Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin Read Free Book Online Page A

garment lay partway inside the basket, on needles,
amid balls of yarn.
Lucy gestured toward a few rectangular objects. One
was called a television. Another was a computer. Lucy explained and briefly demonstrated these devices. Fenella
felt a slight impulse to open up the boxes and see what
was inside, but the boxes were not quite as interesting to
her as plumbing. Or even the lock on her bedroom door.
The cat struggled in her arms. Absently, she released him
to the floor. She turned to Soledad and said impulsively,
“I’m remembering that Minnie had the same questions as
you, about how the body worked in Faerie. It drove her
crazy that it was just magic. She wanted reasons and logic.
She was a nurse.” Fenella pronounced the word proudly.
“Why, so am I,” said Soledad. “I work mostly with pregnant women.”
Fenella regarded her with interest. “Miranda told me that
about you, but I forgot.”
Lucy seated herself on the arm of the sofa. “Which one
was Minnie?”
“Minnie Scarborough was your—” Fenella paused to
count. “Minnie, then Jennie, then Mary, then Ruth, then
Joanne, then Deirdre your grandmother, and then Miranda
your mother.”
“My great-great-great-great-great-grandmother,” Lucy
counted on her fingers. “Seven generations ago. Wow. She
was a nurse?”
“Yes. She took her training at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, in Boston.” Fenella had long
since memorized the name. “She told me all about it.”
“How amazing,” Soledad said. “What year was that?”
Fenella knew this too. “She entered the program in 1879.
She was seventeen, so she only had a single year before,
well, you know. That was one of the things she resented
most about the curse, that she didn’t get to finish her training. That was Minnie. She loved learning. She had wanted
to become a doctor.”
Lucy looked surprised. “Could women do that then?”
“Yes, and a determined few did,” said Soledad. “It was a
breakthrough time for women in medicine.”
“It was so frustrating for Minnie in Faerie,” Fenella said.
“I couldn’t understand her at first, but she said it was like
being intellectually starved. She even asked Padraig for
books. She couldn’t help herself.”
“I’m sure he didn’t get her any books,” said Lucy tightly.
“But he did,” said Fenella. “Everything from poetry to
scientific treatises to philosophy and literature. Something
new every single week, for eighteen years.”
“Really? I’m surprised he—”
“Just for the pleasure of keeping them where Minnie
could see them. Where she could read their titles, but nothing more. Often, he would read a page or two aloud to her.
He always knew what she’d find particularly involving or
fascinating or moving. Then he’d stop at the best part, rip
out that page, and burn it.”
Lucy and Soledad stared at Fenella in horror.
“Oh, Minnie got revenge,” Fenella said. “She taught me
to read. She scratched letters in the dirt with a stick, and
I learned. She insisted, and I wanted to do something that
would give her happiness. It was all I could do. Then, after
Minnie was dead, Padraig threw out the books. He didn’t
have any idea they mattered to me. I hid them. They were
like—like a gift from Minnie. They kept her with me every
day.”
She had read the books aloud, one by one, finger tracing the words, while she sat in the bough of one of the oldest and wisest tree fey. The tree fey had helped her keep
the books hidden, and she had shared her gift with them.
She and the tree fey had learned about the human world
through books, together.
“Minnie sounds like an amazing person,” said Lucy, after
a long silence.
“Yes,” said Fenella simply. “Minnie was the most alive
person I’ve ever met. Even after Padraig got hold of her.
Most girls of eighteen—and I’ve met my share, you have to
admit—they tend to be passive. But even though she was so
young, Minnie always had