Page 32 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Twenty

K issing Olea is like being plunged into a freezing bath on a hot day.

My whole body tingles with it, from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers.

From my deepest, darkest, most secret depths right out to the places the world can see.

It is better than any dream. Better than any of the hazy, dawn-peach-stained moments of weakness I’ve had between sleep and waking since I was first old enough to bleed, when I would wish that things could be this way—and then wish fervently that they never would be.

Because if this is the depth of feeling I have been missing…

how can I believe in any god or apostle?

I see the same fear echoed in Olea’s face, but the same smooth relief and open longing too. With her in my arms I don’t care about what my father would have thought, or how the world might see us. I don’t care about any of it.

We kiss until our lips are swollen, until our lungs scream at us to take air.

We kiss until the moon rises and begins to fall once more in the sky, no sound but the faraway trickle of the garden’s private stream.

Every touch is a jolt of pleasure-pain, white-hot and agonisingly moreish.

It is like being drunk, being swept into an ocean of feelings so deep I might drown. It is bewitching.

When our mouths grow sore of this new adventure, Olea makes us a bed amongst the brambles that grow around the fountain, soft grass cushioning us and Olea’s shawl as a pillow.

We lean back against the stone fountain and count stars and name constellations.

Olea knows a story for each one, every tale more outlandish than the last.

“Once upon a time,” goes one such tale, “there was a bird.

When she was very young and weak she fell from her nest, whereupon she was captured by a mage, who had a fascination with such small-boned beings.

The mage kept the bird in a cage the size of a palace, with gold bars and plenty of enrichment—but the bird grew lonely.

One day she happened upon a fox spying on her through the bars.

“‘What a pretty little bird you are!’ exclaimed the fox. The bird was flattered, for she had never had a friend, and she thought the fox beautiful too. ‘Won’t you let me inside your cage?’

“‘Oh no,’ replied the bird. ‘My cage is to keep me safe, and the mage always warned me of cats.’

“‘But I’m not a cat,’ said the fox. ‘I’m a fox! And foxes want to be safe too. Please let me in; there’s more than enough room for both of us.’

“She told the fox to come back again the next day and she would have an answer. Now, the bird considered the fox’s proposition hard, for she was a lonely thing, a tiny little bird in a cage the size of a palace.

And she thought to herself: Well, what could go wrong?

Perhaps the fox will eat me, which would be unfortunate, but the mage might protect me.

And loneliness is as painful as being eaten, just in a different sort of way.

So she decided that the fox could come into her cage palace, and together they worked to bend the bars—which weren’t real gold after all. ”

“What happened to the bird?” I ask, turning my face to Olea’s.

“It’s a horrible ending.”

“Tell me.”

“The bird said to the fox, ‘You can come into my cage, but please don’t try to eat me.’ And the fox agreed.

The bird was excited for their friendship, but she didn’t consider the mage’s feelings.

The next day the mage came to visit the little bird and discovered the fox sleeping in a pile of autumn leaves.

“‘How dare you bring a filthy fox into this palace I have built for you!’ screamed the mage. ‘You have defiled the safety of this place, and I shall banish you from it forever.’

“The bird begged and pleaded for forgiveness, and the fox apologised to the mage.

“‘Please don’t hurt her, Your Kindness,’ said the fox. ‘I was only looking for a nice place to sleep and a friend to share my days.’

“‘You are a liar,’ replied the mage. ‘A filthy liar and a cheat! For I know you were planning to eat my little bird and take this palace for yourself.’

“The fox denied such a thing, and the little bird cried. The mage would hear no more, and bade them both leave the safety of the cage forever.”

“And then what happened?” I ask. Olea blinks and looks at me again.

“The fox and the bird left the palace together. They huddled together at night under the boughs of a tree, and the bird began to wonder if the mage had been lying. But on the second night outside the cage, well, the fox tried to eat the little bird after all. Only—it turned out the little bird had claws, and it scratched the fox’s eyes out.

That’s why the stars look like that.” She points to the dip between two points that might be ears, and to tiny specks that might be the place where eyes once were.

“Oh lord,” I say. “You’re right—that ending is horrible.”

The next tale Olea tells has none of the sadness of the last, a story about a hen who became trapped in the body of a human and developed the ability to talk to certain types of animals.

“You’re making them up!” I laugh as she finishes yet another story. “There’s no such thing as a dog the size of a bear.”

“Not any more,” Olea says morosely, and I laugh harder. She is different here, bolder in these lively moments than she ever was near the walls of the garden. It’s as if some part of her has come alive, happiness carved from chunks of ice. But she is still a know-it-all.

“What about the wolves?” I say. “We haven’t had wolves in Isliano since the Dark Ages.”

“And you think these tales weren’t told during the Dark Ages?” Olea turns her face towards mine and arches an eyebrow. “Thora, stories about the stars have been told since man first told tales around fires, long before our Descalous separated from the Old Continent.

“But they don’t mean anything.”

“They don’t have to mean anything.” Olea props herself up on her elbow.

Now that our lips aren’t locked, she is careful to maintain a small distance between our bodies, though my heart is screaming for anything but that.

My skin tingles where she has touched it, like the white-hot itching of a hundred nettle stings.

“They’re stories. Stories exist for a lot of reasons. ”

“Yes, parables and fables and—”

“Sometimes a story is just a story,” Olea says, but something in her face says otherwise.

“Do you really believe that?”

“You like to interrogate everything, don’t you.” It isn’t a question, but she doesn’t say it with disappointment, merely interest.

“Don’t you?” I ask. “I learned young that you can’t stop learning about the world just because somebody tells you that you should.

Out there”—I wave my hand—“women hardly read. They hardly write. It’s only by virtue of my father and the death rites that I know to read any written stories at all.

And even then, if you just accept everything you’re told… ”

“Accepting a story for what it is doesn’t mean you have to stop questioning the world,” Olea says quietly.

“It just means that there is a time and a place. Some stories teach you to be brave, some teach you to be strong, and some make you laugh. Does laughter come cheaper than bravery or strength? Do you need all of these stories at once?”

I fold my arms behind my head and gaze upwards.

The sky is smooth as dark water, speckled with thousands upon thousands of tiny flecks of light.

Olea’s insistence makes me think of the gossip Leo so desperately said he didn’t want to spread about her—and her supposed “illness”—the likes of which he told me anyway, and I wonder if she has been haunted by this before.

Perhaps she and Petaccia are the same, both trapped by expectations of gender, of rumours and stories told by people who don’t know better.

“So it’s like with the trees and plants in this garden,” I say, giving myself the time to think. “You’re saying that there are tales about them—like the manchineel being the death tree—but we don’t always have to believe them?”

“It’s not about believing really,” Olea says thoughtfully. “More that we shouldn’t take everything at face value. I’m certain there is truth in the stories about most of the plants in this garden.”

“So, the tree is poison?” I ask, reaching to prod at my lips. They still feel swollen, though I think that’s likely more from the kissing than the fruit. But was the kissing because of the fruit? This thought doesn’t sit well with me, and I drag myself a little more upright against the fountain.

“Yes,” Olea says. Then, “No. It’s… Can’t it be both?”

“You know that’s not how this works.”

“But it sort of is,” Olea argues. “It’s poison. Its natural defence is one that could easily hurt you, or me, or anybody else. It hasn’t hurt us, though.”

“Did you know it wouldn’t hurt me?” I ask.

“Well, no—”

“And you didn’t think to tell me I was taking a risk?”

“The tree chose not to hurt you,” Olea argues. “It accepted you. It’s providence.”

“You think I didn’t get hurt because the tree chose for that to be so?

” I shake my head to clear the fog in my brain, but it feels like I’m wading through treacle.

She sounds just like Petaccia with all her talk about fate of discovery.

“Meaning, what, you gave me that fruit to eat based on a hypothesis alone? Surely that’s exactly the kind of arrogance that gets people killed by plants like these. ”