Page 70 of This Vicious Hunger
“Where are my clothes?” I demand. I attempt to climb to my feet but the effect is ruined by my slippery limbs. I sink back against the sacking, winded.
“I’ve taken them away to be examined, and likely burned. They were quite badly damaged—bodily fluids, you know—during your transformation.”
“Transformation?” My anger dissipates in a cloud of smoke. “What do you mean ‘transformation’?”
“Well, you’re hardly the same as you were, are you?” Petaccia chides. “Look at yourself.”
She points to the floor beside me, and there is a hand mirror, as if she’s been waiting for the opportunity to draw my attention to it. I know I should ignore her goading, force my limbs to obey and stalk out of here, but I can’t help the curiosity that holds me frozen as I reach for the looking glass.
I hold the mirror to my face, letting the horror—and the wonder—unfurl in my expression.
The first thing I notice is my hair. It is thicker and longer than it has been in months, now falling to my shoulders in gentle burnished waves. Where Olea’s skin is alabaster, mine is like sun-warmed sand. Gone is the greyish tint it has developed over the last weeks, the dark circles under my eyes, that perpetual look of having not eaten enough. I am not plump, but the jut of my cheekbones now looks as if it has always been that way, as if I have been carved from gilded stone.
“The antidote…” I say. “It restored…” Restored, rejuvenated,reanimated. The thought is a stab right in my gut. I look at Olea, and the meeting of our gazes is electric, a flash of lightning under my skin. She understands. We are perfect, re-created in the Lord’s perfect image—and that does not come for free.
“Yes.” Petaccia claps her hands together in delight. “It remade you both. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure it had worked. Especially you, Olea.” She shakes her head and clicks her tongue, this time in pleasure. “I’m glad I was wrong. I was starting to think that all my plans were for nothing. And when you took her from the garden…” She shakes her head at me. “It turns out loneliness is quite the growth inhibitor. Who knew? Well, I did. I began to suspect as much after the last debacle. I’m glad all that worked out too. And human blood! My god, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. TheDendrocnide moroideswas a nice touch—I have a theory about the powdering process, but I won’t bore you with that now—”
“You,” Olea growls. “You did this. You orchestratedall of it.” She jumps off the table, making to march towards Petaccia with her fists raised, but her knees give way and she crumples to the flagstones at my feet. I scramble to help her, pulling her towards me, instantly aware of the coolness of her skin, the fire she creates in my touch.
Petaccia says nothing except, “Careful.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, turning back to Olea. Her eyes are dark with anger.
“She planted you,” she says. “In those rooms—right where she knew you would see me. For years she told me I shouldn’t leave the garden, shouldn’t have friends. For fuckingyearsshe isolated me in this place. And then one dayyouturn up, and you know about grief and dying and you want so badly to learn. I didn’t suspect it then, but I’m right, aren’t I?” She glares at the doctor. “You put her right there, for me. Like some kind ofprizeto be won.”
“Is it true?” I demand fiercely, though I know she chose my rooms. It feels so… calculated. And, of course, I feel foolish for imagining the doctor would have taken me on if my father had merelyasked.
“Eh.” Petaccia shrugs. “That’s hardly the worst of my crimes.”
“How could you?” Olea shrieks.
“Calm down.”
“Make me.” Olea bites down on her inner cheek and spits a bloody glob at the doctor. Petaccia only steps to the side, as if she expected exactly this. As if this is not the first time Olea has spat or shouted at her, and as if she simply doesn’t care.
“Oh, Olea, stop being childish. Isn’t it time you admitted that this is bigger than you? Bigger than all of us in this room? This is about the future of humanity.”
“I never asked to be a part of this.”
“No, that is true enough, but you’ve been a part of it since birth and I’m afraid that was a sacrifice I was absolutely willing to make. I’d do it again if it got us here. Wouldn’t you? Look at you both! Back from the dead in full glory. I know you feel a bit unsteady now, but in half an hour you’ll be right as rain. I’d bet my doctorate on it.” She laughs, as though this is the funniest thing she’s ever said.
“What do you mean?” I ask, taking in Olea’s stricken expression. What colour was left in her cheeks has leached away and the effect is eerie, like looking at a ghost. “A sacrifice you were willing to make—are you talking aboutOlea?”
“Florencia?” Olea prompts. “Tell me it isn’t true.”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly try the microdosing many other ways, could I?” Petaccia sighs. It is a petulant sound, small, although it sends the story of Olea’s life down like a house of cards. “I’ve always suspected it was part of the equation, though I’ll admit I wasn’t sure exactly how it would all fit together. I suppose I was wrong, in that way. But I did manage to prove that consistent dosing of the toxins can cause a certain level of synchronicity—”
“Youdid this?” I don’t try to keep the horror from my voice. “You made her this way?”
Petaccia shrugs again. “It started during my pregnancy. The garden called to me then. So perhaps it wasn’t all my fault—”
“Olea is yours?” I fight to my feet, leaving Olea slumped on the flagstones. I’m not sure what I intend to do, but the rage is blinding and I can hardly stop myself as I stride—or attempt to stride—across the room. “What happened to ‘I am no mother’?”
Petaccia doesn’t even back away. She holds her ground, and it is only then I realise she’s not unarmed. In one hand she carries a knife with a blade so pointed it makes me feel sick. None of us know how this works, how the antidote has changed us, how precarious our fresh grasp on life might be. Flashes of my nightmares stutter and all I see is blood. I falter.
“Semantics, Thora. As you said yourself. She was the garden’s before she was mine,” Petaccia says matter-of-factly. “I have never considered myself a mother. I dreamt of this place constantly, and when I wasn’t by the wall it felt a little like going mad. I made a mistake the first time, let Niccolò get in my head, let him lord his experience over me. ‘Your father wouldn’t have wanted this,’ blah blah. As if he really knew what my father would have wanted. My father was the one whogaveme the bloody idea. Of course, by the time I brought the child in, it was too late, and Niccolò never let me have enough time. By the second pregnancy I knew that early exposure was absolutely vital to maintain a certain level of health. Niccolò tried to sabotage me every step of the way, spineless little man that he was, nothing was ever good enough, but I learned from the first time, and frankly he looked better under his little burial mound in the trees.” She smirks. Olea’s face has grown still. “When I tell you I have never been so sick in mylifeasthose months.” Petaccia lets out a cheerful chuckle, as if the murder of her child’s father, and the lifelong, systematic abuse of her daughter, is a fucking joke. “But I was determined. I couldn’t do it to myself, you understand—too impractical—but a child? It turns out if you introduce them early enough, frequently enough, they can adapt to anything. Of course, I never meant for any of it to manifest outwardly. I was aiming for immunity, not conformity, but I suppose the end result is the same. In any case: a little poison each day keeps the outside world at bay.”
Olea is entirely speechless. Is it disbelief? Dissociation? Or is that more resignation I see in her face? Tears well in her eyes but she refuses to let them fall, her throat bobbing with each painful swallow. Petaccia’s singsongy voice shows no sign of remorse. In fact, there is nothing about her behaviour that even hints at apology.She’s fucking insane.
