Page 46 of This Vicious Hunger
My breath catches. At first I think that the bird is only stunned, that it will shake itself in a second and fly away. That is before I see the way Olea stares at her hands, both outstretched before her. The rising moon casts silver across her features and I recognise the expression: resignation, tinged with the faintest disgust.
The horror unfurling inside me is no longer slow and dawning. The feeling slams into me, leaving me sick and shaking, realisation not far behind. All this time… all this time I have believed Olea when she said the garden trusted me. I have believed her when she said that the plants were toxic to everybody but her—and now me.
I was wrong. The bird isn’t stunned. It doesn’t get up and fly off. Olea walks to where it fell, calmly, calmer than I have seen her all evening, and gathers the poor, tiny thing in her hands. I can see the way she cradles it, curiosity merged with her resignation. She lifts first its wings one by one, and then its head. The bird wriggles once, one last fighting flare of its heart, and then goes still. Something liquid, dark in the moonlight, drips down Olea’s arm. She lifts the bird to her ear and listens, then whispers something to its lifeless form.
Piece by piece, the puzzle slots together. When Olea said that the plants were not toxic to her because they trusted her, that was only a story she told to draw me in, to lull me with the harmless side of her and her miraculous Eden. The notes in Petaccia’s book were more to the point.Tolerance, I think.It’s all about exposure.
I can see it now, plain as the inky stain on Olea’s fingers, plain as my body’s rejection of—followed by complete intoxication with—her. Her and the garden both. When we’re apart I crave them, and if we’re apart long enough I am sick and shaky as an addict without opium; when we are together my body is filled with overwhelming sensation.
Yes, the bird might have been sick, dying already, but… the coincidence is telling. Death by a single touch. Look at what her kisses have done to me, even after months of low-level exposure to both her and the plants.
When Olea said that the garden was dangerous, I should havelistened. I should have listened to my body, the feverishness and sleepless nights, the sweet-bitter scent of the garden, so similar to Petaccia’s wretched eyeball tree; I should have heard Leo’s warnings and taken Olea’s caginess about Petaccia’s experiments to heart.
Bile burns my throat as I slowly, carefully, close the shutters and back away from the window. I back away until I reach my bedroom once more, fingers at my lips, teeth grinding as understanding finally hits me in wave after wave after wave. I picture without trying the burning shock of Olea’s kisses, the heartsickneedto be near her. No, it is not only the plants that grow close to the wall that can maim or poison in one toxic touch, nor those on the other side of the trees; it is not just the garden that can kill.
It is Olea too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Iknow about Olea.”
I stand in Petaccia’s lab the next morning, feet apart in a fighting stance. As usual, even on a Saturday, the doctor is starting her day behind her desk, writing notes from some overnight spark of genius. She is dressed in black and it highlights the pallor of her skin. She looks tired, her hair frizzing around her head—but I don’t care. I need answers.
She glances up when I speak, pausing her writing, but doesn’t say anything, just peering at me expectantly. A rush of fury overtakes me.
“I know about the garden too,” I say. “How long were you planning to keep me in the dark? I thought we were supposed to be partners.”
Petaccia purses her lips. “What,” she says coolly, “exactly is it that you think you know?”
“Olea told me everything.” It’s a bluff, and one that I know within seconds hasn’t paid off.
“Well, if you know everything, why are you here?” Petaccia steeples her gloved fingers. It is strange, I realise, talking to herin this room without her vine coiling around her wrist. A pang of guilt almost stops me in my tracks, but I refuse to back down.
“Okay, not everything,” I admit. “But I know about the poison plants. I know Olea tends them at night. I know she’s yourward, for god’s sake. Why didn’t you tell me about any of this? All this time you’ve had me fannying around playing children’s science with those—” I gesture at the seedlings in the window, bigger than they were but still stunted by the full sun.
“The drought is a serious problem, Thora,” Petaccia snaps. “I wouldn’t exactly call it children’s science.”
“No? Then why is it that you share it with me but not Olea’s garden? What on earth are you doing in there that is so, so…” I can’t say it. I can’t even think it. The memory of the bird touching Olea’s skin and falling down dead comes unbidden and I feel sick, a mixture of revulsion and vicious hunger deep inside me.Unnatural.“I’ve been in the garden. I’ve seen it all. I know that there’s more than what it seems.”
Finally, I think, I have Petaccia’s full attention. She closes her notebook—different, I realise now, from the ones we have always written in together. Different, too, from the one she gave me to read her notes. She slides this into the top drawer of her desk. Her eyes are narrow, but thoughtful rather than angry.
“If you have spoken to Olea, then you must know I spend very little time in her garden. And what time I do spend there is focused on helping her to create a—a catalogue of sorts. Olea is a very talented gardener and she has been working on her little… project, I suppose you could call it, since she was young. All I have done is encourage her affinity.”
“For poison plants,” I say. As if that is the most normal thing in the world.
“Yes, poison plants, amongst other things.” Petaccia shrugs. “It’s also an area I myself find fascinating. And why not? All of nature’s miraculously self-defensive plants being encouraged to grow in one place—it’s quite the marvel, isn’t it? And as I said to you when we first met, it has always been my goal to encourage other women in science. Olea’s science is just a little more… unorthodox. Scholarship does not suit her, she is too…” Petaccia searches for the word. “Frail.”
“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me about it,” I grind out. “Do you not think that I deserve to know? I live right above the garden.”
“Well, I can hardly be blamed for that.” Petaccia’s face is a mask.I don’t know, I think.Can you?
The anger rises in me again. This whole conversation is going nowhere. I want to know how much Petaccia knows about Olea’saffinity, as she calls it, and whether she has seen the results like I have, or whether she, too, has been kept in the dark, if all her notes about exposure and tolerance are just that—notes. Half-baked ideas at best. The doctor must see the anger in my face because she shifts in her seat and rolls her shoulders.
“Look,” she says. “It’s true I haven’t been entirely honest with you about the real nature of my research at St. Elianto. My work in the labisimportant, and it’s better I do it than that hack Almerto. Can you blame me for keeping a little back for myself? You’ve seen what the others are like, how they crave fame and fortune without wanting to work for it. What real proof have I that you are any different from those praise-grabbing male students out there? And, yes, maybe you’ve gained some trust. But let’s get one thing straight: I haven’t any obligation to share my other research with you. I told you that you would have to prove yourself, and my ward’s work in the garden is not mine to share.”
“But—” I protest. Petaccia stands so quickly that the creak of her chair startles me and I step back, instinct reminding me of every time Aurelio ever did the same. I let out a frustrated breath.
“Let me finish.” She clasps her hands behind her back and strides around the desk until we are truly face-to-face. Up close the dark circles under her eyes are more apparent than ever, and I wonder if she, too, is struggling to sleep at night. “We stand upon a most important precipice. And, yes, perhaps it is time for me to open up to you.”
