Page 34 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Twenty-One

O lea rouses me just as the sun is beginning to creep over the horizon, painting the garden in shades of dusty green and gold. The grass is damp around us and there’s a delicious chill in my bones, welcome after the days and days of endless heat.

I yawn and stretch. The skin on my lips blisters and cracks, an iron tang leaching into my mouth. Olea is crouching a little distance away, her nightgown pulled down over her knees and a smattering of crushed leaves in her lap.

“You’d better get back,” she says, brushing her hands clean. There is a shyness in her that wasn’t there last night. She peers up at me over thick lashes. She looks soft and relaxed and gentle. “You’ll miss breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry,” I say. And I actually mean it. I can’t remember the last time I woke without that gnawing hunger in my belly, the desire to gorge and gorge until my whole body feels leaden with food.

“You still might be yet. You missed dinner too.”

Olea’s crouch deepens and she reminds me of one of those wild children the newspapers love to sensationalise; her curls are dew-damp and loose, her feet bare and dirty. I resist the urge to check my fingernails for the same dark stain as hers. In the end, what does it matter if mine are black too?

“You’re avoiding things,” Olea goes on. “I can tell.”

My chest hollows. “Am I?” I think she means last night. The kissing. My lips tingle at the thought. I don’t want to avoid anything—

“I know it’s uncomfortable, but I’m certain it will be better for Florencia to hear it from you, rather than arriving back to the lab and finding it—gone.”

Gone. Dead, in fact. The guilt swoops through me.

Yes. I should be thinking about the doctor’s vine, her ruined experiment, and my failure of responsibility.

Instead all I can think of is the doctor’s ward, the heavenly way she tastes and how badly I want to kiss her again.

I clear my throat and clamber awkwardly to my feet.

“You’re right,” I say briskly. “But…” I pause, a sudden thought coming to me. “Olea. Do you think I should tell the doctor I’ve been in here, in the garden?”

Olea blinks, her face otherwise entirely still. “Why should you do that?”

“I… I don’t know. You asked about—if I took something out of the garden. What if something, some pollen or thorn or dust, like from that awful tree, what if it got on my skin or my clothes and I took it to the laboratory by mistake?”

“You didn’t, though.”

“How do you know? You asked the question. I’m just saying…” I lick my lips. “Why is it such a secret that I come in here to see you? I’m sure the doctor would approve of our—of, of…” I don’t know what this is—or what we are.

Olea clenches her fists against her knees. “No,” she says darkly. “No. I’m not allowed visitors.”

“Why? I’m not just a random visitor,” I argue.

“As far as Florencia is concerned, you are. She rarely visits the garden herself. It’s—it’s its own biome, a complete ecosystem. Her experiments don’t factor you into them. She wouldn’t want you in here. You could ruin everything just by being here, don’t you understand?”

“I…”

“Oh, Thora.” Olea reaches out to me and grasps my hand, squeezing it tight.

My fingers tingle painfully. “I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t. It’s just—Florencia and I have worked so hard to create this place, to culture and nurture it, and she’s so very protective of it.

And me. You don’t understand, but this isn’t like her other work. ”

“I don’t understand because you won’t tell me.”

“No.” Olea’s expression shifts to sadness. “I know. I wish I could, but—not yet.”

“What if she can smell it on me, though?” I ask. “I know the garden has a scent.”

Olea thinks a moment. “If she does, just tell her you’ve visited the wall—like before.

It isn’t a lie—or at least it doesn’t have to be if you tell it carefully.

” She wrinkles her nose. “But… I don’t think she will notice, or if she does she might assume it’s from her own clothes maybe.

I don’t want you to lie for me, Thora. I’m just saying maybe don’t mention it to Florencia if she doesn’t bring it up first, not over something like the vine.

When we bring you into the experiment, we want it to be on positive terms, don’t we? ”

I still have no idea what the experiment is. This garden is a wonder of toxins and poisons, a veritable treasure trove of death, but still I cannot see why there is the need for such secrecy. They are, at the end of the day, just plants.

But at the same time, I want it. I want to be included; I want desperately to be a part of whatever this experiment might be. So until Petaccia invites me in, I’ll keep Olea’s secrets.

“You look tired,” Olea says. “I’m sorry. I’ve kept you awake again and you’ve got such a long day ahead. You should—why don’t you stay away from here tonight. Get some sleep.”

My chest tightens, regret and a new kind of grief pricking tears at my eyes, but Olea adds quickly, “Come back tomorrow night instead. The garden trusts you now. Please don’t stay away.”

She stands, the fragrant crush of leaves in her lap tumbling to the grass, leaving a patina of the garden on her dress. Her voice is urgent. “You will come back tomorrow, won’t you?”

My appetite doesn’t return for breakfast. I’m too anxious for Petaccia’s return; I sit in the laboratory, watching the slow tick of the hands on my wristwatch and listening to the building settle around me.

Without the vine, the room feels empty. I know this is ridiculous, and almost certainly a result of the ebb and flow of my guilt, but still I jump at every small noise, catching the scent of the garden in my hair though I’ve dabbed it liberally with rosewater.

I get up and check my reflection in the small mirror over the sink.

My skin is grey tinged from poor sleep rather than its normal golden tone, my hazel eyes shockingly dark.

The smattering of freckles across my nose reminds me, sickeningly, of the ash of the Paruulum .

There’s a small speck of blood at the corner of my lip, and I wipe at it impatiently.

Despite all this eating I’ve done recently, I think I’ve lost weight—I can see it in the sharper jut of my cheekbones and around my neck.

Olea is right. I need to sleep tonight, to get some proper rest.

I wash my face with cold water, scrubbing at my lips and at my hairline, where normally sweat would be beading already.

Today the heat in the lab doesn’t feel so bad, as if my night in the garden and the cold that leached into my bones are insulating me against it.

Hopefully Petaccia won’t notice that the cuffs of my creased shirt are stained with grass, and that the seat of my trousers is dusty with the garden’s dirt.

I don’t want to lie to her, but I will if I have to.

Another noise from below startles me. There are a lot of noises, I realise.

From the gentle whistle of each gust of wind outside to some unknown ticking and clicking somewhere beneath me in the building, La Vita is not silent like Olea’s garden.

Its thick green scent and muggy heat feel artificial, too, like a paste spread too thick.

I can’t quite put my finger on it but the laboratory feels almost like a facade, like the real work is missing from this picture, and then the guilt becomes real once more.

Petaccia’s Paruulum arida is dead… what if she no longer needs me as her partner?

I think myself into such a spiral of doubt and panic that by the time the doctor arrives at just after eight o’clock I am sweating profusely and the room stinks of it on top of its usual heavy scent.

It is mildew and dank soil combined with dust and heat and gently seared leaves.

I’ve tried to hide it the best I can by brewing a fresh pot of coffee, but I can still smell it.

I leap out of Petaccia’s chair at the desk and clasp my hands in front of myself like a schoolchild. Petaccia seems a little surprised to see me, but she recovers quickly.

“Thora, my dear. How have you enjoyed having the lab to yourself?”

“Hi, ah, it’s been—well. Did you have a good trip?”

Petaccia drops several bags by the door and closes it behind her.

First she strides to the window and checks the temperature on the gauge there, then each of the little black seedlings, none of which look much different, each wilted and sad but still growing.

Then she turns back to the desk and my stomach lurches. I’m going to be sick. I’m—

“What happened?” she demands. Her eyes flash and she steps closer. “It’s gone?”

“Yes, but—”

“Did something happen? Did you change anything?”

“No!” This comes out as a yelp and I swallow hard, trying to unstick the words I’ve practised from my throat. “No, I didn’t… it didn’t…”

Petaccia closes the final steps between us. She’s studying me hard, her gaze darting from my face to my clasped hands. Guilty , I think. I look completely guilty. I need to do something, say something. I can’t keep standing here like a naughty child.

“Thora,” Petaccia says sternly.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Sit down. I’m going to make us both tea—no, coffee’s on the go so we’ll have that—and you are going to tell me everything.”

“I…”

“Everything, Thora. This is serious. Do you understand?”

I fight the tremble in my limbs, clinging to Olea’s advice and reassurance from last night. This can’t be the end. I won’t let it. But my knees are weak and they betray me; I sink into the chair and rest my head in my hands.

When Petaccia brings our drinks over, I snatch mine before she can place it on the desk, my mind imprinted with the image of the vine as it withered, blackened, and turned to ash, nothing left but dust motes in the sunlight.

The coffee is thick and black and sludgy.

Petaccia sips at hers, taking the seat across from me—the very one I sat in for our first meeting.