Fire Light | Ruby Gillis

Chapter Three

Fate so happened, that she did run into Herb Spencer agian.

He was on a dock at Barry's Pond, presumably about to go fishing when Ruby walked by.

"19 years, I never see you. And then suddenly, you're everywhere I turn!"

Herb turned around, squinting against the sun. His face broke into a large grin as he finally found Ruby's face in the haze of the bright light.

She seemed angelic in the sunlight, her golden hair burning like a torch on top of her head.

Ruby was always beautiful, of that there was no doubt, but it seemed different somehow than at the party. She was still the cool, relaxed girl he had met that night, but she seemed to glow now with some unknown energy.

Herb mentally shook himself, blaming his vision on the sun.

"Maybe you've been looking in the wrong places," he said with a grin.

"Looking? You make it seem like I've been seeking you out actively!"

"You haven't?"

Ruby laughed and shook her head.

"Maybe you give yourself to much credit Mr. Spencer," she said with a laugh.

There was a pleasant silence between them, and all that could be heard was the rustling of wind through the trees behind them.

"Would you like to come with me?"

Ruby readily agreed, but couldn't help but be a little surprised. Most boys when asking her to go somewhere always asked very nervously, or were very overconfident in themselves. Herb just sounded like he was extending an invitation to an old friend, very casually. That had never happened before.

But as Ruby climbed aboard the boat, she couldn't help but thing that no boy had ever invited her to do something like this either.

The pond was very calm that day, with little wind as they paddled their way to the center.

Ruby looked around, enjoying the view as Herb spoke up.

"Have you not been out on the water before?"

Ruby smiled but continued to look out to the wooded shore.

"You underestimate me Mr.Spencer, I've been out here many times."

There was a brief silence before she continued.

"I used to come out here a lot, when I was younger. With my friends."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Oh yes," Ruby said, grinning, finally turning to look at him.

"We used to pretend to be all sorts of things, princesses, pirates, fairies from the woods. Once I was convinced we had even drowned my friend Anne!"

Herb's eyes widened in shock.

"Is she alright?" He asked in a slightly panicked tone.

"Oh yes, she was fine, I only thought we drowned her."

There was a long silence as Herb wondered if she would tell him the story. But no such thing happened as she turned around and continued gazing at the shore.

"Surely you won't just leave me there without a story, would you?"

"Well," Ruby said with a smile, "If you insist."

She turned her body fully this time to face him and began her tale.

"We were young, maybe thirteen or so, and we were on the shore acting out Camelot."

Ruby turned and pointed to a small beach at the mouth of a creek, barely visible around the curve of the peninsula that jutted out into the pond.

"We were just up that creek. We had borrowed a small boat from one of the the girl's father. It was more of large plank with edges, to be honest," she said with a laugh.

"We decided my friend Anne would be Elaine, and lay in the boat pretending to be dead. She insisted it be me because Elaine had golden hair, but I was too afraid. The plan was to push the boat off, and we'd meet her around the bend where the river met the pond. But we didn't know there was a leak. We ran around the bend and waited, but all that came back was the half sunken boat."

Ruby shook her head at the antics of herself and her friends and continied.

"I thought we had killed her and broke into hysterics. It was only later when we met her on the road did we find out that she had clung to a support beam on the bridge and was saved by Gilbert Blythe."

"Well, it seems I have underestimated you," Herb said, laughing, "I certainly didn't expect something like that from you!"

Ruby turned bright red and turned her head away.

"Well, we were very young."

Herb couldn't help himself looking at Ruby again as she twisted around agian to look out over the water. Without the sun framing her, he could  say for certain that it had most definetly not been the sun playing tricks on his eyes. The blush on her cheeks just seemed to illuminate her even more, and he struggled to pull his eyes away.

With fishing forgotten, Herb maneuvered the boat back to the rickety dock, unaware that Ruby looked at him the same way he had looked at her.

Ruby eyed him, with the sun framing his figure this time. She couldn't remember the last time she had really looked at a boy like that, it was almost frightening how he pulled her attention.

For the first in a very long time, Ruby struggled to turn her eyes away from him.

But it definetly wasnt the last.

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A huge thank you to @ComfortableShows for the amazing cover!!