1. Homecoming (1/2)

chapter i

julia una blythe, excited just like a little girl, jumped on the train from toronto to her hometwon, glen st. mary. she was eventually coming back home.

it was the most wonderful day for a journey; the sun was shining, letting go of its warmth towards the earth, making it feel almost like summer but still remaining in the stillness of spring.

julia eventually finished her course for a qualified nurse and a midwife which she had been doing for almost a year and a half. she worked so very hard and finished it earlier than anyone else. she was so excited about coming back and seeing her whole big and loud family, that she couldn't just look out of the window for the whole journey, watching fields and trees which always fascinated her but not when she had other more important things to think about.

instead, she took her family photo-album out of her suitcase and started looking at the pictures inside it. she giggled when she saw the first picture. there they were, dr james blythe kissing his newly-wed wife, faith, in front of their house which was commonly known as the house on the hill.

julia remembered well the old pictures of her parents and thought that they still looked as if they were twenty and indeed they even remained twenty on their insides as well.

the next picture represented her and her siblings just a year before, in 1938, with mother and father looking at their

ood with contended, full of pride eyes.

there were her older

others, walt and merry. oh, walt had such a handsome face! there was no girl in glen st. mary who could resist his golden-

own curly hair, his square jaw and hazel eyes full of poetry and music. and, oh, yes, there was merry who was simply… merry and constantly jolly. he always looked funny with a smirk crossing his face and red curls falling on his forehead while tap dancing.

then it was julia herself, dancing with walt. julia sighed when she saw herself. she never considered herself pretty and certainly not beautiful. but she really was. she was the prettiest of her family just after her cousin and dearest friend, rose meredith. julia was a perfect mix of jem and faith blythe. her long wavy dark-red hair, golden-

own eyes with a perfect anne shirley's nose and full red lips, made every boy turn his head whenever they saw julia on the street or in the shop.

but that wasn't the only beauty she possesed. for it wasn't her looks that most entirely represented her; it was her soul and her gentle heart which were so different from anyone belonging to her family. gentle, yet strong and independent, sometimes quite too independent, as her mother would say, was her heart, and her soul was just as wild as the wind, with a scent of loyalty and hopefulness.

"oh, darling cee!" julia said to herself and chuckled. there was a little nine-year-old cecilia elizabeth blythe, shy and polite little sister of julia's. she was a real darling and always reminded faith of her sister una when she was her age. cee, wasn't as pretty as her sister was in her age, but her long auburn hair, deep dimples in her cheeks and incredible kindness in her hazel-eyes made everyone's hearts melt whenever she smiled or laughed.

the next picture gave julia a huge dose of delight and warmth for her heart. for it was the picture with her whole family together, two years earlier at her own fifteenth birthday party.

there was, of course, grandmother blythe, always smiling and never aging, with her head lying on her husband's proud shoulder and holding julia's hand.

aunt rilla with uncle ken and their grown up children with the oldest gil, who was the very image of his father, who just finished his dance course at the toronto college; the unpredictable sixteen-year-old leslie whose face was covered in frecles which made her grandmother apologise to her every single time she looked at her granddaughter's face; the youngest owen, always reading something and watching everyone else from the distance, with his red curls covering his grey-eyes; and eventually there was blythe.

blythe… grandmother blythe could never resist anything he ever wanted becase he looked and behaved exactly like uncle walter once did, with his black curly hair and fair grey eyes filled up with millions of new ideas for his new poems.

could this rumour be true? julia questioned was he really in love with me? no… it's just some silly mistake and a family gossip that simply doesn't count.

but yes, blythe was deeply and helplessly in love with julia ever since she left a soft kiss on his cheek, on that very day from the picture she was holding in her hands. on that day, blythe left the body of a boy and stepped into a body of a man, for he knew what he wanted the most in this world. and he promised himself that he will do everything to have julia una blythe always by his side, making her happy until the end of days.

julia shook her head and looked at other members of her family. una and shirley blythe's three girls; cilia, shirley's spirit in one person; young and beautiful like a moon at its eclipse, luna rosemary who was the very image of her mother; and eventually cee's little pal called nancy.

there was aunt nan with her husband jerry meredith and their children: best friend of walt and merry; jake, always playing his favourite violin, being an incredible copy of his father, and julia's very own anna rosemary called by everyone 'rose' for she really was just like a blossoming rose at the beginning of june with inherited beauty from her mother.

there were dear aunt di and uncle carl meredith and their

ood: cordelia and tom, the sweetest of their family, six year old twins.

eventually, dear grandmother and grandfather meredith, holding each other's hands and looking in each others eyes with love and affection which always gave julia thrills and some small but still meaningful hopes for her own future.

julia smiled at the photograph because it was one of her favourites. she loved her family to bits and it was almost impossible for her to imagine how her grandmother blythe survived the orphanage being without any family of her own!

sometimes her cousins called julia 'bathsheba' or simply 'sheba'. she always adored that name ever since she read "far from the madding crowd". anyone who knew julia and read the book, knew that bathsheba and julia were one soul in two different bodies from two different worlds of reality and literature.

for the next couple of hours, julia looked through the whole album and seemed as if she was lost in her own old world, the world of the past. she suddenly awoke from her daydream when the conductor shouted: "the next station: glen st. mary!"

as soon as julia stepped out of the train, she heard the voices she knew, the voices she was longing to hear for a very long time.

"julia! my darling girl!" faith cried when julia ran straight into her mother's opened arms.

"oh, mum! i've missed you just as much as one can miss the moon if the moon could disappear!" julia exclaimed when a sweet flowerish smell of her mother's hair reached her nose.

"oh, it's so good to have you back, sweet-pie!" father said and kissed his daughter three times on each cheek.

as soon as julia saw her

others standing beside her father, she gasped and reached for her suitcase, opening it with hungry movements.

"happy birthday, you old

others o'mine!" she said in a sweet tone and gave walt and merry a package each.

walter got the biggest poetry book that julia could possibly find in the toronto li