Chapter Text
Her digits slid gently down the stone wall, as Cordelia leant against her elbow at the edge of her windowsill. Her gaze wandered to the bustling streets below her tower, the buzz of the marketplace eliciting an enticing soundscape, filled with the booming voices of shopkeepers, the squeals of young children and occasional neighing of horses, drawing a few carriages through the main roads. She audibly sighed, absent-mindedly tracing her index finger along the cracks between the stones, where tiny patches of moss had crept through the tight spaces.
She couldn’t help but imagine what life was like out there. Years locked away in security by her family had given her a sheltered life, it was true, but for as long as she could remember, everything she had longed for existed beyond the confines of the palace walls. The freedom to make her own bosom friends, to learn more about the world, to experience all of the wonderful destinations that she had heard of in her stories, to find her one true love-
“Large almond milk latte for Ann?”
Anne snapped her head up in the direction of the dull question of the clearly uninterested barista by the front counter. She quickly closed her notebook, clipping her pen to the outside of the front cover and pushing herself away from the wooden bench she had perched herself against while waiting for her order. It was that position that had somehow sparked her creative process, imagining Princess Cordelia gazing longingly out onto the slowly crowding marketplace, and longing for a life of adventure beyond what she had always known.
She supposed that she often imagined herself in the place of Cordelia while she had been drafting this particular novel – porcelain skin and deep, raven locks aside. Though, there was little room for mystical adventures in the life of a twenty-first century, would-be author, so Anne settled for those she imagined inside of her stories instead.
As she grabbed the cup from the barista behind the counter, she offered a polite smile and a quick thanks, which he promptly decided to ignore, moving back to his station by the coffee machine. Unsurprising. Anne had always prided herself on her uncanny ability to successfully read people, which led her to mainly using observation as her source of writing inspiration in the past. Glancing at the cup, she immediately flared her nostrils at the sight of the name printed on top of the lid. It was clearly intended to be her name, and she couldn’t fault the guy for trying, but good lord, how uncommon was “Anne”? Emphasis on the E!
Rolling her eyes and moving past her pouty mood, she quickly relocated herself to her usual table, in the corner of the room, against one of the large, glass windows. She sat on the booth side, allowing herself to lean against the cushioned back and relax herself a little.
She couldn’t fault herself for being stressed out at the moment, all agitation from the avoidable, and concerningly recurrent misspelling of her name aside. When Diana’s great aunt, Josephine Barry, contacted her a month ago, she had no idea what kind of emotional distress she would be undertaking. It was an absolutely divine coincidence that her dearest bosom friend’s relative was the head of one of the most respected publishing companies in Canada, and just so happened to have recently relocated her offices to Charlottetown – the very city wherein Diana and Anne had attended college. After years of pestering, and insisting that it “wouldn’t be favouritism, since you already write so well”, Diana had finally broken her, successfully convincing her to send in draft synopsis for her latest story idea, with a first chapter draft also included.
“The Tragical Musings of Princess Cordelia” was a story that Anne had been planning for years. Most of her stories had leaned into the genre of the period novel. That had included stories set in rural PEI on the cusp of the 20th century, feminist re-imaginings of historical narratives, and her latest endeavour, medieval coming of age novels.
Her email from Ms. Barry had sent her into an absolute tizzy, and she was, quite frankly, surprised that she hadn’t outright screamed in the middle of the park when she read the content of the notification on her phone. But of course, it wasn’t that simple. After a few meetings with the woman – who had turned out to be much warmer towards Anne than she had expected of such a notoriously harsh writing critic and businesswoman – they had established that a final draft of the novel would be sent to test audiences within the next 6 months, since Anne had already mapped out so much of the entire text.
But that was the trouble. That was the thing keeping her up all hours of the night that past month – she didn’t have it completely mapped out. Sure, she had planned out her protagonist’s journey towards self-discovery, her entire adventure throughout the land, and all of her various experiences that would make her the person she was meant to be by the end of the novel. But that was the easiest part, in Anne’s opinion. Since she tended to base Cordelia on herself, it made it simple for Anne to imagine the life she would have wanted were she in the position of the young princess.
The trouble was, she had lied.
During one of the first meetings, one of Josephine’s male counterparts had implied that her romantic subplot had also been established. Panicking, and expecting that this was a must-have for many of the other employees at the meeting, who nodded subtly in thought, urging her to answer, she had blurted out an affirmation, that “Yes! Cordelia’s love interest will also be playing an important role in her coming of age, later on in the story! Of course!” Thankfully, they had accepted her lie that she “hadn’t come up with a suitable name for the character yet”, so didn’t press much more into the details of that love interest. But she knew that it wouldn’t be long until they started asking more specific questions. And either way, now she actually needed to incorporate a romantic sub-plot into her already planned out story.
That wouldn’t have been so bad for Anne if it were any other kind of sub-plot. But a romantic sub-plot? She had never found the right words to describe a “fairytale romance” – or any kind of romance, for that matter. While Anne had found all the love she really desired in life, with her found family in Matthew and Marilla, back at Green Gables, and her dear friends, she had yet to experience a “tragical romance” of her own. She had, personally, never seen the point of it, and had always employed her trusty excuse of being “far too busy for any kind of romance, Marilla”. But right now, she wished that she had just, for once, let herself be distracted at some point throughout all these years. Maybe that way, she could have the slightest bit of personal experience to reflect and write on, instead of being stuck in this endless, suffocating loop of writer’s block.
She realised that she had been zoned out for a few minutes at this point, and her coffee had gone a little cooler in her hands, a change from the borderline scolding temperature she was used to holding. So, she quickly took a large gulp, and opened up her notebook once more, tapping her pen rapidly against the surface of the paper. She wished that she could go on with her last paragraph, since that would be the easiest thing for her to do, but she knew that she couldn’t keep putting off the inevitable. At some point, she would have to actually write in a love interest for her character.
So, instead, she flipped to a new page, folding the corner of her previous page to remind herself of it later. With a blank canvas before her, she went to write, attempting to let the most romantic depths of her soul flow onto the page…
Nothing.
How?! Even though she had ever experienced an actual romance, Anne had always considered herself to be a romantic thinker, if that made any sense at all. She remembered daydreaming in class as a child about a handsome, mysterious stranger, sweeping her off her feet with a myriad of literary quotes and declarations of everlasting love. But as she grew, and saw no potential prospects of this nature, she had soon brushed off the possibility of that kind of future. She guessed that, in that time, she must have completely lost her ‘romantic inclinations’, as Marilla had liked to call them, back in the day.
Even trying to remember the image of that handsome stranger left Anne with nothing. She could never put a particular attribute to him, since it seemed that she could only ever imagine some words here and there. He was always some kind of shadow, or a face you would see in a dream – no discernible features, or anything you could particularly remember about him. He was just there. He had existed at one point, to her imagination at least. But now, he was just gone.
Groaning internally, she started doing the writing exercise she had been taught in her first year at college – she began writing down every single word that came into her head, barely paying attention to the words she was writing, and instead, opening her ears to the sounds she heard around her. Surely, something would inspire her. After all, her observational skills had never let her down before. Why start now?
“Excuse me, miss? Is there a Wifi password I could use, by any chance?”
Her head jerked in the direction of the loudest voice in the room, her mind automatically fixing her focus onto the first detectable object it could latch itself onto. A young man, sitting at his own table near the entrance, laptop open and coffee cup steaming, leaned towards one of the baristas behind him, as she handed him a small piece of paper. Anne thought nothing much of the situation at first, the back of the boys head only giving her insight to a few of his unruly black curls atop his head, but neglecting to give her any glimpse of the boy’s face. He nodded in reply, thanking her and taking the paper, before turning back around to face his laptop, and unintentionally, to face Anne.
Now, Anne would be the first to admit that she knew very little about the objective standards of male beauty, aside from the obvious; “great body”, “nice eyes”, “killer smile”. But, in that moment, Anne had to acknowledge an indisputable fact – this guy, whoever he was, was objectively gorgeous. The unruly curls she had noticed before only multiplied from the front of head, one or two of them hanging over the edge of his forehead, brushing the edge of his dark, thick eyebrows, which seemed to be having a conversation of their own as he typed away viciously at his keyboard. His jawline was sharp, his eyes – hazel? It was very difficult to tell from that distance – were a perfect almond shape, and his arms, stretched out over the table to type, were well and truly toned. She could also see a hint of his tanned skin, as the sleeves of his sweater were cuffed slightly below his wrist, offering only a sliver for imaginations sake.
Anne had been staring. She knew she had been staring. But for some reason, it was extremely difficult for her to look away. Thankfully, she wasn’t being too conspicuous in her observation, so he hadn’t looked up from whatever he was working on, leaving her free to continue picking out smaller details. Details like, how he had slowly started chewing on his bottom lip, sucking it under his teeth gently, how his typing was particularly loud, due to his heavy and rapid hand on the keys, and the unconscious tapping of his left foot beneath the table.
Cordelia couldn’t help but notice the way that he nervously chewed his bottom lip, anticipating something she didn’t think she was quite aware of yet. His steady hand reached out across the table, fingers tentatively grazing the skin of her knuckle, as her folded hands gradually stretched out, flipping over to encase his fingers between her own. They felt rough, but somehow, still so comforting in their reassurance. His large hands, that she had seen so often while hard at work, were now at rest in the peaceful embrace of her palm against his –
Her hand stopped moving.
Wait.
Anne became vaguely aware of her ceasing pen movements and shot her eyes back down to the page, only to come face to face with writing, with coherent sentences. Not only that, but it was quite possibly the most romantic scenario that Anne had concocted for as long as she could remember.
Just above the paragraph, Anne saw the various words scattered across the top few lines of the page.
Sweater laptop messy curls eyebrows tell a thousand stories chiseled jawline skin was tinted and sunkissed kind eyes nervous habit foot tapping aggressive hands
Okay. That was a little much. Looking at those words after she had broken out of her trance-like state had well and truly broken the spell. This was beyond weird. She was used to writing about other people and their stories, but she had never written about someone in such physical detail before, and certainly not in such a suggestive or romantic manner.
She shut the book in alarm. This was something to address later. But her coffee had started getting cold, and the clock had somehow passed twenty minutes since she had first sat down. She had planned to meet Diana before they went out for dinner tonight, but if she didn’t get going now, she wouldn’t have time to clean the apartment before Diana dropped by for pre-dinner drinks.
Downing the rest of her coffee in as minimal sips as possible, Anne stuffed her notebook haphazardly into her handbag, sliding herself out from behind the table and making a dash for the door. She pretends to ignore the young man, as he glances up at her passing figure, before she’s out the door and walking back to the apartment. Writing could wait until she was much tipsier.
Anne flopped down onto her bed, giggles from the night out fading slowly as the quiet of the apartment finally set in. Diana had eagerly brought a bottle of red wine before dinner, as expected, and the girls had enjoyed a few glasses more than was considered proper, before heading out to their favourite Italian place to fill themselves with as many carbs as humanely possible. A few hours later, and Anne was full to the brim and fit to burst, both with joy and with linguini.
As the last of the wine had yet to wear off, Anne thought that perhaps she should write down some more of her introductory scene that she had started earlier that day, while the alcohol was still circulating through her system and fuelling her courage. But as she sat there, motionless aside from her darting eyes and fidgeting hands, she found that couldn’t even remember what she had been writing about.
In fact, she couldn’t remember much from that afternoon. Nothing beyond some blurry images. Black, thick curls, aggressive typing, pinched eyebrows, a knit red sweater. It took her a few moments to register that these were all snapshots of the boy she saw at the café, who was, somehow, still haunting her. It wasn’t like she was actually attracted to him. She had literally never spoken to him before.
It was clearly her drunk brain trying to associate the first guy she could think of to her story. It was just her desperate attempt to claw at any semblance of a love interest she could find. The sooner she found another guy to observe, he would be completely out of her head, and she would never have to think about him again.
But the more she tried to imagine other qualities about a guy, like blonde hair, a tall stature, deep blue eyes, anything, the more she kept falling back into the trap. Now, all she could picture was this complete stranger from the café walking around a bustling marketplace, and politely inquiring about the various goods.
She supposed, if she was really not going to be able to get him out of her head, she may as well make the most of it. Get it out of her system. Yeah.
She rolled over onto her side, to balance precariously on the edge of the bed and reach down to the floor, grabbing her handbag from that afternoon and rustling through it. But it was strangely barren, aside from her wallet, keys and phone. Then she registered a memory of putting it into the side pocket, sighing in relief as she narrowly avoided an absolute disaster.
She slid her hand inside the side compartment and froze. Her fingers grasped at empty spaces, the edge of the bag’s inner fabric brushing her fingertips, taunting her. She sobered up relatively quickly after that.
Bolting upright, Anne began rustling through the bag, this time actually looking inside, in case she was somehow missing something. But, to no avail. Her notebook, the one thing she used to write all of her initial ideas for the story, was nowhere to be found.
Shit.
Oh my god.
Shit!
Anne flew back to the pillows behind her head, groaning and placing her hands over her eyes. There was no way this was happening. This couldn’t be happening.
Of course, this was happening. Something was always bound to go wrong. She knew this was all too good to be true. Now Ms. Barry would find out that she had no new ideas at the next meeting, figure out she was a complete amateur and had no idea what she was doing, and kick her off the project before finding another replacement. She never deserved this opportunity, anyway-
Ding.
The light of her phone screen lit up inside her bag, drawing her eye back down to the tussled handbag beside her bed. Choosing to quickly read the message, probably from Diana, so that she could get back to her self-pitying and wallowing, she grabbed her phone and turned it on to the lock screen. Immediately, she saw the new notification.
(unknown number): Anne Shirley Cuthbert?
Okay, so it definitely wasn’t Diana. The unknown number piqued her curiosity, distracting her for a moment longer, long enough to respond.
(sent): Yes? Can I help you?
An immediate response, as the phone continued to sound off multiple times.
(unknown number): I have your notebook
(unknown number): assume you want it back?
(unknown number): seems important
Oh. My. God. Her life was saved. She could have squealed out loud, if she weren’t still filled with questions about this mystery saviour.
(sent): Oh my god thank you so much, I thought I had lost it!
(unknown number): no problem, can I get this back to you somehow
(sent): We can meet up tomorrow if you’re free, I just kind of really need that back asap
(unknown number): I found it at the café on Peters Avenue could we meet up there? Since we clearly both know it
(sent): That sounds perfect, could we meet in the morning maybe?
(unknown number): anytime past 10 works for me
(sent): Cool I’ll see you then, thanks again :)
(unknown number): no problem, see you then.
(unknown number): also quick question
(unknown number): what’s up w you and messy curls?