The Wonder(59)

Anna made a small marvelling sound.

Lib was hard-pressed not to grab the nun by the elbow and yank her out of the room. What kind of story was this to tell Anna?

“He carried it back and put it on the old woman’s tongue, and the curse was broken, and she was released from her pain.”

The child fumbled the sign of the cross. “Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her, may she rest in peace.”

Released from her pain meant she’d died, Lib realized. Only in Ireland would this count as a happy ending.

Anna blinked up at her. “Good evening, Mrs. Lib. I didn’t see you there.”

“Good evening, Anna.”

Sister Michael stood up and gathered her things. She came over and murmured in Lib’s ear, “Highly excited all afternoon, singing one hymn after another.”

“And you thought such a lurid tale would calm her?”

The nun’s face closed up inside its frame of linen. “I don’t think you understand our stories, ma’am.”

That was fighting talk for Sister Michael. And the nun glided from the room before Lib could say what she’d been waiting to say all afternoon: that in her view—she couldn’t mention Byrne, obviously—Anna was in real danger.

She busied herself arranging the lamp, the can of burning fluid, the wick scissors, the water glass, the blankets, everything ready for the night. She got out her memorandum book and lifted Anna’s wrist. A delightful dying child. “How are you feeling?”

“Quite content, Mrs. Lib.”

Anna’s eyes were sunken, Lib could see now, engulfed by the swollen tissue. “But in your body, I mean.”

“Floating,” said the girl after a long moment.

Dizziness? wrote Lib. “Anything else troubling you?”

“The floating doesn’t trouble me.”

“Is there anything else that’s different today, then?” Metallic pencil ready.

Anna leaned forward as if confiding a great secret. “Like bells, far off.”

Ringing in ears, Lib wrote.

Pulse: 104 beats per minute.

Lungs: 21 respirations per minute.

The girl’s movements were definitely slower, Lib saw, now that she was looking for evidence; her hands and feet a little colder and bluer than a week ago. But her heart was going faster, like the wings of a small bird. The blood was hectic in Anna’s cheeks tonight. Her skin was as rough as a nutmeg grater in places. She smelled a little sour, and Lib would have liked to give her a sponge bath, but she feared to chill her even more.

“I adore thee, O most precious cross…” Anna whispered the Dorothy prayer, staring up at the ceiling.

Lib suddenly lost patience. “Why recite that one so very often?” Expecting Anna to tell her again that it was private.

“Thirty-three.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Just thirty-three times a day,” said Anna.

Lib’s mind reeled. That was more than once an hour, but allowing for sleep, that meant more than twice in every waking hour. What would Byrne ask if he were here; how would he unravel the story? “Was it Mr. Thaddeus who said you had to do that?”

Anna shook her head. “That’s how old he was.”

It took a moment for Lib to understand. “Christ?”

A nod. “When he died and was resurrected.”

“But why must you say that particular prayer thirty-three times a day?”

“To get Pat out of—” She broke off.

In the open door, Mrs. O’Donnell stood, holding out her arms.

“Good night, Mammy,” said the girl.

That stony face; Lib could feel the woman’s grief from here. Or was it fury at being denied as small a thing as an embrace? Didn’t a child owe the mother who’d borne her that much?

Rosaleen turned away and thumped the door shut behind her.

Yes, fury, Lib decided; not only against the girl who was keeping her mother at arm’s length but against the nurse who was witnessing it.

It occurred to her that Anna might—without even being conscious of it—be trying to make the woman suffer. Fasting against a mother who’d turned her into a sort of fairground attraction.

Through the wall, the call and moaning response of the Rosary went up. Anna hadn’t asked to take part in it tonight, Lib noticed; another sign that her strength was beginning to drain away.

The child curled up on her side now. Why did people say sleep like a baby to mean someone slumbering peacefully? Lib wondered. Babies often sprawled like broken things or wound themselves into balls as if to go back in time and return to the long oblivion from which they’d been dragged.

She tucked the blankets around Anna and added a fourth, because the girl was still shivering. She stood and waited till Anna dropped off to sleep and the chanting from next door came to an end.

“Mrs. Wright.” Sister Michael again, in the doorway.

“Still here?” asked Lib, relieved to get another chance to talk to her.

“I stayed for the Rosary. Might I—”

“Come in, come in.” This time Lib would explain everything clearly enough to win over the nun.

Sister Michael shut the door carefully. “The legend,” she said under her breath, “the old story I was telling Anna.”