The Wonder by Emma Donoghue Read Free Book Online Page B

the same with the bolster. The ritual was still going on, with its calls, responses, choruses, and occasional chiming of the bell.
    â€œAnd dwelt amongst us,”
intoned the girl.
    Crouching at each corner of the bed in turn, Lib ran her hand under every bar, felt each knob and angle for scraps. She pawed the floor looking for any patch of beaten earth that might have been gouged up to bury something.
    Finally the prayers seemed to be over, and Anna got to her feet. “Do you not say the Angelus, Mrs. Wright?” she asked, a little breathless.
    â€œIs that the name of what you just did?” asked Lib instead of answering.
    A nod, as if everyone knew that.
    Lib shook the worst of the dust off her skirt and rubbed her hands on her apron. Where was the hot water? Was Kitty just lazy, or was she defying the English nurse?
    Anna took something large and white out of her workbag and began hemming it, standing in the corner by the window.
    â€œSit down, child,” Lib told her, waving her to the chair.
    â€œI’m very well here, ma’am.”
    What a paradox: Anna O’Donnell was a shammer of the deepest dye—but with nice manners. Lib found she couldn’t treat her with the harshness she deserved. “Kitty,” she called, “could you bring in another chair as well as the hot water?”
    No answer from the kitchen.
    â€œTake this one for now,” she urged the girl. “I don’t want it.”
    Anna crossed herself, sat down on the chair, and sewed on.
    Lib inched the dresser away from the wall to make sure there was nothing hollowed out behind it. Tugging out each drawer—the wood was warped from damp—she went through the girl’s small stock of clothes, fingering every seam and hem.
    On top of the dresser sat a drooping dandelion in a jar. Miss N. approved of flowers in sickrooms, scorning the old wives’ tale about them poisoning the air; she said the brilliancy of colour and variety of form uplifted not only the mind but the body. (In Lib’s first week at the hospital, she’d tried to explain that to Matron, who’d called her
la-di-da
.)
    It occurred to Lib that the flower might be a source of nourishment hiding in plain sight. What about the liquid—was it really water or some kind of clear broth or syrup? Lib sniffed at the jar, but all her nose registered was the familiar tang of dandelion. She dipped her finger in the liquid, then put it to her lips. As tasteless as it was colourless. But might there be some kind of nutritive element that had those qualities?
    Lib could tell without looking that the girl was watching her. Oh, come now, Lib was falling into the trap of the old doctor’s delusions. This was just water. She wiped her hand on her apron.
    Beside the jar, nothing but a small wooden chest. Not even a mirror, it struck Lib now; did Anna never want to look at herself? She opened the box.
    â€œThose are my treasures,” said the girl, jumping up.
    â€œLovely. May I see?” Lib’s hands already busy inside the chest, in case Anna was going to claim that these were
private
too.
    â€œCertainly.”
    Pious gimcrackery: a set of rosary beads made of—seeds, was it?—with a plain cross on the end, and a painted candlestick in the shape of the Virgin and Child.
    â€œIsn’t it beautiful?” Anna reached out for the candlestick. “Mammy and Dadda gave it to me on my confirmation.”
    â€œAn important day,” murmured Lib. The statuette was too sickly-sweet for her taste. She felt it all over to make sure it was really porcelain, not something edible. Only then did she let the girl take it.
    Anna held it to her chest. “Confirmation’s the
most
important day.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œâ€™Tis the end of being a child.”
    Darkly comic, Lib found it, this slip of a thing thinking of herself as a grown woman. Next she peered at the writing on a tiny silvery