Oh, wow! After the drama of last chapter there is… more drama!

I wish I could accurately share how excited I am to put these chapters up and have them read, reviewed, enjoyed, debated over… even, in the case where things have been a little too much for some readers, there is still engagement and encouragement in response to this. It makes my day.

These chapters were always going to constitute a challenge for the characters and perhaps some readers too. We have arrived at a point in the narrative where push has most definitely come to shove. This story has always had a past lives premise and different aspects of that are now in play. We are also seeing Anne and David here at 17 and 20 (almost 21) and part of the narrative involves the growth and evolution of their personalities, and this summer of their first 'act' has necessarily been a start point on that journey. Please be kind to them!

A few of you have mused how much David does or does not feel or understand about this past life connection. Certainly Anne has felt it with increasing power and potency through the summer and her connection to and understanding of this has driven her. David is obviously far from there yet, and this chapter here underscores that. However, I hope readers have still been able to catch some subtle nods that I have included that he HAS a connection on some level that he is just not as attuned to… I have had fun giving David some canon Gilbert lines (such as at the lighthouse and at the House of Dreams) and there will be more at various moments… he felt a startling sense that he needed to contact Anne in Avonlea which instigated an updated lily maid rescue… and at the House of Dreams itself he does feel a strange, kinetic energy he can't quite explain (it is also his first visit here) and never more so than during that otherworldly kiss. He is not immune, but he is also not as informed, and not yet as open. Meanwhile, House of Dreams-era canon Gilbert does have more of a mystical belief in his back pocket, and I look forward to slowly aligning these two viewpoints!

This chapter also dives a little more into the symptoms and aspects of mental illness, and I am very sorry if any readers find that triggering. I do not include such things lightly, and I am not in any way suggesting that, outside the views of a few characters in this story, that there is any correlation between a belief in past lives and mental illness. I do have personal experience in assisting a person I care about through this minefield. Mental illness is a confronting circumstance in every respect, and my wholehearted respect to those who have their own stories from the trenches.

With love

MrsVonTrapp x


Chapter Sixteen

'The sense that words and reason hold not'


Anne knew that David was busily processing what she had divulged, and waited for him to speak, to engage with her regarding the revelation in any way, but he was quiet and curiously cool, only suggesting she might, after all, want to see the view from the dining room, taking in the gulf and the Four Winds light, but not making any move to accompany her. She did indeed admire and enthuse over the stunning view, trying to close off her senses to the lingering, ancient smell of freshly cooked fish, wondering how she could reclaim the beloved gleam in his seeking hazel eyes, which currently regarded her with a wary worry.

David sat on the sofa, trying to look nonplussed and waiting for the buzz on his phone to know that his dad had seen the message and they were on their way. He worried about his father's form in disappearing off with Tessa but didn't want to risk contacting him again and upsetting Anne. He cast furtive glances towards her at the dining room windows, his lips still curiously sore after their kiss and feeling strangely flat and out of sorts after the weird, unfathomable energy of upstairs.

He tried in every way to rationalize and compartmentalize what had happened and what Anne had said, to put it in a box he could seal up and shove away out of sight, so that they could forget about it and go on as before. In almost every scenario she should be far more emotional than she was now, even disorientated or unaware, but she was as she had always been, darting tremulous smiles across to him, as if she could turn on and off this… whatever it was… like a tap. As if she was somehow playing him. He knew the thought was unfair to her and beneath him, but once it lodged in his frazzled brain he couldn't shake it.

"David, I wish you'd speak to me!" she suddenly challenged as she turned, the Anne of old he had first met under the tree, though her grey eyes were wide and shadowed. "Just let me know what you feel… what you're thinking? I feel I'm stranded here!"

"Maybe… I don't know what to say."

Her reaction betrayed a worry for him rather than herself, and she came to sit back beside him, grasping his hand again and urging him to look at her.

"David, I know this is hard! I'm sure it challenges all your notions of science and the known world and everything… but don't you also see how special and beautiful this is?"

He wished she wouldn't use his own beliefs and logic against him, when what she was claiming was completely and utterly illogical.

"We were always meant to be together," she smiled through sudden tears. "I would have known that even without all this, David. But this makes it so much more special! You know, a real true love, like… well, like in The Princess Bride…"

He felt the scowl on his face. "We were Anne and Gilbert, and now we're… what? Buttercup and Westley?"

Anne gulped at the change in his tone, turning fully towards him, properly noting for the first time how shockingly still he was, made, in that moment, as if of granite.

"David?"

He met her look with difficulty, feeling sick, like he might throw up the brunch he had earlier shared with her any second.

"Anne, this was always going to be emotional, having to say goodbye tomorrow, but you don't have to… have to… imagine something like this to get me to stay together with you. To invent this connection. I'm already sold on you. You had me at hello." *

She stared at him, aghast, understanding slowly dawning.

"You think this is some… story? That I'm making this up?"

He tore his hand from hers, leaping off the sofa, processing as he paced.

"My worry is not that you're making it up, but that you believe your own story!" he claimed, agonised.

"I've course I believe it!" she leapt up herself in indignation.

"Anne, I'm sorry, but this is completely crazy!"

"Says… says who?" she spluttered.

He shook his head in frustration, hands parked on slim hips. "Anne, sweetheart – past lives? Really?"

"But… we talked of ghosts, virtually the day we met!"

"We were making conversation!"

"What about what we were saying just before… of destiny and everything?"

"Jesus, Anne, I don't know! You called me Gilbert, for God's sake!"

"Believe me, at this point that's a compliment!"

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"If you want proof I can show you –" she offered urgently.

" – proof?"

"Yes! There's letters! Heaps of them! And a photo, David! Of us – of them- when we were married! I saw it all at Aunt Dellie's. If you could only let me show you, then you'll understand, you'll be able to - " Anne stopped herself, hearing the sound of a car coming up the lane. "Who is that?"

His frustrated sigh was audible, but his stance remained resolute. "Our parents."

Her eyes bulged. "You called our parents?" she was gobsmacked."You called my Mom?"

"I texted Dad," he clarified. "I mean just look at things here for a second, Anne! I thought you were having some sort of panic attack or a God damn aneurism or something! You were confused and hysterical… and then you were kissing me like you've never kissed me before and you said you loved me! Do you even remember now? Or was it some weird sort of role play?"

"I… I do love you, David! So much! I've wanted to say it for so long! I wanted to say it yesterday!"

"It didn't seem like you were saying it, Anne," he protested.

"That's exactly the point!" she cried in her agitation.

He raised his arms helplessly.

"Anne, I just want to take care of you. I think you need to see a doctor. Maybe to get help with a little anxiety or in processing some emotional, ah, situations… You could even see my Grandpa James – he's retired but still registered – "

"I don't need a damned doctor, David! Or any of your condescending crap!"

"Alright, an exorcist then," he scowled.

Her mouth dropped open in complete astonishment at the jibe, but meanwhile Anne could see her mother and Rob from the front window, exiting the car at speed.

"Anne, I'm sorry – I didn't mean that!" he was instantly contrite, realizing he had crossed the line.

"You might be in denial, David Blythe, but I know the truth! And the truth is you and I lived and loved in this house, and I fell pregnant here and we… we… OH!"

In that moment Anne doubled over, clutching her stomach, just as his father and Tessa, in classic if unhelpful timing, came through the door.


"Anne!" Tessa gasped.

"Anne!" David, shamed by his last words to her, bent beside her.

"Dave, what's going on?" Rob demanded.

"Honey, is it your stomach? Appendix?" Tessa cried.

David hovered uncertainly as Anne dropped to the ground, Tessa diving to cradle her daughter in her arms, her head in her lap. Anne moaned and flailed about, wailing uncontrollably, as if in some sort of trance, to the shock of everyone.

"Tessa – watch her head!" David urged, his advanced first aid training rising to anchor him even as he remained at sea over everything else. "Make sure she doesn't choke! If she's struggling, we'll need to turn her on her side, in the recovery position."

"How long has she been like this?" Rob asked urgently.

"Only as you both came in the door," David answered, "but… but, she – "

Anne half sat up and gave a horrifying guttural scream and then seemed to collapse back into Tessa, calming momentarily and breathing heavily.

"Oh, God!" Tessa moaned, in tears.

"I'll call an ambulance," Rob affirmed.

David, squatting next to Tessa and scared out of his wits, tried to check for anything bleeding or broken, not daring to lay a hand on Anne's midsection, which admittedly seemed to be where the problem now was.

"Dad – what about a doctor down at the Aged Care Home?" he urged. "It's closer!"

Rob gulped but remained firm. "That's a good idea. They have staff and equipment there."

"Oh no!" Anne, rousing, cried out in desperation.

"Darling! Where does it hurt?" Tessa pleaded.

Anne's eyes seemed to dart around, till they focussed on David, with a disturbing glaze of liquid fire. She reached a weak arm out to him, clutching at his sleeve.

"Gilbert," whispered Anne imploringly, "the baby—is all right—isn't she? Tell me—tell me." **

"Baby?" Rob echoed in confusion, looking to his son. "Gilbert?"

David's sorrowful, dumbstruck expression seemed to confirm something terrible for Anne, who let out a pitiful, heartbroken moan **that stabbed at his heart.

"Oh, Joy…" she wept brokenly. "My wee white lady…"

"What does she mean?" Tessa asked.

Everyone looked to one another in desperation, Rob frowning with Anne's words, as if they sparked a flicker of recognition.

"Tessa," David was distraught now. "We need to get Anne to a doctor, at the Home, or even the hospital, urgently. She was clutching her head before, and now it's her stomach. From the moment we walked in here she's been very upset and… confused.. and saying… strange things…"

"Confused? Strange things?" Tessa repeated, suddenly quailing.

Anne was still sobbing quietly and murmuring incoherently, but did not appear to now be in any pain.

"If we perhaps get her off the floor, while she's calm?" Rob suggested.

"I've got her," David scrambled to his feet, leaning over to scoop Anne up into his arms, cradling her carefully, ensuring her head rested comfortably against his shoulder. He carried her across the front step and out to the car, horrified to think if she somehow believed in this story of ancient newlyweds then he was carrying her across the threshold… in sickening reverse.


After frantic debate Rob drove to the Glen hospital, making short work of the journey from Four Winds, and an exhausted but calm and conscious Anne was admitted for tests and observation, David deputized to give an account of her symptoms and sticking, for now, to the physical ones he could reliably explain.

Three hours later, as the afternoon drifted beyond their grasp, they all made a glum triumvirate, having waited for results from Anne's physical exam, MRI and bloodwork, all rushed through with the assistance and urging of one Dr James Maylock Blythe, Rob's father with the disputed paternity, who had been alerted by his son and had arrived to give support and updates on progress.

David leaned against the doorframe of the emergency room Anne had been placed in, as she slept quietly, feeling drained, and frustrated beyond belief at knowing enough medical jargon to be knowledgeable but not enough to be actually useful.

Finally, some answers. The examination had shown no physical indication of injury or distress; the MRI was clear; Anne's blood test results showed no abnormalities except a slightly low iron count and a puzzling but not worrying higher-than-normal presence of oxytocin.

"What does the oxytocin level mean?" Tessa, brown eyes shadowed, asked of James once the presiding doctor had left.

"Well, that's the curious thing. Typically, in women, levels of that particular hormone surge right after… childbirth." ***

"Childbirth?" Tessa echoed incredulously. "That hasn't exactly been the case here!"

"Indeed…" James smiled reassuringly.

No one mentioned the baby Anne herself had murmured about, reaching for David, begging an answer when he didn't even understand the question, and the dreadful, heartbroken moan she had given. Tessa had perhaps forgotten in her preoccupation, though David's mind was racing…

Could Anne have some sort of psychosomatic disorder? Where mental anguish or stress brought on physical symptoms? It would explain a lot about the bizarre occurrences that afternoon. His mind computed the memory of those moments as he desperately reached for solutions, though he realized he would have to work on his doctor's face, his thoughts written obviously enough for his father to look across at him, his own dark brows drawn together in silent query.

Tessa seemed to hesitate, before asking her next question.

"If Anne had been emotional or… overwrought, it being the end of our holiday here and having to leave everyone… and encountered some distress… could that have brought on her headache, even stomach cramps?"

"Absolutely, Tessa. We all get a little sick in the stomach when anxious, and high levels of anxiety can be quite debilitating. Tension headaches are no fun, either. It's not uncommon for high-achieving girls like Anne, wanting everything to be perfect and putting pressure on themselves, to have higher levels of anxiety than we would like, and there are many physical manifestations of this. Has Anne… exhibited any bouts of anxiety before?"

"A little…" Tessa hedged. "But not for several years… and not… like this."

James Blythe nodded kindly. "Well, they are happy to discharge her very soon. I'm sure if you'd like any further information about therapies or medication to treat anxiety they could help you with some literature. And I'm always here myself if you have any questions later."

"Thank you, James. We appreciate you coming very much."

"Not at all. It was fantastic getting to know you and Anne. I'm sure she'll bounce back very soon, and I hope you can both make a return visit."

"I hope so, too," Tessa's smile was warm, if weary.

His grandpa took his leave, and as Anne rested they contemplated what to do.

"I don't know if Anne will be up to the ferry and a long drive tomorrow…" Tessa announced quietly, crossing her arms as if trying to comfort herself, the beautiful, fine gold bracelet adorning her neat wrist catching David's eye.

So his dad had managed to give his own parting gift to Tessa, despite their shortened visit to the light. His throat throbbed as he shoved his hands into his pockets and collided with his own offering, unknown and as yet unclaimed. He had been moments away from giving it to Anne, to draw her to the wide dining room windows, along with a declaration that now seemed as confused and tainted as the afternoon had become.

I love you.

To give her a hopefully-not-last kiss in sight of the lighthouse that had been the location of their first.

Meanwhile Rob nodded understandingly. "You know you are so welcome to spend a little extra time at Ingleside, Tessa. We… we would do anything for you both…" his father murmured to her, fervent and earnest.

"I know…" Tessa nodded miserably, casting a still concerned look back to her daughter. "But I think… we need to go home…" she sighed. "To Toronto…" she flicked a glance up to his dad, and then over to David himself, "tonight."

"You'd leave tonight?" David couldn't stop from blurting the question, straightening unknowingly.

"Yes, David, I'm sorry," Tessa answered as kindly as she could. "Excuse me while I make a call."

"To Grandad Tom?" Rob correctly surmised. "He'd fly over?"

Tessa nodded, looking suddenly exhausted herself. "It's just over two hours each way. He can still do it blindfolded, but he has a co pilot on standby now, especially for longer runs and night journeys."

"The local airport is just out of town," Rob affirmed. "At Mowbray Narrows. He'll remember it well. It's a little bigger than when it started as Blythe Aviation, of course. When Shirley built it - from the ground up - there was only the one runway, a lone building that doubled as his office, and the hangar. ****

This elicited the ghost of a smile from Tessa and raised eyebrows from David.

"Excuse me…" she now said tiredly, absenting herself to gain some privacy.

David and his father stood around awkwardly with a still-dosing Anne, Rob looking to him in sympathy before David beckoned his father to step out into the corridor.

"Dad – we can't let them leave! Not with things as they are!"

"Son, we might not have a choice. If Tessa thinks its best, we'll have to let them go."

David huffed in frustration.

"How did it all go so badly so fast?" he whispered furiously. "We were having such a great time! We were fine, Dad – more than fine! And then… and then we lobbed up to that damned house!"

Rob put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Dave, you need to be calm and controlled. Anne has had an emotional experience, and though I can't account for it – and neither can the doctors – she seemed in real pain back there. Tessa obviously thinks Anne needs to get back to her familiar surroundings and have a bit of a reset. It won't be goodbye forever. Just… let them go with good grace and give them some time. Anne might just need a little distance and a little breathing space."

"Do you think… maybe I brought this on? That we were too intense… too fast and full on?" his hazel eyes desperately sought those so similar to his own, remembering the reverberating echo of Anne's scream.

"Son, don't. Just don't. I don't believe that's true at all, and that's not helpful thinking regardless. Just… concentrate on moving forward now."

Clamping down on his wayward feelings, David went to sit with Anne whilst his father searched for Tessa. He sighed, looking around the room. He was hoping that hospitals like this one would become his second home, but his presence here today was taunting, like a dream turned upside down, ***** and meanwhile that so-called House of Dreams had instead invoked a waking nightmare.

He stared at Anne's slumbering form until, it seemed, she stirred as a result of his sheer wish to see those grey-green eyes again. She moved, startled, gaze darting around the room before resting unsteadily on him, as if trying to collect her balance, as if her world had slid off its' axis and she needed to right it.

"Hey, Miss Ford…" he greeted softly.

"Hey…" she croaked.

"Everything's alright, Anne. You're at the hospital, here in the Glen."

"Oh…?" those eyes were wide and uncertain.

He took her hand in his, kissed it with gratitude and relief, kissed it as she had his own earlier that afternoon.

"You had a horrible… experience," he swallowed. "Back at the summer house…" no way was he referring to it as the House of Dreams again in a hurry. "Terrible stomach pains, Anne, and earlier some sort of headache. But you're fine, now. They've run all their tests and everything's clear. You're going to be absolutely… fine."

His reassuring smile to her felt mangled on his face, as inauthentic and ineffectual as he considered himself to be at this point.

"Mom…?" she questioned weakly.

"She's here," he nodded. "Just downstairs for a moment, I think, with my Dad."

Anne seemed to take a steadying breath, sitting up with difficulty.

"Ow…" she grimaced. "I feel… pummelled."

"Take it easy, there, Miss Ford," he arranged the pillows for her, which made him think of the pillow he had shoved at her, on the bed upstairs of the summer house, after their shocking-in-every-way kiss.

"What… tests?" she now asked.

"Ah… a routine physical exam… some blood tests… and an MRI."

"A brain scan?"

"Just a precaution, Anne. You'd complained of a bad, sudden headache back in Four Winds. They imaged your stomach, too."

"And do they know… what happened?" she asked uneasily.

He took her hand again and squeezed it. "Not really. Everything was clear, sweetheart. Nothing showed up. You're going to be absolutely fine." Perhaps the more he said the words, the more he could make then true.

Her eyes strayed to the water jug next to the bed, which he poured for her, pressing the glass to her hand. Anne contemplated the glass with a perturbed expression before drinking slowly.

"And do… you know… what happened?" she asked quietly, her gaze flickering to rest on him, searchingly.

David took a breath, teetering on the edge of an unseen abyss.

"I think… you were just a little confused up at the house, Anne…" he asserted, as kindly as he could. "It was understandably emotional, being up there. A lot of history. It was almost too easy to feel that… even for a moment… that we were living in the past.." he hedged.

Anne took long moments to process this.

"Confused… emotional.." she repeated.

"Yes, Anne," his too-obvious relief burst through, "that's really all it was. You were probably just anxious about everything and – "

"Did I say… or do… anything while I was confused?"

He paused, awfully, not knowing if this was a test.

"David?"

Seal it in a box… he thought, desperately. Shove it away out of sight.

"Nothing that we need to worry about now. Looking forward, not back," he rallied, smiling gamely.

Anne took further moments to contemplate his words, the shadows flitting across her pale, expressive face, and then, as if making an internal resolution, the shutters flew up to let the sun stream through, gently lighting her features, her smile one of a sad, aching beauty.

"OK…" she agreed, slowly. "Looking forward, not back."

He could have shouted over the roofs of the world ****** at that point, so thrilled to think they were regaining their footing again.

"Oh, Anne!" his impulsive kiss to her sought to erase all doubt, for herself as well as for him.

"You won't say anything about what I said today to my Mom, will you?" she gasped as his lips left hers. "The… the reincarnation thing. I'd be so… embarrassed!"

"Not a word will l utter," he grinned.

"Promise?" she clutched his hand tightly.

"I promise, Anne," he grew serious, turning her hand over to reveal her palm and kissing it again, tenderly.

"Anne?" Tessa appeared in the doorway, looking ashen and brown eyes red-rimmed. "Darling!"

David hung back to allow Tessa time with her daughter, and in the meantime the nurse came with discharge papers and copies of her scans and lab work for their records or as additional copies to pass on to their own GP back in Toronto.

"Dave…" his father beckoned, for yet another clandestine conference out in the corridor.

"Is Tessa alright? She looked pretty upset."

"She had an emotional talk with Anne's grandfather," Rob explained. "He convinced her to wait to fly out until tomorrow morning. He'll arrive around 10am. Meanwhile, I convinced her to have them stay at Ingleside tonight."

Finally, David felt he could give a genuine smile. "Well played, Dad."

Rob let out a pent-up breath. "I just want to keep things calm and happy and safe for them, is all."

"Pay that," David's long, newly hopeful fingers reached again for the little box in his pocket.


David told himself he would have to stop hoping for Anne to run into his arms at the first available opportunity. They were not back to that point yet, and she had been through an ordeal. He wondered how much she remembered of the afternoon and how much she chose to remember. Meanwhile he just couldn't think on anything that had happened with a clear head.

Anne was quiet and Tessa subdued at dinner, which felt a lot less festive than brunch had that morning. Anne had little appetite and no one could blame her, and when she excused herself he accompanied her slow passage upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms – goodness knows they had their fair share of them – and paused with her outside the door.

"Anne…" he sighed, fumbling for the right words. "I'm so sorry, about today."

"It's alright, David. I'm not."

"Even with… landing in the hospital?"

She shrugged delicate shoulders. "At least we know the local facilities are up to scratch."

He chuckled, low, at her wry tone, embracing her as carefully as he could.

"Oh Anne… I wish I had been better, today. Better at whatever it was you needed from me. I wish I had helped you more," he offered lamely.

She drew back, contemplating him with that look of hers, which he feared saw far too much, and found him wanting.

"You did… what was in your power to do," she answered kindly, if a little cryptically. "I can't ask you to be more than you are." #

This was not perhaps the reassurance he had been hoping for, but she accompanied it was a sweet, lingering kiss, flavoured with both wistfulness and new wisdom.

I love you… the words beat inside his brain, but she looked dead on her feet and it wouldn't be fair to burst out with the declaration now, and her mother's soft tread would soon sound on the stairs behind them, ready to say her own goodnights to Anne.

"Sweet dreams, Miss Ford," he whispered huskily.


Something was definitely amiss with Tessa, who had farewelled Anne herself and came back downstairs to pace the lounge room floor, looking like she wanted to bite all her carefully manicured fingernails off, or perhaps take up smoking.

"Rob, could you explain what we were talking about before, to David?" she now urged.

Rob flicked his son a careful glance. "Dave, why don't you take a seat closer to us for a second?"

"Sure… " he eyed them both warily, taking the nearest chair. "What's up?"

"Tessa asked if I could… clarify something, while you were seeing Anne upstairs," his father explained. "About what Anne said when we met you at the House of Dreams today."

"What… Anne said?" he repeated carefully.

His father paused momentarily. "Tessa… in fact both of us… remember you saying that from the moment you'd arrived at the House of Dreams today Anne had been upset and confused and saying strange things."

He didn't see it often, but here was his father in lawyer mode, and the uneasiness began to pool in David's stomach.

"Excellent recall there, Counsellor."

His father fiddled with his signet ring, a sure sign of his discomfort.

"Dave, there's no need to get defensive. We're all here because we love and want to help Anne."

"Dad… Tessa… "he looked from one to the other, "Anne is fine, now. She just had an emotional day. And you'd be upset and confused, too, if you were struck down with those stomach pains she had."

His father frowned, and Tessa looked like she was attempting to wear a hole in the carpet.

"David, we all heard other things, directly from Anne herself. She called you Gilbert. And she asked about a baby called Joy. Do you know who she was referring to?"

"All I know is that she was probably in a world of pain just then."

When his father raised his eyebrows questioningly, he sighed deeply.

"Well, the Gilbert was probably for Gilbert Blythe, whom you sent us to go check out at Queen's in Charlottetown yesterday. It used to be his house, after all, before it was bought by the Fords. You know Anne can fill you in much better than I can. She could give you a run for your money on all the family history now, Dad."

"It appears so," Rob frowned more deeply.

"Why do you think she called you Gilbert, David?" Tessa now leapt into the conversation, pleadingly.

"Tessa, I'm… I'm not sure… But Anne has an interest in names. She was always teasing me about Gerald. I wouldn't think anything more about it."

"And… Joy?" his father pressed, after an anxious look from Tessa.

"I don't know anything about Joy…" now David was the one to frown, "but I'm pretty sure you do."

Rob Blythe extracted one of his beloved spreadsheets, the Blythe one, and beckoned him over, with Tessa hovering as a flickering shadow.

"Up here, Dave…" Rob traced a long, brown, Blythe finger, "Dr Gilbert Blythe and his wife Anne, the ones originally at the House of Dreams and then here at Ingleside, had the large family. Remember how we talked that you are descended from Jem, the eldest, and Anne from Rilla, the youngest. But there was actually a firstborn child before Jem… a daughter, Joyce, or Joy. She was born and sadly died on the same day."

The pooling in his stomach had turned rancid, and fast.

"That's terrible…" he grimaced. "How awful for them."

"They were all home births back then, so Joy would have been born in the House of Dreams, likely delivered by Gilbert himself."

His brunch had almost come up back at that damned house, and now his dinner was likely heading the same way.

"Well, this is a great, cheerful bedtime story, now."

"David…"

"Anne likely read all of that right here, Dad. Just had all of it swimming in her brain, mixing with her imagination. If she was confused at the time she certainly isn't now."

"Was she confused at any other point, David?" Tessa's brown eyes were wide and anxious. "Did she mistake you for Gilbert at any other time while you were there, or in the past weeks? Or said or did anything else that made you… worried for her?"

Doctor face. Doctor face… he instructed silently, shoving his hands into his pockets and now pacing around the room himself.

"Son, if you think you need to tell us anything more about today, now's the time."

Breathe, pace, pace.

Yeah, Dad, I could tell you plenty, but I'm not going to.

"Whatever happened today is now a moot point, isn't it?" he protested. "All her tests were clear and she's perfectly fine now."

Breathe, breathe, pace, pace.

"David…" Tessa again, virtually wringing her hands, "she may well be perfectly fine, now, but this is exactly how it starts."

"How what starts?"

Tessa swallowed with difficulty, and her poise was wavering.

"Confusion. Voices. Visions. Delusions. Weaving in and out of reality. Mistaking people for others, even people long dead. Thinking that… thinking that things in the past are… are real. That they even… might be happening now."

Oh, Jesus.

I promised Anne… I promised Anne… I promised Anne…

"Tessa…" he gulped, enacting his last line of defense. "Anne likely just has a touch of anxiety. You know, that can bring on confusion and even, sometimes, physical symptoms. My Grandpa James said so himself. What you are describing is…" he gulped, "well… it's a breakdown, or an episode… It's… psychosis."

"Yes…" a solitary tear traced its way down her cheek. "I know."

The room seemed to close in on him, and he was desperate for some air, tugging at his shirt collar as if he might be asphyxiated at any moment. He wanted to back away from this conversation, to run away with Anne as he had joked to her, to a place where things hadn't slid down this unforgiving, slippery slope.

"David…"

Tessa came to him and grasped both his hands in hers, the former actress mesmeric in her plea, laced with the driven determination of an increasingly desperate mother.

"Please help me to help Anne. You are a beautiful young man, inside and out, and have been fantastic to and for her. You don't know how wonderful that has been for me to witness. I will always be grateful to you for her summer here. But if you think Anne has become more emotional… more vulnerable… in any way, you have to tell me… you have to let me seek help for her early, to get on top of it. To help her now as I couldn't help… before."

"Before?" he echoed uneasily, highly uncomfortable with Tessa's words, let alone her sudden intensity, and those hands grasping his almost too tightly.

Tessa took a great, shuddering breath, and within it was housed the kind of residual anguish he himself kept locked deep inside.

"Before, with Alex… with her father."


Feeling sick and depleted, David staggered off to bed, unable to cope further with Tessa's tears or his father's concern or his own wretchedness. He had not given up all the secrets of their afternoon - he would never the rest of his life breathe a word about what happened in that upstairs bedroom – but he had inferred enough.

And enough, he already knew, had been too much.

He would make it up to Anne, he vowed. They would live in the moment and never think on those fractured family trees ever again. He would be so loving and reassuring to her that when she looked in his direction she would see him and only him, and have no need to ever again invoke another.

He must have finally drifted off to sleep, because a sudden shout woke him, bleary eyes registering it as a little after three am, and he stumbled out into the commotion.

"Anne's gone!" Tessa was weeping in the hallway as he noted his father running in and out, checking all the other rooms.

"What?"

"She's not here, David," his father confirmed a little breathlessly. "Not downstairs, either, though she has left all her things behind, except her phone – which she's not answering."

He blinked furiously, reaching for control.

"It's OK. I think I know where."

He threw on his clothes, running with the light from his phone out the door and sprinting off the veranda, down the slope to the walled garden, place of confessions and connections, where she had first spoken of her pain, even as she caressed the scar along his heart finger and tried to absorb some of his own.

Along the wall, through the gap, almost trampling the flowers in his haste. The empty bench and the empty rose beds and the dull glow of the moon illuminating nothing but his own inadequacies.

She wasn't there.

His dad and Tessa were on his tail, almost corralling into him as he darted back out.

"No," he said tersely.

"Well… she can't have gone far," Rob was anxious to reassure.

"Should we call the police?" Tessa gasped.

David stood, hands on hips, staring down the slope, as the darkness deepened to black ink down in the valley.

Of course. You idiot, Blythe.

"No, don't call them yet," he determined. "I'll find her." He shored up a shaky breath, hoping to God he knew her as well as he thought he did. "But I'll need a torch."


Chapter Notes

The chapter title is from the Walt Whitman quotation detailed in the previous chapter from Leaves of Grass (1892) Book V Calamus from the poem 'The Terrible Doubt of Appearances', in part being:

'When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us'…

*Hello Jerry Maguire! For the uninitiated this is a 1996 film starring Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger, which spawned several famous catch phrases that have entered the public domain.

**Anne's House of Dreams Ch 19 'Dawn and Dusk'.

***Right after childbirth, the fun of hormones starts for new mothers. Oxytocin does indeed surge immediately following birth to compensate for the initial drop in other hormones, chiefly progesterone and estrogen. I am sure you know where I have been going with this mention.

****elizasky's Shirley does all this and more in The Happiness We Must Win, beginning in Ch 16 'Your Perfect Job'.

*****Anne of the Island Ch 15 'A Dream Turned Upside Down'.

******Walt Whitman, again, from Leaves of Grass (1892)'Song of Myself' in Book III Song of Myself 'I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world'.

# MrsVonTrapp finally gets a The Sound of Music reference in! This is a flipped version of the quote, but it concerns Maria (once she is married) talking to Uncle Max about Georg. Max asks her to use her influence, for everyone's sake, to help Georg at least pretend to tolerate the Nazis, to which she replies, 'Max, I can't ask him to be less than he is.'


And some correspondence…

DrinkThemIn: Hello darlingest – yes that previous chapter WAS a LOT! I'm sure you're well traumatized now, even with the tiny carrot of an otherworldly glimpse of that wedding night! I am really pleased from a writing perspective that the panic did translate here and the notion of things spinning out of control. The fallout from this reveal is a little bit of a rollercoaster that is playing out across these three linked chapters. I hate anything bad happening to my characters as you know and I WILL bring it home happily but you might have to settle in for some speed bumps in the meantime x

Guest #1 of Nov 8th (Ch 15): Hello Guest and thank you for your comment – it made me smile! I love the image of being 'strapped in' and all ready for some wedding night past life memories lol! Funnily enough, I had no plan regarding including that in the chapter and was not even going to originally have Anne and David get upstairs, but the narrative has a way of steering itself sometimes! I am pleased from a writing perspective that I made it the moment of 'connection', however – few things would have more power and pull than that regarding the 'crossing over' aspect.

Guest #2 of Nov 8th (Ch 15): Hello Guest – I love all your comments here and thank you so much for them! First things first – LMM and all her wedding night visitors piling in and the in every way 'torturous' trout dinner for the newlyweds and especially for all of us! I did have fun playing with that a little when I wrote it in for 'Let Love clasp Grief'! It never fails to frustrate no matter how many times I read it. As for this chapter, I am so pleased you felt the romance of this moment even within some fear and confusion. I did want the romance to spark! However, there is still the element of David's (understandable) reaction here and the pain for both of them trying to process this. It is definitely a little like a possession, as you say, and that probably came across most strongly in this chapter here re Joy.

Lilly: Hello Lilly – I love when I can address a guest by name so thanks for that! Yes it IS a hard concept to grasp here, as you say, and thank you for sharing your own experiences x It is not as uncommon as people think, this idea of visions and feelings/experiences that people can't quite account for. Certainly LMM writes this idea many times through her stories, including of course in 'House of Dreams'. But yes… our VERY young pair here are unfortunately going to have to go through some times because they ARE too young to have it all sorted out for them yet! But yes I do promise you to bring it all home happily – eventually! I am thrilled for anyone taking a peek at 'Let Love clasp Grief' and its M chapters and hope you enjoy them x

Guest of Nov 10th (Ch 15): Dear Very Perceptive Guest – thank you for your comments here! You are very right in that down the track there is going to be an understanding for Anne that she does have a family inheritance of otherworldly perception that can indeed be traced all the way back to John Selwyn. You are ALSO right that down the track David will have his own reckoning with this sort of experience. I can't say any more at this stage but I am looking forward to writing all these future developments! Meanwhile I am always tinkering with new stories behind the scenes and I DO have a modern Anne and Gil that I have just started exploring – watch this space!

Guest of Nov 14th (Ch 15): Ooh Guest thank you for your intriguing question! Jewellery is very symbolic though canon and there are several items – including that circlet of pearls – that will be written into this story in the future. I have hinted about one item in this new chapter already!

Guest of Nov 16th (Ch 15): Hello dear Guest and thank you for all your tremendous thoughts and observations! I grinned to read them! I am so thrilled that the sections where Anne was weaving in and out of her past life memories read well for you and came across effectively. Thank you very much for noting that – I appreciate it. The transitions there were somewhat tricky! You were right to note Anne and David are both very young, deliberately so, here. The very next chapter of this arc is the last of this 'act' and then I will pick up the narrative fully in five to six years' time, when they are in their early and mid twenties, respectively. The intervening years WILL be covered in this story but not in such a detailed way – more of a highlights package! In the interim, you have completely called it regarding Tessa whisking Anne back to Toronto… and we will learn much more about mysterious Alex Ford… I had to laugh at Anne and Gilbert's great contribution to society being their big family and taking their marital responsibilities very seriously lol! They get better appreciation during the visit to the lighthouse and will get much more kudos in future! Finally, thank you so much for your lovely note re Melissa. I have adored writing her and she will keep making return visits. I am so sorry about your Mum and I am touched that you were reminded of her x