The Wonder(71)

“I don’t know why she’s doing this,” admitted Lib, “except that it has something to do with missing her brother.”

He frowned in puzzlement. “Have you told the nun about the manna yet?”

“There was no opportunity this morning.”

“What about McBrearty?”

“I’ve told no one but you.”

Byrne looked at Lib in a way that made her wish she hadn’t blurted that out. “Well. I say you should share your discovery with the whole committee tonight.”

“Tonight?” she echoed, confused.

“Haven’t you and Sister been called in? At ten o’clock, they’re gathering in the back room here”—he jerked his head towards the peeling wallpaper—“at the doctor’s behest.”

Perhaps McBrearty had taken in something of what Lib had told him yesterday after all. “No,” she said, sardonic, “we’re only the nurses, why would they want to hear from us?” She leaned her chin on her knotted hands. “Perhaps if I went to him now and told him about the manna trick—”

Byrne shook his head. “Better to march into the meeting and announce to the whole committee that you’ve succeeded in the task for which they hired you.”

Success? It felt more like a hopeless failure. “But how will that help Anna?”

His hands flailed. “Once the watch is over, she’ll have room—time—out of the public eye. A chance to change her mind.”

“She’s not keeping up her fast to impress the readers of the Irish Times,” Lib told him. “It’s between her and your greedy God.”

“Don’t blame him for the follies of his followers. All he asks us to do is live.”

The two of them eyed each other.

Then a grin lit Byrne’s face. “D’you know, I’ve never met a woman—a person—quite as blasphemous as you.”

As he watched Lib, a slow heat spread right through her.

Sun in her eyes. Lib’s uniform was glued to her sides already. By the time she reached the cabin, she’d decided she had to go to this committee meeting tonight, invited or not.

Silence as she let herself in the door. Rosaleen O’Donnell and the maid were plucking a scrawny chicken at the long table. Had they been working in tense quiet or had they been talking—perhaps about the English nurse—until they’d heard her come in?

“Good day,” said Lib.

“Good day,” they both said, eyes on the carcass.

Lib looked at Rosaleen O’Donnell’s long back and thought: I’ve found you out, you fiend. There was almost a sweetness to it, this sense of holding in her hand the one weapon that could demolish the woman’s shoddy imposture.

Not yet, though. There’d be no going back from that point; if Rosaleen threw her out of the cabin, Lib would have no more chances to change Anna’s mind.

In the bedroom, the child lay curled up, facing the window, ribs rising and falling. Her cracked mouth gulped air. Nothing at all in the chamber pot.

The nun’s face was drawn. Worse, she mouthed as she gathered her cloak and bag.

Lib put a hand on her arm to stop her from leaving. “Anna confessed,” she said in the nun’s ear, barely voicing the words.

“To the priest?”

“To me. Until last Saturday, the mother was feeding her chewed-up food under cover of kisses and convincing the girl that it was manna.”

Sister Michael blanched, and crossed herself.

“The committee will be at Ryan’s at ten this evening,” Lib went on, “and we must speak to them.”

“Has Dr. McBrearty said so?”

Lib was tempted to lie. Instead she said, “The man’s delusional. He thinks Anna’s turning cold-blooded! No, we must make our report to the rest of the committee.”

“On Sunday, as instructed.”

“Three more days is too long! Anna may not last,” she whispered, “and you know it.”

The nun averted her face, big eyes blinking.

“I’ll do the talking, but you must stand with me.”

Haltingly: “My place is here.”

“Surely you can find someone else to watch Anna for an hour,” said Lib. “The Ryan girl, even.”

The nun shook her head.

“Instead of spying on Anna, we should all be doing everything we can to induce her to eat. To live.”

The smoothly wimpled head kept swinging like a bell. “Those aren’t our orders. ’Tis all dreadfully sad, but—”

“Sad?” Lib’s voice too loud, scathing. “Is that the word?”

Sister Michael’s face crumpled in on itself.

“Good nurses follow rules,” Lib growled, “but the best know when to break them.”

The nun fled from the room.

Lib took a long, ragged breath and sat down beside Anna.

When the child woke, her heartbeat was like a violin string vibrating just under the skin. Thursday, August 18, 1:03 p.m. Pulse at 129, thready, Lib noted down, her hand as legible as ever. Straining for breath.

She called Kitty in and told her to gather all the pillows in the house.

Kitty stared, then rushed off to do it.

Lib banked them up behind Anna so the girl could lie almost upright, which seemed to ease her breathing a little.