Page 59 of This Vicious Hunger

Chapter Thirty-Six

I n the days and nights that follow, I am aware only of the world in terms of needs .

Hunger, thirst, lust, exhaustion: each need begins small, a kernel, but unattended it becomes a flame.

We sleep where we fall, often with our limbs entwined, fingers and mouths sticky.

When we are not sleeping, eating, or otherwise engaged, Olea and I raid her library, reading and performing the tales aloud.

I have never heard Olea laugh as she does during these in-between hours, when we dress in fresh nightgowns and wrap our hair in towels to act as queens and servants.

We sketch and paint with Olea’s battered charcoal and watercolour set, often setting up where the trees grow thickest. One evening we go as far as taking a bottle of wine and a blanket to the fountain, where we set up camp for several hours in the moonlight.

I draw Olea amongst the blooms, a riot of lilies and foxglove captured in strokes of blushing pinks and purples.

She lies back, resting her elbows on the ground and her hands across her bare breasts, her legs parted at the knees so I can capture the petals within.

When we return the following day the streaks of paint from our lovemaking still spatter the bright stones in a pastel haze.

We are both so aroused at the sight of the evidence we left behind that we spend another hour lying amongst the wreckage, grass in our hair and thorns pressing against our bare legs.

The scratches heal within minutes, but the pain they elicit is sharp and fresh and— delicious .

Petaccia returns to the garden only thrice during this time.

More lies, for she claimed she would check in regularly, but I’m glad she doesn’t.

Mostly I’m too enraptured by Olea to care.

Petaccia appears once while we are cooking, a figure dressed in a black hooded robe and ever-present black gloves.

She speaks little, keeping a careful distance that neither Olea nor I care to disturb.

We hand over our notes—almost entirely fabricated as they are—and then ignore her until she leaves.

The second time she comes, Petaccia brings food and wine, great sacks of pasta and rice, small potatoes and jars of brined olives and cheese.

I watch her pull the little cart through the winding paths of the garden, its wheels oiled so it is near-enough silent.

I glance at Olea, and her shrug is confirmation enough: This is normal.

This is how she has survived all these years.

“She comes a different way, and at a different hour, each time,” Olea says softly when she notices my expression, no doubt dark as thunder. “As a child I thought there might be other gates, but truly if there are I’ve never found them.”

“So you could never escape if you wanted to.” Sickness roils in me, warring with the heat of anger. The deeper I swim in this dream, the closer comes the sulphurous stink of hell.

“I didn’t want to.” Olea shrugs again and the gesture is so practised, so defeated, that I wonder if she believes her own lies. If that’s the only way she can process the magnitude of ills Petaccia has burdened her with all these years.

When Petaccia arrives with the food on the small handcart, I’m ready and waiting outside. Olea hovers in the doorway, a ghost in the daylight. Petaccia waves and grins—as though this is the most normal thing in the world.

“Supplies,” she says briskly. “Olea, unload the cart.”

Olea moves jerkily to do as she’s told, but I step in her way.

“You do it,” I say.

“Excuse me?”

“You unload the cart.” The old Thora would have cowered in shame at my brashness, but anger might as well steam from my pores for the good it would do trying to keep it in. “Olea’s not your slave.”

Petaccia straightens her shoulders and stares me right in the eye. “Do you think you’re in a good position for bargaining?” she asks.

“You have more to lose than we do. If you want notes from us, confirmation of theories or contradictions, then a bit of work on your end wouldn’t go amiss.

We’re sick of you treating us like chattel.

And don’t get me started on the way you’ve treated Olea—for saying she’s your own goddamn flesh and blood.

” The words pour out of me. I can’t believe I ever thought I could trust her.

Petaccia’s dark eyes glitter with a mixture of what might be amusement and malice; it’s always so hard to tell. She shifts so she can see Olea clearly over my shoulder.

“Is this how you feel?” she asks coldly.

Olea is silent. I turn, urging her with my eyes to agree with me, to back me on this the way I know she desperately wants to.

She doesn’t deserve to be in this mental prison as well as a physical one.

But Olea stares down at her hands, fingers clenched—fingers that were, an hour ago, curled so hard inside me I wept from the beauty of it.

“Exactly what I thought,” Petaccia says. “You see, Thora, Olea is not so quick to turn her back on the one who has nurtured her—”

“You call this nurture ?” I gesture wildly at the sacks and jars of food.

“Olea has had access to everything she could possibly need. I really don’t see your problem.

Any other woman would be grateful for such an opportunity.

I taught her to read and write myself; she has access to novels and plays and scientific treatises, books on art and music, and the instruments and utensils to practise.

If she ever wanted for anything, all she had to do was ask.

” Petaccia pauses for a second, reaching up to adjust her protective clothing, and then points at me.

“Isn’t this the same thing you wished for? ” she demands.

I balk. “It’s not the same and you know it—”

“Is it not?” Petaccia bares her stained teeth in a smile that’s half grimace.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I saw something of myself in you, Thora.

A young widow, trapped in society’s customs and graces, without the financial or physical wherewithal to get out.

A woman forced to marry for the sake of seeming respectability.

A woman judged and criticised for asking questions, for wanting to know about this world we live in.

Olea has never been exposed to any of that.

I wanted to give you the same opportunity—”

“There’s no reasoning with her,” Olea says quietly. It’s the first thing she’s said the entire time Petaccia has been here, and it has the same weary detachment as always. “Come on. Help me unload the food. It’ll be quicker that way.”

“No,” I say, very calmly. “The doctor unloads the food.”

“Thora, please—”

“Olea.” I fix her with a gaze that I hope says it all. If we don’t stand up to her, if you don’t stand up to her, then we are nothing more than guinea pigs in this place. We might as well leave.

Olea doesn’t move. She doesn’t speak. Indecision thins her lips.

She knows I’m right: the lock on the gate was deterrent enough to keep me from fleeing right after our awakening, but it is Olea that keeps us here now, her evergreen fear of life outside the garden masquerading as concern about the long-term clinical effects of our cure.

Without Olea I would not still be here, and she knows it.

But I know she has a lot to process, and, well, it seems like we might have time yet.

“I…”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Petaccia snaps irritably. “I don’t have all day. And since the both of you seem determined to play out this little routine, go on—I’ll bite. Move out of the way, Olea, and I’ll unload the food, and then I want whatever notes you’ll deign to give me. How’s that?”

After Petaccia is gone, we do not talk about what occurred. In fact, aside from our single conversation about keeping the nature of our new gifts from her, we do not talk about the doctor at all. Not yet.

The third time she visits after the cure, Petaccia is a silent presence, leaving behind fresh supplies of food and wine while Olea and I nap in the depths of the garden.

She doesn’t attempt to keep up the pretence of taking our notes—no doubt after the last visit completely aware we’ve been lying.

Perhaps she is watching us, determining for herself the effects of the antidote.

This occurs to me early on, given how fast she arrived in the garden for Olea’s death and Olea’s suspicions about other gates, but I’ve yet to gather any actual proof.

And what does it matter? We will have to face her eventually: there isn’t anywhere for us to go if we want the answers ourselves.

Try as I might to rationalise it, leaving the garden is not the right decision.

Petaccia is correct: here, we have everything we need, food, water, shelter, sunlight, recreation…

Out there—who’s to say the impact our toxicity will have on the world?

Olea pretends not to care either way, happy to be caught up in our pleasure if it means not addressing the truths of Petaccia and her childhood.

Part of me knows I should be embarrassed at the prospect of somebody watching us; only weeks ago I stole that book from the library to read in secret, a book that had ended my marriage (and, admittedly, my husband’s life) and could easily have ended me if the likes of my father had discovered the truth about my feelings.

When Aurelio discovered it, it very nearly did.

Here, in the garden, we don’t talk about the world outside.

Not any more. It is remarkable how quickly we fall into days and nights of discussing nothing more than hunger and sex.

We settle into a rhythm of casual chaos, sleeping and fucking without care, and I wonder: Is this freedom?

Is this what I have searched for my whole life?