Hello Betwixters!
This chapter has been fourteen chapters in the making, the whole of this narrative so far, and obviously fairly important in terms of content and characterization. I'm excited to have it for you at last. This chapter is the first of a three-chapter arc and all related to the Whitman inscription you will read within it, which itself was suggested to me by elizasky many years ago, and for which I remain hugely grateful.
I have loved your responses to this and, for those also reading, The Land of Heart's Desire, and thank everyone for them and their reading sincerely. I love your engagement with these characters and this concept. Thank you also to anyone reading my recent Halloween story Turned Back Upon the Past and especially to guests I won't be able to thank directly. Please know for anyone interested that I will be turning my attention back to Down the Rabbit-Hole very soon. Lots of stories to juggle – it sometimes feels like three sets of twins!
I hope this finds you well and happy reading!
Love
MrsVonTrapp x
Chapter Fifteen
'I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom'
Anne and Tessa were greeted the next morning by a bemused hotel clerk bearing two identical bouquets of flowers and an invitation to brunch at Ingleside.
"Oh, how beautiful!" Tessa gushed, before glancing at Anne's reddening face. "It feels like I'm double dating with my daughter!" she laughed bemusedly.
"Mom, that's because we kind of are," her daughter's expression was mortified perfection.
Brunch was a veritable feast of generous breakfast offerings including sparkling juices and specialty pastries from the local bakery, with a surprise visit from Max, Maddie and father Michael Meredith, offering a flurry of heartfelt goodbyes, exchanging numbers and addresses with Anne and sharing social media particulars. Maddie and Anne would both be high school seniors in the coming year and would have much to chat about, and Max hoped that eventually his musical interests might take him as far as Toronto.
For Anne, Rob had prepared a dossier that might have made a secret service agent proud, of every genealogical particular that had interested her, including scanned photographs, war service records, local newspaper clippings and the promised copies of those family tree spreadsheets, however lamentably inaccurate his own branch of the Blythe tree now was. Most preciously, he had uncovered a photograph of his teenaged self with Melissa, Mike and a visiting Alex and Carina Ford, some indeterminate summer in the 1980's, which made Anne gasp in gratitude and brought tears to Tessa's expressive eyes.
And then, it was on to Four Winds.
Rob dropped off David and Anne along the red gravel road they had travelled down when leaving Jake MacAllister's house party, seemingly half a lifetime ago, to continue with Tessa down to the point to view the lighthouse, promising to come back up for them at the House of Dreams in a few hours. Instead of climbing further up the hill David first led them across it, till they arrived at the carpark of a sprawling newer building nestled in the hillside as if hunkered down over the bluff, and the sign greeting them immediately proclaimed the site's significance.
Four Winds Aged Care and Retirement Home.
"This is where your Ma worked?" Anne asked gently, grasping his hand.
"Yeah. From before she was married and all the way through as I was growing up. Part time when I was little, of course, but she still worked and was Head of Nursing here right up until… that is… she got sick."
"Oh, David…" Anne gulped.
David did not enter through to reception but instead led them around the back of the building, floor to ceiling windows making the most of the incredible vista below with views stretching to the gulf. There was a generous green space with a charming garden and several manicured paths leading off to a number of benches, one of which he headed to.
"Dad hates coming here now," he explained. "Avoids it if possible. He's not good with medical things and hospitals, ironically enough. And there are too many memories of Ma. She first knew she was sick on shift here - just collapsed in the aged care wing in one of the wards. It was horrible, for everyone. The residents were very upset. They really loved her. That wing is named for her, now."
Anne blinked back tears just to think of it, squeezing his hand.
David sighed. "There were happier memories here, too. Great Uncle Carl, for instance. Dad told me he was here for years after Shirley died and he moved out of the Lowbridge house. Ma saw him virtually every day. They were very tight. Well, we know how tight, now, what with the letter and Whitman and everything." He paused. "And the house, of course."
Anne blinked again and did her best to smile encouragingly.
"So, here we are…" he offered a resolute smile of his own, directing her to the bench. "Apparently Carl would sit here almost every day, if the weather was welcoming. He was adored by everyone. Ma and Dad had the plaque made, after he passed away. It wasn't long after I was born. He got to a hundred, incredibly."
Anne traced her fingers over the large brass plaque, careful and almost reverent.
In Loving Memory of
Thomas Carlyle Meredith, known as Carl, 1897-1997
beloved of his family, community and especially of Shirley
"When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me." *
-Walt Whitman
Anne paused, reading the inscription carefully and smiling wistfully, before taking a seat beside David, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her waist, looking out to sea.
"What are you thinking about?" David ventured, after a time.
"I'm afraid to speak or move for fear all this beauty will just vanish, like a broken silence," ** she murmured after a time.
"That sounds very writerly of you, Miss Ford," he smiled into her hair, his lips grazing her forehead.
She gave a self-effacing smile. "It's hard not to be inspired, looking out on all this, and learning that Carl would have sat here, probably with your mom, seeing this same view – even thinking the same things about it…" she mused. "I didn't know what I wanted to do at the start of this summer. I considered maybe law. But all the stories of family I've met and learned about while I've been here… it's made me rethink things. I'd like to tell those stories, too… and maybe some of our own. I've always liked to write, but I thought perhaps I didn't do it for me but for my father… to do what was expected of me, fulfill some sort of… manifest destiny…"
"I think you would be a natural writer, Anne," he gave her a reassuring squeeze. "You're imaginative, curious and so smart and observant. But you've still got time to figure things out, either way – heaps of time. That's the great thing about uni. And remember you are talking to a hopeful medical student who is one of a very, very long line of past medical students," he smiled wryly. "I'm not going to throw a little shade at destiny…" he paused. "Even if I used to not even believe in it."
She moved quickly to face him, eyes and mouth amusingly agog.
"You didn't used to believe in destiny?" she squeaked. "And now you do?"
David colored slightly. "Well, now I do a little more. Like an atheist turned agnostic, you could say. I guess it can't have been a complete coincidence that you ended up by my tree, just at the time I went down to the valley. Or that at the very same time your Mom was meeting my Dad in the hotel bar."
"Don't you think we were completely fated to meet, though?" she almost urged, her grey eyes wide and staring, seemingly worried about his answer. "That some previous… connection… drew us together?"
He stroked his finger teasingly up and down her bare arm.
"That is a very romantic notion, I'll admit. You sure you didn't smuggle out any books of Aunt Dellie's?"
She rolled her eyes. "That is not exactly an answer," she reminded quietly.
David frowned, trying to lighten the seriousness that had overtaken her.
"OK, honestly, I'm not sure…" he hedged, not wanting to disappoint her, but simultaneously a little wary of the conviction of the true believer sparking in those grey-green eyes. "I mean, there is something… tremendous between us. I know that, Anne. And there have been certain things… feelings… that maybe I can't explain. But Fate is a pretty big concept, and not exactly a scientific one. It doesn't leave any room for free will. And I like to think we have chosen one another over the idea of some… cosmic cupid or something."
She was silent, biting her lip, perhaps in disappointment, and he tried to remember that she was still on the edge of seventeen.
"Does it even matter, now?" he offered gently, large hand cupping her cheek. "We're here, together, in this moment, and are planning for many more future moments, and I'm so grateful… however we came to meet, and why, you're not getting rid of me anytime soon, Anne Ford." He smiled widely to strengthen the vow.
Anne stared at him for long moments, as if wanting to say more.
"Good to know," she finally smiled in return, a little hesitatingly, so that all his being became focussed on the persuasive power of his kiss.
Higher up the winding red road, above the aged care home, they came to a belt of birch ***and beyond it, largely untouched by time, past a large farmhouse; an old, rambling grey one surrounded by huge willows through which its windows peered, like shy, seeking eyes. ****
"There's a little history for you, Anne," David indicated, holding tight to her hand. "It used to be the family home of one Leslie Moore, who of course became the wife – "
" – of Owen Ford," Anne completed the thought with a starry smile. She looked around her. "It's still so isolated up here. No wonder they all became so close – except for the other farmhouse further down it was just Leslie and the Blythes. How did they manage?"
"I think they survived on the view," David turned them around, the stiff summer breeze teasing their hair as before them lay Four Winds Harbor like a great, shining mirror... Far down, the entrance between the bar of sand dunes on one side and a steep, high, grim, red sandstone cliff on the other. Beyond the bar the sea, calm and austere, dreamed in the golden sunlight. The little fishing village, nestled in the cove where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked like a great opal in the haze. ***
"I'm going to cancel all the holiday tenants and come and live here!" Anne bubbled over with excitement, rewarded by his lovely, loving laugh, and her awe and admiration continued on to their first glimpse of a home that was a delight to eye and spirit—it did indeed look, just like she had first glimpsed it weeks ago, like a big, creamy seashell stranded on the harbor shore. Tall poplars still directed to a cloudy fir wood, sheltering a charming rose garden. Her breath quickened to see it all before her, to walk on with David through the gate, a strange fluttering in her stomach as they approached slowly, mesmerised, up the trim, red path to the sandstone step. ***
They contemplated the door. She hesitated. Oh God. This felt very, very strange, and not a good sort of strange.
"Maybe… we shouldn't go in?" she tugged on his hand, breathless now and fighting a sudden, perplexing panic.
"Not go in? And deny you your Welcome Home?" *** David beamed, oblivious.
Anne's saucer eyes watched him unlock the door with the key Rob Blythe had kindly fetched for them from the realtor that morning, the blood thrumming in her veins and beginning to pound in her head. She felt a wash of recognition here as there had been for her with so many other places – Ingleside… the lighthouse… the Green Gables Guest House and various spots in Avonlea… even traipsing the hallowed halls and cloisters of Queen's College up in Charlottetown. But this was different… this felt so much more immediate and confronting, the memories crowding around her, pulsing and persistent, like an angry mob wanting answers.
Maybe she was just so much more attuned to those other memories now, like an old radio frequency she was able to access … or maybe, just maybe, this setting held so much more significance.
"It's amazing!" David was charmingly enthused as they came through the door to a sight both homely and hospitable, the modest entranceway opening onto a lounge room with snug fireplace and groaning bookshelf, and a staircase leading to bedrooms yet unknown. But, oh, she did know them, and how! This was more awful than at Ingleside, when the veneer of the past was like a veil she could, with effort, draw down or lift away at will. This was not a mere reflection, as that flash in the mirror in that little attic room… or a conjuring of voices and visions on the lake in Avonlea… This was as if she walked not as herself, but as that other Anne… seeing everything with her eyes… thinking her thoughts… experiencing her sensations as her gaze followed a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man who had broken away to pace across to the dining room, with its magnificent view taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills beyond.
"Anne!" the man gestured. "You have to come and look at this!"
He turned back to her, the image of him blurring and shifting. She knew it must be David… had to be David… but, oh God! To look at him was to see another; older, eager, smiling, knowing… in an old-fashioned dark suit with a stiff white collar and tie, a pink rose in his lapel, hair slicked back, expectant look of love and longing in his eyes…
Gilbert.
Gilbert Blythe.
Doctor Gilbert Blythe, her husband.
The room started to spin as he walked back towards her, this man with ten years on her and change, his voice deep and honied, his smile soft and much too sensuous.
Oh my God.
"Stay there!" she shouted, unnerved beyond measure. "Don't move!"
"Anne?"
"Stay right where you are! Don't come any closer!"
"Anne?" this time her name was stereophonic; David and Gilbert in unison, as if they had double-tracked themselves in a recording.
"Oh God!" she covered her ears, clutching at her pounding head. "This can't be happening!"
"Anne! What's wrong?" David called, as if from far away, with a creeping edge of panic.
"Um, nothing!" she wheezed, edging closer to the sofa. "I've just got a headache! And I don't have any… pain relief. I really didn't want… anything… ruining our visit here!"
He approached her with a sympathetic smile, and she had to breathe deeply and concentrate on the floor, unable to rid herself of the other image that shocked her senses.
"Poor thing," he kissed her bowed head. "Maybe too much sun on the way up here. I'll rat around in the kitchen and see what I can find. I'm sure your grandad keeps this place pretty well stocked."
"OK, thanks…" she replied weakly. "I might see if… anything… is in the bathroom cabinet."
She made her unsteady way upstairs, clutching the banister for support, needing to get as much distance as possible from the man – men! – downstairs. And all the while, the thrumming in her head… the pulsing of her blood… the hum and the buzz all around her, as if this place was alive, calling to her, an echo down through the ages.
Anne stumbled into the master bedroom and stopped up short. All she could process was that the feeling was as if a gust of wind had blasted her, so quick and sudden was the effect, and the memories that settled around her in its wake felt so real she was personally reliving them… memories of this bed, and that quilt, obviously a replica now of the same apple leaf pattern… of looking out that dormer window and coming through that bathroom and having certain arms come around her, holding her fast to strong, lean, sculpted contours… turning her around to kiss her with a gasp-inducing passion… leading her to the bed and… and…
Oh my GOD.
"Anne? I've some water here and some – "
She jumped out of her skin, rounding on the figure behind her.
"Stay away, Gilbert!" she pointed her finger at him accusingly. "I'm not your bride! I don't belong to you!"
"Gilbert?"
"I can't be here!" Anne massaged her temples, breathing heavily and turning in a wild arc. "We shouldn't be here! I have to go!"
"You'll stay right here with me, Anne-girl," said Gilbert lazily. "I won't have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms." *****
Seconds after those long-ago words echoed in her head, David tried to take her arm. And that's when she screamed.
David was more excited than he had reckoned on, turning the key to open the House of Dreams, happy to honour his promise to Anne on their last day together, the little gift box he had dived upon early that morning, his parting gift, having burned a hole in his pocket ever since.
Anne, at the last minute, was curiously shy about entering, anticipation perhaps turning to overwhelm. Well, she had a lot to process, coming here, and probably considered this house sacred ground, what with her still-potent connection to Owen Ford and the Life-book, and those dreams she had discussed of possibly aiming to emulate him and her own father.
Connection… that idea was obviously incredibly potent for her, too, and he was trying to embrace the possibilities of it. He had shut himself off emotionally for so long, trying to process the death of his mother and his own pain and bewilderment, that opening himself up to Anne this summer had taken more out of him than he had perhaps realised or that she knew. And meanwhile, this snug little house made him buzz with some weird kinetic energy, exhilarating as an electrical charge, and he walked excitedly to the large bay window in the dining room, calling her over to come and share the view.
"Anne!" he urged, grin splitting his face. "You have to come and look at this!"
She stood where he had left her, in an uncertain No Man's Land between the door and the lounge, and as he turned back to her he saw Anne's expression morph frighteningly, as if he was a serial killer she had just recognised in a police line up.
"Stay there!" she shouted at him. "Don't move!"
He looked at her incredulously.
"Anne?"
"Stay right where you are! Don't come any closer!" she shrilled.
"Anne?" he called louder, both amazed and aghast.
He saw her clutch her head, moaning this can't be happening, and his stomach dropped like a pebble in the water. Was she having some sort of anxiety attack?
"Anne, what's wrong?" he called urgently, stepping slowly towards her, unable to mask the panic in his own voice. What was going on?
"Um, nothing!" she crept towards the sofa. "I've just got a headache! And I don't have any… pain relief. I really didn't want… anything… ruining our visit here!"
His relieved breath was audible, and his worried heart slowed. A headache he was more than happy to try to problem solve.
He approached her with a sympathetic smile and saw she was breathing deeply and settling herself down. No need to get upset and make it throb any worse.
"Poor thing," he kissed her bowed head. "Maybe too much sun on the way up here. I'll rat around in the kitchen and see what I can find. I'm sure your grandad keeps this place pretty well stocked."
"OK, thanks…" she replied weakly. "I might see if… anything… is in the bathroom cabinet."
His eyes followed her upstairs momentarily before walking through to the characterful kitchen, which had obviously been remodelled whilst still retaining a sense of the building's history. He liked what he saw more and more, letting his mind wander to intriguing future possibilities as he searched the cupboards, such as Anne and Tessa staying here if he and his father could somehow coerce them into coming back.
Some leftover Tylenol was a lucky break, and he grabbed it and a glass of water and darted up the stairs.
"Anne, I've some water here and some – "
Anne spun around in fright.
"Stay away, Gilbert!" she pointed her finger at him accusingly, lashing him with her tone.
"Gilbert?" He felt his mouth drop open. She had called him Gilbert, as in that long-ago Dr Blythe, the one with all the children, their joint ancestor. The Gold medallist on the honour board yesterday at the teaching college. The one married to that other Anne, virtually at the top of his dad's family tree, whom they were only talking about so casually on their walk up here.
"I'm not your bride! I don't belong to you!"
Bride? Oh, Jesus. Was Anne confused? Overwrought? Having some sort of.. hallucination? Here in Gilbert Blythe's former house, on her last day, head swimming with history?
"I can't be here!" she moaned plaintively, and then started, worryingly, to massage her temples. That headache again, or even a migraine? She was moving erratically, almost hyperventilating. She needed to sit and to calm the heck down. His hazel eyes stared in mounting horror as he puzzled over an explanation. Unless… when was a headache not a mere headache? Heat stroke? Or worse? An aneurysm would bring on an extreme and sudden headache, as well as confusion.
Jesus.
"We shouldn't be here! I have to go!"
She might be in trouble – medical trouble – and not hesitating, he closed the distance between them, taking her arm to try to coax her to sit on the bed. Her blood-curdling scream pierced his heart and shocked him into upending the water he carried, a bizarre echo of that first night at Ingleside over dinner, when she had looked at him as if seeing something else.
Anne half sagged to the floor at his approach, but then, something changed as Gilbert grasped her; something elemental in her that had shifted. Looking up at her husband as he took her in his arms she was no longer overwhelmed by anything except her love for him, eager for them to finally begin their lives together, torturous trout suppers notwithstanding. They were alone… finally alone…
His strong arms were around her waist, half carrying her to the bed. It was what she had wanted him to do since the moment she had first viewed their bedroom, the blush still blooming her cheeks to think on it as she came down the stairs after their arrival, grey gaze sweeping the scene of the lovely little lounge area presided over by the charming fireplace, where Gilbert had stood talking to Captain Jim, drinking her in with his eyes. He had introduced her as 'my wife', almost bursting with pride to say the words, and she was thrilled beyond measure to hear them, and to finally be able to answer to such a call.
"Gil… oh, Gil… I am so happy to be your wife…" she crooned into his ear, as he urged her to lie back on the bed, and then leaned away to survey her, hazel eyes blown wide.
"Anne…" he gasped. "Anne… you're not feeling well, sweetheart. You need to lie down here, quietly, and I'll get some more water for you, and then we need to get some help for you."
"Oh Gilbert, you worry too much! Why don't you come and lie WITH me..?" she smiled up to him coyly, arms reaching out to clutch his shirt collar. He looked so young and especially boyish tonight, as if their longed-for wedding had finally stripped away the years of ache and wait and worry. He was handsome, so handsome… and he was hers. And she was his. She wanted to be so, desperately, in every way that mattered… in all the ways denied them until now.
"Anne… there is something very wrong here!" he gulped.
"There is nothing wrong that you can't fix, Doctor Blythe…" she breathed, as suggestively as she dared.
"Anne?" his reply was strangled, as she snaked her arms around his neck, clutching tightly.
"I love you so!" she declared joyously.
"You… love… me?" he stuttered, rent immobile, and in this momentarily lapse she pulled him further towards her, seeking lips locking with his.
David fell into Anne on the bed, pulled towards her by a force more powerful than those slim, pale arms in that lovely jade green dress, the one that made her eyes sing. Her soft, pliant lips parted eagerly beneath his, more knowing, more expert, than he had felt from her before, as if this weird role play, if that's even what this madness was, had freed her from the last vestiges of girlhood. He had kissed Anne many times, and he might have claimed each time it was a revelation, but this was so different, unsettling and exhilarating in equal measure. Still computing her stunning revelation – she had said she loved him, even if the melodic voice declaring it didn't seem quite right – he was also caught by the unnerving elemental effect of her kiss. His lips actually buzzed against hers, hummed as if partnering her mouth in sensory vibration, and a strange tightness built in his chest.
He was lost to her… to this… for heady, disorientating moments, a sailor to her siren, as she directed him down beneath the undertow.
Chasing a breath as well as any grasp on his sanity he broke away from her clinging embrace, gasping as he felt a static shock run through him, as if zapped by that momentary buzz he used to toy with as a boy, rubbing his bare feet on the carpet and then grabbing his metal doorknob.
The electricity in that moment could have stood all his curls on end.
He stared down at her with wild eyes, and Anne herself seemed to take a shuddering breath and refocus on him, coming back from whatever disturbing state had gripped her.
"D-David?" she cried, struggling to sit up.
"Jesus, Anne!" he backed away, nearly falling off the edge of the mattress. "What the hell was that?"
"You felt it?" her surprised intake of breath was sharp. "You felt it too?"
"I can't deal with all these mixed signals, Anne!" he tugged viciously at his hair. "It's not fair! And what happened to your damned headache? Was that all just a con to get me up here?"
She seemed not to compute his distress, bypassing his accusation to circle back to his initial reaction.
"You felt it!" she gasped. "You were there!"
He glanced at her worriedly.
"Anne, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?"
"It was real, David!" she grabbed at his hand, breathless and pale. "You were there with me. I know you were! We crossed over, David!"
"What?"
"We were them… or they were us…" she smiled amazedly, then, with a brilliant, almost disturbing glow. "I really don't know how any of it works, but – "
"Anne, please, enough! You're not even coherent! You were hysterical and screaming a minute ago and then you were kissing me – and not holding back, God damn it, just for the record! And now... I'm really worried about you. Something disturbing is going on here. You need to lie quietly and take a breath, I'm begging you..." he shoved a pillow behind her with trembling hands. "I'm getting some more water."
"David?"
He threw her a tormented look and stalked out of the room. She made to follow him and sagged back onto the bed, devoid of all strength.
Oh God… she moaned to herself, quietly. It's how it was after the sinking boat back in Avonlea, when she had connected to that other Anne for the first time and then felt slayed afterwards, as if she had been run over by a truck… only now, ten times worse. She looked around the room despairingly. He obviously didn't remember any of it. He had been there with her in the moment, connecting on some level to Gilbert as she connected to Other Anne, meeting her in the middle… reaching for one another across the realms. The past colliding with the present. It was miraculous. It was incredible.
He thought it was a con.
Slowly, she began to shimmy off the bed, eyes sparking with exhausted tears. How to make him understand? She owed him an explanation, but could she trust him with the truth?
David returned and wordlessly handed her the water and the Tylenol, and then, paper towel in hand, mopped up the spilled water, as she struggled with her fatigue.
"David…" she attempted more firmly. "Could we talk about this, please?"
He sat back on his haunches.
"Sure, we can talk about this, Anne," he replied tightly, with the tiniest flare of disappointment., expelling a long breath. "If you even know where to start?"
She rose slowly from the bed, though he missed the difficulty of the motion.
"But we are getting the hell out of this room," he muttered darkly, preceding her down the stairs.
Downstairs on the sofa in the lounge, she sat beside him, clasping and unclasping her hands, desperate to alleviate some of the sourness that now tainted their afternoon.
"David…"
"Are you feeling alright, now?" he sighed, finally daring to look at her directly.
"Yes, thank you…" she gave a mangled smile.
"Because you really gave me a heart attack there, Anne."
"I know… I'm sorry."
"Our visit here was meant to go very differently…" he murmured to himself, almost scowling.
You're not kidding, she clenched her teeth.
"So, Anne, the floor is yours. Please explain to me how I shouldn't be ringing an ambulance for you about now."
She sighed, heavily. "David, this might be very hard to hear, but every word is the truth, and I beg you to believe me."
He contemplated her more kindly, sagging into the sofa and running his fingers through his curls as if testing they were still there.
"Anne, sweetheart… if it's the truth, then why wouldn't I believe it?"
The simple, lovely logic of that was so very him it brought fresh tears to her eyes.
"Right, then…" she gave a little sob-laugh. "I finally feel I can explain it all, how I've been feeling this whole summer – maybe for years, but I couldn't make sense of it then. Because you know it now, too. You've felt it as well…"
He was frowning again, even as she took his hand and clutched it tightly.
Know what? his beleaguered brain thundered. All I know is we have fallen down the rabbit hole and nothing is making sense.
"Ever since I've been on the Island, I've felt the force of our connection. Our connection, David. It's there, and so strong, partly because… it's all happened before!"
Her eyes were too large in her pale face, and her expectant expression unnerved him.
"Is this about… what you were saying before, about fate and destiny and all of it?" he asked uneasily.
A relieved bubble of laughter seemed to burst from her.
"Partly, yes!" she now gushed, as if this revelation was a dam and now she found relief in the words rushing from her.
"So… we – you and me – it's about past lives, David. Our past lives. And in our past lives we were Anne and Gilbert Blythe. From here in the Glen. We lived in Ingleside, and I felt it there, and the lighthouse and… and… everywhere, really! Avonlea, too. My connection to them. Your connection to them. We – I mean when we were Anne and Gilbert – we came here to the House of Dreams after we were married. That's what we felt just before, upstairs – our memories of our honeymoon here. Well, actually…" and here she blushed crimson, and any other time it would have been endearing, but now to him she just looked feverish, "I think we were reliving memories of our wedding night here…"
She let the sentence hang in the air, and his hazel eyes widened with mounting worry and incomprehension.
"I'm so sorry I was freaked out before…" Anne gnawed her bottom lip, unable to stop her run of words now that she had begun. "The scream and all that. It's just you came to me as Gilbert, and I was a bit unnerved by that, but when you touched me, suddenly I was that other Anne, and it felt right then, and we just… well, you know the rest!" she laughed shyly, but he heard an unsettling edge to it.
His breath built in his chest, again, even more painfully. He turned to stare straight ahead, not daring to look at her.
"You think… we remember our past lives. As Anne. And… Gilbert?" he repeated, slowly.
"Yes! Yes, David, that's exactly it!" she kissed the hand she still clutched. "I thought we might be the souls of Rilla and Ken – I know that's ridiculous now, of course!" she prattled. "You are so not Ken Ford, but – "
"That we knew each other before," he continued, unswayed. "A hundred and fifty years ago. That's what you're telling me. That's what you believe. That I was Gilbert Blythe and you were Anne Blythe, or even before that, when she was Anne …"
"… Shirley," she answered, more haltingly.
He swallowed with difficulty, as if he was trying to digest the ashes of all his hopes and dreams.
"And that… even in our lives now, like upstairs just now, we remember our time when we were them?"
"Exactly… Although, to be fair…" she said gently, head resting against his arm, "you may not remember very much, for a while. It will probably come to you in snatches, like flashes, or even in dreams…"
"Flashes," he repeated, gravel-voiced and still as a statue, staring unseeingly. "Dreams."
"Yes…" the happy tears trickled down her cheeks, and she clung to him, nestling into him more closely, burrowing into him. "So…" Anne smiled, "what do you think?"
His reply was halting. "Wow."
Anne laughed fully now, almost joyous.
"I know, right?!"
Anne lifted her head, searching his face, trying to gauge his reaction. For the very first time he schooled his features from her, remaining steady and impassive… his doctor's face, tried on for size for the very first time.
"That's…" he struggled, as she watched carefully for his reply, her eyes roaming over his face, "that's quite an explanation."
She nodded understandingly. "I know. It's a lot to take in."
"It sure is…" he gave a plosive breath. "Hey, listen, I think I need some water too, after all that. You want another?"
"Oh, yes, thanks!" she nodded.
David certainly felt he had left his body as he took slow steps to the kitchen, her gaze following him adoringly, barely able to decipher anything Anne had just said. His hands shook as he ran the water and filled two glasses unseeingly, gulping one unsteadily, eyes burning with emotion, and then bent over, clutching the sink tightly with whitening knuckles.
Damn.
Damn damn damn.
He had only a moment, and in that moment made an instant, instinctual decision. Anne needed help, and he wouldn't let any further harm come to her, even if he didn't even understand what exactly that harm might be. He whipped out his phone and texted his father.
Dad – we're up at the house and Anne's not well. Please come quickly with Tessa.
He let out a slow, pained breath, shoving his phone in his pocket and grabbing the glasses, walking back out to her in the lounge.
Chapter Notes
This chapter comprises a three-chapter arc and all titles are taken from the Whitman used as an inscription, detailed below.
* From 'Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances' in Leaves of Grass (1892) Book V 'Calamus'
I am indebted to elizasky for suggesting this passage as Carl's tribute (and, inherently, Shirley's tribute) well over two years ago, when discussing what might be an appropriate way to honour these characters and their relationship as she recreated them. One of the joys of this story has been my attempt to integrate Carl, in particular, into the narrative as an old man, and to draw on the memories he and several characters have of Shirley, both within and beyond the scope of elizasky's Glen Notes, Dispatches and The Happiness We Must Win.
There is certainly more of Old Carl (and even Old Shirley) to come, and they and Whitman, elizasky's long and lasting gifts to me and us all, still have an important part to play in this story.
**Used so lovingly in the Sullivan series (Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel/Anne of Avonlea) and the phrasing here is Sullivan, but of course it is originally canon (slightly altered) from Anne of the Island Ch 1 'The Shadow of Change'
During this passage Anne and David discuss the idea of destiny/Fate and of course this is a preoccupation of both this story and of canon (in the idea of Providence). I also have David and Rob discuss these concepts in Betwixt Ch 2.
***Anne's House of Dreams Ch 5 'The Home Coming'
****Anne's House of Dreams Ch 6 'Captain Jim'
*****Anne's House of Dreams Ch 8 'Miss Cornelia Bryant Comes to Call'
# I desperately hope that this section and any other italicized sentences not ascribed to canon are understood to all be part of Anne's past life memory as the new Anne Blythe… although they are also of-the-moment in how they relate to David's words and actions.
Some correspondence…
DrinkThemIn: Hello lovely, and thank you for your response to all the loved-up lovedness of these two earnest, clueless young people. You are absolutely right on your three assertions; firstly, there are numerous 'bends in the road' coming for these two, and some almighty speed bumps; secondly, that Anne is absolutely needing to 'come clean with her Anne-situation' and this has now of course been borne out; and thirdly… eventually… I will bring it all home happily x
Guest #1 of Oct 21st (Ch 14): Dear Guest, I am thrilled that YOU are thrilled with all these updates! I really am so pleased to be back posting regularly to my stories but most of all am loving that readers can happily invest and reinvest in them without feeling they will actually age real months or years between chapters!
Guest #2 of Oct 21st (Ch 14): Aww thank you, Guest! I do love and enjoy all the sweetness, and I hope everyone enjoyed the last chapter and it wasn't too cloying… I felt it was necessary to show the characters at the height of their togetherness before I inevitably start chipping away at it!
Guest #3 of Oct 21st (Ch 14) (after bilbiophilia): Thank you for your lovely note and I am delighted you loved the sweetness of their relationship. They will need to hold onto such memories in the coming times! I really enjoyed writing the chapter x
Guest of Oct 22nd (Ch 14): Thank you so much for your lovely words – I am thrilled my stories are a 'treat' and it is tremendous feedback that I treasure! And thank you for your note regarding my updates – it is really fun to have chapters coming to you all across stories now and to feel I have more to offer and more often!
Guest of Oct 25th (Ch 14): Thank you, Guest – you echo Anne in calling their past lives connection 'beautiful' and I am really pleased that Anne and David are working for you. I still would love to write a modern Anne and Gilbert story, eventually, but this was a fun way in for me and being able to incorporate canon elements perhaps gives me the best of both worlds x
Guest of Oct 26th (Ch 5): Thank you, Guest, for your questions and considered comments! I will try to answer or comment one at a time. Firstly, you're right that Anne and David both should have – and likely would have – studied Whitman at school, and not just reference him, as here, through vague mentions in 'Dead Poet's Society' (which is of course also an internal callback to Rob and Melissa's 'date' seeing the film). It's probably just one of those mild suspension-of-disbelief scenarios writers hope readers will happily go along with! Additionally, from a narrative and character-building perspective, I wanted to link Anne's 'discovery' of Whitman in this chapter to her dawning feelings for David, and indeed, regarding her own nascent sexuality, and for the poetry here to 'speak' to both of them on that level at this point and referenced in chapters to come.
Linked to Anne's discovery of Whitman is the discovery of her extended family, and with it that link to Anne Shirley, who she learns is so much more than namesake x Regarding how the name stayed in the Ford family, I guess if canon Rilla can have a Gilbert, then eventually someone along the line will reclaim the name Anne – and her father Alex was a writer and obviously liked the alliteration here (my Anne is christened Anne Alexandra)!
The Blythe and Meredith intermarriages is almost a canon joke at times and I certainly maintain both the intermarriage tradition and hopefully you can see that I am also poking fun at it, if kindly.
Finally, thank you for your lovely note regarding Melissa and Rob. I really do love the character of Mel and their relationship, and thus wanted to find a place for it in the narrative, even in flashback x
Guest #1 of Oct 27th (Ch 14): Thank you for commenting on Anne and David's 'cuteness' in relation to another couple we love! I am very pleased to agree!
Guest #2 of Oct 27th (Ch 14): Thank you! So pleased to have another update out to you – as well as this one!
Guest #1 of Oct 28th (Ch 14): Dear Guest, I love all your comments and musings here, and thank you so much for all that catch-up reading! Firstly, I talked earlier to another guest about suspension of disbelief and I think it is so here as well, regarding stories of Anne and Gilbert within the family. You are very right – Dellie should talk more about them (when she isn't talking about her beloved Daddy Jerry!) but I guess from a narrative perspective I was wanting Anne to make discoveries and connections herself. All I can say is that Anne and David both will have reason to reach out to several family members regarding Anne and Gilbert in coming chapters, and that Walter will feature in chapters down the line as well. As to Anne and Gilbert's 'redacted' letters – only time will tell!
Guest #2 of Oct 28th (Ch 14): Hello Guest and thank you for such lovely and heartening comments! I really smiled myself at them! Well done for reading all these chapters in such a short time – it is quite a dense narrative and I appreciate everyone's efforts to wade through it. Regarding Anne explaining what has been going on – you will of course see how this current chapter begins to address that, and it is not an easily solvable situation. And a big YES to learning more about the Ford side of the family – the first section of this story has been, necessarily, Blythe-centric (with a sideline in Merediths) but much of the second 'act' as I call it will take place in Toronto and will backfill a lot of the history of Tessa and Alex Ford in the same way the 'Interludes' shared the history of Rob, Melissa and Michael Meredith x