The characters are created by LM Montgomery, and are her property... the original characters & storyline are unique to this story are copyright 2021, by Nell Lime.
Author's Note:
Sorry - there's some glitch that we all encounter of the copy and past in the documents where we have to do it twice and I forgot the second time. Facepalm here it is corrected With the next chapter :)
Faith-Hope-And-Glory - Yes! Davy is impossible. Thanks so much for the complement. I've been stalled with writing lately, but prepping for a day of writing in the next week or so, truly enjoy your comments!
Kushinka - We'll have 60 chapters total planned… maybe more, or a followup story if I think of one. I did struggle a lot of how soon should they find out and how quickly should he recover, so not yet.
— Gilbert —
Thursday, June 24th, 2:00pm
Apple Bough, Avonlea, PEI
I wake to find Anne. I don't recognize where we are though. I register it's the spare room, I'm home, and there is Anne.
She feeds me, sitting with me on the bed, leaning my head against her, her arms wrapped around me as she holds one cup, catching drips with a napkin in the other hand, helping me to sip and encouraging me. My head rests on her stomach, and I can feel the stiff boning against me as she sits and slowly feeds me.
She reads to me, poetry sending me to sleep again, though she's no longer holding me. Instead she's sitting in a chair, but her hand is constantly soothing me. I don't reach for her picture. That's the only thing I register.
The next time I wake she again feeds me in the same manner. And then begins to clean me. I register with some shame that she's completely cleaning me. That I'd had a soiled diaper. She talks the whole time though telling me things that I don't remember seconds later. Anne then shifts me about to change the sheets under me. She's leaning over me and I try to pull her to me. To hold me. But she laughs for my grip is weak.
She does though. When I don't let go. "For an hour until your next feeding." She sets an alarm clock to go off on the hour, and lies down beside me, she's wearing my ring. I stroke it and slip back into dream land. She's really sitting on the chair but resting her head beside me is enough.
She wakes me again, and we repeat things. More then once. I drift through dreams and I don't know what's the dreams and what's the reality.
The world gets darker though at some point. Her bright light leaves and the hope with her. Then I dream about Nurse Lewis and the Clinic. I dream about all I've lost. And through out it all is the Ghost Anne mocking me. For she's always out of my reach and I can not find my Anne. I'm forced to watch her wedding to Royal Gardiner. Forced to run into them, as he's one of the trustees at the hospital, and his family are on the board for the Cooper Prize. I see the years go by, and I'm all alone. Always waiting for the girl who'd never notice me.
That's just it. I fell in love with her years ago. She'd take what she'd want. Then push me away when it became too close. Too scary. That was the moment I realized. Anne who loved all with such depths wasn't really capable of love. Not really. All these dreams of an Anne who truly loved me? It was time I faced reality.
So I opened my eyes. Facing the sloped wall over my bed. The patterned wallpaper I'd memorized for not being able to sleep in the month since moving in. There was no Anne. She'd gone. She'd never been there.
I must have slept for it was late now. I'd go home like Nurse Lewis demanded. But not to Avonlea. I'd never go there again. I'd spend the summer with Uncle Dave I thought. Help him out. Other side of the Island where no memories of Anne dwelled.
It was time to destroy the last memories of Anne. Her picture and ring. I'd slipped my hand under the pillow, and I couldn't find the picture. I'd then rushed to my wallet, feeling but could feel no indent of the ring. The indent I'd been as familiar with as the back of my hand for five years now. I'd rushed out and ran straight into Mr. Carol. He'd liked Anne. And had commented about her a time or two in my first few years there with Charlie. "Do you remember Anne?" I asked.
"Anne?"
"The red head, who used to come by sometimes in my first two years."
"There wasn't ever a red head..." He shook his head.
I'd then rushed out of the boarding house and onto the street. I rushed to Patty's Place banging on the door and an old woman answered. "Yes?"
"I'm looking for Anne Shirley."
"Who?"
"Red head, she was renting here for three years with some girls..."
"There never was any red headed Anne what's her name renting here. When we were traveling Aunt Patty and I had the house boarded up..."
A world without Anne...
I'd run then to the Library where I'd been foolish once in my freshman year to carve her name in the underside of one of the study desks. My name with hers in a heart. I barged in just as they were about to prepare to close and the flustered librarian told me I had five minutes. I rushed to the desk. I felt beneath it. The carving was gone.
Anne...
I'd then gone back to Patty's Place, to the orchard. To the spot where I'd proposed carrying May Flowers to her. And there she stood. Regal and grand. The mocking Ghost Anne.
"Anne..."
"It's Mrs. Gardiner now, Mr. Blythe."
I choked.
"It's time to let me go..."
My world went blank as someone fed me mechanically. It wasn't Anne though.
I heard voices. Charlie? Moody? "Moody I tell you. She's only claiming him as the father and convinced him to elope because his chances of survival are slim. She's never had respectability."
"Charile… We're here to see our friend, not gossip. And it's just a rumor."
"Well Prissy heard it from his own lips. The Andrews have always been respectable and wouldn't lie about a thing like that! I've a mind to write that Cooper Prize committee if what I heard is true. It's appalling, of course if it is true we'll see the evidence before too long."
"Anne could be back any minute…"
"She's asleep upstairs. Davy already said. Maybe Gilbert will wake up and tell us. I was always curious about how she'd perform. You know."
"Charlie!"
"Go away." I managed. "Don't talk about Anne like that."
The next dream was one of the good ones, one where Anne was with me, we were wandering the woods, only she again laughed at me. "I'm just a dream Gilbert Blythe..."
And she was gone. I couldn't take it anymore. But it kept continuing. She'd be there and then she'd be gone. I knew. The others mocked me. I knew. Fred came and laughed. "Still saving your first kiss for Anne Shirley? You'll never kiss a girl Gilbert. She's already given her first I heard from Diana when that Gardiner fella proposed most romantically and perfectly."
I gulped. He was right. And so the next time Anne appeared. It was time. I knew what I had to do.
