Englishwomanâs ignorance. âOtherwise wouldnât they take offence and cause a ruction?â
âYou expect me to believe that this milk is for the fairies?â
Rosaleen OâDonnell folded her big-boned arms. âBelieve what you like or believe nothing, maâam. Putting out the drop of milk does no harm, at least.â
Libâs mind raced. Both maid and mistress just might be credulous enough for this to be the reason why the milk was under the dresser, but that didnât mean Anna OâDonnell hadnât been sipping from the fairiesâ dish every night for four months.
Kitty bent to open the dresser. âGet out with ye, now. Isnât the grass full of slugs?â She hustled the chickens towards the door with her skirts.
The bedroom door opened and the nun looked out. Her usual whisper: âIs anything the matter?â
âNot at all,â said Lib, unwilling to explain her suspicions. âHow was the night?â
âPeaceful, thank God.â
Presumably meaning that Sister Michael hadnât caught the child eating yet. But how hard had she tried, given her trust in Godâs
mysterious ways
? Was the nun going to be any help to Lib at all, or only a hindrance?
Mrs. OâDonnell swung the iron crock off the fire now. Broom in hand, Kitty flicked the hensâ greenish dirt out of the dresser.
The nun had disappeared into the bedroom again, leaving the door ajar.
Lib was just untying her cloak when Malachy OâDonnell stepped in from the farmyard with an armful of turf. âMrs. Wright.â
âMr. OâDonnell.â
He dumped the sods by the fire, then turned to go out again.
She remembered to ask: âMight there be a platform scales hereabouts on which I could weigh Anna?â
âAh, Iâm afraid there would not.â
âThen how do you weigh your livestock?â
He scratched his purplish nose. âBy eye, I suppose.â
A child-size voice in the room within.
âIs it herself up already?â asked the father, face lighting.
Mrs. OâDonnell cut past him and went in to their daughter just as Sister Michael stepped out with her satchel.
Lib moved to follow the mother, but the father held up his hand. âYou had, ah, another question.â
âDid I?â She should have been by the childâs side already to prevent a momentâs gap between one nurseâs shift and the next. But she found it impossible to walk away in the middle of a conversation.
âAbout the walls, Kitty said you were after asking.â
âThe walls, yes.â
âThere do be some, some dung in there, with the mud. And heather and hair for grip,â said Malachy OâDonnell.
âHair, really?â Libâs eyes slid towards the bedroom. Could this apparently ingenuous fellow be a decoy? Might his wife have scooped something out of the cooking pot in her hands before she rushed in to greet her daughter?
âAnd blood, and a drop of buttermilk,â he added.
Lib stared at him. Blood and buttermilkâas if poured out on some primitive altar.
When she finally got into the bedroom, she found Rosaleen OâDonnell sitting on the little bed, and Anna on her knees beside her mother. Thereâd been enough time for the child to have gulped down a couple of griddle cakes. Lib cursed herself for the politeness that had kept her chitchatting with the farmer. And cursed the nun, too, for slipping away so fast; considering that Lib had sat through the entire Rosary yesterday evening, couldnât Sister Michael have stayed a minute longer this morning? Although they werenât supposed to share their views of the girl, surely the nun should have given Libâthe more experienced nurseâa report on any pertinent facts of the night shift.
Annaâs voice sounded low but clear, not as if sheâd just bolted food.
âMy love is mine, and I am his, in me he dwells, in him I