Anne with an E The Next Chapter

New Terrain

Ruby woke from an unsettling dream in a sweat and feeling scared. She vaguely remembered bits of it. She saw herself at a church service, the image fuzzy and distorted, like watching the scene through a wet glass pane. Ruby was sitting in a pew and looked disheveled and was wearing a nightgown. People in the church were sneering at her and she was holding something in her arms tightly but she couldn't see it. Next she was walking outside and saw a small girl of about 3 crying and looking scared. Ruby went to her and tried to lift her in her arms, but the child weighed heavily and Ruby struggled to lift her... like she was trying to lift a large heavy object. As she held the child she looked around frantically for her mother but she couldn't be found. Next Ruby was staring in a mirror. She looked at her scalp and found multiple eggs in her hair. When she pushed on them, live lice crawled out from the eggs. As one left the egg, she saw it jump off her head and grow into a large animal form and walk away.

Ruby sat up and breathed out heavily feeling sick from the dream. She tried to recover from the disorienting feeling of falling asleep in the day in a strange house. Where was she? Gilbert's cottage. She wiped the sweat from her brow and layed back down steadying her breathing and trying not to let the nausea take over. She wiped tears that were pooling in her eyes as she surveyed the real life nightmare she had to deal with. The more she thought about it, the more despair she felt. Knowing that Moody was not in favor of her going to St-Andrew's scared her. He wasn't the type to be critical or judgemental and hearing him speak of the mission terrified her. She couldn't imagine having to go there. On the other hand, the idea of watching Bash and Muriel raise her baby, though he or she would be raised in a loving home, Ruby wondered how she could endure watching her child grow nearby and not be able to raise him or her. She felt the flutter again and was amazed that a child, her baby, was growing and moving in there. She had wanted this... she'd pictured throwing a ball with a little boy at the big house with the circular porch. She'd imagined combing and braiding a little girl's  hair and kissing her goodnight in the little room with the floral wallpaper. She'd picture those babies in her mind and now she had one and and was talking about giving it away. She turned to her side and tried hard not to let the tears, new tears, overwhelm her.

A few weeks ago she was crying over a heartache for James, last week she was crying about her own possibly impending death, and today she was crying over a new life. What would she say to her family? She was so tired of playing the pretend game, of trying to hide her feelings from everyone. It seemed the only person she could really open up to was Moody. He listened - with a compassion she didn't deserve- and she was hurting him again and again. She felt the weight of her errors on her shoulders and part of her wanted to run as far from Avonlea as she could and take her mistakes with her. Couldn't she start somewhere new, even with a child. Maybe she could say the father had died... maybe some new place would accept that. Maybe she could go to Toronto with Gilbert and get a job at the university... but who would take care of her baby? The more she thought about her options, the less she knew what to do. She pictured herself, very pregnant and walking, fully clothed, into a river... her and her baby just floating away until the good Lord took them... certainly God would accept them together..would he not? The image of it shattered her heart and she cried a sea of tears into her arm. The pain of being trapped with another human inside of her was devastating but the idea of the human being taken away was even more painful.. Ruby was more confused than she'd ever been.

She took more deep breaths and and she started to count to 8 and back down to one in her head. When her body calmed Ruby started to feel hungry and decided she needed to get up and make her body move despite her despair. She walked down to the quiet and peaceful little kitchen and started the tea. She buttered a piece of heavy molasses bread and sat down by the window and ate peacefully. When the tea was ready she made herself a cup and sat by the back room to look out at the lake. There she could see the only two boys she ever really knew and loved, Gilbert and Moody, and she felt fortunate to have their friendship. As she finished up, she tidied the kitchen and dressed in her coat, shoes and hat. It was time to go home and do some thinking. She loved her friends but she needed to do this alone.