In the Woods When First We Met

106. A Mystifying Surprise

Friday night and Saturday morning were better because even though everything still felt wrong, she had a surprise to look forward to: Gilbert was going to leave something for her at the spot where they usually met each other.

It would have been nice if they could have planned to stay and talk to each other a while, but that wouldn't do- she would have had to explain to Marilla some sort of reason for why she was leaving to spend time outside and she couldn't even use playing as an excuse because a few days ago Marilla had told her, "no more playing in the snow, now- it's much too cold."

She wasn't even sure how she was going to explain why she needed to go out and walk to the end of the meadow to get whatever it was Gilbert was leaving for her, and that would only take a few minutes.

She decided to leave when Marilla wouldn't notice her. When Marilla was down in the cellar getting out some of the vegetables they had canned for the winter, Anne grabbed her coat and went as quickly as she could. It wasn't more than a couple minutes before she arrived at the edge of the meadow where she always met Gilbert.

She didn't see anything at first.

Then, walking around, she noticed a small pile of stones on top of an overturned log.

That must be where he'd marked it. She looked underneath them and found something flat and limp, like a magazine or newspaper. Gilbert had rolled it up in wax paper to keep the wet snow off of it.

She thought maybe she should wait until she got back in the house to open it, but she was too excited to wait. She unrolled it.

It was a magazine. It wasn't new, it looked like it had been read several times, with dog-eared pages. She looked at the publishing date. It was old. It must be from his father, she thought.

"Tales of the Mystifying," she whispered the title aloud. A shiver went through her.

There was an illustration of an elf on the cover, with a headline that said, "Panpipe music lures child to elfin village". Underneath it, it said "And 46 other strange, true tales to leave you speechless and amazed!"

She took it into the house, softly closing the door and slipping out of her coat. When she passed Marilla in the kitchen, she hid it behind her back. This was no Tales of Christian Endurance, and she felt quite certain that Marilla would not approve.