Archive of Our Own ^beta

As Gilbert hefted a barrel over his shoulder, the rough wood snagged on his coat and made him think of the toolbox he’d been carrying the last time he’d seen Anne. The docks of Charlottetown were busy, even in the biting cold of midwinter, and the shouts and scuffles and noise as steamers were unloaded and then reloaded again would have had a regular person stopped short in fear. Gilbert, however, had been working there for nearly a month, and he navigated the harsh crowds well, completely unfazed.

Well, he usually did. Today was his last day on the docks before he went out on a steamer - the S.S. Primrose - and the thoughts of Anne that randomly cropped up were having more of an effect on him today.

Soon he would be gone - an entire ocean away - and although he was ready to leave and see new places, he sometimes wondered how excited Anne would be to see all of the different ports he would be going to.

He shook his head fiercely to dislodge her wide blue eyes from his mind. He had work to do.

***

The belly of the steamer was hot, swelteringly so, and the coal dust he’d become accustomed to coated every surface, even his hair. The furnaces and a couple of lanterns glowing a dim orange were the only sources of light. Everything was hot, dirty, and dark.

“Feed the lady!” the fireman roared.

Gilbert rolled his eyes.

Their shift was almost over, everyone was tired, his back and shoulders and arms were aching, and they’d been down with the boilers for a good five hours. He grunted and shoveled another load of coal into the furnace.

They’d first stopped at a port in Halifax, then continued down to the States and harbored in New York. New York had been the largest city Gilbert had ever seen. The bustle and hustle of men and women and children running everywhere, the theater just around the corner, the parks that had provided an escape from the foul odor of tobacco and refuse; it all remained seared into Gilbert’s mind.

He’d had an amazing time exploring, but every so often, he found himself thinking, What I’d give to have Dad see this. He would always, very quickly, shut down that particular train of thought before one of the other trimmers caught him crying and called him a bevy of rude names.

The thought of Avonlea burned a hole in his chest.

It had been three months since he’d left the place he so desperately needed to escape, a place he had no intention of returning to anytime soon, and he didn’t particularly miss anyone there. The occasional thought of Moody or Charlie - or, God forbid, Billy Andrews - kept him company, and sometimes he’d remember Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbert’s kindness to him after…

Gilbert shook his head, his biceps straining as he dumped another load of coal.

Most of all, he missed learning in the schoolhouse. He missed the spelling competitions, especially between him and Anne, missed the way she’d flick her chin out when she got an answer right and the way her eyebrows would quirk when she got one wrong.

He groaned.

Every. Single. Time. Every time he thought of Avonlea, his thoughts would always, somehow or another, circle back to that one redhead he couldn’t ever seem to leave behind.

***

Dear Anne,

It’s been four months on this ship. I don’t mind the work, but it isn’t very mind-occupying, and sometimes I find myself spelling out words in my head for old times’ sake, just like we did in the schoolhouse!

The furnaces here are hot, and since we’ve just crossed to the Southern Hemisphere, even though it’s only April, it’s hot outside, too. I never thought I’d enjoy the perpetual Canadian frostbite, but it’s so humid here that sometimes I wish for just one icicle or snowbank to miraculously materialize above my head and cool me down.

If you take it upon yourself to write back, tell me all about what’s been happening in Avonlea! Please tell Marilla and Matthew I’ve been thinking about them, and tell Matthew I’m extremely grateful for his offer of help with my land.

The work on the ship is backbreaking, and within the cities’ slums there are so many people in desperate need of help. The world is unfair, and I have learned to do what I can, help those I can, and pray for those I cannot. But I do not want to spoil this for you with tales of awful things.

So far, we’ve docked in several ports, large and small, most notably Halifax, New York City, and Tampa. Now we’re in Havana, which is the capital of Cuba. It is surreal to be able to say I am in the Caribbean, off the coast of Florida in the States!

The cities seem to glitter. They are amazing, far larger than Charlottetown, with so many different cultures and fashions and ways of living. It is amazing to see the changes the world is going through, but to experience them is far more incredible. I thought you might be interested to know that in New York, I spotted a group of ladies all wearing trousers! Mrs. Lynde would have collapsed on the spot. I thought it was wonderful.

But the point of this letter is not to ramble about the places I’ve been, nor to wonder about the happenings of Avonlea. I wanted to tell you that I miss you, Carrots. (Have fun trying to whack me with a slate across the ocean!) I find myself seeing these things in all of the places I’ve been and thinking, Anne would love to see this. I wish I could share these experiences with you.

I selfishly wish you could be here - not to trim the coal, of course, but so that I can hold impromptu spelling bees with you and argue with you about the literary merit of certain books. I want to see you again. I want to be able to touch your braid again, feeling the warmth of your red hair slide across my fingers, perhaps even being so bold as to place a kiss on the tips, and then to place one on your adorable button nose and then your freckles and then oh my God, I can’t send her this.

***

Gilbert bolted upright. The dirty canvas of the hammocks the workers slept in scratched at his arms as he brought both hands up to cradle his head. He’d been dreaming, he knew, and the dream had filled him with the hollowest aching feeling he’d felt since his dad had…

He’d sort of had a perpetual ache ever since he’d packed up his life and left seven months ago, but this ache was different. It was stronger, more demanding. He laid back down and folded his pillow over his head, trying to remember the details of his dream. There had been a forest, and flowers, and -

He had come across Anne in his dream - of course it had been her - dancing barefoot in a clearing, flowers woven through her hair, and twirling like nothing else mattered.

His heart gave a painful twinge, an actual pain, and he felt it tug in his chest like the time he’d decided to randomly look in the pawnbroker’s shop and saw Anne there, her braids of fire impossible to miss even through a dingy window.

He groaned and fell backwards. How was it that she’d come with him all the way out here? This could not be the simple schoolboy crush he’d nursed months ago. This was ridiculous.

He tried to forget both Anne and Avonlea as the trimmers were called to the belly of the steamer, but seeing the glow of furnaces reminded him of her hair, and he gave up. It was in vain anyway; there was likely something wrong with him at this point.

He sighed, already feeling the burn in his muscles and the sweat on his back, and allowed himself to conjure up a fantasy in which he was back in the schoolhouse with her, and they were spelling words together simply because they wanted to.

***

"Feed the lady, Trinidad! No one’s payin’ you to take a vacation!”

Gilbert groaned and wiped the sweat from his brow. The heat was stifling and the roar from the furnaces wasn’t helping any. The grime in the belly of the Primrose settled over everything, turning the once-sparkling metal to a dull brown color. He glanced back at the orange glow and, once again, thought of Anne.

He shook himself and began to sing Haul Away Joe. The fireman stared incredulously at him while he moved over to another furnace, and the man the fireman had called Trinidad followed him.

“Don’t make that man vex,” the guy said, bringing a wheelbarrow. “Or me,” he added with a look.

Gilbert continued, “And if I never kissed the girls-”

“Ain’t funny,” the man warned.

Gilbert stopped and looked at him. He had a beard and strong arms roped with muscle. He was also black, Gilbert could tell, but he didn’t think it mattered seeing as they were all covered in coal dust anyway.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

The man gave him a look.

“Well, maybe a little,” Gilbert chuckled.

“Maybe you boys want some different job?! That what you want?!” the fireman bellowed.

“Sorry, sir!” the guy beside Gilbert called over.

“Sometimes,” Gilbert said, remembering the singing in the fields of Avonlea when sowing season came, and shocked by an unexpected pang of homesickness, “the music in my soul just needs to come out!”

“You want the slit trench?!” the fireman roared. “That suit you better?”

“We’re good, sir,” the guy yelled. “Everything fine.” He hefted up a shovel and began to walk towards the fireman. “Coming to you, sir.”

“I suspect latrine duty would be particularly repugnant,” Gilbert said, not thinking.

“Don’t act dotish now,” the guy warned.

“What’s that?” the fireman asked, voice dangerously low. “You want no job? That it?”

The guy cast a fearful glance in the direction of the fireman. “We goin’ real good sir. We does like to make she go. This work be a privilege.”

The fireman gave him and Gilbert both a dirty, murderous look. “No more jawin’.”

Gilbert bent back over, having many things he’d like to say to that but none which he could without the possibility of losing his job.

***

Gilbert stood at the railing of the ship, looking out across the vast blue sea which was, at the moment, the exact color of Anne’s soulful eyes.

He remembered with shame the conversation he’d had with Bash - the man who’d appeased the fireman - about him being, essentially, a tourist. What rolled in his stomach was the way he’d never stopped to think about how for some of the trimmers, the work they did was all they had, and they couldn’t afford to lose it.

Just because Gilbert had made a choice to be on this boat, had a place to go back to if he was fired, didn’t mean the other men did. He felt small now, shamed and put back in his proper place.

As the ship’s horn blew, he looked out over the waters in what he thought was the direction of Canada. The ocean sparkled gold where the sun struck it, and he thought how much Anne would love to see it, and just how very much it was like the glimmer Anne got in her eye when she was passionate about something.

Thinking of Anne and staring out across the ocean, he got a strange sense of comfort in his gut; that maybe Anne was thinking of him too, that maybe she was looking out over the waters as well, and maybe he wasn’t so very alone after all.

***

Gilbert lay in his hammock, swinging gently as the steamer rocked on the waves. The stale air itself was coated with the coal dust, and though he’d washed up before heading out into Trinidad, Gilbert’s face was grimy with sweat once again from the humidity. The heat and distant roaring from the furnaces was nothing compared to the storm in Gilbert’s mind.

There was the difference of Trinidad. The new things he’d seen and tasted and done remained fresh in his mind’s eye. He shifted restlessly, remembering the mango he’d eaten, the way it was soft and juicy and almost buttery, nothing like the cold crispness of the apples of the Blythe orchard; how the sun had shone down on them even though it surely must have been past harvest time in Avonlea. Gilbert was sure he’d caught at least four different languages being hollered as he and Bash had roamed the crowded streets.

Then there was the unconcealed prejudice he’d seen directed at Bash. There was the way Bash had said he hardly knew his mum because she’d raised the children in that house and not him. The way she’d almost seemed more interested in Gilbert than Bash. The sad, defeated way Bash had told him his family had never left the plantation.

The way Hazel was forced to pretend to the little boy called Doux-Doux that Bash wasn’t her son, and even though Bash was utterly silent in his hammock, Gilbert knew he was thinking about it too.

“Bash, do you wanna talk about it?” he asked.

Bash didn’t reply.

“Bash.”

No answer.

“Bash, I know you’re not asleep, your eyes are open.”

Nothing. He’d have to resort to the full name.

“Sebastian.”

One of the other trimmers looked over at Bash lying in his hammock. “Your born name is Sebastian? Sounds like you should own this boat, and here I thought ‘Bash’ meant you liked to rough a feller up.” He chuckled. “Good to know.”

Bash glanced over at Gilbert. “You have ruined my reputation. I could hit you two tap myself.”

Being threatened to be hit across the face brought back the memory of Anne’s slate cracking across his cheek. He grinned at the memory, before telling Bash, “There was this girl back in Avonlea. Anne. One time I called her Carrots, and she whacked me over the head.”

The faintest of grins graced Bash’s face. “I give her right on that.”

“She’s a redhead,” Gilbert said. “Fiery temper.” He chuckled.

“She shoulda done more than whack you,” was Bash’s comment on the matter.

“I wonder if I’ll ever see her again,” Gilbert contemplated. He wanted to more than anything, but that would mean going back to Avonlea, and he wasn’t ready to face the gaping hole in his chest.

“How long you plannin’ to stay on this ship?” Bash asked.

Gilbert thought of all of the places he’d been, the things he’d seen, and how much more there was to experience…and then he thought of Avonlea. “I don’t know. I want to go wherever the spirit moves me.” He smiled at the memory of his father saying the same thing. “That’s what my dad used to say.”

Bash nodded, but he looked miserable. “I feel like we’ll be crackin’ coal forever. Like them pistons in the engine, always going and going and going nowhere. I’m trapped here.”

“I felt trapped in Avonlea,” Gilbert said, thinking of the cycle that never broke: his father had to farm the land, and his father before him, and his father before him, and as far back as the Blythes went it was always a farm in Avonlea. It was the same for all of the Avonlea families. Gilbert didn’t know if he could stand it, always farming the land with no way out. “If I go back home, I may never be able to leave.”

“Boy,” the trimmer said incredulously. “You call that a problem? Some of us ain’t have no home.”

Gilbert clamped his jaw shut, thinking once again of Bash calling him a tourist. He settled back into his hammock, thinking of all the men on the boat with nowhere else to go.

He leaned his head against the ropes, making a promise to himself that he wouldn’t be so foolish and self-concerned in the future, and that someday, he’d find a way to get at least Bash off this boat.

***

“Blythe!”

Gilbert bolted upright at the sound of the fireman calling his name. He hadn’t thought his shift would have started so soon, so he’d lain down to take a nap. A mistake, he thought grumpily.

“Blythe! Mail!”

Oh. He didn’t know anyone who’d write to him all the way out here. He trudged over, grabbed the envelope, and was just about to rip it open when he saw the prettily looped cursive he’d only seen a few times in the schoolhouse.

His heart immediately began dancing the can-can. The way the letters were slightly slanted…the way she added a little loop on the top of her “G”s… He knew it was Anne even before he saw the return address.

Why would Anne write to me?

He tore the envelope open, careful to not destroy the beautiful way she’d penned her name. Anne Shirley-Cuthbert. He unfolded the letter, palms becoming clammy and his heart racing as he lowered himself back into his hammock.

How did she find me?

Dear Gilbert,

I hope this letter finds you well -

Sebastian came up behind Gilbert and nicked the envelope. “Hmmm…”

Gilbert swiped the envelope away, ignoring Bash’s knowing grin.

“Fancy,” Bash laughed. “So what it say?”

Gilbert continued reading.

Dear Gilbert,

I hope this letter finds you well. I can imagine being on a ship is ever so thrilling. I often wonder where you are now and if you’re having many exciting seafaring adventures. I hope so.

Gilbert chuckled. He could practically hear Anne’s vibrant, excited voice radiating from the paper. She wrote her words in a way that made you certain it was her.

Something astonishing has happened here in Avonlea. Our boarder here at Green Gables, a geologist, has discovered that gold exists in the soils of Avonlea! Apparently we are all going to be wealthy from the discovery as soon as we get our soil tested and we start extracting it. There will be a gold mine and everything!

His eyebrows shot up his forehead.

I’m writing to you specifically because there may be gold underneath your land and I don’t want you to miss out on the opportunity. The cost for testing the soil is substantial. $150.00. But Mr. Barry has offered financial assistance to those who need it. Would you like me to tell him you want to participate?

Please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Kind regards,

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert

He reread the whole letter again, certain he’d misread something, before answering Bash with confusion. “There’s gold in Avonlea?”

Bash began whooping, his eyebrows shooting nearly past his hairline before coming over to steal the actual letter. “ ‘Dear Gilbert,’ ” he read aloud, grinning wickedly as Gilbert made a desperate attempt to snatch it away. “ ‘I hope this letter finds you well.’ She worried about you, ay?” He shimmied around the pole, dancing away from Gilbert, cackling. “ ‘I can imagine being on a ship is ever so thrilling. I often wonder where you are now -’ oooooh, no Blythe, you don’t get to take this from me now! ‘-and if you’re having many exciting seafaring adventures. I hope so.’ She fancy you a pirate, eh, Blythe?” he crowed, wiggling his eyebrows.

Gilbert made a last resort lunge for the paper and secured it, stuffing it behind his back and safely away from Bash, blushing furiously. “She doesn’t fancy me anything!”

“This is the girl who whacked you over the head?” Bash asked, laughing when Gilbert nodded. “The one you’re in love with?”

“I’m not in love with her -”

“Ooooh, yes you are, Blythe!” Bash took on a serious air. “Well, I’ll miss your wet fowl shirkin’ everywhere, Blythe, and it’s been nice workin’ with you -”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Gilbert said, knowing that if there was gold it’d still be there when he came back.

Bash stopped dancing and glared at him. “Blythe, if you tell me that the girl of your dreams just -”

“She’s not!”

“Yes, she is! You tell me the girl you’ve been prattlin’ on about since day one just wrote to you and told you there’s gold under your land, and you’re not even thinking about going back?” Bash sounded genuinely incredulous.

“Okay, two things,” Gilbert said sternly, holding up two fingers, ignoring the rapid beat of his heart. “One: the gold, if there is any, will still be there no matter when I decide to go back. Two: Anne is a friend. I care about her, but she has never and will never see me that way.”

“Blythe,” Bash sighed, flopping back into his hammock, “you are a lovesick moke.”

***

Gilbert sat in his hammock, feeling limp and nauseous. The babash he’d swallowed earlier had long since left his system (as Bash had delighted in reminding him), but the aftereffects still lingered.

Or, that was what he’d told Bash, because there was no way he was admitting that the thought of Anne’s letter was turning his stomach in somersaults, even if Bash had teased him mercilessly about not being able to hold his liquor.

He breathed slowly, willing his heart to stop racing. Anne had written to him about the gold. She wasn’t writing just because she felt like it. She would have done the same for any of her friends.

They were still docked in Trinidad, so the trimmers were given a break from their coal-shoveling shifts. There were still the other chores though; among them was latrine duty, which Bash had been lucky enough to have been chosen for.

Gilbert took advantage of the rare moment where he could think of Anne and not be called out for having what Bash called a ‘lovesick moke smile’ sitting dreamily on his lips. Even if she’d only written to him about the gold, he reasoned, she was still expecting a reply, wasn’t she? Friends answered friends’ letters. He’d thought they’d left on good terms after their meeting in Charlottetown, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch, was it?

He sighed, resigning himself to his fate of never being able to banish Anne from his thoughts, and pulled out a journal he’d brought, the only source of paper he’d had for nine long months.

Dear Anne…

***

The belly of the S.S. Primrose was sweltering. Sweat ran down Gilbert’s arms and back, making streaks in the coal dust on his face. He thought back to the scene in the marketplace earlier that day, where he’d delivered a baby…a breech baby, no less, and likely saved both Ruth and her child’s lives. He’d experienced firsthand how medical knowledge could save people now, and whenever he thought of returning to Avonlea and picking up a plow again, he felt hollow inside.

He strained to lift the wheelbarrow, dumping the coal into the furnace as the overseer called out, “Whoa! Come on, change, boys! Switch it up!”

Gilbert made his way over to the drinking barrel along with Bash.

“Wouldn’t mind having one of those,” Bash said, and Gilbert knew he was referring to Ruth’s child. “A struggling, wailing lil’ fella. Throw the ball with. Bouff when he backchats.”

Gilbert imagined three or four tiny Sebastians running around a field somewhere and grinned. “I could see that for you.”

“Got no way to raise ‘em up right,” Bash sighed. “You need land for that.” He dunked his arms in the washing barrel and wiped his face. “What kind of strange child were you anyway, Blythe? Needing to know about your own breech birth.”

Gilbert lifted the dipper to his mouth and drank, remembering with burning guilt what his father had told him years before. “I didn’t want to know about my birth. I wanted to know about my mother. So I asked my father…” He grimaced, rubbing his neck. “She died, giving birth to me.”

Bash blanched. “Sorry…my brain is slow.”

“It’s all right,” Gilbert assured him, shaking his head. “Didn’t want Ruth to know that part.”

Bash nodded, understanding, and Gilbert remembered the surge of joy that had enveloped him when he’d handed Ruth her smiling, squirming daughter. It had made him forget his own troubles, and to help aid in that joy…well, he didn’t want to do anything else.

“I don’t want to be a farmer,” he said, feeling more and more confident in his choice as he spoke the words aloud.

Bash looked up. “You said that before. Now you’re sure?”

Gilbert nodded.

Bash grinned and said jauntily, “Guess there’s other things callin’ out to you, eh, Doc?”

He and Gilbert both laughed as they made their way back to their hammocks. “Bash,” Gilbert said hesitantly, “I need to finish school if I want a medical license.”

Bash sighed dramatically. “Now you’re leavin’. Well, if there’s any more Haul Away Joe to be sung I guess we’ll have to find someone else -”

“I want you to come with me,” Gilbert interrupted. Seeing the look on Bash’s face, he continued hastily, “to come and live with me in Avonlea. I can’t work the farm and go to school and become a doctor, so you could come with me, and I’ll teach you how to run the orchard, if you want, and you’ll have land -” here Gilbert grinned cheekily, “-so you can raise tiny Sebastians, and we could be business partners, maybe. I would teach you how to tend the land, and it won’t be easy, but you could come live with me on PEI… You’re my brother,” he finished honestly. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

He scrambled backwards, startled, as Bash leaped out of his hammock and vaulted over to him. He grabbed Gilbert by the shoulders and looked down at him, dead serious. “This is your last chance, Blythe,” he said. “Last chance to tell you’re bluffing before I toss you in the Atlantic.”

Gilbert shook his head, smiling. “I’m not bluffing.”

Bash whooped with joy and began dancing around the barracks as Gilbert laughed. “I’m gettin’ off the Primrose, I’m gettin’ off the Primrose… Wait,” he said, stopping his hip-wiggling and looking with fear over at Gilbert. “How much snow is there in Canada?”

And with that Gilbert broke down, roaring with laughter.

***

Gilbert stood at the railing of the S.S. Primrose, looking out over the ocean. The sun was just setting, and the clouds glowed golden in the sunset, slowly fading out to white and then gray as the steamer chugged on, heading westwards towards the setting sun.

Towards Canada. Towards Avonlea.

Towards Anne, his heart whispered.

Shut up, his head whispered back.

Gilbert couldn’t deny that she was a part of the reason he was returning; he’d been toying with the idea ever since he’d received her letter, but the encounter with Ruth gave him the other reasons he needed to leave the steamer.

Even though he was excited about going back to school and seeing Anne again, he still felt as if he’d swallowed an entire glass of rum when he thought of returning to his big, empty house, with the run-down orchard that needed tending and the barn that would need repairs and… his father’s… his father’s grave.

He felt tears prick his eyes as he finally acknowledged something he’d spent a good ten months running from.

His father was dead. Gone. Nothing he could do would change that, no matter how long he went without seeing the gravestone or how many times he heard his father’s voice in his head.

He hadn’t been sure he could live in the cold, empty house all by himself, but now he had a brother in Bash, he was going to become a doctor, and he didn’t have to forsake his own dreams for the sake of the land the Blythes had sat on for the last century.

He felt the churning in his gut ease up, just a little bit, at that thought. The sea glimmered like a promise as he heard footsteps come up behind him.

“What of you?” Bash asked, coming to rest on the rail beside him. “I like our change of plans, Doc. Canada… excited to go.”

“You’re daring, coming to this level of the deck,” Gilbert intersected, not wanting to spill all the thoughts that had been running through his head the past few minutes. “If the fireman hears about you coming up here, you can expect trouble.”

“I can live down trouble,” Bash said, and Gilbert laughed. “I want to see where I’m headed for once. Feel the wind on my face. Avonlea ahead of me. Ten years on this ship humpin’ coal. I earned this. Besides,” he added jokingly, “what they going to do? Sack me? Toss me overboard? Worst case scenario, I get the latrine.”

Gilbert chuckled, seeing just how different Bash’s viewpoint on trouble was now that he knew he had a place to go. “If my choices were that or latrine duty,” he teased, “I might take my chances with the Atlantic.”

Bash grinned. “Choices. I like that word.” He paused, contemplative. “Things are going to change startin’ right now.”

“Yeah,” Gilbert mused, thinking of the opportunities they had now that they didn’t have to face the world without a family anymore.

***

When Bash didn’t show up for his shift the next day, Gilbert knew he’d been caught by the fireman and given latrine duty. He didn’t want to spend any more time shoveling coal alone, so during a lull in the roaring of the furnaces, he began to sing Haul Away Joe.

“Oh when I was a little boy, my mother often told m-”

“Blythe!” the fireman bellowed. “No singing! Latrine! Now!”

Gilbert nodded meekly, trying to conceal the grin on his face, and made his way down to the latrines. He smelled them before he saw them. Bash’s shovel scraped on the floor as the putrid smell of human waste wafted over his nose.

“Oh! Ugh!” he complained as he stepped into the room. The odor was overpowering.

Bash chuckled. “Boy, what you doing here?”

“Fireman sure hates my singing,” Gilbert responded, trying to school his face into one of picture-perfect innocence.

“You got yourself in trouble so you could come help me?” Bash laughed, setting down his shovel.

Gilbert dug in his pocket for the vial of thyme he’d bought in the market and sneaked down with the boilers. “Here, hurry. Put some of this under your nose, it’ll help the smell.”

Bash jauntily waved his dirty hands in front of Gilbert’s face, covered in some foul substance Gilbert didn’t care to identify.

“Allow me,” he said, dipping his pinky in it and rubbing just underneath Bash’s nose. “One of our neighbors back home is a pig farmer,” he explained, doing the same for himself.

“Thyme,” Bash guessed, sniffing. “Trindadian bush medicine? Nice trick, Doc.”

Gilbert nodded, thankful he could no longer smell the refuse through the aroma of thyme. “Self-preservation,” he joked.

“We have a saying,” Bash said, tying his cloth back around his face and picking up his shovel again. “This plant don’t ask to grow. Thyme’s hardy, yeah? Doesn’t need minding. Grows where other plants cannot. Hopefully like me, in Avonlea.”

“Two more days,” Gilbert said, picking up his shovel and regarding the mess before him with a disgusted wrinkle around his mouth. “Still worth it?”

“Get to work,” Bash ordered playfully.

“Ugh.” Gilbert stepped up and surveyed the mess behind the latrines.

Two more days, he thought. He just had to make it through two more days.

***

Gilbert leaned against the railing of the Primrose for the last time. They would arrive in Charlottetown the next morning; Gilbert could just barely see the Prince Edward Island coastline silhouetted against the setting sun.

If you had told him a month ago he’d be a single night away from Charlottetown and ready to go back to Avonlea and restart his life there, he would have laughed in your face. He’d spent a long ten months running from the memories of Avonlea and of his father, seeing the world, and while he didn’t regret it, now that he knew the path he wanted his life to take he was eager to get started.

Also, he’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t excited to see Anne again. He hadn’t been able to go a single day without thinking of her aboard the Primrose, and while it was exasperating, it was also comforting to remember the breath of fresh air he’d felt Anne had brought to Avonlea the first time he’d seen her. She was brave, exciting, and new; she was different from the rest of the people in Avonlea in the best possible way.

Nothing she said was the same as anything she’d said before, and there was something about her bright blue eyes and freckled face and fiery red hair that was a different sort of beautiful than the other girls in Avonlea. She shone differently than the other girls. Gilbert didn’t know how else to describe the way she’d followed him here out onto this vast sea.

Before he’d left, he chalked up his feelings for Anne to a desire to get to know the cute new girl; then after the meeting in Charlottetown where for days afterwards he hadn’t been able to escape her soulful blue eyes, he’d admitted he might have a crush on her. But now, standing at the railing on a steamship coming home partly because of her, not having been able to go a day without wondering about her, Gilbert had a feeling it wasn’t a simple crush.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he felt for Anne, but he would be her friend and try to become someone she could trust, because whenever he pictured a life she wasn’t in, it was always a very dull life indeed.

He gazed past the horizon to Prince Edward Island. It felt like a string attached to his chest was pulling him gently in the direction of Avonlea, and he knew why.

I'm coming home.