"Do you know what today is, Gil?"
"Besides being the day I succeeded in lancing Mrs. Boyd's abscess and living the tell the tale?" Gilbert replied, his tone an admixture of joviality and pride and a certain, nearly entirely hidden disgust. Anne shook her head and Gilbert frowned, a dear, anxious crease appearing on his ordinarily smooth forehead.
"Dash it, Anne-girl, was it an anniversary? Not our wedding, but of something else I should never have forgotten, except that you must remember I'm a rather dull man of medicine and not the romantic hero you deserve," he added, all penitence and apology. Anne could not help reveling in it for a moment, just as she reveled in the way he'd taken her hand in his and squeezed it gently, stroking at her palm and her wrist where the pulse beat.
"It's All Souls' Day and, parenthetically, you are romantic hero enough for me. At least you are when you don't tell me about Mrs. Boyd's complaints," Anne replied, smiling.
"Duly noted," Gilbert said. The light was back in his eyes and the fire flickered on the hearth. Anne thought of Captain Jim's visit and the stories he'd told this afternoon.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" Anne asked.
"Ghosts? I'm a man of science, sweetheart, what do you think?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her. He did that when he found her particularly fanciful and sometimes it led to the sweetest of caresses, but tonight, the wind was up and the branches of the tree she called the Silver Duchess were lashing at the windows as if to say Let me in.
"Well, you might still believe in them. You grew up in Avonlea, you heard the same stories I did about Lover's Lane and lost Pye, and you were a Blythe before you were a physician." Anne retorted, but not angrily. Gilbert stretched his legs out and paused, apparently considering her question more fully.
"I believe in the soul, I believe in what the church tells us, but I'm not sure I believe in ghosts. Phantasms, hauntings, messages left in the looking-glass—I find them difficult to defend. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I suppose the day and it was Captain Jim who called and not Miss Cornelia. The wind is up tonight and I had such a queerly lovely ramble on the shore, it seemed like the shadows held an extra portent, every fragrance was more intense. I couldn't help remembering," Anne trailed off.
"Remembering?" Gilbert repeated. He'd learned a long time ago how to encourage Anne back to her point when she seemed to wander, when those grey eyes of hers looked like a November's shimmering mist.
"Ruby Gillis. Matthew. My mother. My father. All those lost, gone away," she said.
"Does it make you very sad to remember, Anne-girl?" he asked, prepared to offer his shoulder for a cuddle, his hand at the back of her head.
"No. For you see, I do believe in ghosts, but they needn't be unhappy or terrifying. I don't think they are, not if they were happy in life. And good," she said. She was quite definitive on such a vague point, he couldn't help thinking, and thinking so, smiled at her for it.
"How do they spend All Souls' Day, then? I think you must have imagined it," he said, settling back to listen, so comfortable with her in the sitting room, any spectre seemed farther away than the moon, than the North Star.
"Oh, yes, of course I have," she replied and he thought Marilla would recognize this tone, this Anne the very same girl who'd arrived in battered straw hat and the drabbest holland frock, the brightest eyes and firmest little chin. He made a small gesture to prompt her to continue.
"I think they are all at a great banquet tonight, all feasting together with great tankards of whatever they liked best to drink, cordial or ale or a strong cup of China tea, and heaping platters of their favorite dishes, music playing and candles lit, so many candles, and I think they must all be joyful, each in their way. For Matthew's would not have been Ruby's and my parents would only be happy together, holding hands and sharing one cup between them," Anne declared. He hoped she had written it down in her journal, the way she had used to write every whimsy when she was at school, but he simply enjoyed hearing her speak, the vivid picture she painted and the vivid color in her cheeks as she spoke.
"A loving cup," he said and she nodded, her eyes like stars.
"I think you must be right, Anne, for you are half-faery," he said, looking at her delicate face, the weight of the coiled auburn hair at her neck, the unwilted spray of flowers at her sash. Half-faery and wholly his.
"Gilbert! Now you are teasing me," she cried, clapping her hands together.
"No, but I will if you want me to," he said. He wanted to break the spell she'd conjured. She was right, he was a Blythe before anything, and he'd grown up on the stories of Aunt Lucretia's deathbed curse, Great-Uncle Peter's whistle across the fields, Cousin Maud's grave where only a white rose grew.
"I think all I want is to sit here with you and listen to the night outside, the fire snapping, and to dream," she said, settling her head against his chest and tucking her stocking feet up under her. He looked into the fire and heard Ruby's giddy laugh and the sound of a piper, piping across the dunes.