The Wonder (27 page)

If said thirty-three times fasting.

“Anna.” She bent and touched the girl's cheek. “Anna!”

She blinked up at Lib.

“Your prayer,
I adore thee, O most precious cross.
Is that why you won't eat?”

Anna's smile was the oddest thing: joyful, with a dark edge.

At last,
thought Lib,
at last.
But there was no satisfaction in it, only a heavy grief.

“Did he tell you?” asked Anna.

“Who?”

Anna pointed at the ceiling.

“No,” said Lib, “I guessed it.”

“When we guess,” said the girl, “that's God telling us things.”

“You're trying to get your brother into heaven.”

Anna nodded with a child's certainty. “If I say the prayer, fasting, thirty-three times every day—”

“Anna,” Lib wailed. “To say it fasting—I'm sure that means skipping only
one
meal on
one
Friday to save three souls, or thirty-three if it's Good Friday.” Why was she granting these absurd figures credence by repeating them like something from a clerk's ledger? “The book never says to stop eating entirely.”

“Souls need a lot of cleaning.” Anna's eyes glistened. “Nothing's impossible to God, though, so I won't give up, I'll just keep saying the prayer and begging him to fetch Pat into heaven.”

“But your fasting—”

“That's to make amends.” She strained for breath.

“I've never heard of such a ludicrous and horrible bargain,” Lib told her.

“Our Heavenly Father doesn't make bargains,” said Anna reprovingly. “He hasn't promised me anything. But maybe he'll have mercy on Pat. And on me too, even,” she added. “Then Pat and I can be together again. Sister and brother.”

There was a weird plausibility to the scheme, a sort of dream logic that would make sense to an eleven-year-old. “Live first,” Lib urged her. “Pat will wait.”

“He's waited nine months already, burning.” Cheeks still chalk-dry, Anna let out a sob.

Had the child not enough liquid left to make tears anymore? Lib wondered. “Think how your father and mother would miss you” was all she could say. Had Rosaleen O'Donnell had any idea where it would lead when she began the awful game of make-believe?

Anna's face twisted. “They'll know Pat and I are safe above.” She corrected herself: “If 'tis God's will.”

“In the wet ground, that's where you'll be,” said Lib, her heel thumping the packed-earth floor.

“That's only the body,” said the girl with a hint of scorn. “The soul just—” She wriggled.

“What? What does it do?”

“Drops the body, like an old coat.”

It occurred to Lib that she was the only one in the world who knew for sure that this child meant to die. It was like a leaden cape on Lib's shoulders.

“Your body—every body is a marvel. A wonder of creation.” She fumbled for the right words; this was a foreign language. No use speaking of pleasure or happiness to this tiny zealot, only duty. What was it Byrne had said? “The day you first opened your eyes, Anna, God asked just one thing: that you live.”

Anna looked back at her.

“I've seen infants born dead. Others who've suffered for weeks or months before they've given up the fight,” said Lib, her voice cracking despite herself, “and no rhyme or reason to it.”

“His plan,” wheezed Anna.

“Very well, then; it must also be his plan for you to survive.” Lib pictured the wide famine grave in the churchyard. “Hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions of your compatriots died when you were a tiny child. That means it's your sacred task to keep going. To keep breathing, to eat like the rest of us, to do the daily work of living.”

She could see only the tiniest shift of the child's jaw, saying no, always no.

A vast weariness took hold of Lib. She drank half a glass of water, sat down, and stared into space.

At eight that evening, when Malachy O'Donnell came in to say good night, Anna was fast asleep. He hovered, patches of sweat under his arms.

With a great effort, Lib roused herself. As he moved towards the door, she seized her chance. “I must tell you, Mr. O'Donnell,” she whispered, “your daughter doesn't have long.”

Terror glinted in his eyes. “The doctor said—”

“He's wrong. Her heart's racing, her temperature's dropping, and her lungs are filling up with fluid.”

“The creature!” He stared down at the small body outlined by the blankets.

It was on the tip of Lib's tongue now to blurt out the whole story of the manna. But it was a grave thing to come between man and wife, and risky, because how could Malachy possibly take the Englishwoman's word against Rosaleen's? If Kitty had been outraged by Lib's accusation against her mistress, wouldn't Malachy be also? After all, Lib had no hard evidence. She couldn't bring herself to wake Anna and try to force her to repeat the story to her father, and besides, she very much doubted she'd succeed.

No. What mattered was not the truth, but Anna. Stick to what Malachy could see for himself, now Lib had ripped the veil off. Tell him just enough to wake the protective father in him. “Anna means to die,” she said, “in hopes of getting your son out of purgatory.”

“What?” Wildly.

“As a sort of exchange,” said Lib. Was she rendering it right, this nightmarish story? “A sacrifice.”

“God save us,” muttered Malachy.

“When she wakes, won't you tell her she's wrong?”

His big hand was covering his face. His words were muffled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sure there's no telling Anna.”

“Don't be absurd. She's a child,” Lib pointed out. “Your child.”

“She has twice my wits and more,” said Malachy. “I don't know where we got her.”

“Well, you're going to lose her if you don't act fast. Be firm with her. Be her father.”

“Only her earthly one,” said Malachy, mournful. “He's the only one she'll hear,” he said, jerking his head towards the sky.

The nun was in the doorway; nine o'clock. “Good evening, Mrs. Wright.”

Malachy hurried out, leaving Lib baffled. These people!

Only when she was putting on her cape did she remember the wretched meeting. “I mean to address the committee tonight,” she reminded Sister Michael.

A nod. The nun hadn't brought any substitute with her to the cabin, Lib realized, which meant she was adamant in her refusal to come to the meeting.

“A pot of boiling water for steam might ease Anna's breathing,” said Lib on her way out.

She waited in her upstairs room, belly clenched. It was not just nerves at the thought of barging into a meeting of her employers but an awful ambivalence. If Lib persuaded the committee that the purpose of the watch had been accomplished—told them all about the manna hoax—then they might very well discharge Lib on the spot, with their thanks. In which case, she doubted she'd even get a chance to say good-bye to Anna before setting off for England. (She pictured the hospital and somehow couldn't imagine taking up her old life there again.)

The personal loss was irrelevant, Lib told herself; every nurse had to bid farewell to every patient, one way or another. But what about Anna; who'd look after her then, and would anyone or anything persuade her to give up her doomed fast? Lib was aware of the irony: she hadn't enticed the girl to eat so much as a crumb yet, but she was convinced that she was the only one who could. Was she arrogant to the point of delusion?

To do nothing was the deadliest sin;
that was what Byrne had said about his reports on the famine.

Lib checked her watch. A quarter past ten; the committee should be gathered by now, even if the Irish were always late. Standing up, she neatened her grey uniform and smoothened down her hair.

Behind the grocery shop, she waited outside the meeting room until she recognized some of the voices: the doctor's and the priest's. Then she tapped at the door.

No answer. Perhaps they hadn't heard her. Was that a woman's voice? Had Sister Michael managed to come to the meeting after all?

When Lib let herself in, the first person she saw was Rosaleen O'Donnell. Their eyes locked. Malachy, behind his wife. Both of them looked shaken at the sight of the nurse.

Lib bit her lip; she hadn't expected the parents to be here.

A short, long-nosed man in old brocade was in the big chair with a carved back, presiding over a table improvised from three trestles. Sir Otway Blackett, she guessed; a retired officer, from his bearing. She recognized the
Irish Times
on the table; were they discussing Byrne's piece?

“And this is?” inquired Sir Otway.

“The English nurse, come without being asked,” said big John Flynn in the next chair along.

“This is a private meeting, Mrs. Wright,” said Dr. McBrearty.

Mr. Ryan—her host—jerked his head at Lib as if to say she should go back upstairs.

The one stranger to her was a greasy-haired man who had to be O'Flaherty, the schoolteacher. Lib looked from face to face, refusing to be cowed. She'd begin on firm ground with what was charted in her memorandum book. “Gentlemen, excuse me. I thought you should hear the very latest news of Anna O'Donnell's health.”

“What
news?
” scoffed Rosaleen O'Donnell. “Sure I left her sleeping peacefully not half an hour ago.”

“I've already given my report, Mrs. Wright,” said Dr. McBrearty scoldingly.

She turned on him. “Have you told the committee that Anna's so swollen up with dropsy, she can no longer walk? She's faint and freezing, and her teeth are falling out.” Lib flipped through her notes, not because she needed them but to show that all this was a matter of record. “Her pulse is higher every hour, and her lungs crackle because she's beginning to drown from within. Her skin's covered in crusts and bruises, and her hair comes out in handfuls like an old—”

Belatedly she noticed that Sir Otway was holding up one palm to stop her. “We take your point, ma'am.”

“I've always said the whole thing's a nonsense.” It was Ryan the publican who broke the silence. “Come on, now—who can live without food?”

If the man really had been so sceptical from the start, Lib would have liked to ask, why had he agreed to help sponsor this watch?

John Flynn turned to him. “Hold your tongue.”

“I'm a member of this committee, as good as you.”

“Surely we need not stoop to squabbling,” said the priest.

“Mr. Thaddeus,” said Lib, taking a step towards him, “why haven't you told Anna to end her fast?”

“I believe you've heard me do so,” said the priest.

“The gentlest of suggestions! I've discovered that she's starving herself in the demented hope of saving her brother's soul.” She looked from one man to another to make sure they registered this. “Apparently with the blessing of her parents.” Lib flung an arm towards the O'Donnells.

Rosaleen burst out: “You ignorant heretic!”

Oh, the pleasure of finally speaking her mind. Lib turned on Mr. Thaddeus. “You represent Rome in this village, so why don't you command Anna to eat?”

The man bristled. “The relationship between priest and parishioner is a holy one, ma'am, that you're in no way qualified to understand.”

“If Anna won't listen to you, can't you call in a bishop?”

His eyes bulged. “I won't—mustn't—entangle my superiors or the Church as a whole in this case.”

“What do you mean,
entangle
?” demanded Flynn. “Won't it be to the Church's glory when Anna's proved to be living by spiritual means only? Couldn't this little girl be Ireland's first saint canonized since the thirteenth century?”

Mr. Thaddeus's hands sprang up in front of him like a fence. “That process has not even begun. Only after extensive testimony has been gathered and all other possible explanations have been ruled out may she send a delegation of commissioners to investigate whether an individual's holiness has worked a miracle. Until then, in the absence of any proof, she must be scrupulous to keep her distance.”

She;
that meant the Church, Lib realized. She'd never heard the genial priest speak so coldly, as if reading from a manual.
Absence
of any proof
. Was he hinting to the whole group that the O'Donnells' claims were spurious? Perhaps Lib had at least one backer among these men. For all that he was a family friend, she remembered, it was Mr. Thaddeus who'd pressed the committee to fund a thorough investigation. The priest's plump features twitched, as if he knew he'd said too much.

John Flynn was leaning forward, red-faced, pointing at him. “You're not fit to do up her little shoe!”

Big boot,
Lib corrected him; Anna's feet had long ago swelled too much for anything but her dead brother's boots. To these men the girl was a symbol; she had no body anymore.

Lib had to take advantage of this moment of crisis. “I have something else to report, gentlemen, something of a grave and urgent nature, which I hope excuses my coming here uninvited.” She didn't look in Rosaleen O'Donnell's direction, in case the woman's hawkish stare made Lib lose her nerve. “I have discovered by what means the child has been—”

A creak; the door of the room flapped open, then almost shut again, as if admitting a ghost. Then a black shape appeared in the gap, and Sister Michael backed in, pulling the wheeled chair with her.

Lib was speechless. She'd urged the nun to come. But with Anna?

The tiny girl lay askew in the baronet's chair, bundled up in blankets. Her head lay at an odd angle but her eyes were open. “Daddy,” she murmured. “Mammy. Mrs. Lib. Mr. Thaddeus.”

Malachy O'Donnell's cheeks were wet.