Page 14 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Nine

I sleep little and wake long after the start of my first lecture, my mouth parched and throat rasping.

My forehead is feverish to the touch and I wonder, briefly, if I’m coming down with something.

I lie still for a moment, tensing my fingers and toes, but once I roll out of bed the feeling is gone as fast as it came.

I fight the panic at missing the lecture; it’s poetry, the second lecture I’ve had with this professor, and he speaks too quietly for my liking anyway.

I make tea and drink it while it is near scalding, relishing the burn. My dreams last night were muddled—but unsettling. I don’t remember much except silver moonlight and vines as thick as my wrist rising through the floorboards to wrap me in my bed like shackles.

I can’t stop thinking about the girl I saw in the garden.

I sat by the window for a long time after she’d disappeared, and when I couldn’t sleep, I’d donned my walking jacket and slipped out of my rooms and down to the garden.

There is another path I’ve discovered if I turn left out of the building that takes me to the gate much quicker, and I chose that one without thinking.

When I got to the gate the garden was silent—eerily so, in fact.

It must have been the wee hours, but I was wide awake and could hear nothing, not the chatter of distant students, not the call of a bird or even the gentle hum of a fly.

I stood by the gate for minutes, perhaps longer, the time passing as liquid through my fingers.

Up close I noticed how well tended the blooms were, the scent of the ones closest reminding me faintly of something at once familiar and somehow entirely foreign.

In the end I didn’t dare to break the silence; I crept back to my rooms as softly as I’d come and slipped into bed still wearing my stockings. After that I remember only the dreams, the vines, and a premonition of some strange icy heat surging through my veins. And then morning.

Perhaps I dreamt the whole thing. I touch my hand to my forehead again—it’s warm but no longer strikingly hot—and then clamp my palms over my face and heave a sigh.

I don’t have time for this. Today alone I have three more lectures and the tutorial with Petaccia, and I’ve still no idea what the latter will involve.

I dress in my least flouncy dress for the occasion, white button sleeves and plain grey kirtle.

It’s as close to mourning black as I will willingly get, and even then I stare at my reflection with reservations.

It makes the brown-gold of my hair seem duller, the hazel of my eyes muddier—but perhaps that is what Petaccia wants.

A serious scholar, not a silly girl. Part of me is happy to slough away Aurelio’s bride and play the role of his widow; part of me wonders what might be left underneath them both if I scratch the surface hard enough.

Leonardo is conspicuously absent from my last lecture, even though it’s a botany lecture on plant procreation.

I’ve read all the science before, stamens and stigma and nectar, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to relax my writing hand and listen only for new information.

There is a blister the size of a raisin forming on the first knuckle of my middle finger, and I pick at it absently.

It reminds me of the strange pustules on Petaccia’s vine and of my dreams last night.

I wonder if any of the plants in the garden have a similar illness—or whatever it is—and if that’s why the gates are locked. But then what about the girl?

I snap back to attention when the scrape of chairs across the uneven wooden floor signals the end of the lecture.

My notebook is bare before me with the exception of a few jotted words—and many, many drawings.

I hadn’t even been aware of my pen moving; the ink is blotchy and irregular, brown here and black there, concentrated in several spots where my mind has obviously wandered.

They’re vines, I think. Rambling, crawling plants.

If I squint, I can make out flowers amidst the scribbles.

Hurriedly I sweep the notebook closed, tucking it tight to my chest. My palms are slick with sweat, my spine and armpits too. I glance around, but fortunately nobody seems to have noticed my inattention. Even the professor is long gone.

I lean back in my chair and let my head rest against the wall behind me, my eyes drifting to the domed glass roof over the central podium.

A sharp pang of grief takes me off guard at the reminder of my sepulchre.

I miss its predictable, quiet darkness more than I thought I ever would.

When it was mine it felt like a prison, the only walls I would ever see, but now that it’s gone I realise how little I know of the world.

I miss my father too, the comfortable discomfort of all his rules—and, worse, I miss Aurelio, the stability of my planned future, as much as it was a future I hated. Here I feel all at sea.

I don’t move until the next round of scholars begins to trickle into the room, and even then I wait until the last possible moment before slinking away. My legs ache something rotten. What’s wrong with me? It must be tiredness, lack of sleep after so many days studying. I ought to be more careful.

I stumble out into the daylight and almost run straight into Leonardo. He catches me about the shoulders with surprising strength and I blurt a curse—followed by a swift apology.

“Thora!” he exclaims. He steps back, clearly remembering my coldness yesterday—we haven’t spoken since then—and shoves both hands into the pockets of his robes, as if to say Don’t worry, I won’t touch you again.

I don’t want to offend you. I shift awkwardly, regretful at this new distance. “Are… you all right?”

“Sorry,” I repeat. I resist the urge to dab my forehead with the back of my hand. I feel dazed and quite warm. I can’t shake the feeling that my dreams, so vivid and serpentine, are partially to blame.

“Thora…?”

“What?”

“I asked if you’re all right.” Leonardo’s brows furrow. “You came barrelling out in such a hurry, I thought something had happened.”

“Oh.” I let out a rattled laugh. “No, I’m sorry for rushing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today but I was in a world of my own. I’m fine—though I didn’t sleep well. I have my tutorial this afternoon.”

“Ah.” Leonardo maintains his distance, but when I step out of the direct sunlight and into the thick shadows under the trees, he follows.

I wonder if he’s got a lecture in La Scienza, if that’s why he’s here, or if he just makes a habit of frequenting all my usual haunts.

A few days ago, yesterday even, this might have made me wary, but after my dreams—and after seeing that girl in the garden last night, so alone, so lonely —I realise with a jolt that there might be worse things than encouraging Leonardo’s acquaintanceship. “It’s your first one?”

“I’m terrified,” I say. Only as I say it do I realise how true it is. Dr. Petaccia scares me more than I’d like to admit. I actually think I’d be less afraid if she was a man.

“Don’t be,” he says warmly. “You’ll be fine. She’s not going to expect you to know everything already. That’s why she’s teaching you.”

“No, I know, it’s just…” I shrug. “There’s a lot riding on it. I’ve wanted this my whole life. You probably don’t know what that’s like—sorry, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just… I never thought I’d get to be here. What if I’m not clever enough?”

Leonardo is silent for a moment, genuinely thoughtful—and seemingly not offended by my lack of tact.

Then he says, “I’m sure Dr. Petaccia knows how you feel.

Nobody makes… Well, excuse the presumption, but nobody makes the kind of commitments you, and she, have made without knowing the cost. I know being a—a lady in the sciences isn’t easy.

Regardless of what brought you here, and when, you’re here now. ”

My heart swells. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I was rude just now, and I was rude yesterday too. I regret both times. I’m… I guess you could say it’s been a while since I had anybody new to talk to.”

“Oh,” Leonardo says breezily, his smirk cutting through any tension between us. “Don’t worry, Botany Lady. I won’t take it personally.”

“You probably shouldn’t. It’s a little-known fact that undertakers’ daughters don’t get out much.” I know I’m slicing off the three months of my marriage as if they’re the tip of a candle wick but I don’t care.

Leonardo’s smirk softens. “Like botanists,” he agrees.

“Worse. My only companions growing up were the dead.”

“I grew up with five sisters. Nobody ever paid me any mind, so my friends were pretty much all plants. At least yours used to talk.”

I can’t help the chuckle that burbles in my chest as I picture a pint-sized Leonardo surrounded by potted plants wearing hats and spectacles and little pencil moustaches.

“So… At risk of getting my head bitten off again—have you changed your mind about dinner?” Leonardo raises an eyebrow.

“Or coffee. If we’re going to have classes together it might be useful for studying.

Almerto always says I don’t participate enough.

We could do tonight if you wanted, chat about your tutorial.

Like I said before: there’s a place I know off campus—”

“Not off campus,” I say firmly. “And not tonight.” He winces, but we both know why I have to be so stern. I’m already the odd one out at St. Elianto. I don’t want to give anybody, not least Dr. Petaccia, reason to think I don’t belong here. “But… the dining hall tomorrow evening would be nice.”

“Really…?” Leonardo beams.

“ If they’ll let me sit with you. I usually get shoved at the table by—”

“By the window?” He chuckles, his eyes bright with a gratitude of his own, though I don’t think I’m the one being kind here. “Yes, I’m familiar with that one. I suppose it’s just where they put the botanists.”