Without speculating on what covert devices may have been used to keep Anna O’Donnell alive for four months until the watch commenced on the eighth of August, it may be said—rather, must be said, without equivocation—that the child is now in grave peril, and that her watchers must beware.
Lib balled up the page so tightly that it disappeared in her fist. How it bit, every word of it.
In her memorandum book, she’d logged so many warning signs—why had she resisted the obvious conclusion that the girl’s health was in decline? Arrogance, Lib supposed; she’d held firmly to her own judgment and overestimated her knowledge. Wishful thinking, too, as bad as what she’d seen in the families of those she’d nursed. Because Lib wanted the girl kept from harm, all week she’d indulged in fantasies about unconscious night-feedings or inexplicable powers of mind that bore the girl up. But to an outsider such as William Byrne, it was clear as day that Anna was just starving.
Her watchers must beware.
Lib’s guilt should have made her grateful to the man. So why, picturing his handsome face, did she feel incensed?
She pulled the pot out from underneath the bed and retched up the boiled ham she’d had for dinner.
The sun went down just before she reached the cabin that evening, and the moon came up full, a swollen white globe.
Lib hurried in past the O’Donnells and Kitty, who were sitting over cups of tea, with barely a word of greeting. She had to alert the nun. It struck her that Dr. McBrearty might perhaps hear the truth better from Sister Michael if the nun could possibly be persuaded to tackle him.
But for once, she found Anna lying flat in the bed and the Sister of Mercy sitting on the edge, the child so engrossed in a story the nun was telling that she didn’t even look over at Lib.
“A hundred years old, and in awful pain all the time,” Sister Michael was saying. Her eyes slid to Lib and then back to Anna. “The old woman confessed that when she was a little girl at mass, she’d taken Holy Communion but hadn’t closed her mouth in time, and the Host had slipped out onto the floor. She’d been too ashamed to tell a soul, you see, so she’d left it there.”
Anna sucked in her breath.
Lib had never heard her fellow nurse so voluble.
“Now, do you know what he did, that priest?”
“When it fell out of her mouth?” asked Anna.
“No, the priest to whom the woman was making her confession, when she was a hundred years old. He went back to that same church, and it was in ruins,” said Sister Michael, “but there was a bush blooming right out of the broken stones of the floor. He searched among the roots, and what did he find but the Host itself, as fresh as the day it fell from the little girl’s mouth nearly a century before.”
Anna made a small marvelling sound.
Lib was hard-pressed not to grab the nun by the elbow and yank her out of the room. What kind of story was this to tell Anna?
“He carried it back and put it on the old woman’s tongue, and the curse was broken, and she was released from her pain.”
The child fumbled the sign of the cross. “Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her, may she rest in peace.”
Released from her pain meant she’d died, Lib realized. Only in Ireland would this count as a happy ending.
Anna blinked up at her. “Good evening, Mrs. Lib. I didn’t see you there.”
“Good evening, Anna.”
Sister Michael stood up and gathered her things. She came over and murmured in Lib’s ear, “Highly excited all afternoon, singing one hymn after another.”
“And you thought such a lurid tale would calm her?”
The nun’s face closed up inside its frame of linen. “I don’t think you understand our stories, ma’am.”
That was fighting talk for Sister Michael. And the nun glided from the room before Lib could say what she’d been waiting to say all afternoon: that in her view—she couldn’t mention Byrne, obviously—Anna was in real danger.
She busied herself arranging the lamp, the can of burning fluid, the wick scissors, the water glass, the blankets, everything ready for the night. She got out her memorandum book and lifted Anna’s wrist. A delightful dying child. “How are you feeling?”
“Quite content, Mrs. Lib.”
Anna’s eyes were sunken, Lib could see now, engulfed by the swollen tissue. “But in your body, I mean.”
“Floating,” said the girl after a long moment.
Dizziness? wrote Lib. “Anything else troubling you?”
“The floating doesn’t trouble me.”
“Is there anything else that’s different today, then?” Metallic pencil ready.
Anna leaned forward as if confiding a great secret. “Like bells, far off.”
Ringing in ears, Lib wrote.
Pulse: 104 beats per minute.
Lungs: 21 respirations per minute.
The girl’s movements were definitely slower, Lib saw, now that she was looking for evidence; her hands and feet a little colder and bluer than a week ago. But her heart was going faster, like the wings of a small bird. The blood was hectic in Anna’s cheeks tonight. Her skin was as rough as a nutmeg grater in places. She smelled a little sour, and Lib would have liked to give her a sponge bath, but she feared to chill her even more.
“I adore thee, O most precious cross…” Anna whispered the Dorothy prayer, staring up at the ceiling.
Lib suddenly lost patience. “Why recite that one so very often?” Expecting Anna to tell her again that it was private.
“Thirty-three.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just thirty-three times a day,” said Anna.
Lib’s mind reeled. That was more than once an hour, but allowing for sleep, that meant more than twice in every waking hour. What would Byrne ask if he were here; how would he unravel the story? “Was it Mr. Thaddeus who said you had to do that?”
Anna shook her head. “That’s how old he was.”
It took a moment for Lib to understand. “Christ?”
A nod. “When he died and was resurrected.”
“But why must you say that particular prayer thirty-three times a day?”
“To get Pat out of—” She broke off.
In the open door, Mrs. O’Donnell stood, holding out her arms.
“Good night, Mammy,” said the girl.
That stony face; Lib could feel the woman’s grief from here. Or was it fury at being denied as small a thing as an embrace? Didn’t a child owe the mother who’d borne her that much?
Rosaleen turned away and thumped the door shut behind her.
Yes, fury, Lib decided; not only against the girl who was keeping her mother at arm’s length but against the nurse who was witnessing it.
It occurred to her that Anna might—without even being conscious of it—be trying to make the woman suffer. Fasting against a mother who’d turned her into a sort of fairground attraction.
Through the wall, the call and moaning response of the Rosary went up. Anna hadn’t asked to take part in it tonight, Lib noticed; another sign that her strength was beginning to drain away.
The child curled up on her side now. Why did people say sleep like a baby to mean someone slumbering peacefully? Lib wondered. Babies often sprawled like broken things or wound themselves into balls as if to go back in time and return to the long oblivion from which they’d been dragged.
She tucked the blankets around Anna and added a fourth, because the girl was still shivering. She stood and waited till Anna dropped off to sleep and the chanting from next door came to an end.
“Mrs. Wright.” Sister Michael again, in the doorway.
“Still here?” asked Lib, relieved to get another chance to talk to her.
“I stayed for the Rosary. Might I—”
“Come in, come in.” This time Lib would explain everything clearly enough to win over the nun.
Sister Michael shut the door carefully. “The legend,” she said u
nder her breath, “the old story I was telling Anna.”
Lib frowned. “Yes?”
“It’s about confession. The girl in the story wasn’t being punished for letting the Host fall,” said the nun, “but for keeping her mistake a secret all her life.”
This was theological hairsplitting, and Lib had no time for it. “You’re speaking in riddles.”
“When the old woman confessed it at last, you see, she laid her burden down,” the nun whispered, eyes turning towards the bed.
Lib blinked. Could these hints mean that the nun thought Anna had a terrible secret to confess—that the girl was no miracle after all?
She tried to recall their brief conversations of the past week. Had the nun ever actually said that she believed Anna to be living without food?
No; blinkered by prejudice, Lib had just assumed she thought that. Sister Michael had kept her own counsel or uttered anodyne generalities.
Lib stepped up very close to her now and murmured, “You’ve known all along.”
Sister Michael’s hands flew up. “I was only—”
“You’re as familiar with the facts of nutrition as I. We’ve both known from the start that this must be a hoax.”
“Not known,” whispered Sister Michael. “We know nothing for sure.”
“Anna’s sinking fast, Sister. Weaker every day, colder, more numb. Have you smelled her breath? That’s her stomach consuming itself.”
The nun’s prominent eyes glistened.
“You and I must dig out the truth,” said Lib, gripping her wrist. “Not just because we’ve been charged with that task, but because the child’s life depends on it.”
Sister Michael turned on her heel and fled from the room.
Lib couldn’t pursue her; she was shackled here. She groaned to herself.
But in the morning the nun would have to come back, and Lib would be ready for her.
Anna was awake on and off that night. She turned her head or curled the other way. Six days left till the end of the watch. No, Lib corrected herself, that was only if Anna lasted six more days. How long could a child cling to life on sips of water?
A delightful dying child. It was as well that Lib knew the truth, she told herself; now she could act. But for Anna’s sake, she had to proceed with the greatest care, without displaying arrogance or losing her temper again. Remember, she told herself, you’re a stranger here.
A fast didn’t go fast; it was the slowest thing there was. Fast meant a door shut fast, firmly. A fastness, a fortress. To fast was to hold fast to emptiness, to say no and no and no again.
Anna was staring torpidly at the shadows the lamp projected on the walls.
“Is there anything you want?”
A shake of the head.
Strange children have faded away, and have halted from their paths. Lib sat and watched the girl. Blinked with dry eyes.
When the nun put her head in the door just after five in the morning, Lib leapt up so fast, a muscle in her back twanged. She shut the door almost in the face of Rosaleen O’Donnell. “Listen, Sister.” Barely voicing the words. “We must tell Dr. McBrearty that the child’s killing herself by degrees out of an excess of grief for her brother. It’s time to call off the watch.”
“We did accept this charge,” said the nun faintly, as if each syllable were coming up from a deep hole in the earth.
“But did you ever think we’d reach this point?” Lib gestured at the sleeper in the bed.
“Anna’s a very special girl.”
“Not so special that she can’t die.”
Sister Michael writhed. “I’m under a vow of obedience. Our orders were very clear. ”
“And we’ve been following them to the letter, as torturers do.”
Lib watched the nun’s face register that blow. Suspicion seized her. “Do you have other orders, Sister? From Mr. Thaddeus, perhaps, or your superiors at the convent?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you been told to see nothing and hear nothing and say nothing, no matter what you really think is going on in this cabin?” Almost snarling. “Told to testify to a miracle?”
“Mrs. Wright!” The nun’s face was livid.
“I beg your pardon if I’m wrong.” Lib’s tone was sullen, but she did believe the woman. “Then why won’t you speak to the doctor with me?”
“Because I’m only a nurse,” said Sister Michael.
“I was taught the full meaning of that word,” Lib raged. “Weren’t you?”
The door opened with a bang. Rosaleen O’Donnell. “May I say good morning to my child, at least?”
“Anna’s still asleep,” said Lib, turning to the bed.
But the girl’s eyes were wide open. How much had she heard?
“Good morning, Anna,” said Lib, her voice uneven.
The girl looked quite insubstantial, a drawing on old parchment. “Good morning, Mrs. Wright. Sister. Mammy.” Her smile radiating weakly in all directions.
At nine—Lib had waited as long as she could, for manners’ sake—she walked to McBrearty’s house.
“The doctor’s out,” said the housekeeper.
“Out where?” Too shaky with fatigue to phrase it more politely.
“Is it the O’Donnell girl, is she not well?”
Lib stared at the woman’s pleasant face under her starched cap. Anna hasn’t had a proper meal since April, she wanted to scream, how can she be well? “I must speak to him on a matter of urgency.”
“He’s been called to the bedside of Sir Otway Blackett.”
“Who’s that?”
“A baronet,” said the woman, clearly shocked that Lib didn’t know, “and a resident magistrate.”
“Where’s his seat?”
The housekeeper stiffened at the notion of the nurse pursuing the doctor there. It was miles out; Mrs. Wright had much better come back later.
Lib let herself sway just enough to hint that she might collapse on the doorstep.
“Or you could wait in my parlour below, I suppose,” said the woman.
Doubtful as to the status of a Nightingale, Lib could tell, unsure whether it might be more suitable to put her in the kitchen.
Lib sat over a cup of cold tea for an hour and a half. If only she had the backing of that wretched nun.
“The doctor’s returned, and he’ll see you now.” That was the housekeeper.
Lib leapt to her feet so fast, she saw black.
Dr. McBrearty was in his study, moving papers about in a desultory way. “Mrs. Wright, how good of you to come.”
Calm was crucial; a strident female voice caused men’s ears to close. She remembered to begin by asking after the baronet.
“An aching head; nothing serious, thank goodness.”
“Doctor, I’m here out of grave concern for Anna’s welfare.”
“Oh, dear.”
“She fainted yesterday. Her pulse is speeding up, yet her circulation’s getting so sluggish she can hardly feel her feet,” said Lib. “Her breath—”
McBrearty held up one hand to stop her. “Mm, I’ve been giving little Anna a great deal of thought and applying myself most diligently to the historical record in search of illumination.”
“The historical record?” repeated Lib, dazed.
“Did you know—well, why would you?—in the Dark Ages, many saints were visited with a complete loss of appetite for years, for decades, even. Inedia prodigiosa, it was called, the prodigious fast.”
So they had a special name for it, this freakish spectacle, as if it were as real a thing as a stone or a shoe. Dark Ages, indeed; they weren’t over. Lib thought of the Fakir of Lahore. Did every country have such tall tales of preternatural survival?
The old man went on with animation. “They aspired to be like Our Lady, you see. In her infancy she was said to have suckled only once a day. Saint Catherine, now—after she forced herself to swallow a bit of food, she’d poke a twig down her throat and sick it back up.”
With a shiver, Lib thought of hair shirts and spiked belts and monks whipping themselves raw in the streets.
“They meant to put down the flesh and raise up the spirit,” he explained.
But why does it have to be one or the other? Lib wondered. Aren’t we both? “Doctor, these are modern times, and Anna O’Donnell is only a child.”
“Granted, granted,” he said. “But might some physiological mystery lie behind those old tales? The persistent chilliness you’ve mentioned, say—I’ve formed a tentative hypothesis about that. Might her metabolism not be altering to one less combustive, more of a reptilian than mammalian nature?”
Reptilian? she wanted to scream.
“Every year, don’t men of science discover apparently inexplicable phenomena in far-flung corners of the globe? Perhaps our young friend represents a rare type that may become common in future times.” McBrearty’s voice shook with excitement. “One that may offer hope for the whole human race.”
Was the man mad? “What hope?”
“Freedom from need, Mrs. Wright! If it were within the bounds of possibility for life to endure without food… why, what cause would there be to fight over bread or land? That could put an end to Chartism, socialism, war.”
How convenient for all the tyrants of the world, Lib thought; whole populations meekly subsisting on nothing.
The doctor’s expression was beatific. “Perhaps nothing is impossible to the Great Physician.”
It took Lib a moment to understand whom he meant. Always God—the real tyrant in this part of the world. She made an effort to answer in the same terms. “Without the food he’s provided for us,” she said, “we die.”
“Until now, we’ve died. Until now.”
And Lib saw it clearly at last, the pitiful nature of an old man’s dream.
“But about Anna.” She had to bring McBrearty back to the point. “She’s failing fast, which means she must have been getting food until we thwarted it. We’re to blame.”
He frowned, fumbling with the arms of his glasses. “I don’t see how that follows.”
“The child I met last Monday was vigorous,” said Lib, “and now she’s barely able to stand. What can I deduce but that you must call off the watch and bend all your efforts to persuading her to eat?”