The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

Author:Emma Donoghue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Historical, Fiction / Contemporary Women, Fiction / Family Life, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Religious
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2016-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

Where the laundry tub had stood this morning was an ashy puddle with a four-footed wooden dolly laid down beside it. Sheets and clothes were draped over bushes and pegged on a rope strung between the cabin and a crooked tree.

In the good room, sipping tea with a buttered scone on his plate, sat Mr. Thaddeus. Outrage swelled up in Lib.

But then, he didn’t count as a visitor, she told herself, being the parish priest and a member of the committee. And at least Sister Michael was sitting right beside Anna. Undoing her cloak, Lib caught the nun’s eye and mouthed an apology for her lateness.

“My dear child,” the priest was saying, “to answer your question, ’tis neither up nor down.”

“Where, then?” asked Anna. “Does it float between?”

“Purgatory should not be considered an actual place as much as time allotted for cleansing the soul.”

“How long a time, though, Mr. Thaddeus?” Anna, sitting up very straight, was as pale as milk. “I know ’tis seven years for every mortal sin we commit, because they offend against the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, but I don’t know how many Pat committed, so I can’t do the sum.”

The priest sighed but didn’t contradict the child.

Lib was revolted by this mathematical mumbo jumbo. Was it Anna who was suffering from religious mania or her whole nation?

Mr. Thaddeus put down his cup.

Lib watched his plate for any crumb to fall. Not that she could really imagine Anna palming and swallowing it if it did.

“’Tis a process more than a fixed period,” he told Anna. “In the eternity of the Almighty’s love, there is no time.”

“But I don’t think Pat’s in heaven with God yet.”

Sister Michael’s fingers slid over Anna’s.

Watching, Lib hurt for the girl. As there’d been only two of them, the siblings must have clung together through the worst of times.

“Those in purgatory are not permitted to pray, of course,” said the priest, “but we may pray for them. To expiate their sins, to make amends—’tis like pouring water on their flames.”

“Oh, but I have, Mr. Thaddeus,” Anna assured him, eyes huge. “I’ve made a novena for the Holy Souls, nine days every month for nine months. I’ve said Saint Gertrude’s Prayer in the graveyard, and read Holy Scripture, and adored the Blessed Sacrament, and prayed for the intercession of all the saints—”

He held up one palm to hush her. “Well, then. That’s half a dozen acts of reparation already.”

“But that might not be enough water to put out Pat’s flames.”

Lib almost pitied the flailing priest.

“Don’t picture it as an actual fire,” he urged Anna, “so much as the soul’s painful sense of its unworthiness to come into God’s presence, its self-punishment, you see?”

The child let out one harsh sob.

Sister Michael cupped the child’s left hand in both of hers. “Come,” she murmured. “Didn’t Our Lord say, Be not afraid?”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Thaddeus. “Leave Pat to Our Heavenly Father.”

A tear raced down Anna’s swollen face, but she swiped it away.

“Ah, God love her, the tender dote,” whispered Rosaleen O’Donnell behind Lib in the doorway.

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