Ablaze with possibility

Chapter 6: Regret is a painful side effect

"The horse is saddled and good to go?" Mr. Barry asked as he walked over to Matthew whose face was full of worry and stress.

"Everything is done. Thank you again, for your generosity." Matthew said as he got up on the brown horse. 

"Oh it's nothing! If we can help then we will do so. Letting you borrow our horse is the least we can do for you." He smiled at Matthew and then said:

"Now I'm not going to waste any more of your precious time! Let me know when you've found your Anne will you?" Matthew only nodded to an answer and then galloped away as fast as the horse could manage.

"Did you sleep well?" Mary asked her other guest as the person entered the room.

"Never slept better in my life, Ms!" The guest answered brightly. "And you?" 

"Well...the glass in my window is currently broken so it's just a little chilly but that's not important!" 

The guest stood quiet for a moment and then said:

"Let me help you then! I owe you enough already. Tell me what needs to be fixed and I'll do it for you!" Mary raised and eyebrow at the suggestion.

"Really?" She asked the guest smugly. "You're sure you won't back away when I show you everything you have to fix for me?" The guest shook its head in determination. 

"Oh I can assure you, I'm not afraid of hard work." Mary turned around, facing the stove instead of the guests cocky smile and changed the subject.

"There's something else I have to tell you. I have two other guests here now." The person got a curious look on its face. 

"Two! How come I never saw them here yesterday because I must be blind--"

"They stood right outside my door in the middle of the night." She answered. "I don't know the whole story but one thing the boy told me was that they were looking for someone." The guest's eyes widened.

"A boy?" He thought for a moment. "And the other guest?"

"A girl, they're probably around fifteen I guess. Why they would look for someone in the Bog, I don't know, but I do know one thing and that is that they needed somewhere to stay. First I thought they were these typical, narrow-minded children who only came here to get a good laugh or to judge me," Mary sighed and looked out the window. "But they were unusually kind. Isn't that very odd?" The guest nodded thoughtfully.

"I guess so..." 

"Good morning Mary!" Anne entered the room and stopped when she saw the man beside Mary.

In front of her, a man with big brown eyes, dark short hair and similar dark skin color just like Mary stood. He was wearing a grey shirt with a pair of brown pants to it. He smiled kindly at Anne and that smile gave her something she'd heard to be called a "déjà vu". She had only read about it in books but had never experienced it before so she did not quite know if it in fact, was a "déjà vu". What she did know, was that she'd definitely had seen that smile before. 

"Oh! You must be the guest Mary talked to us about yesterday!" Anne then blurted out to distract herself from her "déjà vu". "Oh how thrilling to finally meet you! I tried imagining what you would look like but because I didn't know anything about you it didn't go so well but now I know!" She held out her hand eagerly and said:

"I am Anne Shirley-Cuthbert and I'm very happy to meet you, sir." The man smiled in wonder at the redheaded girl and then said:

"Very happy to meet you, Anne." As they shook hands with one another, a memory popped up in his mind when he thought about her name.