Chapter 1

Zoe Parker was standing in the pouring rain, miserable, drenched to the bone, and freezing, when she finally realized that she hated Middle Earth. And then she wondered why the heck she'd ever thought it would be a wonderful place to visit. That was a revelation she never imagined she would have.

Before this moment, this revelation, Zoe had obsessed over the timelines, the maps, the characters, the history. She had memorized the films line for line. She had read the books so many times, she probably could have given a lengthy, detailed monologue of the entire trilogy and then some. Her grades in high school declined as she poured over fan fictions and discussion boards. She spent an entire week without sleep just so she could finish the Silmarillion for the hundredth time. Tolkien's world had overtaken her own.

And she had dreamed of it all her life. Seeing Middle Earth. She wanted to experience what she saw in the movies. The ethereal wonder of Lothlórien, the majesty of Minis Tirith, the Viking-esque quality of Edoras. She wanted to travel with the Fellowship, see the Mines of Moria, look into Galadriel's mirror. She wanted to join Aragorn and Legolas and Éomer at the last stand against Mordor. She wanted to know the desperation of Frodo and Sam as they struggled up the craggy sides of the Mountain of Fire.

Zoe had imagined meeting Merry and Pippin, thinking of all the great fun they might have together playing pranks on unsuspecting elves in Rivendell. She had imagined riding with the wind in her face across the plains of Rohan with Éowyn. She had imagined walking through Fangorn and meeting Treebeard. She had dreamed of it all her life.

They say some dreams can come true. But she had never imagined it would turn out like this.

Zoe was barely twenty-two, fresh out of university with a bachelor's in English, and with no idea what to do with it. Her friends said she should be a teacher, though she didn't think she'd do well. She wanted to write, but everyone knows the only people who write for a living are Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King. One can't even write, and the other got lucky. Zoe never was a lucky person.

She also wanted to travel. She'd been out of the country three or four times for mission trips with her church, but she wanted to travel alone and to some far away land. Of course Middle Earth came to her mind immediately. She'd never said out loud that she genuinely believed it was real. She was sure a lot of other people believed that too, but no one ever admitted it when she was around. By the year 2030, it was considered taboo to express your imagination out loud. Zoe thought that was childish, but it was a reality. During her time in college, she took a class required for graduation called "Social Conformation and Its Effects on the Mind." Basically, everyday she sat in class to have a teacher tell her to take her imagination and shove it. Zoe was sure twenty years ago no one would have imagined that's what they'd be teaching kids in school.

Which brings the author to her next point.

Love.

It's something Zoe's grandparents used to talk about all the time before they passed away a few months before she finished high school. It was what everybody used to want in the 60's and 70's. It was something that was always hard to find. And by 2010, according to Zoe's eldest cousin, it was impossible to fall into anymore. Society had disregarded romantic love and dating and replaced it with "hooking up." Relationships were never "closed" because you couldn't get out of those, and if your partner wasn't very good in bed you could just find somebody else who was. People in 2030 equated romantic love with old fashioned stuff like landline telephones and analog television. "Love is dead" suddenly contained more truth than Zoe wished it did.

Two years ago, Zoe met the boy of her dreams. He was taller than her (always a requirement), wasn't a gym monkey, and completely shared her love for all things Tolkien.

His name was Jack and he asked Zoe out on a casual lunch date after class. They had pizza at her favorite bistro and shared a milkshake, which she thought was the cutest idea. They chatted about school and their families and what they wanted to accomplish within the next year. And then he asked her if she wanted to hook up with him that night. At first she thought he meant "go out," as in to a club, which she didn't have a problem with since she didn't enjoy going out alone. He then rephrased his question by asking if Zoe wanted to come over to his place that night and "get cozy."

Zoe blinked. Several times. She didn't say anything for a minute at least. She was one of the few people in her school who still didn't sleep around and hook up with the next hotty down the dorm hallway. After a moment, she tried to explain that she wanted to go out on a few more dates to get to know him better. He said he already knew me and that the more dates people went out on with each other, the more they'd get tired of each other. Zoe told him she wasn't one to sleep around, to which he shrugged and said that dating was old fashioned. So she left it at that, her worst fear confirmed that there wasn't a single person left out there who still had some decent morals to live by. Zoe hightailed it out of that bistro, and hasn't spoken to Jack since.

Several months later, you could say Zoe was at least a little unhappy. To keep herself from going off the deep end, she decided to return to a place that had claimed her heart long before Middle Earth had taken hold of it: the local equestrian center where she had ridden her first pony when she was nine. Not much had changed there, and she was glad of it. She renewed her relationship with the facility's owners, and later managed to get a job as assistant secretary. Due to her glorious bachelor's degree in English, they asked her to write up every business memo, lease form, and how-to manual that they and their little business schemes were constantly requiring. As part of her salary, she was given a small offsite apartment and permission to ride farm-owned horses. It was a simple, quiet life, but she enjoyed it while it lasted.

Because it only lasted a year and a half. What happened after that was akin to something she had dreamed of all her life.

Well, almost.