Page 39 of This Vicious Hunger

I glance back at Dr. Petaccia uncertainly. This was not what I expected, though I’m still not sure what that was. The animals are all fairly quiet and unusually subdued; some twitch frantically when we enter and others stare with glassy eyes. My stomach churns at the sight of them all.

It is cool like a natural sepulchre in here, or one of the memorialist churches—or, I suppose, one of the mourning tombs of old.

And there is death in the face of every creature in here.

It is a far cry from the laboratory above, which is hot and living, green and yellow in every direction; in this room there is only the dull ache of grief.

“What do you need with them all?” It’s inhumane. It’s unforgivable. I can’t say so aloud, but Petaccia’s expression says I don’t need to.

“Come, now. Where’s that spirit I saw only minutes ago? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve lost your nerve already.”

“No, I just… I wasn’t expecting—”

“Science has never been clean, Thora. It has never been won the easy way. As my father always used to say, ‘You’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette.’ Do you think we learned how to survive by accident?

We humans have made our fame by stealing and bartering, by carving our knowledge out by the flesh.

How do you think we learned to operate to save lives?

How do you think doctors and midwives have learned their crafts for centuries? ”

“Yes, but you’re a botanist —”

“Thora.” Petaccia turns from the survey of her kingdom, and I’m impressed by the disappointment her frown conveys.

“You haven’t told me what any of it’s for,” I say weakly.

“Maybe then I’d understand. What does any of this have to do with the garden or Olea’s plants?

All I see is suffering. I would expect this in—in one of the bigger laboratories maybe, anatomical science.

These animals… look at them. Doesn’t it look like they wish for death? ”

“Ah.” Petaccia guides me farther into the room and closes the door.

Instantly I’m more aware of the stillness in here.

I can’t hear anything from outside, no noise from scholars in the distant square, no creaks or clanks of pipes.

It is the kind of stillness that usually only comes after death, after the mourning and the cradle and the burning; the flutter of my heart might as well be the only living thing in here.

Petaccia says nothing as she watches me.

It’s only a few seconds but it feels as though she’s waiting for something, some proof that she can trust me.

I try to raise my chin again, to square myself up against the horror.

It is science , I think. This laboratory is a frontier of discovery.

She must be satisfied, for her next move is across the room; to the left of the cages there are long, thin wooden shelves that look older than anything else in here, each one crammed to the gills with bottles and jars, filled colourful pipettes sitting in saline and cubes of what might be salt or sugar injected with similar colours.

There looks to be a certain order, or progression, amongst the vials, but I can’t make any sense of it.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Every single one of these is a failure, or a representation of a near miss, which is essentially the same thing, I suppose.”

I’m tired of waiting for Petaccia to explain herself. I have an inkling, the tiniest blossom of an idea, but the thought horrifies me so much that I push it down. Impossible.

Each of the bottles, jars, and tinctures is a different size and colour. Some are similar but none are the same. Each has been labelled. Antidote #1 , Antidote #238 , Antidote #654 … My blood runs cold with the suspicion that each of these “antidotes” is probably worth at least one animal life.

Many of the liquids are green in colour, though the higher numbers are also frequently red, rust-orange, and such dark colours as to be almost black.

Then I spot one whose colour is a milky white, and within the mixture there is a single spiny brackish-red castor seedpod.

I recognise it from Olea’s catalogue. She’d said that three or four of the large, speckled seeds inside the seedpod contain enough poison to kill a person.

I turn back to the doctor. She is checking the notes strapped to one of the rat cages with a resigned shake of her head. “What is the end goal?” I ask.

“What do you think? Talk me through it.”

It’s clear that Petaccia considers this a genuine question.

It’s a test, but one she believes I will pass.

She waits patiently while I sort through my thoughts, wading through the horror that curls deep in me, so deep it is pain, but also so deep I am able to sift through it like sand.

I hold up one hand and count on my fingers, hoping the gesture will calm the hum of my nerves and the sickness in my belly.

“Okay. Well. You’re likely using toxins distilled from Olea’s plants to attempt some kind of medical healing.

I see the Ricinus communis in that one, and given that you are both a botanist and a trained medical doctor, I think it’s a fair assumption that you’d want to combine the two.

I know that toxins have been used before now for experimental trials—isn’t it foxglove that’s been discussed for an irregular heartbeat?

And of course poppies— Papaver somniferum —yield opium, which is often used as a pain medication. ”

“Good,” Petaccia encourages. “Go on.”

I shift awkwardly, glancing around the room. There is little other indication to me of the doctor’s end goal. These animals are obviously very, very sick, but what with?

“May I examine them…?” I gesture at the animals.

Petaccia lifts one shoulder in a half shrug.

Go ahead. I am not familiar with most animals in the flesh.

I have read countless books borrowed from my father detailing the aspects of animal husbandry, and my mother’s childhood on the farm gave her a few choice stories that she often told me, like the time the family dog had puppies—but I have never had an animal of my own, never owned a working horse or dog, or any kind of pet. I wander to the cages.

Up close things are no clearer. The rats and mice are not skittish like I would expect; they sit with laboured breaths or burrow deep in their bedding.

My heart thuds and my hands are clammy with cold sweat.

I reach up to the bars of the cage housing the bird and it does nothing. The rabbit is the same.

“They all look critically ill.” Petaccia waits expectantly for me to continue. “But I can’t see a common cause. Is it… something in the body or the blood?”

“There is no common cause,” Petaccia says. “And the cause itself is not important.”

A shiver snakes down my spine as the pieces slowly fall into place.

But I can’t be right—I simply can’t. “Right.” I count off on my fingers again.

“So it’s a medical trial in which plant toxins play a role, and it looks as though you’re trying to combine them with something viscous—something that can travel around the body when…

injected or ingested? But the cause of comorbidity isn’t vital, so… ”

My thoughts twist to Olea. She killed that bird in the garden, stone-dead from a single touch.

I’m almost certain of that now. The two of them are harnessing the power of these plants at the risk of death, which means the potential payoff must be huge.

And what do each of these animals have in common? Not the illness—but the end.

“End of life,” I blurt in horror. “You’re studying the process of death after illness.”

“Not just studying, Thora. I am trying to find a universal cure for all ailments.” She turns to look at the row upon row of antidotes, her expression hard to read.

She chews on her lower lip. “And it’s not fucking working.

You’re right—it must be ingested. Intravenous delivery doesn’t work as the site of injection is prone to necrosis.

Water isn’t a strong enough carrier. Saline is better but the salt ruins the balance.

I’ve tried blends of countless vitamins and minerals, different toxins too—but everything in my gut and my research says that the toxin itself is almost irrelevant once you find the correct thing to bind it with.

It could be a… a vaccine . The best success I’ve had is with crushed animal offcuts, blended offal, as the body doesn’t reject it so fast, but you can’t blend it fine enough for injection unless you water it down too much.

And the mice and rats won’t drink it; they choke if they’re forced.

There’s something in the offal, something… I’m so close.”

The doctor turns to me now and her eyes are wide and wild. The shiver down my spine is now a full-body tremble. I feel sick and—and excited too. I think I understand. I think I can see it.

“Has there been any progress?” I ask shakily. “Have any of your cures worked?”

“If there is any kind of positive transformation, it fails almost immediately. I think it’s breaking down inside the body, so it—it needs to act faster .

A failure is still a damn failure. I narrowed down the toxins but, in the end, had to open it back up again to ensure my tests were broad enough.

Do you understand? I am on the cusp of something so great here, so great it will upend life and medicine as we know it.

A cure for all—do you see the potential, Thora? ”

And suddenly I do. It hits me like a hurricane. A cure for all. No more babies or mothers lost in childbirth, no more soldiers lost to gangrene, no more pneumonia or fevers or cholera or dysentery. No more mourning and grieving, undertakers and sepulchres and cradles.

“A cure for…” I whisper.

“A cure for natural death.”