when tragedy strikes ☾ shirbert

chapter 10: what pushes must pull

a/n: the absolute fear that gripped my soul when i deleted a draft chapter and thought i deleted this at a revised 1,800 words. i almost cried.

anyway, happy new year! i hope it's a better one for you. ❤️❤️  vote and leave me some words to read! enjoy!!

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The once blue sky was overtaken by a single cloud, its dull grey capacity spanning over every mountain with no finish or beginning. A solemn stillness seemed to fall upon the entire world, residual puddles resting in irregular holes from last night's tears. The mind of any sane person emptied with the draining gutters, their qualms drifting away into the unreachable distant fog that loomed between bare branches.

There was no particular reason to be depressed, only the unlively weather lured Anne in on the account of it being incredibly poetic. A Thursday morning, she listened to the unrhythmic sloshing of mud under her boots while walking. Today she was empty-handed, with no intention of spending her time inside.

A slight wind grew as she approached the Green Gables barn, and Gilbert peered up from the book he appeared to be enthralled in.

"Hi, Anne."

"Gilbert." She acknowledged.

Today was meant to be boring.

"What are you reading?" She asked, sitting beside him now and noticing nobody was working on the house today. Maybe they caught a case of laziness too, and rightfully so. The men had been working incredibly hard to get Green Gables up and running again, they deserved a break.

"The Highwayman," Gilbert said, a gentle smile on when he looked over at her, "by Alfred Noyes."

She hummed in response, then let her mind wander to what wasn't very important. How she wanted to tie two colored ribbons into her braids, ones that were not a plain cream; rather a sweet pale ivy or a richly hued navy. What she was going to do about the candle wax she accidentally spilled on her pillow last night. The flower crown she could make for Matthew specifically once everything was in full bloom again.

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas," Gilbert read quietly aloud, his voice above a mere whisper.

"The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, and the highwayman came riding, riding, riding," he briefly paused, "The highwayman came riding up the old inn door."

Anne observed his eyes dancing in broken lines across the pages, listening to the way he carefully pronounced each phrase with such certainty. His words were laced with familiarity, and she guessed he must've read the poem many times before.

"A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doeskin..."

She gazed into the stale sky that seemed a little darker than before, a pleasant feeling stirring in her stomach. She fancied the idea of her parents reading to her as a baby, pretending it was the reason she greatly enjoyed reading to other people now. And if she was anything as good as Gilbert, she understood why the Hammond children fell asleep to her stories.

"He whistled a tune to the window and who should be waiting there."

She studied the book in his hand; a fraying spine, a worn fabric cover, and a few pages crinkled from moisture (in her case, tears, but she believed Gilbert was definitely not the kind to cry over literature). He used one thumb to press down the top corner, so pages wouldn't fly with the gathering wind, and the other to flip them over. His delicate hold made her feel safe, which was an awfully strange feeling to have from the way Gilbert carried a well-loved book.