My Fairy Queen Anne

sail the world to find you

"Okay, fine," he said nervously, turning to the group. "You don't have to worry about me stealing away Anne."

"What do you mean? She kissed you and you permitted her, despite the fact that she is a woman in a courtship already!" Diana scolded. 

He chuckled deeply, shaking his own head in response. "I'm not fond of the feminine form. If Anne was male, then you'd have something to fuss about."

Diana understood immediately, connecting him to her Aunt Jo. Josie also understood. He was like her, but different! It took a moment for Ruby.

"You...you love boys?" Ruby asked naively, cocking her head to the side slightly. "I've never heard of such a thing before, but I suppose if it makes you happy..." She shrugged with her eyebrows furrowed a little bit in thought. "It's not affecting anybody else's well being except yours, so I suppose it's really not my business telling you what to think, especially when I'm not educated at all on matters of the heart. I guess it is just love. There's nothing wrong with it."

Meanwhile, it gave Josie hope. She wasn't the only one! Cole was like her, attracted to the same gender, only he wasn't attracted to the opposite like her. That planted a seed of doubt in her mind. Did that make her even more freakish, a floozy who liked to court any boy or girl around? She didn't know at all, but she put the thought out of mind and smiled.

"That's amazing, Cole, really. I'm glad you've found yourself." 

_________________

The hearth was roaring, its warmth permeating every surface of the room, but it couldn't touch the surface of Anne and Marilla's cold hearts as they tried to focus on anything else and do their needlepoint in their nightclothes.

Anne picked up the project she was working on. She had brought it from her boarding house. She had been working on embroidering a picture of a barn on an open expanse of land for...Matthew. Seeing the unfinished picture brought tears to her eyes and she dropped it with a clatter, letting out an anguished whine like a bruised animal. Her heart felt raw. 

"Anne! Did you prick your finger?" Marilla said, looking up at the girl who was staring at the heap on the floor in anguish.

"No," she said, a huge lump arising in her throat. Her voice cracked. "I'm just...tired. Excuse me." She picked the project from off the ground, making sure not to look at it, and headed upstairs, stuffing it into the very bottom of her bag and closing it with a resounding thud. She jumped into her bed and burrowed under the thick downy quilt, squeezing her eyes shut as moisture fell onto her feather pillow.

She fell asleep like this, a huge tear mark staining her pillow.

"Anne," he rasped, face ashen and colorless, hands stone cold and lips twisted into a slight frown. Looming above him was the black and hooded personification of death, one sickly hand outstretched to take him away from her forever.

"Matthew," she cried, the word getting stuck in her throat. She tried to run to him, save him from the imminent doom, but her feet were glued to the floor. She could only watch, she could only weep as the figure grinned sadistically and laid its filthy hands on her father and drained his essence out of him. She screamed as she saw life escape him right before her eyes.

"Anne! Anne!" Somebody shook her awake and she shot up in bed, panting heavily, shrieking a bloodcurdling scream, and tears running down her face.

Not thinking, she only had one word on her lips when she woke. "Matthew."

It slipped out of her mouth as easily as soup, but just that was enough to make her even sadder.

"I know," the woman beside her said sadly, placing a hand on her hair and pressing a kiss to it. Even Marilla had tears in her eyes. Anne clung tightly to the older woman, whimpering pathetically. The woman tried to repress tears of her own as they held each other for dear life, missing the only person who could possibly make this better.

A day later...

"Are you sure you don't need me around Green Gables?" Anne asked Marilla as the train pulled into Bright River.

"No, go to Queens, Anne. I have Jerry and Rachel around to help."

"Alright, then. Goodbye, dear Marilla." She kissed the woman on the cheek and hugged her tightly.

"Goodbye, Anne!" Anne blew her a kiss as she picked up her bag and boarded the train, hiking up her skirt an inch to climb the stairs and into the car with Diana, Ruby, Cole, and Josie. Gilbert had left the day before for Toronto, blinking away tears and filled with dread of leaving Anne alone with her feelings. She had reassured him countless times that he would receive a letter posthaste, and he wasn't one to not trust her. 

Anne looked out her window nervously, tears in her clear blue eyes.

"Are you alright?" Josie asked her softly from her right side, placing her hand on Anne's shoulder and squeezing it.

"Yes, just... melancholy," she sighed, blinking away the tears but not quite dispelling the hollow ache in her bones.

"Talk to us if you need to," Diana encouraged, smiling from her left side. Ruby, an amateur artist herself, was talking with (or rather, interrogating) Cole about proper painting technique across from them. "We're always here."

"I know," Anne said kindly, putting an arm around each of them. "I'm ever so grateful for you."

"I owe more to you," Diana said sincerely, and Josie nodded in agreement. They both scooched closer to Anne, the girl who had taken their lives by storm and changed it, become a best friend and sister in the blink of an eye, barely aware of her own effect! 

"You made me realize my self worth," Josie said, squeezing Anne's hand.

"And I learned to think for myself because of you," Diana finished, leaning her head on the girl's shoulder for a moment.

"I love you girls more than life itself," Anne said with an earnest bark of laughter through her tears, a watery smile coming to her face.

"Don't let Gilbert hear you saying that," Josie teased, nudging her playfully. Anne smacked the girl on the arm in false chastisement, but her heart wasn't in it, so it was more like a lazy swat. 

"It's true! I don't think his tender heart could take it," Diana added in with a false, melancholy lilt to her voice, pouting exaggeratedly and clutching at her chest dramatically. 

"He'll just have to suffer then. Girls...and boy, I propose we take an oath to never put boys before our friendship. Our friendships were there before our paramours and they will be there long after." She extended her pinky fingers to Josie and Diana who in turn clasped theirs with the person next to them and so on.

In that moment, Anne knew that even when it was her against the world, when it seemed like she'd never be truly happy again, she had a support system of the best people she could ask for.