click of her mouse rang like a death-knell in her ears.

 

Ethel peeked out the window, hoping all the combined armies of the remaining elves wouldn’t be converging on her parents’ property en masse. Well, realistically, that would probably only be about ten elves, maybe twenty. If she, Mom, and Dad each had guns, and they fired at a rate of one per minute, and she allowed them to all miss every other shot, and they saw the elves coming from at least… fourteen miles away-- Oh, good grief. She’d just put out as open an invitation for peaceful negotiation as she had the resources to. She didn’t need to make battle plans.

 

Besides, considering the property, thick with all the trees Dad could get to grow, no one would see any hostile forces coming until those forces got to the lawn. Bother it all.

 

Ten minutes remained until dinner-time. She looked under her bed. No wildlife save a wayward cricket and a few lovestruck moths disturbed the Silmaril, safe in its Tupperware box.

 

She poked it a bit closer to the wall.

 

An absurd amount of caution? Almost certainly; Beren hadn’t had any troubles until Carcharoth got involved, and Ethel had never killed anything more sentient than deer. But there had been wars, and thousands of people had died, and at least she ought to respect the things. In any event she didn’t want to try to explain it all to Mom and Dad.

 

Nudging a few of the crickets’ deceased brethren out of her path, Ethel started the walk to the bathroom, her heart thudding all the while.