Lib touched it to the tick, which puffed to life, the old straw hissing crisply. A burning bed, like some miracle in bright pastels. The surge of heat on her face reminded her of bonfires on Guy Fawkes Night.
But would the whole room go up in flames? This was their one slim chance of getting away with the fraud. Was the thatch dry enough after three days of sunshine? Lib glared at the low ceiling. The old beams looked too sturdy, the thick walls too strong. Nothing else to be done; the lamp swung in her hand, and she hurled it into the rafters.
Rain of glass and fire.
Lib ran through the farmyard, her apron flaming in her face, a dragon she couldn’t escape. She beat it with her hands. A screech that sounded as if it were coming from some other mouth. She stumbled off the path and threw herself down into the bog’s wet embrace.
It had been raining all night. The constabulary had sent two men down from Athlone, even though it was the Sabbath; right now they were picking through the mucky remains of the O’Donnells’ cabin.
Lib was waiting in the passage behind the spirit grocery, her burnt hands swaddled in bandages, reeking of ointment. Everything hinged on the rain, she thought through waves of exhaustion. On when the rain had begun last night. Would it have put the fire out before the beams could fall in? Was the narrow bedroom reduced to indecipherable cinders, or did it tell—plain as day—the story of a missing child?
Pain. But that wasn’t what held Lib in its grip. Fear—for herself, of course, but also for the girl. (Nan, she called her in her head, trying to get used to the new name.) There was a stage of starvation from which there could be no recovery. Bodies forgot how to deal with food; the organs atrophied. Or perhaps the child’s small lungs had strained too long, or her worn-out heart. Please let her wake up this morning. William Byrne would be there to take care of her, in the most anonymous lodging he knew in the back streets of Athlone. That was as far as he and Lib had planned. Please, Nan, take another sip, another crumb.
It occurred to Lib that the fortnight was up. Sunday was always meant to be the day when the nurses reported to the committee. Two weeks ago, newly arrived, she’d imagined herself impressing the locals with her meticulous account of exposing a hoax. Not looking like this: ash-streaked, crippled, trembling.
She was under no illusions about the conclusions that the committee members were likely to reach. They’d make a scapegoat of the foreigner if they could. But what exactly would the charge be? Negligence? Arson? Murder? Or—if the police realized there was no trace of a body in the smouldering mud—kidnapping and fraud.
I’ll join you both in Athlone tomorrow or the next day, Lib had told Byrne. Had her confident manner fooled him? She was inclined to think not. Like Lib, he’d put on a brave face, but he knew there was a strong possibility that she’d end up behind bars. He and the girl would board a ship as father and child, and Lib would never breathe a word about their destination.
She checked her notebook with its blackened cover. Were the final details plausible?
Saturday, August 20, 8:32 p.m.
Pulse: 139.
Lungs: respirations 35; moist crackling.
No urine all day.
No water taken.
Inanition.
8:47: Delirium.
8:59: Breathing very distressed, heartbeat irregular.
9:07: Gone.
“Mrs. Wright.”
Lib fumbled the book shut.
The nun was at her side, dark under the eyes. “How are your burns this morning?”
“They don’t matter,” said Lib.
It was Sister Michael, coming back from the votive mass, who’d found Lib last night, who’d dragged her out of the bog, led her back to the village, and bandaged her hands. Lib had been in such a state, no acting had been required.
“Sister, I don’t know how to thank you.”
A shake of the head, gaze lowered.
One of the many things on Lib’s conscience was that she was repaying the nun’s care with cruelty. Sister Michael would spend the rest of her life convinced that the two of them had brought about, or at least failed to prevent, the death of Anna O’Donnell.
Well, it couldn’t be helped. All that mattered was the girl.
For the first time, Lib understood the wolfishness of mothers. It occurred to her that if by some miracle she came through today’s trials and got away to that room in Athlone where William Byrne was waiting, she’d become the girl’s mother, or the nearest thing to it.
Take oh take me for thy child, was that how the hymn went? In times to come, when Nan-who-was-once-Anna blamed someone, it would be Lib. That was part of motherhood, she supposed, bearing responsibility for pushing the child out of warm darkness into the dreadful brightness of new life.
Mr. Thaddeus walked past just then, with O’Flaherty. The gleam had been knocked off the priest; he was showing his age. He nodded to the nurses, gloomily abstracted.
“There’s no need for you to be questioned by the committee,” Lib told the nun. “You know nothing.” That came out too brusque. “I mean, you weren’t there—you were at the chapel—at the end.”
Sister Michael crossed herself. “God rest her, the creature.”
They stepped aside to make room for the baronet.
“I shouldn’t keep them waiting,” said Lib, moving towards the back room.
But the nun put a hand on Lib’s arm, above the bandage. “Best not do or say anything till you’re called on. Humility, Mrs. Wright, and penitence.”
Lib blinked. “Penitence?” Her voice too loud. “Isn’t it they who should be penitent?”
Sister Michael shushed her. “Blessed are the meek.”
“But I told them, three days ago—”
The nun stepped closer, her lips almost touching Lib’s ear. “Be meek, Mrs. Wright, and just maybe they’ll let you go.”
It was sound advice; Lib shut her mouth.
John Flynn strode by, his face set in hard lines.
And what comfort could Lib offer Sister Michael in return? “Anna had—how did you put it the other day?—she made a good death.”
“She went willingly? Unresisting?” There was something troubled in those big eyes, unless Lib was imagining it. Something more than misery; doubt? Suspicion, even?
Her throat tightened. “Quite willingly,” she assured the nun. “She was ready to go.”
Dr. McBrearty hurried down the passage, his face caved in, panting as if he’d been running. He didn’t so much as glance at the nurses as he went by.
“I’m sorry, Sister,” said Lib, her voice uneven, “so very sorry.”
“Shush,” said the nun again, softly, as if to a child. “Between you and me, Mrs. Wright, I had a vision.”
“A vision?”
“A sort of waking dream. I came away from the chapel early, you see, as I was fearful for Anna.”
Lib’s heart started to pound.
“I was walking down the lane when I thought I saw… I seemed to see an angel riding away with the child.”
Dumbstruck. She knows. Loud in Lib’s head. She has our fate in her hands. Sister Michael was vowed to obedience; how could she not confess what she’d seen to the committee?
“Was it a true vision, would you say?” asked the nun, her gaze burning into Lib.
All she could do was nod.
A terrible silence. Then: “His ways are mysterious.”
“They are,” said Lib hoarsely.
“Has the child gone to a better place—can you promise me that much?”
One more nod.
“Mrs. Wright.” Ryan, jerking his thumb. “’Tis time.”
Lib left the nun without a word of good-bye. She could hardly believe it. She was still steeled against the possibility of a shouted accusation, but none came. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her shoulder. The nun had her hands joined and her head bowed. She’s setting us free.
In the back room, there was a stool placed before the trestle tables where the committee sat, but Lib stood in front of it, to look humbler, as Sister Michael had advised her.
McBrearty tugged the door shut behind him.
“Sir Otway?” That was the publican, deferential.
The baronet made a limp gesture. “Since I’m here not as resident magistrate but only in a private capacity—”
“I’ll begin, so.” It was Flynn who spoke up in his bearish tone. “Nurse Wright.”