The Wonder(21)

“For the little ones,” said Kitty, half smiling as if marvelling at the Englishwoman’s ignorance. “Otherwise wouldn’t they take offence and cause a ruction?”

“You expect me to believe that this milk is for the fairies?”

Rosaleen O’Donnell folded her big-boned arms. “Believe what you like or believe nothing, ma’am. Putting out the drop of milk does no harm, at least.”

Lib’s mind raced. Both maid and mistress just might be credulous enough for this to be the reason why the milk was under the dresser, but that didn’t mean Anna O’Donnell hadn’t been sipping from the fairies’ dish every night for four months.

Kitty bent to open the dresser. “Get out with ye, now. Isn’t the grass full of slugs?” She hustled the chickens towards the door with her skirts.

The bedroom door opened and the nun looked out. Her usual whisper: “Is anything the matter?”

“Not at all,” said Lib, unwilling to explain her suspicions. “How was the night?”

“Peaceful, thank God.”

Presumably meaning that Sister Michael hadn’t caught the child eating yet. But how hard had she tried, given her trust in God’s mysterious ways? Was the nun going to be any help to Lib at all, or only a hindrance?

Mrs. O’Donnell swung the iron crock off the fire now. Broom in hand, Kitty flicked the hens’ greenish dirt out of the dresser.

The nun had disappeared into the bedroom again, leaving the door ajar.

Lib was just untying her cloak when Malachy O’Donnell stepped in from the farmyard with an armful of turf. “Mrs. Wright.”

“Mr. O’Donnell.”

He dumped the sods by the fire, then turned to go out again.

She remembered to ask: “Might there be a platform scales hereabouts on which I could weigh Anna?”

“Ah, I’m afraid there would not.”

“Then how do you weigh your livestock?”

He scratched his purplish nose. “By eye, I suppose.”

A child-size voice in the room within.

“Is it herself up already?” asked the father, face lighting.

Mrs. O’Donnell cut past him and went in to their daughter just as Sister Michael stepped out with her satchel.

Lib moved to follow the mother, but the father held up his hand. “You had, ah, another question.”

“Did I?” She should have been by the child’s side already to prevent a moment’s gap between one nurse’s shift and the next. But she found it impossible to walk away in the middle of a conversation.

“About the walls, Kitty said you were after asking.”

“The walls, yes.”

“There do be some, some dung in there, with the mud. And heather and hair for grip,” said Malachy O’Donnell.

“Hair, really?” Lib’s eyes slid towards the bedroom. Could this apparently ingenuous fellow be a decoy? Might his wife have scooped something out of the cooking pot in her hands before she rushed in to greet her daughter?

“And blood, and a drop of buttermilk,” he added.

Lib stared at him. Blood and buttermilk—as if poured out on some primitive altar.

When she finally got into the bedroom, she found Rosaleen O’Donnell sitting on the little bed, and Anna on her knees beside her mother. There’d been enough time for the child to have gulped down a couple of griddle cakes. Lib cursed herself for the politeness that had kept her chitchatting with the farmer. And cursed the nun, too, for slipping away so fast; considering that Lib had sat through the entire Rosary yesterday evening, couldn’t Sister Michael have stayed a minute longer this morning? Although they weren’t supposed to share their views of the girl, surely the nun should have given Lib—the more experienced nurse—a report on any pertinent facts of the night shift.

Anna’s voice sounded low but clear, not as if she’d just bolted food. “My love is mine, and I am his, in me he dwells, in him I live.”

That sounded like poetry, but knowing this child it was Scripture.

The mother wasn’t praying, just nodding along, like an admirer in the balcony.

“Mrs. O’Donnell,” said Lib.

Rosaleen O’Donnell put her finger to her dry lips.

“You mustn’t be here,” said Lib.

Rosaleen O’Donnell’s head tilted to one side. “Sure can’t I say good morning to Anna?”

Face closed like a bud, the child gave no sign of hearing anything.

“Not like this.” Lib spelled it out: “Not without one of the nurses present. You mustn’t rush into her room ahead of us or have access to her furnishings.”

The Irishwoman reared up. “Isn’t any mother eager for a little prayer with her own sweet child?”

“You may certainly greet her night and morning. This is for your own good, yours and Mr. O’Donnell’s,” Lib added, to soften it. “You wish to prove you’re innocent of any sleight of hand, don’t you?”

For answer, Rosaleen O’Donnell sniffed. “Breakfast will be at nine,” she threw over her shoulder as she left.

That was still almost four hours away. Lib felt quite hollow. Farms had their routines, she supposed. But she should have asked the Ryan girl for something at the spirit grocery this morning, a crust in her hand, even.