The Wonder(18)

Could she be right? How interesting, in a gruesome way. It seemed the child had some capacity for science.

When Anna stood up, she wobbled and drew in a deep breath.

Light-headed? Unused to exercise, Lib wondered, or weak from underfeeding? Just because the fast was a hoax of some sort didn’t mean that Anna had been getting all the nourishment a growing girl needed; those bony shoulder blades suggested otherwise. “Perhaps we should turn back.”

Anna didn’t object. Was she tired or just obedient?

When they got to the cabin, Kitty was in the bedroom. Lib was about to challenge her, but the slavey stooped for the chamber pot—perhaps to give herself an excuse for being there. “You’ll have a bowl of stirabout now, missus?”

“Very well,” said Lib.

When Kitty brought it in, Lib saw that stirabout meant porridge. She realized that this was probably her dinner. A quarter past four—country hours.

“Take some salt,” said Kitty.

Lib shook her head at the pot with its little spoon.

“Go on,” said Kitty, “it keeps the little ones off.”

Lib looked askance at the maid. Was she referring to flies?

As soon as Kitty had left the room, Anna spoke up in a whisper. “She means the little people.”

Lib didn’t understand.

Anna formed dancers out of her plump hands.

“Fairies?” Incredulous.

The child made a face. “They don’t like to be called that.” But then she smiled again, as if she and Lib both knew there were no tiny beings floundering around in the porridge.

The oatmeal wasn’t half bad; it had been boiled in milk rather than water. Lib had trouble swallowing it in front of the child; she felt like some uncouth peasant stuffing herself in the presence of a fine lady. This is only a smallholder’s daughter, Lib reminded herself, and a cheat to boot.

Anna busied herself darning a torn petticoat. She didn’t ogle Lib’s dinner, nor did she avert her gaze as if struggling with temptation. She just kept on forming her neat little stitches. Even if the girl had eaten something last night, Lib thought, she had to be hungry now, after at least seven hours under the nurse’s scrutiny, during which Anna had taken in nothing but three teaspoons of water. How could she bear to sit in a room fragrant with warm porridge?

Lib scraped the bowl clean, partly so that the remains wouldn’t be sitting there between the two of them. She was missing baker’s bread already.

Rosaleen O’Donnell came in a while later to show off the new photograph. “Mr. Reilly’s kindly made us a present of this copy.”

The image was astonishingly sharp, though the tints were all wrong; the grey dress had bleached to the white of a nightdress, while the plaid shawl was pitch-black. The girl in the picture was looking sideways, towards the unseen nurse, with a ghost of a smile.

Anna glanced at the photograph as if only for politeness’s sake.

“Such a smart case too,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, stroking the moulded tin.

This was not an educated woman, Lib thought. Could someone who took such na?ve pleasure in a cheap case really be responsible for an elaborate conspiracy? Perhaps—Lib glimpsed Anna out of the corner of her eye—the studious little pet was the only guilty party. After all, until the watch had begun this morning, it would have been easy for the child to snatch all the food she wanted without her family’s knowledge.

“It’ll go on the mantel beside poor Pat,” added Rosaleen O’Donnell, admiring the picture at arm’s length.

Was the O’Donnell boy in distressed circumstances now, overseas? Or perhaps his parents had no idea how he was; sometimes emigrants were never heard from again.

When the mother had gone back into the kitchen, Lib stared out at the grass left flattened by Reilly’s wagon wheels. Then she turned, and her eye fell on Anna’s awful boots. It occurred to Lib that Rosaleen O’Donnell might have said poor Pat because he was a natural; simpleminded. That would explain the boy’s curious lolling posture in the photograph. But in that case, how could the O’Donnells have brought themselves to ship the unfortunate abroad? Either way, a subject better not raised with his little sister.

For hours on end, Anna sorted her holy cards. Played with them, really; the tender movements, dreamy air, and occasional murmurings reminded Lib of other girls with their dolls.

She read up on the effects of damp in the small volume she always carried in her bag. (Notes on Nursing, a gift from its author.) At half past eight she suggested it might be time for Anna to get ready for bed.

The girl crossed herself and changed into her nightdress, eyes down as she did the buttons at the front and wrists. She folded her clothes and laid them on the dresser. She didn’t use the pot, so there was still nothing for Lib to measure. A girl of wax instead of flesh.

When Anna undid her bun and combed her hair, masses of dark strands came out on the teeth. That troubled Lib. For a child to be losing her hair like a woman past the prime… She’s doing this to herself, Lib reminded herself. It’s all part of an elaborate trick she’s playing on the world.

Anna made the sign of the cross again as she got into bed. She sat up against the bolster, reading her Psalms.

Lib stayed by the window, watching orange streaks scrape the western sky. Was there any tiny cache of crumbs she could have missed? Tonight was when the girl would seize her chance; tonight, when the nun would be here in place of Lib. Were Sister Michael’s ageing eyes sharp enough? Her wits?