“God made these berries, didn’t he?” Your God, Lib had almost said.
“God made everything,” said Anna.
Lib crushed a red currant between her own teeth and juice flooded her mouth so fast it almost spilled. She’d never tasted anything so dazzling.
Anna picked one small red ball from the bunch.
Lib’s heart thudded loud enough to hear. Was this the moment? As easy as that? Ordinary life, as close as these dangling berries.
But the girl held out her palm quite flat, the currant in the middle, and waited till the bravest of the birds dived for it.
On the way back to the cabin, Anna moved slowly, as if she were walking through water.
Lib was so tired, stumbling back to the spirit grocery after nine that Sunday evening, she felt sure she’d sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Instead her mind sprang to life like a buzzing hornet. It weighed on her that she might have misjudged William Byrne yesterday afternoon. What had he done but ask, one more time, for an interview with Anna? He hadn’t actually insulted Lib; it was she who’d leapt to conclusions so touchily. If he really found her company so tedious, wouldn’t he have kept their conversations brief and focused on Anna O’Donnell?
His room was just across the passage, but he probably hadn’t gone to bed yet. Lib wished she could talk to him—as an intelligent Roman Catholic—about the child’s last meal having been Holy Communion. The fact was, she was getting desperate for someone else’s opinion of the girl. Someone whose mind Lib trusted; not Standish with his hostility, McBrearty with his fey hopefulness, the blinkered nun or bland priest, the besotted and probably corrupt parents. Someone who could tell Lib if she was losing her grip on reality.
Let me try, Byrne said again in her head. Teasingly, charmingly.
Two things could be true at once. He was a journalist, paid to dig up the story, but might he not also truly want to help?
One week exactly since Lib had arrived from London. So full of confidence she’d been—misplaced confidence in her own acuity, it had turned out. She’d thought to be back at the hospital by now, putting Matron in her place. Instead she was trapped here, in these same greasy-feeling sheets, no nearer to understanding Anna O’Donnell than she’d been a week ago. Only more muddled, and exhausted, and troubled by her own part in these events.
Before dawn on Monday, Lib slid a note under Byrne’s door.
When she arrived at the cabin, precisely at five, Kitty was still stretched out on the settle. The maid said there’d be no work done today except what was needful, given that it was a Holy Day of Obligation.
Lib paused; this was a rare chance to speak to Kitty on her own. “You’re fond of your cousin, I think?” she asked under her breath.
“Sure why wouldn’t I be fond of the little dote?”
Too loud. Lib put her finger to her lips. “Has she ever intimated”—she reached for a simpler word—“hinted to you as to why she won’t eat?”
Kitty shook her head.
“Have you ever urged her to eat something?”
“I’ve done nothing.” Sitting up, the slavey blinked in fright. “Get away with your accusations!”
“No, no, I only meant—”
“Kitty?” Mrs. O’Donnell’s voice, from the outshot.
Well, she’d made an utter hash of that. Lib slipped into the bedroom at once.
The child was still sleeping, under three blankets. “Good morning,” whispered Sister Michael, showing Lib the bare record of the night.
Sponge bath given.
2 tsp. water taken.
“You look tired, Mrs. Wright.”
“Is that so?” snapped Lib.
“You’ve been seen tramping all over the county.”
Lib had been seen alone, did the nun mean? Or with the journalist? Were the locals talking? “Exercise helps me sleep,” she lied.
When Sister Michael had left, Lib studied her own notes for a while. The velvety white pages seemed to mock her. The numbers didn’t add up; they failed to tell any tale except that Anna was Anna and like no one else. Fragile, plump-faced, bony, vital, chilly, smiling, tiny. The girl continued to read, sort her cards, sew, knit, pray, sing. An exception to all rules. A miracle? Lib shied from the word, but she was beginning to see why some might call it that.
Anna’s eyes were wide, the hazel flecked with amber. Lib leaned over. “Are you well, child?”
“More than well, Mrs. Lib. ’Tis the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption.”
“So I understand,” said Lib. “When she was lifted up to heaven, am I correct?”
Anna nodded, squinting at the window. “The light’s so bright today, with coloured halos around everything. The scent of that heather!”
The bedroom seemed dank and musty to Lib, and the purple tufts in the jar had no fragrance. But children were so open to sensation, and especially this child.
Monday, August 15, 6:17 a.m.
Reports having slept well.
Temperature in armpit still low.
Pulse: 101 beats per minute.
Lungs: 18 respirations per minute.
The readings went up and down, but on the whole they were creeping upwards. Dangerously? Lib couldn’t be sure. It was doctors who were taught to form these judgments. Though McBrearty seemed unfit for the task.
The O’Donnells and Kitty came in early to tell Anna that they were off to the chapel. “To offer the first fruits?” Anna asked, eyes lit.
“Of course,” said her mother.
“What’s that, exactly?” asked Lib, to be civil.
“Bread made with the first pull of the wheat,” said Malachy, “and, ah, a bit of oats and barley thrown in too.”
“Don’t forget there’ll be bilberries offered too,” Kitty put in.
“And a few new potatoes no bigger than the top of your thumb, God bless them,” said Rosaleen.
From the smeary window, Lib watched the party set off, the farmer a few steps behind the women. How could they care about their festival in the second week of this watch? Did it mean they’d nothing on their consciences, she wondered, or that they were monsters of callousness? Kitty hadn’t sounded callous earlier; worried for her cousin, more like. But so nervous of the English nurse, she’d misunderstood Lib’s question and thought she was being accused of feeding the girl in secret.
Lib didn’t take Anna out till ten o’clock this morning because that was the time she’d specified in her note. It was a beautiful day, the best since her arrival; a proper sun, as clear as that of England. She tucked the child’s arm in hers and set a very cautious pace.
Anna was moving in what struck Lib as an odd way, with her chin stuck out. But the girl showed a relish for everything. Snuffed at the air as if it were attar of roses instead of cows and chickens. Stroked every mossy rock that they passed.
“What’s the matter with you today, Anna?”
“Nothing. I’m happy.”
Lib looked at her askance.
“Our Lady’s pouring such a great deal of light on everything, I can nearly smell it.”
Could eating little or nothing open the pores? Lib wondered. Sharpen the senses?
“I see my feet,” said Anna, “but as if they belong to somebody else.” Looking down at her brother’s worn boots.
Lib tightened her grip on the girl.
A black-jacketed silhouette at the end of the path, out of sight of the cabin: William Byrne. He lifted his hat and unleashed his curls. “Mrs. Wright.”
“Ah, I believe I know this gentleman,” remarked Lib as casually as she could. Thinking, did she know him at all, really? The committee could dismiss her for arranging this interview if any of its members heard about it. “Mr. Byrne, this is Anna O’Donnell.”
“Good morning, Anna.” He shook her hand. Lib saw him eyeing the bloated fingers.
She began with bland nothings about the weather, her mind skittering along underneath. Where could the three walk to run the lowest risk of being spotted? How soon would the family come back from mass? She steered Byrne and Anna away from the village and took a cart track that looked little used.
“Is Mr. Byrne a visitor, Mrs. Lib?”