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

ones off.”
    Lib looked askance at the maid. Was she referring to flies?
    As soon as Kitty had left the room, Anna spoke up in a whisper. “She means the little people.”
    Lib didn’t understand.
    Anna formed dancers out of her plump hands.
    â€œFairies?” Incredulous.
    The child made a face. “They don’t like to be called that.” But then she smiled again, as if she and Lib both knew there were no tiny beings floundering around in the porridge.
    The oatmeal wasn’t half bad; it had been boiled in milk rather than water. Lib had trouble swallowing it in front of the child; she felt like some uncouth peasant stuffing herself in the presence of a fine lady.
This is only a smallholder’s daughter,
Lib reminded herself,
and a cheat to boot.
    Anna busied herself darning a torn petticoat. She didn’t ogle Lib’s dinner, nor did she avert her gaze as if struggling with temptation. She just kept on forming her neat little stitches. Even if the girl had eaten something last night, Lib thought, she had to be hungry now, after at least seven hours under the nurse’s scrutiny, during which Anna had taken in nothing but three teaspoons of water. How could she bear to sit in a room fragrant with warm porridge?
    Lib scraped the bowl clean, partly so that the remains wouldn’t be sitting there between the two of them. She was missing baker’s bread already.
    Rosaleen O’Donnell came in a while later to show off the new photograph. “Mr. Reilly’s kindly made us a present of this copy.”
    The image was astonishingly sharp, though the tints were all wrong; the grey dress had bleached to the white of a nightdress, while the plaid shawl was pitch-black. The girl in the picture was looking sideways, towards the unseen nurse, with a ghost of a smile.
    Anna glanced at the photograph as if only for politeness’s sake.
    â€œSuch a smart case too,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, stroking the moulded tin.
    This was not an educated woman, Lib thought. Could someone who took such naïve pleasure in a cheap case really be responsible for an elaborate conspiracy? Perhaps—Lib glimpsed Anna out of the corner of her eye—the studious little pet was the only guilty party. After all, until the watch had begun this morning, it would have been easy for the child to snatch all the food she wanted without her family’s knowledge.
    â€œIt’ll go on the mantel beside poor Pat,” added Rosaleen O’Donnell, admiring the picture at arm’s length.
    Was the O’Donnell boy in distressed circumstances now, overseas? Or perhaps his parents had no idea how he was; sometimes emigrants were never heard from again.
    When the mother had gone back into the kitchen, Lib stared out at the grass left flattened by Reilly’s wagon wheels. Then she turned, and her eye fell on Anna’s awful boots. It occurred to Lib that Rosaleen O’Donnell might have said
poor Pat
because he was a natural; simpleminded. That would explain the boy’s curious lolling posture in the photograph. But in that case, how could the O’Donnells have brought themselves to ship the unfortunate abroad? Either way, a subject better not raised with his little sister.
    For hours on end, Anna sorted her holy cards. Played with them, really; the tender movements, dreamy air, and occasional murmurings reminded Lib of other girls with their dolls.
    She read up on the effects of damp in the small volume she always carried in her bag. (
Notes on Nursing,
a gift from its author.) At half past eight she suggested it might be time for Anna to get ready for bed.
    The girl crossed herself and changed into her nightdress, eyes down as she did the buttons at the front and wrists. She folded her clothes and laid them on the dresser. She didn’t use the pot, so there was still nothing for Lib to measure. A girl of wax instead of flesh.
    When Anna undid her bun and combed her hair, masses of