The winter air was cold and sharp, but Meg didn’t even notice as she carried her precious bounty of letters to the park. Back at the Conservatory, the girls were talking over last night’s Christmas party, and she wouldn’t have been able to read a single word in peace. She could have gone to the library, she supposed, but something in her rejoiced to be outdoors and free.

She had five beautiful letters that had come in the mail yesterday, and been forced to hold over until after the party—one each from Matt, Polly, Peter, Jocelyn, and Will. That latter correspondent might have had something to do with her decision to avoid the library: if Hawk found her reading a letter from Will, he would have been terribly jealous, and they might have quarreled.

Meg repressed a sigh. Despite her determination to act more mature, she was still mired in a slough of indecision regarding Hawk. She had hinted—gently—a month or so ago that perhaps she wasn’t being quite fair in asking him to keep their relationship casual, when he obviously wanted more, but he grew so distressed at the thought of ending things that she didn’t have the heart to pursue it. He kept assuring her that he didn’t mind waiting for her to feel for him as he did for her—but Meg was starting to think more and more that that was not going to happen.

Convincing Hawk of that, however, was another matter.

Dropping onto a deserted park bench, Meg dismissed Hawk from her mind to savor her mail. She started with Matt’s letter, a short screed telling about how they were all keeping over the winter. Miranda’s baby, a scrawny two-month-old with lungs of iron, screamed so loudly at night that Matt and Shirley had taken Roger and Daniel in to Green Gables so they could get some sleep. They’d offered to find room for Avery and Sel, too, but those two youngsters refused to leave Auntie Di and Uncle Patrick.

It may be uncharitable, Matt wrote bluntly, but I wish Miranda would go back to England. She just brings everyone down all the time, and her baby is a nightmare.

Meg smiled. Trust Matt to ignore common convention and not insist on calling a baby “sweet” just because it was a baby!

They were all looking forward to having her home for Christmas, he added at the end, and he especially wished she didn’t have to go back.

It’s swell having Roger and Dan around—like two younger brothers—but they’re no substitute for you. A hundred times a day I find myself wanting to tell you something, but by the time I sit down to write it’s gone. Pop is proud of you for sticking with your education, but I wish you’d just chuck it and come home. Suppose that’s selfish, but there you have it.

Meg smiled wistfully. It would be easier to go home, certainly … but she had made a commitment to school, and she was not going to go back on it now.

Finishing Matt’s letter, she turned to Polly’s. Her training was complete and she would be going out into the field soon. Most VADs, she wrote, worked in convalescent homes or on hospital ships, but she had requested to go to a field hospital, where she would work as a ward maid.

Cleaning bedpans and sweeping up after “real” nurses isn’t very glamorous, but I’m not here for glamour; I’m here to give my best. Besides, every desperately wounded soldier I can help, even if it’s just by keeping his room clean, will make me feel a little closer to Pierre. He and I still write almost every day, and he hasn’t said that he loves me, but it breathes in every line of his letters. I haven’t told him I love him, either, but I keep telling myself I must. If he—if anything happens to him, I want him to know how I feel.

Lily, she went on to say, was assigned to Jocelyn’s rest home at Reed Hall. Polly suspected Jocelyn of pulling strings, and she could have stayed there too, if she wanted, but she chose not to.

Meg set Polly’s letter on top of Matt’s and opened Peter’s.

Christmas is coming, fawn. I know it’s only the beginning of December, but Jocelyn and I are already planning how we can help make this a happy Christmas for all the poor chaps here. I know I won’t be here much longer—I think I could leave now, but Jocelyn insists I’m not fully healed yet. I don’t like to argue with her—she always wins!—and I’m ashamed to say that I’m enjoying my break from combat enough to seize any excuse to prolong it.

One bit of good news—Freddie has managed to get a bit of leave just in time for Christmas, and he’ll be coming home to spend it with Leah, Jack, and Godwin. Of course we’ll see him here, even if he and Jocelyn are no longer engaged. I can’t understand why she ended things with him—she won’t tell me, and even less can I understand why I’m so happy about it. I must be a truly wretched fellow if I can be so secretly happy at my best chum’s heartbreak. Though to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if Freddie really is heartbroken over Jocelyn’s change of mind. He never spoke of her as though he loved her—but then, I don’t see how he could not love her, either.

Lily started working here this week, and she’s a spot of joy to everyone here. Even the nurses like her, and they never like the volunteers! Lily is so sweet, though, and so uniformly good-natured, that everyone likes her. It’s hard to describe her without making her sound sickly, isn’t it? And yet she’s not—she’s just Lily. Do you remember, when we were kids, how we all used to say that Lily was destined for greatness, that she would never spend her entire life in a tiny Canadian village? Seeing her here now, I’m reminded of that, and convinced anew. Our Lily has something special awaiting her.

Bran wrote to me last week. He’s still leading a charmed life, the rascal. Nothing seems to ever touch him! He told me not to worry about getting back into combat shape—he was doing enough work for the both of us.

It’s almost enough to make me rush right back to my squadron and demand a plane again!

Meg chuckled, and Peter’s letter joined the “read” pile. Jocelyn’s was much the same as his, telling about how much she enjoyed having Lily, and all the work she was going to making Peter rest enough to fully recover. She, of course, made no mention of Freddie, and Meg wondered how long it would be before she and Peter finally admitted they cared for each other. Not until Peter had seen Freddie for himself and knew that Freddie was not, in fact, breaking his heart over Jocelyn, she suspected. Peter was too much a gentleman to step into his friend’s shoes.

Just as Meg set Jocelyn’s letter aside and started to open Will’s, she heard an uncertain voice.

“Meggie?”

She looked up. Standing before her was a young soldier in uniform. She blinked. She knew this man—knew his grey eyes and square jaw, knew that slightly belligerent stance …

“Johnny?”

It looked like her cousin, but what was he doing here in Toronto … and in an army uniform?

He grinned at her, and Meg saw that it was, indeed, Johnny. “Here I thought I’d have to sneak into your fancy music school to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” Meg was still stunned. “Johnny, what—how—I don’t understand.”

He sat down next to her. “I joined up,” he said simply.

“But you’re not even seventeen,” she said helplessly.

He shrugged. “I’m close enough. I turn seventeen next month, and that’s only a year away from eighteen. Besides, I’ve been living on my own for over three years. I just told them I was eighteen, and they didn’t ask too many questions.”

He certainly looked eighteen, but Meg still couldn’t quite believe it. “But—your family, Johnny, what about Auntie Nan? She was prepared to see Blythe off this summer; she won’t have dreamed that you will have joined, too.”

“Mother won’t care so much about me,” Johnny said roughly. “After all, I haven’t seen or talked to her since I left home. You don’t even have to tell her, if you don’t want. I just wanted you to know—wanted someone to know, in case I didn’t make it. I didn’t join up under my real name, see? I didn’t want too many questions asked. I told them my name was John West—a play on Grandmother Meredith’s maiden name, as well as a nod to where I’ve lived in recent years. So if I don’t survive, there’ll be no one to know I even joined up, except you.”

“Oh, Johnny,” Meg said, tears filling her eyes. “Why?”

“Because it’s my duty,” he said, fumbling for a handkerchief to give her. “Because I can’t sit around kicking my heels when there’s a job to be done. Because I’ve always been a fighter, and this is the best fight I’ll ever see.”

Meg dabbed at her eyes. “Won’t you at least call Auntie Nan and tell her yourself? I’ll have to tell her, Johnny, you know I will, and she’d much rather hear it from you.”

For a moment, he looked tempted, but then the shutters closed down over his face again and he shook his head. “Nope. I made my break from the family long ago. I don’t owe them anything, and they don’t owe me anything.”

“Will you write to me, at least?” Meg said, accepting his words sadly. The hurt in Johnny’s soul went far deeper than anyone had ever realized. “Just a line once in a while, so I know you’re all right?”

Johnny nodded. “Sure.” He leaned over and gave her a hug. “I’ll miss you, Meggie. I’ve always wished you were my sister, and Matty my brother. Tell him goodbye for me, will you?”

Meg nodded, a chill striking her heart. Johnny, only a few months older than she and Matt—even though he lied about his age to get in, it brought home the very real possibility that Matt would be leaving soon enough, too.

“I love you, Johnny,” she said, hugging him back. “I’ll pray every day that God brings you home safely.” She tried to hand him back the handkerchief, but he laughed, the hard lines in his face softening to the point where she could almost see the younger Johnny, helping Matt build a model airplane in Green Gables’ kitchen.

“Keep it,” he said. “I won’t have much use for a hanky where I’m going. It’ll be a reminder to you to keep up those prayers for me—I’ll need them.” He stood up. “I’ve got to go, Meggie. We’re leaving for training camp tonight—I don’t know when we’ll be heading overseas, but I’ll let you know.”

“Be safe,” was all Meg could say, still stunned by this unexpected turn of events.

Johnny made as if to walk away, hesitated, then wrapped his arms around her in another bear hug.

“Love you, Meggie,” he muttered in her ear, then released her and walked away quickly, never once looking back. Meg watched him go through a veil of tears.

When he finally vanished into the dusk, she wiped her eyes and looked down at Will’s letter. Somehow, she just didn’t have the heart to read it now.

“Meggie, who was that?”

Meg groaned internally. She automatically slipped Will’s letter into her handbag, pasting a small smile on her face as she turned to greet Hawk.

“That,” she said with a slight wobble in her voice, “was my cousin.”

Hawk’s face was set in a ferocious scowl. “I thought all your military cousins were overseas.”

Meg was still emotional from Johnny’s appearance and departure, and she answered more sharply than usual. “Do you think I’m lying to you?”

Hawk folded his arms across his chest. “All I can say is what I saw—you embracing a soldier in the middle of a public square.”

His tone implied she had done something dreadfully wrong, and Meg’s seldom-seen temper flared to life. She gathered her belongings, tucked Johnny’s handkerchief into her skirt pocket, and glared at Hawk. “If you will excuse me, Graham,” she said icily. “I’d like to be alone right now.”

“Why?” Hawk said, his voice shaking. “Do you have another appointment with a soldier?”

“I don’t believe that is any of your business,” Meg said. She brushed past him, but he grabbed her arm.

“Meggie, wait.” He alone of all her friends at school had refused to start calling her Meg. She was Meggie, he insisted, and that could never change.

“Why?” she said, wrenching her arm free. “So you can insult me some more? I don’t think so, thank you very much!”

His face was crimson with emotion. “I just want an explanation, that’s all. Is that too much to ask?”

“I told you the truth when you first asked, and if you choose not to accept that I see no reason to offer you anything else!”

“No reason? When you and I are a serious couple, yet you let yourself be held by another man—a soldier at that—and you see no reason to give me a better explanation?”

“Would you have preferred it if he had been a civilian?” Meg asked sarcastically.

Hawk flinched. “Throw my pacifism into my face, why don’t you?” he asked bitterly. “Is that it? Are you tired of being with someone who has principles against killing, so you sneak behind my back to romance a soldier?”

For a moment, Meg wanted to slap him, but she restrained herself with an effort. “I see no purpose in continuing this conversation,” she said slowly, willing her temper back under control. “We will only both of us say things we will later regret.”

She spun on her heel and hurried down the street, ignoring his plea for her to come back. She was so angry and hurt she didn’t even notice the hushed voices all around as she entered the Conservatory, or the distant sobbing in the background. It wasn’t until she stormed into her room to confront three pale, frightened faces, that she realized something dreadful had happened.

“What is it?” she asked, all thoughts of Johnny, Hawk, and the fight flying from her mind.

Rose, her dainty face swollen and blotched with tears, merely shook her head wordlessly. Connie, for once, was speechless, and it was Samantha who answered.

“We just heard over the radio. Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, was bombed today.”

“Bombed?” Meg whispered.

“By the Japanese, so the reports say,” Samantha said. She looked over at Rose, the lone Yankee in their group. “They say there’s no doubt now that the States are in this war.”

Meg rushed over to put her arms around her forlorn friend. “Oh, Rosy,” she murmured in sympathy.

“At least … now … we’re all in this together,” Rose said brokenly.

Connie and Samantha joined their hug. “No question about that,” Connie said. “We’re all in this war now.”