Green Gables


Mr. Blythe shrugged off his pack, letting it clatter to the ground. With a look of grim determination, he freed two spades from the mess and offered one to my father.

"John!" Father spluttered. "Surely you aren't in earnest?"

"I am indeed. I will unearth Marilla Cuthbert, who has been dead for a century. See what it says here on the stone? Marilla C, born in 1765, died in 1781. If that is true, and nothing amiss, we shall find her bones. If, however, my suspicions are correct, you shall look upon the very face of evil."

With that, Mr. Blythe began to dig, tossing aside shovelfuls of earth. I wrung my hands in agitation, looking anxiously over my shoulder. Of course he would not find Carmilla in the grave! She was on her way to us now, with Mother, bringing a picnic supper for us to share!

Yet, Mr. Blythe dug ever on, clods of earth flying in a frenzy. At length, my father began to help him, I suspect more out of concern for his friend's new-recovered health than from a desire to behold the earthly remains of Marilla C.

They dug together for a long time as the sun slipped down the sky, exchanging the golden, slanting sunshine of an early autumn afternoon for sunset tints of orange and russet that recalled Carmilla's fiery beauty. Oh, where was she? And where was Mother? Perhaps I ought to have gone back to Orchard Slope to find them. I was on the point of suggesting such an endeavor when I heard the hollow thump of a spade upon hollow wood.

I hurried to the edge of the muddy pit and offered a hand to my father, who was splattered and exhausted with his efforts. He clambered onto the grass, collapsing in a panting heap.

Mr. Blythe exhibited no such fatigue. Indeed, some internal fire lit his hazel eyes so that they burned in the encroaching dim of evening.

"We have you now, Marilla," he said, hefting his axe as if he would smash in the coffin lid.

For a terrible moment, the blade hovered, the last gleam of the setting sun glinting along its edge. I covered my eyes, not knowing what I feared more: a skeleton or my dear Carmilla's lovely face.

With a crash, the axe smashed through the long-buried wood, splintering it into a thousand shards. I peered through my fingers with the utmost trepidation, only to see Mr. Blythe standing over the ruin, his breath coming in deep gasps, his face a ghastly rictus of shock.

The coffin was empty.

"There is nothing there, John," Father said gently. "She has turned to dust and ash, just as she should have."

"No!" Mr. Blythe shouted. He sunk the axe into the coffin again and again, splitting the lid and tearing away the shards to reveal the lining. Amid the dirt and splinters, the cloth was clearly visible. Perhaps it had once been white, but now it was stained a rich, fresh red.

"She has decayed," Father reasoned.

Mr. Blythe stared up out of the grave with wild eyes. "Use you eyes, George! There are no bones here! Only blood! She is not here because she is . . ."

All color drained from Mr. Blythe's face. He raised a trembling arm and pointed to a spot over Father's shoulder.

". . . there."

I whirled and followed the line of his extended finger back toward the ruins of Green Gables. Indeed, two figures were visible, standing in the eastern part of the upper story, in what might once have been a gable room before the roof fell away. Now it was open to the night air and the two figures were plainly visible to us, outlined in the silver light of the rising moon. Even from this distance, it was plain that one had hair the color of flames.

"It is Carmilla!" I squealed, relieved. "Carmilla and Mother have come at last"

I ran at once for the graveyard gate, overwhelmed with gratitude at this excuse to escape Mr. Blythe's ravings. Dimly, I heard my father call, "No! Diana! Wait!" but his voice could not detain me.

Fleet as a deer, I dashed over the trail we had cut earlier, stumbling when the long grasses reached up to catch me by the toes and tearing through the branches that grasped at my skirts. When I reached the veranda, I leapt over the sagging steps and through the door that hung from its hinges.

"Carmilla!" I called as I mounted the swaying stairs. "Mother!"

When I gained the landing at the top of the stairs, I was brought up short by a gaping hole in the floor. No matter; a single beam remained intact. I took a deep breath and stepped out, one delicate footfall after another, just as we used to do in the old days of walking board fences. I had never been one for the dares, always too timid to follow where Josie or Gertie led, but now my darling Carmilla was on the other side of the chasm. She would set everything to rights, if only I could reach her.

Below me, the pounding of boots on the veranda signaled the arrival of Father and Mr. Blythe. They were too late. I was at the east room door, the doorknob turning under my hand, the door swinging open before me . . .

I had expected Carmilla.

I had not expected Carmilla and Bertha.

They stood side-by-side, hands entwined, their white dresses and flowing hair ruffled by a new-blowing breeze, though they stood completely still otherwise. As in my dreams, I could detect no movement, not even as of respiration. Behind them, the rising moon shone like a pearl through the white-blossomed limbs of an enormous cherry tree, pale and ethereal as Carmilla's outstretched hand.

There was no mistaking her. She was my Carmilla and no other, her hair as vivid, her eyes as starry as ever they were. Nor was there any doubt that Bertha Blythe was herself. I had not seen her for three years, but she was still a tall, striking girl, her mane of rich brown curls was the same, her hazel eyes the very image of her father's. If she seemed a bit paler than I remembered her, perhaps it was only a trick of the moonlight.

I stepped over the threshold, my own hand poised to take Carmilla's.

"No!" my father called from the top of the stairs. "Diana!"

In a moment, my father and Mr. Blythe had crossed the gaping hole in the floor. They reached me and stopped, gasping, though with shock or exertion I could not have said.

Mr. Blythe staggered against the doorframe. "Bertha . . ." he whispered, unbelieving. Then, "No! No, not Bertha!"

"Good evening, Mr. Blythe," Carmilla smiled. "Truly, I must thank you for your dereliction. I feared you might take precautions when you buried my darling Bertha. You could have struck off her head or buried her with a stake through her heart, rather than crowned in flowers. But your tender heart overruled all your reason."

"I couldn't!" Mr. Blythe declared, sinking to his knees. "God help me, I couldn't believe it! Not my Bertha!"

Bertha smiled, grinned even, and her eyes seemed to twinkle. "I am no longer yours, Father," she said.

Still smiling, she turned to Carmilla, bending her head slightly to meet her upturned face. The kiss that passed between them lingered long and longer, until I felt my own blood stir. Without thinking, I took a step toward them.

"No!" my father called. "Diana! Stay back!"

Carmilla broke the kiss and reached again for me with her slender, lily-white hand.

"Diana, huntress, goddess of the moon," she said, smiling so that her teeth glimmered with a light that had no earthly source. "Did I ever tell you how pleased I was that your mother, lacking as she was in any sort of imagination, bestowed upon you such a perfectly lovely name? I don't know if I could have loved you half as well if she had given you a plain, sensible name like Jane or Mary."

I blushed under this praise, but stopped when a terrible thought occurred to me.

"Where is my mother?" I asked. "Is she not with you?"

Carmilla and Bertha exchanged the smile of conspirators. "You needn't worry about her," Carmilla said very, very sweetly. "Ever again."

A chill ran up my arms, but a thrill as well, and I remembered what Carmilla had said about the shiver of pleasure she felt when something was just exactly right. Perhaps this is what she meant.

"No!" my father called again. "Elizabeth! What have you done to her? You demon! You murderer! You vampire!" He stood, but his legs quavered with cramps from his recent exertions, and he wobbled as uncertainly as a newborn colt.

"Vampire!" Carmilla tittered behind her hand. "Why, Mr. Barry, you mustn't let the neighbors hear you raving so. As you yourself know very well, my only affliction is sleepwalking!"

At this, Bertha joined her in fits of giggles, resting her forehead against Carmilla's crown with such obvious affection that my heart leapt to join them and share even a sliver of their devotion.

"Please," my father begged. "What did Elizabeth ever do to you?"

"To me?" Carmilla asked, arching a copper brow. "Better to ask what she did to Diana."

Father looked to me in confusion. Surely my mother had never been guilty of any transgression toward me, saving occasional strictness.

"Don't you see?" Carmilla continued. "She would have made Diana's world so small! She was jealous of her education, even grudged her the books that were her only escape into the realms of imagination! She would have made Diana walk her own narrow path, whether she wanted to or no. And you would have helped! You had her imprisoned at Orchard Slope just as surely as my darling Bertha was imprisoned at that wretched sanatorium, spending her precious life in serving others. But the Cuthbert blood runs in her veins as surely as it runs in mine, calling one to the other. We were never meant to be confined, none of us!"

Father goggled, but I felt such a surge of delight at my dear friend's words that I was nearly lifted from my feet. It was true. She had come to me, had renamed my landscape and spoken to me in the language of dreams and diamond sunbursts, rather than butter and eggs.

"Come, Diana," Bertha said. "Come with us."

"No!" my father shouted. "You will not have my daughter!"

Carmilla fixed him with an icy glare, the green fire of her eyes blazing. "The choice is hers."

I barely dared to breathe as I looked from my father's ashen face to Carmilla's shining eyes. It was not a difficult choice. Stepping forward, I reached out both my hands; Carmilla took one, Bertha the other.

"Demon!" cried Mr. Blythe. "Fiend!"

Struggling to his feet, he pulled a long knife from a sheath at his waist and raised it high. He took one lurching step toward us, then another, his eye fixed resolutely on Carmilla.

He never reached her. Bertha stepped between them and with a speed that knew no earthly limitations, sank her teeth deep into her father's throat. He fell at once, and I fancied that his death was soundless, though perhaps I could hear nothing but the roaring in my own ears. A look of vast surprise stayed etched on his features even after his life had drained from the puncture marks, the dusty floorboards soaked in blood so dark it seemed black.

My own father sank to the floor beside his friend, placing a hand to Mr. Blythe's inert chest. He wore a look of utter bewilderment that tugged at my still-beating heart.

"Father," I said, stepping away from my companions and toward him.

"No! Stay back!" He scuttled away from me, moving across the floor like a crab. "No!"

"Father!" I called again, following, wishing him to know that though I had chosen my path, I did not wish him ill.

He backed away from me again, over the threshold, his eyes wide with terror as I advanced . . .

. . . and then he was falling . . . falling . . . falling through the gaping floor. He landed with a terrible crunch, his limbs at odd angles, his face turned upward toward the moon, though he had fallen chest-down.

I gasped, but there was nothing to be done.

Four cool hands drew me back from the edge of the pit, petting my hair, soothing me, twining around my waist to anchor me against the dizzy world.

"Darling Diana," Carmilla smiled, her hand gentle against my cheek. "Do you really wish to join us?"

I did. God help me, I did.

"What must I do?" I asked, trying to keep the quaver out of my voice.

Bertha laughed. "Why, nothing, silly! Just be your own dear self and that will be enough for us."

"There is one small thing," Carmilla said, clasping her hands under her chin. "If you wish for us to be together forever, there is a small . . . ceremony."

"A ceremony?"

"Yes," she said. "I will kiss you here . . ." her fingers traced a line beginning in the soft flesh behind my ear ". . . and here . . ." down, down past the hollow of my throat ". . . and here . . ." lower still ". . . and here."

"Yes," I breathed.

"And then you will kiss me the same."

Was that all? It was only what I had longed for these many weeks. I nodded.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"I am."

I cannot describe that kiss. Thrill — thrill — you'd have to say 'thrill' a hundred times before you could express how thrilling it was. It was if all my blood had been replaced with quicksilver, flowing in ever-shifting, ever-changing shapes that were never less than completely perfect.

When I opened my eyes at last, I was surprised to find that the silver light of night had turned to a brilliant gold. The ghostly cherry tree, so pale a few moments ago, burst forth with lively color, its blossoms shot through with pink, and its leaves a green more vivid than it had ever been in life. I looked beyond it and beheld Avonlea as I had never seen it before. It was not day — the moon still hung heavy in the sky — but all the world was clothed in color: the brilliant emerald of the Lombardy poplars, the bright copper of the road, the shifting sapphire of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the deep amethyst of the Gulf beyond.

"Is this the way you always see it?" I marveled.

"It is," Carmilla smiled and kissed me tenderly. "And now it is yours as well."

"Forever," Bertha said, following suit.

I could hardly believe my fortune. My old life was nothing more than a dream, receding rapidly with every passing moment. There was only the future in that wide, vivid world. Carmilla took one of my hands and Bertha the other and we stepped out over the cherry tree, over the winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.


The End


Author's Note:

Ok, that is not how Carmilla ends. In the original, various dudes work together to behead Carmilla and banish her wickedness forever; Laura gets sent to Italy, where she spends the next decade mooning over lost Carmilla. Given the choice between punishing Carmilla and letting a teenage lesbian vampire trio loose in the world, I think you know what I was always going to choose.

Thanks for reading!