"Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two, Lord I'm three, Lord I'm four, Lord I'm 500 miles from my home. Away from home, away from home, away from home, away from home. Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home." Jerry sang enthusiastically along to the radio as he drove. Although, Australia was a lot further than 500 miles from New Zealand if he was being picky.

The rented car bounced a bit on the gravel surface, but the tourist office had assured him the roads were quite safe as long as he kept to a reasonable speed. Not long now, thought Jerry, taking a quick glance at the glossy tourist brochure on the seat beside him. There should be a public car park coming up soon, where he could leave the car and then take the scenic walk to Cathedral Cove. Cathedral Cove with its stunning natural arch on the beach was picturesque enough on its own to be worth a visit, but what was really attracting Jerry was the connection with Narnia. Cathedral Cove was the place where Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy discover the ruins of Cair Pavarel in the movie, Prince Caspian.

Jerry knew he had a silly grin on his face but he didn't care. He'd grown up with the Narnia books; The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book he could remember reading all by himself. So what, if he still loved the stories? And as for the movies, he much preferred fantasy to action films, if he was honest. Tim might scoff all he wanted, but in Jerry's opinion, there was enough violence in the real world without needing to watch more for entertainment. Sword fights, of course, didn't count.

His face fell slightly at the thought of Tim. When he'd first booked the holiday, it had been for two. Then, a week ago...

"What do you mean, you can't go?"

"Sorry, love," Tim had run an apologetic hand through his short dark hair. "Dr Weston says he really can't spare me. Not for a whole week. We're close to a breakthrough and he needs all hands on deck. He's got a specialist consultant flying in from Wellington and everything. Dr Washburn."

"But we've had this holiday booked for months," protested Jerry, still not quite believing Tim was serious. "I've paid for the plane tickets and the hire car already."

"I'm sorry," repeated Tim, looking wretched. "Is there any chance we can postpone the holiday for a few months?"

"It's booked for next week, Tim! Of course we can't postpone it. Not without losing all our money."

"I'll pay you back," offered Tim, unwisely.

Jerry felt anger spring to his aid. "It's not the damned money, Tim. It's our holiday, our first overseas holiday, together. A whole week in New Zealand."

"Jerry, I'm sorry, I didn't-" but Jerry had turned away, heading for the door, not wanting Tim to see the stupid tears in his eyes.

"You do what you want," he'd said over his shoulder, "but I'm going to New Zealand." And they hadn't spoken since.

He pulled off into the Hahei car park.

~~~

Jerry woke the next morning, and leapt eagerly out of his hotel bed. Mount Maunganui was amazing, with its lava dome "mount" and beautiful beaches, he wished he had more time to explore properly. But he didn't.

So what if he was by himself, he was still having fun, wasn't he? Yesterday had been excellent, just as good as he'd hoped, but today was going to be even better. Today he was going to visit Hobbiton, the highlight of the entire trip.

He was going to spend the whole day, if he could, at Hobbiton, the Hobbit village created in the New Zealand countryside for The Lord of the Rings, and preserved now as a tourist attraction. He knew a lot of the stunning mountain scenes from the trilogy had been shot in the South Island, but he only had a week and Hobbiton was the number one destination on his list. He couldn't wait to look inside those cute little houses and have a drink at the Green Dragon. He could sit there in the sun and let his imagination run wild.

Jerry gulped down his breakfast, threw his bag in the boot and drove off. There wasn't much traffic on the road so he was surprised to turn a corner and see a hitchhiker standing in the middle of a particularly empty stretch, with her thumb out. Silly girl, thought Jerry as he sped past, didn't she know how dangerous that was? Anything could happen. What on earth was she doing out here in the middle of nowhere? It was miles since he'd passed a town and there was nothing coming up on his map, either.

Maybe she was trying to walk to Hobbiton and hadn't realised how far it was. His imagination took off. Or perhaps she'd had a fight with her boyfriend and got out of the car... and he'd left her there, the bastard! She'd looked very young, too young to be out here alone, thought Jerry guiltily. He turned the car around and went back.

He stopped just ahead of her and wound down the passenger window. "Where are you going?" he called out. "Would you like a lift? I'm going to Matamata."

"Actually, my home is on the way. Could you drop me off?" answered the girl in a soft voice.

"Sure," said Jerry gallantly, hoping "on the way" didn't mean a hundred miles in the wrong direction. "I'm a tourist, though. You'll have to give me directions."

"No worries. Just keep going on this road, and I'll tell you where to turn off," she replied, opening the back door and getting in. So she wasn't a total novice, thought Jerry, remembering that piece of hitchhiking wisdom.

"Hi, I'm Jerry," said Jerry, winding the passenger window up and starting the engine.

"Hannah."

"I'm going to visit Hobbiton," offered Jerry, making conversation. "Have you ever been there?"

"Once, a few years ago." They chatted about the village and the Lord of the Rings movies until Hannah gave him directions to turn off the main road onto a small dirt track. Jerry grimaced, hoping the rental company would never have to know. The road was pitted and narrow and Jerry had to concentrate on his driving. Eventually they reached a farmhouse, with a wooden fence around it and a large shed to one side.

Jerry kept the engine running while he looked for a place to turn the car, expecting Hannah to hop out, but there was no sound of her opening the door. He turned around to look in the back and say cheerfully, "Here we are, then," but the words stuck in his throat. There was no-one there. The back seat was quite empty.

Where the hell had she gone? How could she have got out without him knowing?

A woman in jeans and a chequered shirt had come to the farmhouse door. "Can I help you?' she called out.

Jerry turned off the engine and got out of the car. "I'm sorry to bother you," he said, bewilderment over-riding everything else, "but does someone called Hannah live here?"

"Hannah?" The woman came down the garden path toward him but stopped at the gate. "Did you say Hannah?"

"Yes. I gave her a ride but she seems to have disappeared."

The woman was giving him a very strange look and Jerry babbled on, "She was hitching, back on the main road, and she gave me directions to bring her here..."

The woman was still staring at him.

Great. It was obvious she had never heard of Hannah. He must sound like a real idiot.

"Look, I'm sorry for disturbing you. I'll be on my way."

"I had a daughter called Hannah," the words sounded as if they were being dragged out of the woman. "But she died. A year ago today. A hit and run, out on the road there."

~~~

Back in his car, on the road to Matamata, Jerry could still feel the cold chills running up and down his spine. That was really spooky. He must have imagined the whole thing, some kind of hallucination. Maybe there'd been a funny mushroom in his breakfast omelette this morning.

He'd always enjoyed the old Twilight Zone episodes, and the X-files too, but having that sort of thing happen in real life was another matter.

A sign post appeared at the edge of the road. Hobbiton 15 km. Jerry shivered and tried to put the whole episode behind him. He felt quite shaken.

Maybe he'd give Tim a ring tonight when he got to the hotel. He was still angry with him for cancelling at the last minute, but it had been over a week now—maybe it was time to make up.

~~~

Hobbiton had been fun, but Jerry couldn't put that morning's incident out of his mind entirely. He was supposed to drive to Rotarua for the night, and take in some of that stunning volcanic scenery tomorrow, before heading down to Wellington and the Weta Cave, where all the props and special effects for Lord of the Rings were created, but...

He checked his map. It wouldn't actually be much of a detour to go back to that road where he had picked up the hitchhiker. Just to see. The road would be empty, of course, but at least he might be able to feel a bit better about it. He shied away from the mere idea that he might see Hannah—or her ghost—again.

Jerry found himself driving slower and slower as he reached the corner where he had first seen the hitchhiker. Nothing. Trees on one side, empty paddocks on the other. He pulled over to the verge and got out of the car, then crossed the road to the other side. He began to walk along the edge looking for signs that there had been a real person there. He never saw what hit him.