All quotes from the book are italicized.
Little fun fact for you when I was "drafting" the AOTI section this was the 'first chapter' for a little while! I'm glad it turned out not to be but it was... it wasn't the first thing I'd written for AOTI though, that comes later... much much later!
Thanks for those still with me. Thank you for my reviews they are always much appreciated...
"Gil!" Anne called waving a piece of paper in the air as she ran down the field.
"Hey Anne." He said with a smile. "Did you walk down?" he asked her.
"I didn't feel like bringing the truck and it seemed like such a nice day, it's a shame to waste it driving." She said with a smile. "I got a letter from the halls of resident I'm in 'The Star University Village'!" she said finally meeting him half way down the field "Have you got yours?" she asked him.
"I did indeed," he said with a smile "I'm in the star too." He replied.
"Oh that's fantastic!" Anne exclaimed she said her arms going around his neck in delight.
"It is a mixed accommodation." Gilbert said with a smile. "You know Charlie put in for a single sex accommodation. He's still in Star Village but in Pannis House but they have self-contained everything and no common rooms."
"That doesn't seem very interesting I thought half the fun was meeting new people, All mixed together."
"Well Josie didn't want him 'mixing' with any girls, I think he felt forced into it." Gilbert admitted.
"Well, a noble sacrifice I guess, but Charlie is a crowd pleaser, however will he manage?"
"He's started to call it his 'condo'" Gilbert said with a laugh "so I'm guessing in a Sloane-ish kind of way." He looked to Anne "Do you think they've put us together?" he asked her, "Which Block and flat are you in?" he asked her.
Anne looked down at her papers "Block 4 flat 20." Anne said.
"Flat 18." Gilbert said with a smile.
"Oh Gil!" she squealed with delight "we'll be practically neighbours!"
He smiled at the prospect, of course he had no reason to hope of always being with Anne, but to be so close to her, being able to have that option, it did give a boy reason to be optimistic! "How's packing going?"
Anne sighed dramatically as they walked down the field. "Oh Gil, every time I think I have everything I need something else pops up." She laughed, "and then when we're out we STILL manage to find more things."
"That's true enough." He admitted. "I sometimes find I'm buying two of the same thing, just because I remember thinking 'I must buy that' but not actually remembering if I bought it or not then buying it anyway and finding when I get home I did actually buy it."
"Well maybe you'll make up for any of my errors." She said with a smile. "I will be welcome won't I?" she asked him. "You won't be too busy flirting with other girls…"
"Other?" he questioned. "so what we do is flirting then?" he teased to which he received a playfully shove as he laughed.
"You know what I mean." She said going serious again. "People our age, they have hook ups and tinder and…"
"I promised you I wouldn't change remember?" he said to her putting his arm around her shoulders then pecking her in her hair.
"You promise?" she asked him.
He grinned at her and couldn't believe with his arm around her the fact he had just kissed into her hair she could still ask that question. "Upon my word of honor as a knight in a mini." He said with a laugh as she did. "You're just fed up with packing." He said practically "Fancy a walk?" he asked her as they reached the house. "I want to show you something which should be there."
"Should be!" she exclaimed as she looked up at him with a laugh. "Don't you know if its there?"
"No. I only know it should be, from something I saw there in spring." He said with an air of mystery.
"Alright," she laughed.
To Anne, it seemed they were sauntering through the shadows of the Haunted Wood, but Gilbert had a look on his face which read he knew what he was doing so all Anne could do was trust he knew what he was doing.
"A couple of weeks after I moved here, Marilla let Diana and me camp out in the wood." Anne told Gilbert "We made up ghost stories." Anne laughed.
"I bet yours were imaginative." He said with a smile.
"Diana said she was so afraid after my dramatic story she simply couldn't sleep, but I know she did, I heard her snoring." Anne said very matter of factly to which Gilbert laughed Anne's eyes going wide "Oh don't tell Diana I told you she snored!"
"It doesn't matter to me now does it?!" Gilbert continued to laugh. "I wonder if that's why Fred looks so tired whenever she sleeps there?"
"It better be the only reason!" Anne exclaimed, to which he fell silent but Anne soon picked up the conversation "This wood really is haunted now—by memories," said Anne, stooping to gather a spray of ferns.
The woods around the head of the marsh were full of purple vistas, threaded with gossamers. Past a dour plantation of gnarled spruces and a maple-fringed, sun-warm valley they found the "something" Gilbert was looking for.
"Ah, here it is," he said with satisfaction.
"An apple tree—and away back here!" exclaimed Anne delightedly.
"Yes, a veritable apple-bearing apple tree, too, here in the very midst of pines and beeches, a mile away from any orchard. I was here one day last spring and found it, all white with blossom. So I resolved I'd come again in the fall and see if it had been apples. See, it's loaded. They look good, too—tawny as russets but with a dusky red cheek. Most wild seedlings are green and uninviting."
"I suppose it sprang years ago from some chance-sown seed," said Anne dreamily. "And how it has grown and flourished and held its own here all alone among aliens, the brave determined thing!"
"Here's a fallen tree with a cushion of moss. Sit down, Anne—" he said playfully to her presenting her at the seat "it will serve for a woodland throne. I'll climb for some apples. They all grow high—the tree had to reach up to the sunlight."
The apples proved to be delicious. Under the tawny skin was a white, white flesh, faintly veined with red; and, besides their own proper apple taste, they had a certain wild, delightful tang no orchard-grown apple ever possessed.
"Oh I forgot to tell you, I did manage to stay in contact with one of the girls I went to school with from my last school she was nice, I think you'd like her, her name is Pris Grant and she is going to Redmond, too," she exclaimed.
"That's exciting." Gilbert said with a grin to her eating his own apple. "I think I'd like to know what Anne Shirley was like before she met Avonlea." He said. "How long were you in that school for?" he asked her.
"Six months." She said with a sigh. "Though that was while I was in the orphanage, well the 'care home' same thing, like anyone cares." He nodded in sympathy because he could do little else. "Can we change the subject?" she asked him.
"Sure, well I'll be glad to meet your friend in any case." He admitted. "I think we'll like Kingsport," said Gilbert. "it boasts the finest natural park in the world. I've heard that the scenery in it is magnificent. We'll be exploring for hours." He said with a smile to her.
"I wonder if it will be—can be—any more beautiful than this," murmured Anne, looking around her with the loving, enraptured eyes of those to whom "home" must always be the loveliest spot in the world, no matter what fairer lands may lie under alien stars.
"I suppose it can't really, not to those who call this home. You know what they say about home?" he asked her with a grin.
"No place like it." She smiled. "No, I guess not, its so nice Gilbert, to be going away from somewhere to live somewhere else but think of the place I'm leaving as 'home'."
Gilbert grinned slightly "Yes, I can see that would be nice." There was a marked silence between them before he said "Do you want to go back around the marsh and home by way of Lover's Lane?" he asked. "We can pop back to my house before we go to Green Gables." He said pulling her up, their hands keeping tangled in the others. "Do you feel as disgruntled now as when you started out, Anne?"
"Not I. Those apples have been as manna to a hungry soul. I feel that I shall love Redmond and have a splendid four years there."
"And after those four years—what?"
"Oh, there's another bend in the road at their end," answered Anne lightly. "I've no idea what may be around it—I don't want to have. It's nicer not to know."
Although, he smile and nodded his head he only wished she saw him there. "Well in order to greet the future I'll buy you a bouquet of your favourite flowers for graduation."
She looked at his quizzically "You know my favourite flowers?" she asked him.
"I do that." He admitted. "Lily of the Valleys."
She looked surprised at him before she said "well yes they are, but how do you know that?"
He grinned and pressed his forefinger to his nose a couple of times "A man must have his secrets."
She laughed for a moment before she said "You promise flowers?" she asked him.
"Upon my honour." He said taking hold of her hand.
"Anne!" Mrs Blythe called to her with a wave as they came in from the woods. "Are you staying for a spot of evening tea?" she asked her moving the cat from her lap.
"Oh I wasn't planning on…" Anne started as she sat and another kitten purred at her and jumped on her lap as she sat.
"I don't know you." Anne said to the kitten.
"A new one." Mrs Blythe chuckled.
"Oh, number nine?" Anne asked to which Mrs Blythe laughed. "Well I thought Mr Blythe said…"
To which Gilbert put her finger to his mouth and shushed her to which she looked confused at him.
"Dad doesn't know." Gilbert laughed.
Anne's mouth formed a 'o' and then looked to Mrs Blythe "hasn't he noticed?" Anne asked with a sweet laugh.
"I think they've all blended into one." Mrs Blythe laughed.
"And what's your name?" she asked the kitten.
"I can't decide." She said to Anne. "We've only had him two days."
"Let's see," Anne smiled looking at the cat, "You're a proper cat aren't you? You look like a tiger or a lion, lets see… Oh Felidae!" she exclaimed.
"As in Feline?" Mrs Blythe asked.
"Yes, it's the same thing." Anne agreed.
"Felidae." Mrs Blythe smiled. "I've got some nice Earl Grey in, I know you and Gilbert both prefer your tea."
"Well yes we do…" Anne tried again.
"And I have those shortcake biscuits you like so much."
Anne fought a smile. Mrs Blythe was always trying to feed her. "Thank you, Mrs Blythe, I'll just call Marilla and let her know I'll be staying, if that's okay?"
Mrs Blythe nodded. "You know, Gilbert got his place in Star University Village."
"Yes, I know." She acknowledged. "It turns out we'll just be a couple of flats away from each other."
"We'll probably have the same common room." Gilbert chirped in.
"Oh that'll be nice dear." She said to the both. "I'll have someone to keep an eye on my son, he's quite the joker and he can offend where none is intended. Would you keep an eye on him Anne, he's always so much better behaved with you around?"
Gilbert was looking at Anne unbeknown to Anne but plainly obvious to his mother, as she sat on the veranda . She wore a loose but pretty White Off the Shoulder Dip Hem Top and a pair of jeans shorts which would make Josie green with envy, Gilbert had noticed of course, in his eyes, Anne suited that style of jeans so much better than… anyone. Her hair was let loose down her back with the exception of two small pieces one on either side of her ears which kept her hair from her face, with her slender delicacy, she made him think of a white iris.
Gilbert saw his mother noticing and quickly amended his thoughts, inside his mind with a pang of self-destruction he thought 'I wonder if she'll ever love me.'
Mr Blythe came in from the fields and sat in the chair next to his wife. "Ah Anne." He greeted.
"Anne's in the Star University Village too!" Mrs Blythe said with a smile to her husband.
"That's good, keep him out of trouble." Mr Blythe said, to which Anne burst out laughing.
"Oh come on!" he exclaimed. "I'm not that bad!"
"We're teasing son." Mrs Blythe said.
"You know if you're going to the same place…" Mr Blythe started. "We're driving down there Anne, if you like, the truck is too big for just Gilbert's things, we're taking him anyway…" Mr Blythe said shyly. "If you can stand being in the truck that long with us? I have some business in Kingsport so I'm staying the week, can give you a lift back so you can drive your own car down the next weekend when it won't be as full."
Anne smiled "That's very kind Mr Blythe, thank you I think I will." She admitted.
"You'll skype with Gilbert won't you Anne?" Mrs Blythe asked her. "At least every once in a while, we'll miss you."
"I'll miss you too, I think if Gilbert won't mind, I'll pop in every once in a while." She said with a smile. She suddenly remembered "Excuse me a minute, won't you? I need to call Marilla let her know I won't be home for evening meal." Anne stood and took her phone around the corner.
Mrs Blythe looked to her son "are you sure you two are 'just friends'?" she asked him innocently.
Mr Blythe looked confused at the new kitten and stated "is that a new cat?" he asked.
"No!" Mrs Blythe said her eyes going wide "we've had him ages."
"Ages?" Mr Blythe asked. "His name?" he asked knowing it took her months to name a cat.
"Felidae." Mrs Blythe replied.
"Felidae?" he asked.
"Yep." She told him looking at him innocently.
He shook his head picking up the cat and said "welcome to the family son." He told it.
Gilbert laughed and his mother reached up and kissed her father. "Thank you dear."