Page 23 of This Vicious Hunger
“I’m cataloguing them.” Olea tilts the basket so I can see what’s inside. It’s hard to make it out exactly in the dim moonlight, but it appears as though the flowers she has picked are held between sheets of some kind of waxed paper beneath a smooth grey rock.
“Are you an artist?” I ask. “Will you draw them once they’re pressed?”
Olea’s expression shifts from openness to something more wary. “No,” she says coolly. “Why does everybody always assume all I’m doing is painting them? If I were to write my catalogue into a book, which Imightone day, I certainly wouldn’t only be responsible for the drawings.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that—”
“And anyway, there’s nothing wrong with drawing or painting them. It’s just not the only thing I want to do.” She lifts her chin with defiance. Her skin, in the moonlight, is pale as cream. Her lips are dark, thinned by her annoyance. My scalp prickles with embarrassment.
“I didn’t mean anything,” I say again. “Honestly. I ask because—well, if you’re a scholar, I wondered why I haven’t seen you in any of my classes. The professor who has taken me on never said anything about another woman studying botany, and you’re clearly a student.”
“I’m not a scholar.”
Olea speaks so softly that I can hardly hear her. I step closer to the gate, wrapping my hands around the bars so I can lean more comfortably. She doesn’t move any closer—still a careful few feet away. She grips the basket with both hands so hard they look as if they’ve been stained by shadows, her fingernails darkening away from the tips. Her feet, I realise with a small thrill, are completely bare beneath her gown. She reminds me of a dryad.
“You’re not? But you know so much. Were youevera scholar?”
“I’m not a scholar because I don’t want to be one,” Olea says pointedly. “Just because there is a university here doesn’t mean I have to be a part of it. I can still be educated without having to attend lectures and silly little seminars—no offence. I like the peace and quiet here.”
I raise an eyebrow, hurt but trying not to show it.
“But you’ve obviously spent so many hours learning what you know to be able to build a catalogue. Isn’t that the same thing as being a student?”
“Well, exactly, and I don’t have to prove myself to anybody. Books have taught me most of what I know, and they don’t care if I’m a woman or a man or clever or stupid.”
I’m truly not sure what to make of this girl. And what’s more, I’m not sure that I believe her. It’s a noble thing to want knowledge for the sake of knowledge—but is it realistic? There’s something in Olea’s face that tells me there’s more she’s not saying.
“No, that’s true,” I say, “but if you learn in isolation you don’t get the credit for it either. Isn’t that something you want?” I think of Petaccia’s comment about sharing the credit with her father for the cure she developed because it seemed right at the time, and it rankles. “If I put that much work into something, I’d expect to be credited for it. Why wouldn’t you publish it? Aren’t you afraidsomebody will steal your work? Why must women always be condemned to the footnotes?”
Olea pauses at this. She’s watching me carefully again, her dark eyes sharp as a tiger’s, fixated on my every breath. She wants something—but what? My belly swoops and I push my face closer to the bars of the gate, wishing I could peel back the moonlit shadows so I could see her better.
Whoisshe?
“I like you.” Olea lays her basket on the ground and puts her hands on her hips, her nightgown—I’m sure now itisa nightgown—flowing around her legs in the faint breeze that whips up. I train my eyes on her face, instead of the visible shape of her thighs through the gown. “You’re funny and you speak your mind. Some of my friends beyond the gate haven’t been so… strong.”
“Friends beyond the gate?”
“I don’t get to know many people from the university,” Olea says with a shrug. “The scholars tend to avoid me. They’re all afraid of the garden.”
“Well, you did say it’s dangerous—were you joking?”
“Oh no, not at all.”
“So itisdangerous?” I swallow.
“Yes.” Olea laughs and it’s that same throaty chuckle from last night. It ripples through me. “That is, it’s dangerous for you—and for them. Not for me. These plants know me.”
A sound comes then. It’s the rustle of leaves in a breeze, only there is no breeze. The plants nearest to Olea’s hands sway. If I didn’t know better I’d say their flowers might be intentionally angling towards her body. As if they hear her. As if theydoknow her.
I yank my hands back through the bars of the gate, a strangesensation bubbling in my belly. Something isn’t right here. It’s like Dr. Petaccia’s vine that seems to move of its own accord. I know plants grow using sunlight and a sophisticated biological system, I know they’reliving, but they’re not usually so… sentient? How could a plant know one person from another? It’s not a cat.
“You… raised them?” I can’t keep the suspicion from my voice, though it is tinged with awe.
“Most of them. And those I didn’t raise are still sort of… my wards? I’ve tended them and helped them to grow. It’s symbiotic. Does that make sense?”
I can’t quite understand what she means, but I don’t say that. Instead I watch closely as Olea gathers huge handfuls of her thick hair and braids it over her shoulder before reaching down to one of the plants growing near her bare feet. It’s a thin type of grass, looks a little like wheat only shorter, with little black bushy fronds. Olea’s lips part, and it looks like she’s murmuring something, though the sound doesn’t travel even this short distance. Then she picks one of the pieces and pops the stem in her mouth.
“Wait, isn’t that…?”
