Page 35 of This Vicious Hunger

“Well?” she says coarsely. “Tell me.”

I sip gingerly from my own mug, nearly gagging as the bitter liquid clings to my tongue and burns my throat. It is like chicory, harsh and raw. Now that I’m seated, my hands are still, my limbs unshaking, my panic over. Olea was right: I can do this.

“It wasn’t my fault. I did everything you asked. I watered only the plants you said, did all the prep and wrote up the notes. I wore gloves for all of the small work and made sure to change pairs so there was no cross-contamination—”

“I didn’t ask for excuses,” Petaccia cuts me off. “Just tell me what happened.” Her features are so sharp they could cut glass. I can’t read her expression.

I take a deep breath. “I didn’t do anything unusual, is what I’m saying.

Everything was fine. And I took the gloves off to handle the Paruulum , just as you said it prefers.

I held it for perhaps… an hour? If that?

I was writing up some more notes. I don’t know if any ink got on the vine, or if I got anything corrosive on my shirtsleeve, but one minute everything was normal and the next… ”

The memory of it is surprisingly painful. I might not have cared for the damn thing, but I’d started to see it sort of like a pet. And the fact that it wasn’t my pet almost makes it worse.

“And the next?” Petaccia prompts. She’s crossed one leg over the other and rests her chin on one hand while the other clutches the top of her mug. Her eyes are dark and thoughtful, and maybe a little damp. The sick feeling twists in my belly again and I’m glad I didn’t eat breakfast.

“It just sort of… died? I appreciate that’s not very scientific.”

“Make it scientific,” Petaccia returns coolly. I don’t argue.

“It stopped moving first. Then it started to blacken, the leaves first and then the vine itself. The whole stem went part translucent and part black, like it was cooking over a high heat. And then it crumbled to ash.”

Petaccia says nothing for a second. She sips her coffee. She leans forward to inspect the desk where I’ve been gesturing, and into the pot with the withered, blackened remains of the stem. And then she surprises me completely.

“Interesting,” she says.

“Interesting? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“Well, words aren’t going to make it un-happen.” Petaccia shrugs but her face is shrewd. “You say you were holding it at the time?”

“Wrapped around my wrist like normal.”

“And you didn’t tug or squeeze or trap it in any way?”

“No, I even checked.”

“Good,” she says. “That’s good.”

“Is it?”

“Good that you checked, I mean,” Petaccia says quickly.

She gazes somewhere behind me, running a finger along her jaw while she thinks.

She looks tired. This surprises me—in all the weeks I’ve known her I’ve never noticed her looking any different.

She is always harried and slightly unkempt, but I’ve never seen such dark circles under her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I know it doesn’t mean anything for me to say it and words are cheap, but I truly am. I honestly don’t know what happened. I was so shocked I’ve not even cleaned up; there’s ash everywhere.”

Petaccia’s smile is unreadable and it doesn’t reach her eyes, but there is some warmth there, and as always that flicker of curiosity. It’s almost as if she’s seeing me for the first time. I want to cry but I blink furiously until the threat of tears is dulled.

“These things happen.” Petaccia gets to her feet, slopping coffee over the side of her cup.

“Part of all of this”—she waves her hands at the laboratory—“is accepting that failure does and will happen, and that success isn’t linear.

There is always an element of fate, or luck, or heavenly intervention—or whatever else you want to call it—at play.

Now, wipe your eyes, the lab is no place for tears, and get out. ”

“Ma’am—”

“For goodness’ sake, Thora, I’ve told you to stop calling me that. I am nobody’s mother,” she snaps.

“I’m sorry, but please don’t throw me out. There must be some way I can make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me?” The doctor’s sudden laugh is harsh and foreign and it makes me jump. “Girl, I want you out of the lab so I can catch up.”

“You’re not angry?” I swallow my pleas, my cheeks flushing. Olea was right. I should have listened and now I’ve made a fool out of myself.

“I’m not. As long as you have told me everything.” She pauses. “You have, haven’t you? Told me everything?”

“I…” I think of Olea’s pleas, her insistence that I keep my visits to her garden a secret.

Guilt threatens to capsize me, and for a second—just one second—I consider opening my mouth, but then I think of Olea’s lips on mine, the press of our bodies, the heat deep within my core, and I know I can’t tell the doctor.

I nod instead. “Everything I can think of.”

“Good. Now, get out and leave me in peace for a while, will you?”

I wince. “All right.”

I make to take my barely drunk coffee to the sink, but Petaccia waves me off with a hand. “Leave it,” she says. “And the ash. Enjoy the rest of your day off because tomorrow we begin again. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, and I’m going to need your help.”

I leave La Vita with my head spinning and my stomach gnawing itself in knots. I can’t help feeling that despite Petaccia’s positive outlook on things, I’ve somehow managed to fuck this up so irreparably that she’ll have to give up on me.

I’m ravenous, and sick, and dizzy with pining for the coolness of the garden.

This heat is stifling, it is unbearable , but I can’t think of anything worse than returning to my rooms, where I can see the garden but I can’t touch it—can’t taste its sweet bitter greenness on my tongue.

The sunlight burns my face as I cut across the campus; it’s quieter today, most of the scholars returned to their usual studies in the dim lecture halls and classrooms, hidden away from the baking heat.

Petaccia has left no lectures for me, and I don’t feel much like pawing my way through any of the histories I’ve been reading. My mind is simply too full of bees.

Still, I’m surprised at where my feet carry me.

The library is just as daunting and exciting as it was when I first entered.

I’ve had most of my books delivered to my rooms or the laboratory—it’s easier than trying to find a private study area according to St. Elianto’s rules—and I haven’t had the time for any other reading since I started.

Today, though, the library’s cool halls and hidden nooks call to me.

I slip into the building silently, wasting no time crossing the atrium and climbing up to the mezzanine.

My appearance still garners more attention than I’d like around the campus, but at this time of day there aren’t many scholars to pay me any mind, and those who do quickly go back to their reading.

I stride in my trousers, grateful to Petaccia for her insistence on them, and head up another spiral staircase.

I’m not looking for anything in particular, not any section or author or theory.

I don’t want to read about politics or philosophy or science, I can’t think of anything worse right now than filling my head with more things , but I’m burning with exhausted energy.

I continue to walk because if I stop I will simply collapse.

I consider titles on death and mourning.

My father always said there was more to learn—I wonder if there have been any advancements since he died, in the ritual preparation of bodies or the casting of new cradles, a process that has had bloody wars fought in its name for centuries.

But it isn’t death I want to read about.

Not bodies or thoughts. I want—the realisation hits me like a carriage—I want to read about love.

I’ve gravitated towards fiction, most of the library’s offering here of the elegiac and temporary variety. Novels by poets, pretty in prose and heavy in ideas, or great tomes by old professors in their waffling prime. I have never really been one for fiction, except—

I stop. The book—right ahead—with the black spine, completely innocuous in both appearance and title, is one I would recognise anywhere.

The image of it is seared into my mind; my whole body flushes at the sight of it, cheeks hot, palms sweating.

I recognise it because it is a book I have seen before.

Not in my father’s private stash—he would have been disgusted if he knew such things existed—and not in any public collection I have seen since.

But it is one I had once, hidden, in my marital home.

More than most of the titles I secreted away, concealed from Aurelio’s prying eyes, this one was special. And not only because of what made it worthy of a secret, the scenes that burned behind my eyelids in the darkest hours of night, throbbing deep in my belly, but the story.

I creep closer. It can’t be—can it? It is small, about the height of my palm, and sits nestled between two much larger companions.

It is a slender thing, no more than a hundred pages, and I might have missed it if I hadn’t seen it before.

What is a book like this doing here? Dimly I wonder if the author is a scholar or professor at the university.

It’s the only thing that would make sense.

Such inflammatory material… out in the open?

My chest rises and falls rapidly, my heart a bird fluttering inside a too-small cage. Part of me wants to scream, to run, to demand that the librarian remove it at once, or better, to run away and never come back again. This isn’t the part of me that wins.

It’s as if an unseen hand guides me, my arm that of a puppet and somebody upstairs pulling the strings. I swipe the book off the shelf and shove it deep into my trouser pocket, where it nestles against my skin through the thin material, warming with the heat from my body.

I glance quickly up and down the stacks, but there is nobody up here. Then I head back out the way I came, trying to affect the same innocence. It isn’t possible—I can’t pretend. I’m convinced that any second somebody will stop me, will demand to see what I’ve concealed in my pocket.

Nobody stops me. And I can’t stop myself.

I’m back at my rooms, hot and sweaty and trembling with fear and hunger and deep, impossible delight before I even realise what, exactly, I have done.

I pull the book from my pocket carefully; it looks nearly new, not thumbed and creased like its shelf mates, and I stare at it in awe.

The first thing I think is that Aurelio is going to kill me when he finds out what I have done—and then I remember. Aurelio is dead. There is nobody here in these two rooms of mine to care what I read or what I think. Or whom I think about.

I hurriedly start the task of closing the shutters, giving the hot, sun-filled garden one longing glance, before carrying the book through to the bedroom.

I glance down at my hands, then remove my wedding ring.

I strip down to my underwear and crawl between the sheets, limbs singing, skin already prickling with anticipation.

There are no thoughts of fear now. No worry about whether this is wrong of me to want or need.

I remember the same anticipation in my study in Aurelio’s house, the way I would hide behind my husband’s desk with my knees propped up against the wood and my hand circling hesitantly beneath my skirts.

Back then I was afraid—petrified—of being caught and crucified.

I wanted nothing more than to wipe the memory of his touch from my body, to reclaim the burning feelings that were mine alone.

Now I read with delight, page after curious page of the chapter I have always loved best. It is an ancient story within a story, the legend of the nymphs Hekaline and Orithyia, who were cursed by the great Lord of Death to exist eternally opposed—one condemned to the night, the other to the day.

In this version of the tale, Orithyia discovers the ambiguity of the greyness in dusk and dawn, and the lovers meet under a secluded rocky overhang where they satisfy their desires beneath the golden-edged shadows of the sunrise.

It is a story of beauty and daring and resolve.

It is trust, and the risk of betrayal, for each of the nymphs must wholly believe in the other or risk death.

When I first discovered it I felt like Hekaline, and I would have given anything to trust in the greyness; now it is Orithyia who speaks to me, the one who holds the cards—and the responsibility if it all comes tumbling down.

Of course, like the rest of this novel, this chapter spares no details of their passion.

As I read I think of last night, of the crush of Olea’s lips on mine, of the delicious softness of her skin, her breasts.

I want to gorge myself on her. I want to hold her body with every inch of my own, palms and nails and lips and teeth; I want to crawl inside her skin.

My body grows loose and comfortable—and as my fingers reach the soft, warm flesh between my thighs, all I think of is Olea.