Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(28)

He watches the Annes down by the shore. He hasn’t sorted the latest batch yet, hasn’t determined whether she is among them, the one he’s been waiting for. At the moment, they’re all Anne, because they all have the potential to be. An eternal optimist, he is.

Laughter drifts to him on a salt breeze. The Annes dart into the surf, holding their skirts up, but getting their hems wet nonetheless. Their bare feet turn red with the sand and they plunge their hands into the waves, as if anything good to eat remains since the Change. They won’t find anything. Not that they really try. Not like the Dianas, who are off gathering lupins by the armful. At least parts of the lupin are edible, and might help them survive another year. The Annes are all full of hope, when they stop to think, which these ones rarely do. Mostly the Annes splash each other and laugh. Mostly they push each other into the surf, one pretending to be indignant, one pretending to scold, one pretending to drown.

It’s all a game with the Annes, it always is, but not enough of a game. Not yet. The right level of imagination hasn’t yet been displayed, and he hasn’t yet found The One. She hasn’t returned, but one day, she will.

He sighs. Soon, it will be time to call the Annes home. Gather them back to the house where they will all do the best they can, cooking what greens and weeds the Dianas have scavenged, adding it to whatever the Gilberts have managed to hunt. They’ll light candles – they have those still – and when they run out, they’ll burn driftwood, filling the house with the scent of old salt and the faint odour of ruin, washed in on the tide.

From the dunes and the long grasses gone wild above the red sand he waves. “Time to come home now, girls, I guess.”

He doesn’t wait to see if they’ll follow, but trudges back toward the house. His breath is shorter these days. It’s harder to wade through the long grass no one tends. He doesn’t need to call the Dianas or the Gilberts; he trusts them to find their way back. Besides – they don’t matter as much anyway.

It’s the Annes. Always the Annes.

When he finds her, the Anne, the right Anne, he can rest.

She’ll come again. He knows she will. She always has before.

The orphanage called it a mistake, but he knows. She was meant to be in his life. She saved him before, and she will again. Even though this time the story has turned out wrong. He’s lived longer than he should. He remembers too much.

(Hold on. It’s okay, hold on, we’ll get you help. It’s… Of course there are still ambulances, there have to be. What do you think we pay taxes for? Just… just hold on. Not for me. That little girl needs us. What will she do if you go?)

He climbs the stairs, his old bones aching. How did he ever manage to live this long? Salt breeze is in his veins, red soil replacing his blood. It leaves him stiff. Every day it’s harder.

His heart is bad the doctors say. Or said, before everything Changed. And now? He hasn’t seen a doctor in years. He hasn’t seen anyone but the Gilberts and the Dianas and the Annes. The occasional Miss Stacy, doing her best to hold onto the knowledge of the old world. Sometimes a Josie, trying to turn every situation to her advantage. And every now and then an Allan, alone or in pairs, preaching the word of the lost God and declaring the difference between Now and Then to be God’s judgment for the world’s sins.

He doesn’t believe a word, not from any of them. The only important thing is finding her, his Anne.

Below, in the kitchen and the parlour, in the much abused rooms never meant to be a functional holdout against the end of the world, he hears a riot of movement and voices. Annes and Dianas and Gilberts colliding, bickering about the best way to cook the day’s salvage on the tiny stove meant for tourist-show, not every day work.

Everything they cook on it now smells of the rotten tide anyway. Or the mouldering furniture salvaged from neighbouring houses, fallen to ruin while they mysteriously remain. Or the trees, gone sickly, gone dark and wrong and riddled with beetles and worms, but still good enough for burning when nothing else remains.

He fingers The Book, one of only a few remaining copies. The rest have disappeared, lost to age, or perhaps resentful Annes setting out on their own, taking a remnant of his heart as a souvenir. Or perhaps it’s the Dianas, ever practical, burning them for fuel. He’s certain he’s seen words in the ashes, fragments holy enough to weep over, to gather in time-gnarled hands and press to his wrinkled cheeks.

This copy is foxed, the pages worn and water-stained. Mould has begun to creep in, and there are chunks of text missing. He fills the gaps with memory. For instance: Marilla was always the practical one, the sensible one. Why did she have to leave him? He was never supposed to outlive her. What will he do without her?

( Hang on. You have to hang on. Just a little longer. And of course he knew she wasn’t really his sister, but it was easier when he had to keep her talking, trying to keep her awake just a little bit longer, waiting for the ambulance that wouldn’t come. It was easier, fighting the Sickness, to tell her shared stories of a childhood that never was. Remember when…? And when he ran out of those stories: when his imagination failed, there were stories any and every book he could call to mind. He told them over and over again. As long as he could. Until the memories ran out. Until his voice grew hoarse. Until the words were too thick with tears.)

He runs his thumb over the pages, taking comfort in the rustle of ivory turning to old bone. It doesn’t matter that they’re not all there. The important ones are – the ice cream, the raspberry cordial, the Lady of Shallot, the puffed sleeves. And most importantly, Anne holding him in her arms as he dies.