Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Anne of Green Gables. I reread six books of the AoGG series and some poems and feel so incredibly romantic and poetic that I simply must write out AoGG fanfiction.
Marilla had the obstinate habit of being entirely against Anne's ideas. The past months had softened the effect on her nerves, but her stoic upbringing and solid morals and views on raising children still held their own against her affection for the girl. Matthew was completely under Anne's thumb, but someone had to have some sense in them after all these months, and Marilla hoped and held herself as being that one person.
"Your imagination puts many, many strange ideas into your head," Marilla clicked, standing in the way as sentry in the back porch doorway, blocking the way from any way of escape from the cornered Anne, whose lips were pursed slightly so with her feet lifted gently up, as if her boots weren't hardly able to keep her grounded on the worn, clean wood boards. Marilla's hand held a broom in place of a sword for her arsenal; her usual Friday cleaning was stopped short by the appearance of the twelve-year-old schoolgirl, who wore a nice sun hat with straw sticking out of the brim here and there and was holding a lovely wilted bouquet of spring violets from Violet Vale's innumerable quantities. "This does about beat all, though." Marilla tsked and showed her frustration and authority while giving herself a moment to absorb the plan Anne had inflicted upon her by sweeping the spotless doorway.
Anne quirked an eyebrow. "I don't suppose it beats me insulting Mrs. Lynde or breaking a slate over Gil—a boy's head or getting Diana drunk. It doesn't seem so evil or ill-received as those, I suppose, but I could be wrong. But, oh, Marilla, the romance of it! Camping out beneath the twinkly stars in the heavens late at the deepest of dusks, with pale fog settling gently over it and the brightly lit moon shining serenely over us." Her eyes took on her dreamy look as her schoolbooks fell out of her elbows and clattered onto the floor, her thin hands clasped together, as if praying for her dream to come into reality.
"Anne, if you don't know about my rules surrounding little girls going out late at nights, clearly my words just go through one ear and out the other. I don't take to it. Tramping through Matthew's pasture late at night and then sleeping on canvas! Absolutely ridiculous." Marilla gave another fervent sweep, as if to add emphasis on her decision.
Anne sighed deeply, from her very bones. "I know your objections to my plan, Marilla, and I hoped above all hopes that your answer was not the one I knew you would give me. Diana and I just spent so long planning it when we were gathering up bouquets in Violet Vale. The air smelled so sweet and lovely and the worst of the woodland creatures which could attack us was a rabbit that scuttled too close to my hand." Another deep, sorrow-ridden sigh. "But you know best, Marilla, I know, and so I know that imploring you on the matter another second will not bend your iron will." Anne gathered up her books and swept past Marilla passively and walked up to the east gable.
Marilla stopped sweeping and watched after the swinging braids and muttered to herself: "That is too strange. Anne usually goes into tears or the 'depths of despair' and into hysterics. This is something uncharacteristic of her." For a solitary moment Marilla thought over the possibility of Anne somehow gaining a wisdom afore her years. Then she shook her head for thinking such; the child never did but the strangest of things. Having wisdom to realize that the conversation would not end in her favor was beyond the mind of the ever-persistent Anne.
Marilla was bristled; not annoyedly, but like a cat rubbed the wrong way. It felt entirely strange and she didn't like it. She'd rather have Anne come stumbling down the stairs and fall dramatically like an actress fainting on the sofa by the porch. Marilla waited for this, in fact, so much she expected it, and kept to the kitchen to await the matter and get it over with. This resulted in two cakes in the oven and the kitchen table scoured with a wire mesh and fresh sand fetched from the bubbling brook, and yet for all this Anne didn't come down. Marilla's head stubbornly went up every half past ten minutes, searching for big glassy grey eyes and the usual, pleading tone.
It was almost time for tea when the broom finally went to its home in the closet and Marilla marched up the stairs, determined to get to the bottom of this. "I don't suppose Anne for a sneaky girl, planning something behind my back despite my word against it, but she is a sly little thing. My respect for her couldn't help but fall if it turns out she's to go and sneak out tonight after dark." That idea had popped into Marilla's head and while she knew that doubting the child would only service her to apologize to the little waif later on, her stomach felt entirely uncomfortable and she needed a way to feel right back into sorts.
A sharp rap and the turning of the knob later revealed to Marilla a little girl sitting at her desk, a neat pile of scribbled sums and grammar conjugates all written up for her classes tomorrow. Her hat was off and set away; she was subdued and quiet and only looked up expectantly when Marilla's shoe made an audible squeak against the door.
"Good afternoon, Marilla. Is it time to head down for tea? I'll put the kettle on." The chair was removed from under the desk and the little person occupying it got up and stood obediently for Marilla to lead the way down to the kitchen.
Marilla had often found herself either speechless or tripping over words in front of Anne since her astonishing arrival. This girl before her was not that of the girl who came in ugly wincey with a broken carpetbag, but meek and smiling. The odd feeling only increased tenfold.
"Anne, is there something you want to tell me?" Marilla said, sounding more patient than she felt.
Anne's eyes brightened, sharpened. "Well, no. Not anything I can think of. I supposed if I thought hard enough I could find some bad thing I did today, but I really can't think of anything. No, not really. I feel very clean, very good."
That was beyond what Marilla could take. Anne was constantly barraging herself for not being so very good and always getting into scrapes. A sign this deemed; Anne was hiding something, something she didn't want Marilla to hear of.
Marilla knew she couldn't ask Anne of her suspicions; what could she accuse her of? Appearing to have once and for all accepted her answer without a given fit of hysterics, resuming the composure of an adult receiving an answer she didn't agree with but must deal with calmly and complacently? No; it was inherent in Marilla's very frame that something was up with Anne, but with nothing to go on besides a deep feeling of guilt and suspicion in her bones, nothing could be asked of Anne.
Marilla felt guilty and remorseful for absolutely no reason on her part; her practical, moral voice demanded her to leave the child alone and tend to tea. But there was a persistent, softening part of her heart that didn't want to feel ill towards the moonbeam of a child before her; so, since Marilla was a person who, at the end of the day, liked to be able to look at herself in the mirror and not view herself as a guilty evildoer, she clasped her hands together in front of her, (saw the faint glimmer of inextinguishable hope in the bright eyes of the waif), and said, "Very well, Anne,"—as if this feeling inside her was kindled and stoked by the bewitching child—"you and Diana may go and sleep out on the cold grass tonight. It's spring, but if you catch the chill of death, Rachel and I will just keep with our I-told-you-so's as we tend to you in bed. Make sure I can always be able to see you through the window and make sure you bring along lots of blankets and wear your winter stockings and if you get scared by your imagination, I wring my hands of this mess." Marilla caught up her plain grey skirt in her hands and turned out of the room, missing on seeing the absolute joy that sprang onto the little freckled face; Anne's hands were clasped blissfully and her eyes sparkled and she brimmed with excitement once she had walked as calmly as could be expected down the stairs, out through the kitchen, and then down the hill, past Violet Vale and Lovers' Lane and the Lake of Shining Waters to the Barry farm, entirely forgetting to signal Diana so they could meet halfway.
She caught her friend by the arm by the barn, nearly frightening poor Diana out of her boots; "Anne! Gracious, I wasn't expecting you here! Wait, what did Marilla say?"
"Oh, the best of news, Diana. I tried exactly what I said I would; it's worth it to try it just once, just to see if being good has something good coming from it; and it did. I acted very appropriately, refraining from my hysterics, and my self-control came into use, and Marilla says we can sleep under the stairs and catch chills and be scolded once sick in bed!"
"Oh, but I do hope we don't catch a chill," Diana said hesitantly, with a tone that suggested her better judgment was taking over her sense of adventure again.
Anne beamed at her sensible friend and said, "Don't you worry, Diana. If I could, I'll build you a bonfire to keep your pale arms warm, but Marilla would have my head, so I won't, but just you know that I will do all in my power to assure you of a grand time under the starry heavens."
Thus their plan was carried out: Matthew wore a soft smile at the thought of Marilla giving in to Anne; Marilla sat with him at the kitchen table after tea, darning away at a pair of his socks, and said, "Not a single word, Matthew Cuthbert," as if there was an actual danger of Matthew gloating against her.
Anne came tripping down the stairs, her hands caught up with soft things. A good quilt Marilla's mother had made and one Marilla had made, all dark orange and green and brown, just the perfect thing, gathered in her arms; Anne's braids jumped back and forth against her shoulders and her feet were layered in every everyday and woolen sock she possessed. She wore a little white nightgown and her coat; she appeared rather fresh faced and energetic for it being eight at night.
"There's the lantern for you. It'll take you to your spot and be blown out once you and Diana have been settled down. Don't forget to say your prayers and no talking far into the evening" were Marilla's only words. Her hand passed back and forth into the innocent, defenseless sock.
"Oh thank you, Marilla, Matthew." The besotted child went around the table and bestowed loving kisses on the old wrinkled cheeks of her benefactors. Matthew's smile broadened and his sun-toughened cheeks blushed a bright red and Marilla pretended not to feel happy at the child's earnestness. She shook her head as Anne gathered up the lantern: "Take care to not set fire to any of the garments. A single spark can take them all, Anne, remember that."
"You're so thoughtful, Marilla," Anne said, sounding all flustered and pleased as punch. Somehow she managed to open the kitchen door, and her blankets swathed about her like the billowy skirts of a queen attending a stately ball; one hand stuck triumphantly through the doorway as she marched forth, one tiny hand scrambling to keep everything from falling into the dust of the barnyard and the other stuck up one bearing the lantern, like the top of a lighthouse in the cool, dusky green yard of Green Gables.
Marilla tsked as she stood up, saying, "The child's head is so high in the clouds she forgot to close the door."
The child's head was covered with red and a delightful glow of happiness and youth. She caught sight of the other yellow bobbing light, and the two met in the pasture right in front of the little road leading to Lovers' Lane. Diana's head was covered in a beggar woman's getup of a quilt knitted by her aunt Josephine, a disagreeable aunt of hers living in the city. In her hands was her swinging lantern, and the moment they were near enough to hear the other's loud, excited panting, breathless Anne managed to say (for the romance of the moment of everything must be spoken), "Oh, Diana! You look like Florence Nightingale, dashing out into the night with a light dangling from your hand, a sweet sign of safety and comfort to all the broken watching and gazing and adoring your beautiful figure."
"You're real darling, Anne," Diana said. "I still can't believe that Marilla let you do this! My mother was a little hesitant herself, sure, and Minnie May whimpered and wailed in the most pathetic way as she was taken to bed."
"Poor child. But, let's not beset ourselves with guilt over this treasured adventure, Diana," Anne said, not to have her imagined dream quenched down with guilt and remorse by Diana's tiny, young sister. She and Diana set to work with clean consciences and passionate hearts, setting aside such thoughts and turning all their thoughts and energies to that of making up a warm pad of a bed beneath the stars. The rains from yesterday were gone, and Anne could imagine waking up to the sight of droplets of dew gently flowing down the neatly clipped grass strands. She beamed with excitement and she and Diana crawled into their warm, padded bed. Diana had brought a clean canvas her mother sometimes set out for Minnie May in the backyard on warm days as the bottom layer so no dew would they walk up beneath them. Anne pinched her pillow something awful until it was flat enough, and then she laid down besides Diana, and gasped when she saw the dusky sky. The light clouds were silently retreating to spend the night in other parts of the land; the sun, departed from its spot in the sky, was replaced by a darkness that overwhelmed the light, engulfing it like a giant wave crashing over a bank of sand. But it wasn't a cold, sucking darkness, but a color that set in for the night in exactly where it needed to be. Dark as it was, Anne felt it was friendly in the way of a neighbor waving at her from its spot across the lane.
"Diana, isn't this brilliant?"
Diana's head swished back and forth across the pillow before whispering to the enchanted Anne, "It's awfully dark out here. You don't think any of my father's cows is going to come and nip at us during the night, do you, Anne?"
"Diana, find a constellation!"
"I hear a queer noise. You don't think it's the brook, do you?"
"Diana, feel the wind passing over us; it's a gentle sweep!"
"Anne, I hear my father's dog howling. What if there's an animal prowling in the woods?"
"Diana, I could live here forever."
"My feet are catching cold. I'll catch a chill and Mrs. Lynde will tsk when she visits us."
"Everything is so much more calm at night, Diana. Oh, the moon! Everything becomes more haunted at night when the moonlight spills over the objects of the day, all black and white and grey!"
Diana sat up and scratched her neck, her head cocked. "Anne, I think something went and bit me."
Oh, Diana would be sensible, wouldn't she?
"Never mind that, Diana. It was a ladybug, perhaps, trying to remind you to look ahead and enjoy the beautiful outdoors, God's imagination," Anne said.
Diana rubbed at the bite, which was turning pink. "God's imagination hurts sometimes."
Anne sighed and tried to check the bite, but her attempts were in vain, seeing as the lanterns had been extinguished of their glow. "I'm sure it's nothing, Diana." Nothing quite ruffled Anne's feathers than when a smack of a horrible variable came and took a stand against her envisioned dream becoming her reality.
Diana sighed and laid back against the pillows; but then her heart skipped a beat dangerously and she tried to ignore the feeling for the sake of Anne, who fell back and snuggled under the covers and whose eyes stared back at the stark sky boldly. But then she heard a subtle shift in the woods to her right, and she whispered, her voice yearning to not tremble with delicate horror, "I think there's something in the woods coming to get us, Anne."
Anne turned back to Diana, and her eyes somehow widened and weren't so disapproving as before. "Oh, I know you do not lie, Diana, but how may your words be true?" she moaned. Then there was something else. Another howl from the Barry dog. Anne had often sat by her moonlit window next to the Queen and imagined the world as it softly went to bed; though some animals were just getting out of their pine-needle beds, cracking their fingers and going about with their little lives in a lovely, pale world where no one could see them as they scavenged for their dinner and played out in the shadows. But now it seemed that all those lovely little creatures had turned in Anne's imagination to hulking, dangerous, fanged creatures coming out of the Haunted Woods to eat them.
Anne gulped uncomfortably and clutched Diana's hand, saying as she dared herself to look towards the woods, to face the foe coming towards them with a sinking heart but the very same heart to protect Diana at all costs, "I don't suppose it's much, Diana. More 'n likely our thoughts twisting the night not into something incredibly romantic, like a night of pairs of lovers walking arm in arm in Lovers' Lane, but rather—something more horrible than that."
"Anne, I don't think this was a good idea."
The moon was covered briefly with a dark grey fluffy cloud; neither noticed the cloud but the lack of moonlight sprayed over them.
"I think we'd better say our prayers, *gulp*, Diana," Anne choked out.
Diana's eyes were closed as her head knocked up and down feebly; but all the two resolute girls could mutter in a repetitive, pleading chant was, "Our Father, deliver us from the Evil One."
They kept their pleading up until Diana's voice gave out past eleven and Anne kept her strong bluff up by staring at dear Diana until her eyes thankfully gave way to sleep.
Anne felt frozen when she awoke, feeling as if she and Di were surrounded by a hundred incoming grey dogs. But when a terrified feeling had passed, she slowly sat up and looked up their little pad, with mist from over the hill passing over them like the Angel of Death. She felt horribly relieved and fell back against the covers next to Diana, who was a little white girl with eyes staring hollowly at the sky, which was a lightening blue color, somehow friendly in that morning.
"Anne, I don't believe I can do that ever again," Diana said dazedly.
"I shall never ask you to endure such conflict on my behalf as long as I shall live, Diana Barry," Anne said, almost just as dazedly.
Marilla was putting away washed spoons when Anne came through the kitchen door, taking more than a few attempts to get her billowy blankets in through the narrow door.
"How'd it go?" Marilla ventured, not sounding too pressing or eager.
Anne stopped in the middle of the kitchen, her grey eyes sharp, her little eyebrows pulled together. "I believe it was a test, like a rite of passage, Marilla, and Diana and I get nothing for our bravery," she said. Marilla straightened and turned to see the girl, bent and tired, walk down the hall and up the stairs to her little east gable room. Marilla turned back and hoped not, but knew anyway from her intuition, that she'd have to go up and wake the child from a deep slumber for breakfast.
Thanks for reading! God bless!