“Are you in pain?” asked Lib. These were the last days, surely.

Anna spat, and spat again, then settled back on the pillow, head turned towards the dresser.

Lib filled in her memorandum book.

Brought up bile; half a pint?

Pulse: 128 beats per minute.

Lungs: 30 respirations per minute; moist crackling bilaterally.

Neck veins distended.

Temperature very cool.

Eyes glassy.

Anna was ageing as if time itself were speeding up. Her skin was wrinkled parchment, blemished as if messages had been inked on it then scratched out. When the child rubbed her collarbone, Lib noticed that the skin stayed ruched. Dark red strands were strewn across the upper pillow, and Lib scraped them up and tucked them into the pocket of her apron. “Is your neck stiff, child?”

“No.”

“Why do you turn it that way, then?”

“The window’s too bright,” said Anna.

Use your influence, Byrne had said. But what new arguments could Lib muster?

“Tell me,” she said, “what kind of God would take your life in exchange for your brother’s soul?”

“He wants me,” whispered Anna.

Kitty brought in breakfast on a tray and spoke in an uneven voice about the extraordinarily fine weather. “And how are you today, pet?”

“Very well,” Anna told her cousin wheezily.

The slavey pressed her reddened hand to her own mouth. Then went back to the kitchen.

Breakfast was griddle cakes with sweet butter. Lib thought of Saint Peter standing at the gate, waiting for a buttered cake. She tasted ash. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Sickened, she set the griddle cake back on the plate and put the tray by the door.

“Everything’s stretching, Mrs. Lib,” said Anna in a catarrhal murmur.

“Stretching?”

“The room. The outside fits in the inside.”

Was this the start of delirium? “Are you cold?” Lib asked, sitting next to the bed.

Anna shook her head.

“Hot?” asked Lib.

“Not anything. No difference.”

Those glazed eyes were reminding her of Pat O’Donnell’s painted gaze in the daguerreotype. Every now and then they seemed to twitch. Troubles of vision, perhaps. “Can you see what’s right in front of you?”

A hesitation. “Mostly.”

“Meaning most of what’s there?”

“Everything,” Anna corrected her, “most of the time.”

“But sometimes you can’t?”

“It goes black. But I see other things,” said the girl.

“What kind of things?”

“Beautiful things.”

This is what comes of starvation, Lib wanted to roar. But whoever changed a child’s mind by shouting at her? No, she needed to speak more eloquently than she ever had in her life.

“Another riddle, Mrs. Lib?” the child asked.

Lib was startled. But she supposed even the dying liked a little entertainment to help the time pass. “Ah, let me see. Yes, I believe I have one more. What’s—what thing is that which is more frightful the smaller it is?”

“Frightful?” repeated Anna. “A mouse?”

“But a rat scares people as much if not more, though it’s several times bigger,” Lib pointed out.

“All right.” The girl heaved a breath. “Something that causes more fear if it’s smaller.”

“Thinner, rather,” Lib corrects herself. “Narrower.”

“An arrow,” Anna murmured, “a knife?” Another ragged breath. “Please, a hint.”

“Imagine walking on it.”

“Would it hurt me?”

“Only if you stepped off.”

“A bridge,” cried Anna.

Lib nodded. For some reason she was remembering Byrne’s kiss. Nothing could take that away from her; for the rest of her life, she’d have that kiss. It gave her courage. “Anna,” she said, “you’ve done enough.”

The child blinked at her.

“Fasted enough, prayed enough. I’m sure Pat is happy in heaven already.”

A whisper: “Can’t be sure.”

Lib tried another tack. “All your gifts—your intelligence, your kindness, your strength—they’re needed on earth. God wants you to do his work here.”

Anna shook her head.

“I’m speaking as your friend now.” Her voice shook. “You’ve become very dear to me, the dearest girl in the world.”

A tiny smile.

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lib.”

“Then eat! Please. Even a mouthful. A sip. I beg of you.”

Anna’s look was grave, inexorable.

“Please! For my sake. For the sake of everyone who—”

Kitty, from the doorway: “’Tis Mr. Thaddeus.”

Lib leapt to her feet.

The priest looked uncomfortably hot in his layers of black. Had Lib managed to prick his conscience at the meeting last night? His mouth still turned up as he greeted Anna, but his eyes were woebegone.

Lib pushed down her dislike of the man. After all, if anyone could convince Anna of the folly in her theology, it would logically be her priest. “Anna, would you like to speak to Mr. Thaddeus alone?”