Page 15 of The Library at Hellebore
“When I was a freshman, there was one attractive lecturer. It was the year the Raw Mother came to Hellebore. She Who Eats and the Ministry had come to an agreement. The school was filled with young women who could commit to her without worrying about their virtue, and she could have her worship without destroying families and ending marriages.”
“That’s some patriarchal bullshit.”
“It was,” said Portia, face soft with remembrance. “But it worked out. Those of us who were drawn to her went to her, and it wasgood,Alessa. She took care of us. The one thing in the school that didn’t want us dead.”
“The one thing in the school that didn’t want you dead, huh?” I repeated gingerly. “I sure hope things have improved since then.”
“Anyway, there was one very hot lecturer back then,” continued Portia like I hadn’t spoken, roping an arm around my shoulders. She smelled delicious, like honey and vanilla. “But we—”
“We who?”
“Oh, the Raw Mother’s girls, of course. We all started arguing over him and he ended up torn apart. It was a whole thing,” she said. “They’ve only just found his right earlobe.”
The crowd swam past us, led this way and that mostly by the skinless automatons although occasionally, I’d catch sightof a masked servitor, tugging a student down a narrow hallway. Sunlight poured through the windows in beveled spears and Portia was run through by one as she paused. She glowed like a saint.
“How long ago was this?”
“How long ago was what?” said Portia, smile empty and bright as glass. “Twenty years.”
“Twenty—”
“I thought it’d all been destroyed but apparently not. Although by the time the janitors found the ear, it was a mummified, rat-gnawed morsel. They almost made the mistake of throwing it out.” Her eyes twinkled. I still couldn’t tell the color of her irises: they seemed an impossible purplish red, like wine, almost dark enough to be black.
“You said twenty years, Portia.” I asked. “What the hell did you mean by that? And, more importantly, what the hell did you mean bythe only thing in the school that didn’t want you dead?”
“It’s in a reliquary somewhere now. I could show you,” said Portia, answering a question I definitely did not ask. Her smile was bright, innocent, dazed: the smile of a woman waking from a dream. Before I could interrogate her further, a commotion stole everyone’s attention.
Portia grabbed my upper arm without a word, yanking me forward. We threaded through the rubbernecking throng of students until we reached the front. A circle had formed around Sullivan, a black-eyed girl with the most magnificent trove of dark curls with whom he was holding hands, making her Delilah, and an absolutely gargantuan boy.
The other boy dwarfed Sullivan by an impressive seven inches or so; impressive, as Sullivan cleared six feet himself. He was wider too, built like the archetypal lumberjack. Hehad a despondent, miserable face and a mealy complexion, the face of someone who had never heard of skin care. Delilah held on to Sullivan’s arm, her face buried against his sleeve, mostly occluded by his bulk.
“I know you,” the unhappy boy said to Sullivan, his tone dull. “I would know you in my dreams.”
“If it’s any reprieve, it’s why I’m here. I want to redeem that bloody history of mine.” Sullivan stared at the taller boy, his lips pinched together so hard, they were a bloodless gray. His voice nonetheless was calm, the same exquisite and unbothered tenor that he had used to critique my wardrobe. “We don’t have to fight. Please.”
“You’ve taken so much.”
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
“You tookeverything.” The boy’s voice broke under the weight of the wordeverything,turning shrill. “You and your family. You fed on us.”
“Not willingly,” said Sullivan. Had I been standing at any other angle, I would have thought him utterly bored by the other student’s blandishments, so neutral his tone, but I could see how he held one hand clenched in a white-knuckled fist, how it shuddered at his hip. “Not by choice.”
“I can’t let you live,” said Sullivan’s opposite. He shook his head and then once again, harder the second time, eyes widening until they were mostly whites. “No, no, I can’t letherlive. She’s the source of your power, isn’t she?”
“Leave Delilah out of this.”
“They’re all dead. My family—youoweme.”
“Me, perhaps, but not her.”
“I can’t let any of you live,” said the other boy hopelessly. “I can’t.”
The threat in the other boy’s voice was unmistakable. Aprematurely excised fetus would have been able to say,Yes, that man very definitely wants to cause harm.Sullivan did not withdraw nor did he posture or jeer at his adversary. Instead, he ran a hand along his hair. He laughed tremblingly, as though his amusement were a living thing, squirming in his grip.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that already. The first person to want me dead was my mother. Poor girl. They carved out her memories, you know? Told her she was going to get a white-picket future. Might have gotten it too if I’d the decency to be born a daughter. When they found out I was going to be a boy, the cicada-lords filled her lungs and her thoughts and her womb. Everyone was so happy. She, though, wanted to smother me in my own placenta. Tried to, I’m told. They didn’t allow her, of course,” said Sullivan and his voice smoldered with warning although he was painstakingly gentle as he unhooked the girl’s arms from his waist. “And the last person to tell me that Delilah needed to die, well. I didn’t allow them to do that either.”
“Sullivan, no, don’t, it’ll be okay. He can’t hurt me. Please, let me—”
