Read Online The Wonder by Emma Donoghue - Free Book Online Page A

first day on? A woman’s worst pain was to have nothing to give her baby. Or to see the tiny mouth turn away from what she offered.
    â€œWe’re just stepping out for a walk,” Lib told her.
    Rosaleen O’Donnell swatted away a fat bluebottle and went back to her work.
    There were only two possible explanations for the Irishwoman’s serenity, Lib decided: either Rosaleen was so convinced of divine intervention that she had no anxiety for her daughter, or, more likely, she had reason to believe the girl was getting plenty to eat on the sly.
    Anna shuffled and clumped along in those boy’s boots with an almost undetectable lurch as she shifted her weight from one leg to another.
“Perfect thou my goings in thy paths,”
she murmured,
“that my footsteps be not moved.”
    â€œDo your knees hurt you?” Lib asked as they followed the track past fretful brown hens.
    â€œNot particularly,” said Anna, tilting her face up to catch the sun.
    â€œAre these all your father’s fields?”
    â€œWell, he rents them,” said the girl. “We’ve none of our own.”
    Lib hadn’t seen any hired men. “Does he do all the work himself?”
    â€œPat helped, when he was still with us. This one’s for oats,” said Anna, pointing.
    A bedraggled scarecrow in brown trousers leaned sideways. Were these Malachy O’Donnell’s old clothes? Lib wondered.
    â€œAnd over there is hay. The rain usually spoils it, but not this year, it’s been so fine,” said Anna.
    Lib thought she recognized a wide square of low green: the longed-for potatoes.
    When they reached the lane, she turned in the direction she hadn’t yet been, away from the village. A sun-browned man was mending a stone wall in a desultory way.
    â€œGod bless the work,” called Anna.
    â€œAnd you too,” he answered.
    â€œThat’s our neighbour Mr. Corcoran,” she whispered to Lib. She bent down and tugged up a brownish stalk topped with starry yellow. Then a tall grass, dull purple at the top.
    â€œYou like flowers, Anna?”
    â€œOh, ever so much. Especially the lilies, of course.”
    â€œWhy
of course?
”
    â€œBecause they’re Our Lady’s favourite.”
    Anna spoke about the Holy Family as if they were her relations. “Where would you have seen a lily?” asked Lib.
    â€œIn pictures, lots of times. Or water lilies on the lough, though they’re not the same.” Anna crouched and stroked a minute white flower.
    â€œWhat’s this one?”
    â€œSundew,” Anna told her. “Look.”
    Lib peered at the round leaves on stalks. They were covered with what looked like sticky fuzz, with the odd black speck.
    â€œIt catches insects and sucks them in,” said Anna under her breath, as if she feared to disturb the plant.
    Could she be right? How interesting, in a gruesome way. It seemed the child had some capacity for science.
    When Anna stood up, she wobbled and drew in a deep breath.
    Light-headed? Unused to exercise, Lib wondered, or weak from underfeeding? Just because the fast was a hoax of some sort didn’t mean that Anna had been getting all the nourishment a growing girl needed; those bony shoulder blades suggested otherwise. “Perhaps we should turn back.”
    Anna didn’t object. Was she tired or just obedient?
    When they got to the cabin, Kitty was in the bedroom. Lib was about to challenge her, but the slavey stooped for the chamber pot—perhaps to give herself an excuse for being there. “You’ll have a bowl of stirabout now, missus?”
    â€œVery well,” said Lib.
    When Kitty brought it in, Lib saw that
stirabout
meant porridge. She realized that this was probably her dinner. A quarter past four—country hours.
    â€œTake some salt,” said Kitty.
    Lib shook her head at the pot with its little spoon.
    â€œGo on,” said Kitty, “it keeps the little