"A batch of letters came through from Felix," Muriel Pettibone announced as she entered the kitchen.
Izzy looked from her stepmother to the soup she was preparing, conflicted. "Put them on the table," she said at last. "I'll read them after dinner."
Muriel laughed and pulled her apron down. "I'll tend to the soup. Go."
Her stepdaughter promptly dropped the spoon on the stove, grabbed the letters, and hurried upstairs to her room. With the door closed behind her, Izzy sat on the edge of her bed and sorted through the letters, putting them in order by postmark.
She never got over the rush of excitement she had felt the first time she received a stack of letters from Felix. If anything, the excitement had only built with each communication from the HMS Niobe.
Izzy didn't like the name of the ship, feeling it had an ominous flair for a vessel that might be called into battle someday. Most people probably didn't know that Niobe featured in Greek mythology as a woman whose children were slain by the gods and whose husband died afterwards, either by suicide or because he swore revenge, and that Niobe then became an icon of mourning. Most people probably didn't have a father and stepmother who had been educators for large portions of their lives, either. When referring to the Niobe in her letters to Felix, Izzy simply called it "your ship," and never told him why.
The most recent letters had been forwarded from Avonlea, so Felix either hadn't known that they had moved to Halifax after all, or hadn't known their new address. It hadn't been as hard to leave Avonlea as Izzy had thought it would be, but then it had always been people who made a place home for Izzy, and most of the people who had made Avonlea home to her were here in Halifax or out on a ship patrolling the coast.
She knew Felix liked to read one of her letters a day, but she wasn't that patient. (Frankly, she was surprised that he was.) She preferred to read them all at once, and then over again at her leisure until the next arrived. The tone of the letters in this set was less downtrodden than the letters from training had been. They started out very upbeat, but did trend towards boredom by the end. She shook her head, fairly certain he didn't realize yet what the alternative to boredom was in the services. He was the son of a farmer, not a military man like Clive Pettibone.
After dinner was over, Izzy was back in her room, this time sitting at her desk.
"Dear Felix,
"I received your letters today while I was making dinner. Thank goodness Muriel could take over the soup, or I don't know what it would have tasted like.
"As you can see from the return address, we're settled in Halifax now. Father doesn't have to travel so much anymore, and we like to be near him. With Arthur switching his focus to humans instead of animals, he's taking classes here in Halifax, so we see more of him, too. (Thankfully he lives in the dormitories. He and father get along much better when they don't live under the same roof.)
"I do miss Avonlea, but it wasn't the same after you left anyway. Of course we can still visit, so you be sure to let me know when you have leave and I'll be sure to be there. Cecily and I talk once in a while by phone, which is a strange way of keeping up with somebody but better than only ever letters. (Don't worry, I know you can't place calls from your ship.)
"Oh, I almost forgot. Last week when we were talking we could hear breathing on the line, and we just knew it must be Sally Potts, so Cecily and I were making up the most outrageous gossip about the Potts family, and how we'd heard that Sally would have had suitors lined up around the block except for them being afraid of marrying an important career woman, and all kinds of nonsense, until finally Cecily said, 'Maybe Sally could place phone calls to all the unattached men on the Island to check their views on emancipated women,' and we heard a humphing sound on the other end and our call was disconnected. Can you believe it? I hope nobody ever has any important news to give me by telephone, because I would hate Sally Potts or somebody like her telling half the world before I'd had the chance to get my thoughts together.
"Tomorrow Muriel and I...."
Clive's voice interrupted her letter. "Izzy?" His voice was tight and urgent. "Izzy, come down."
She hurried to do so, and found Arthur below with Clive and Muriel. They all looked solemn.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Britain has declared war on Germany," said Arthur grimly.
"What?"
"It's only a matter of time before Canada is involved. Maybe only a matter of hours."
"A matter of time?" Clive responded brusquely. "We're part of the Dominion. We're involved now."
"The Navy...."
"I doubt the Navy will be involved," Muriel reassured Izzy, looking to Clive for confirmation.
"With two ships, one for the west coast and one for the east, not counting those two submarines over by British Columbia? So do I," he said. "I don't think Germany will waste time sending ships across the ocean with the British at her door."
"Good," she said, her mind still whirling. "Good."
The four of them stood silently at the foot of the stairs, none of them looking like "good" was the word they would choose to describe their feelings.