Anne with an E: Andie with an IE

5. AUGUST 29TH, THE BLYTHE HOUSE

Blythe House, evening

GILBERT carries tea into ANDIE's bedroom. ANDIE is sat on the bed, knees pulled up tight. 

Gilbert: How are you feeling?

Andie: Better, thank you.

Gilbert: Tea.

Andie: Thanks.

GILBERT hands ANDIE the tea and sits on the edge of the bed.

Gilbert: You were...you were incredible today.

Andie: I nearly fainted. Twice. In front of all those people.

Gilbert: Before that though. I know you're disinterested in friends but two invitations for tea and from the most to-do families in Avonlea is a job well done. 

Andie: I'm just...I'm good at pretending. I've always been good at pretending.

Gilbert: It wasn't all pretence though. Your heart, your warmth, your laughter. That's all real.

Andie: Nah. I've fooled you too.

She smiles though, secretly grateful. 

Gilbert: Pa thinks you need to rest a bit.

Andie: I need to start building my stamina. Besides, if I'm going to tea on the weekend I must have something to talk about and "I laid in bed all week" would be a rubbish thing to tell them.

GILBERT is thoughtful.

What is it?

Gilbert: I remembered something earlier. A ghost story I'd read as a child. Perhaps you're a ghost possessing the body of my cousin.

ANDIE laughs with surprise.

Andie: Steady on, Gilbert.

GILBERT laughs too, albeit quietly.

Maybe I am? I mean we don't know do we...go on then, what's the story?

Gilbert: Well, there were ghosts who possessed –

Andie: Could you tell it properly?

Gilbert: Story telling isn't my forte.

Andie: Practice makes perfect. Please, I'd like it. "I've had such a trying day."

ANDIE is milking it and GILBERT knows that. She pulls the covers up to her chin and gets comfortable, flashing puppy-dog eyes at GILBERT. He sighs.

Gilbert: Okay, let's see if I can remember it properly. Once upon a time there lived a boy in a big house with his mother and father. Now his mother and father weren't cruel but they were cold, they rarely showed affection to the little boy and the boy had become familiar with being ignored. Every day he wandered about the house alone, until one day he wandered up into the attic where he found piles of books whose covers hadn't been lifted for years. Running his small fingers down the spine of one such book he cracked it open slowly, revealing pages and pages full of hand-written writing. However, the dust he had disturbed filled his lungs and left him coughing for a good long while so that he closed the book again through his fit. When his coughing ceased, he opened the book once more but to his spine-chilling surprise the pages were now empty. The boy frantically opened the other books scattered around him, all empty. He slunk out of the attic and, as it was late, went straight to bed. It was the next morning when the strangeness began. His mother, who had usually left the house by the time the boy awoke, greeted him. "Good morning, love". She then made him a lavish breakfast and sat with him while he ate, stroking his hair absentmindedly. She asked him what he'd like to do that day and he said take a walk around the gardens, which they surely did, hand in hand. When the father returned home he'd asked the boy questions and smiled warmly, taking the boy in his arms and rough-housing with him pleasantly. The boy was overcome – but what had happened to his parents, seemingly overnight? It was then he tried to return to the attic but quite suddenly the hatch was locked. But where was the key?

Andie: His parents had locked it?

Gilbert: Yes. And when he asked a stern look came over there faces and said the attic was not for children and that he shouldn't go up there again. Besides this they were now wonderful parents, doting on him, caring for him and providing for him for the next twenty years of his life. This was until they both died suddenly in a car crash.

Andie: Goodness.

Gilbert: Mm. By this time, the man had almost forgotten the attic and the neglect his parents had shown during his formative years. He returned to his child-hood home, intending to sell it and the possessions within. The man had married the year before and his wife was looking to relocate. 'Might you check the attic', the wife had asked.

Andie: That's your girl voice?

Gilbert: With a ring of heavy rusted keys in one hand, he left his new-wife in the kitchen as he clambered up the rickety staircase to the attic once more. There, he found the books he'd opened as a boy all those years ago, this time with the words returned.

Andie: What did he read?

Gilbert: As he began to read, he learnt of a young couple who had always yearned for a child but had never had one, how they poured their souls into the books, alike diaries, before taking their own lives. But the people he read about resembled so strongly his mother and father that the man began to wonder. He began to wonder about all those years earlier, when his parents had been disinterested and aloof, and how he opened one of the books and suddenly they seemed to change overnight.

Andie: Spooky.

Gilbert: Suddenly, he heard a step on the stair behind him. Turning he saw his wife, a strange but familiar smile on her face. The smile his mother used to give him and yet – "Hello, love", the woman said. Speechless, the man turned back to the pages which were once again, empty. The woman now stood beside him, smiling the strange but familiar smile before reaching her hand to his face. "Don't be afraid", she touched him gently on the forehead and the man was no more.

Pause.

Andie: I thought you said story-telling wasn't your forte?

Gilbert: It's not.

Andie: Well then you must be amazing at other things because that was...that was well told. I got goose-bumps.

Gilbert: You're very gracious.

Andie: So, have you opened any weird books lately? Books about a woman from the 21st century who got hit by a car?

Gilbert: I don't think you were trapped in a book – it's just a story.

Andie: I might be a ghost though, mightn't I? A future ghost.

Gilbert: I suppose it's possible but highly unlikely.

Pause.

It's late. I should let you sleep.

Andie: Thank you for the tea, and the auto-biography.

Gilbert: Stop it.

They laugh and he leaves. ANDIE mulls over what has been said.

MONTAGE: ANDIE adjusting to life on the farm. Stirring a pot of stew, tasting it and grimacing. Scrubbing the floor. Picking apples. Doing laundry. Flicking GILBERT with bubbles. Them laughing together. Sitting in the fields, reading together. Fainting often, mid-task. 

A memory plays. A very young ANDIE, early 2000s, in a garden singing and dancing and laughing and clapping. A younger sibling, toddler, is sat watching her, also clapping. A mother laughs in the background. Then a father laughs. The sound wakes ANDIE up and she cries.