Page 8 of This Vicious Hunger
Just a little farther, I think, and then I’ll head back and tackle the awful job of my clothes. I just want to see how far the wall goes, how big the garden is, since it’s hard to tell from my window. Now the wall curves away, and instead of walking back around to the front of the dorm, I continue with my hand on the stone.
Here—eventually—I come to a large gate. It is arched stone and ornate ironwork, long crackled from vivid orange rust to faded brown and wide enough that I cannot reach from one side to theother. I wrap my hands around the lumpy bars and peer through the gaps; the garden is truly beautiful, even more overgrown than I realised. Tangles of green form the base, but everywhere I look there is a new colour, rose pink and lilac and the soft white of lilies, even some rare black blooms that look like a cross between a rose and foxglove, the centre of their flowers bell-shaped, so dark they seem to swallow the sunlight.
“Hello?” I call.
I press my face to the gate. There is no sign of a padlock, but it is either locked from within or rusted shut. It looks so peaceful inside, shaded in some places and full sun in others, sprawling in every direction as far as I can see. It would be the perfect place to study, away from the prying eyes of those horrid male scholars, and warmer than the library.
“Is the garden open?” I call. Quieter I add, “Even just for me?”
I wait in silence, fighting the inevitable swoop of disappointment when I receive no response. It was undeniably a long shot; it looks as if nobody has tended this space in years. There are hints of what might have once been paths, but they are overgrown, treacherous to the ankles. I picture with a good deal of childish glee lengthy thorns snagging the embroidery of my skirts, but I push the thought aside.
Despite the obvious abandonment, I can’t shake the feeling that the garden isn’t entirely empty. Probably rats, I think. Or mice. Or birds—though I can’t hear any. It doesn’t feel exactly like I’m talking to nothing, though perhaps I am simply sick of silence.
“Well,” I say flippantly, patting the gate and startling myself with the volume of its rattle. “I’m sure I’ll be back. So if you change your mind… kindly leave the gate unlocked, will you?”
Chapter Six
Strange dreams haunt me again—Aurelio’s fingers around my wrists morph into vicious weed-like creatures, ugly pustules on their knuckles that remind me of Petaccia’s pet vine. Flames lick at my back and a wall of thorns scratches my skin as I force myself away from the blaze and into the dark unknown. I toss and turn, my bed damp with sweat, my ears full of the rustling sounds of pages turning in a breeze.
I wake to find somebody has pushed a piece of paper underneath my bedroom door. The doctor must keep strange hours because it definitely wasn’t there when I went to sleep, but I’ve no doubt that it’s her handiwork; it is a clean, crisp sheet, folded on a knife edge, and spindly black ink crawls like skittering spiders into what resembles the most intense two-week schedule I could imagine. If it wasn’t clear before that Petaccia wasn’t joking about the seriousness of my studies, then it is now: every day from eight until three I am in back-to-back lectures with only a half hour for lunch. Not one of these lectures is with her.
The class names are wildly variable. I recognise some words from my father’s books and pamphlets, but there are many more I’ve neverseen before. A wave of panic overtakes me as my eyes scan the page, taking in lecture titles like “Medicinal Beginnings: From Athyner to Romeras” and others that have been asterisked, like “Folklore, a Historian’s Introduction.” There are recurring titles hosted by the English faculty—both poetry and drama—and in philosophy and medicine; two lectures pop up more than once this week with a professor whose name Petaccia has underlined: “The Philosophy of Death and Mourning from a Preacher” and “A Study in True Grit: The Survivors of the Landler’s Ship Disaster, Fact or Clever Journalism?” There are a handful of simpler botanical science lectures, which I understand better, taxonomy classes or those with grandiose titles like “Plant Medicine, Alchemy or Science?” and “The Alarming Underpopulation of the Isliano Rose,” which echo the titles, or central arguments, of the books I read undercover in my father’s study.
From three until six daily I have private study, and, once a week, she has scrawledtutorialin thick black ink, starting in two weeks. My stomach flips, a mixture of excitement and dread, as I realise that I shall spend this time alone with her in her laboratory—maybe even with that strange, diseased-looking vine.
I sit back and rub my knuckles, gently prodding the dread in my belly like one might tongue the gum around a missing tooth. I realise there is a sharp disappointment beneath the dread. Only once a week? After all her talk of partnership?
A horrid thought makes me stop short. The sheaf of paper trembles in my grasp. Is this Petaccia’s way of telling me that she doesn’t think I can do this? That I’m not ready, or that I don’t belong here? There is no way for me to attend so many scattered lectures and actually absorb any of the information, is there? Surely this isn’t a normal schedule.
I glance out the window, where the rosy pink dawn is paintingthe top of the empty, overgrown garden in shades of mauve. A mosquito buzzes somewhere close by and its electric hum sets my teeth on edge. I push away from the desk and march to the stove, where I set a pot of water on to boil. I throw in a scoop from the pot of tea leaves I stole from the dining hall last night at dinner and inhale the slightly bitter aroma.
No, I tell myself. Petaccia doesn’t seem the cowardly sort. If she was certain I wasn’t suited to this life, then I’m sure she would have told me yesterday.
She wants me to prove myself.
I roll my shoulders and smooth the paper out across the desk again, studying Petaccia’s scrawl with more care. The first class is this morning, a lecture on the enduring medicinal plants from Isliano’s Dark Ages. If a two-week test of resolve is all that stands between me and this future I’ve dreamt of my whole life, then I won’t let a thing as small as mental exhaustion stand in my way.
I dress just as carefully today, pawing through my trunks for the least cumbersome of my gowns. I settle on one made of a soft green silk; it flows like water as I slide it over my head and arms. Aurelio hadn’t been as much of a fan of this one, though his eyes did soften the first time I wore it to lunch with his family.You remind me of lily pads, he’d said.
I chuckle to myself now. Lily pads. It’s entirely the wrong shade of green. Coyotillo flowers maybe. I’d have given him that. Not that he’d ever have even heard of them. Natural wonders, especially natural wonders with a penchant for harm like the coyotillo berries, never were Aurelio’s speciality.
With the stolen dining hall tea to fortify me, I skip breakfast in favour of exploration, determined to find the locations of all the lectures ahead of me today. Three are within a stone’s throw of oneanother, but the fourth will require some creativity if I’m to attend on time. The campus is a hive of activity this morning; men of all ages wearing all manner of robes move with purpose, zigzagging between benches and lampposts decorated with colourful blooms; I find it hard to keep up the pace, my legs tangling in my skirts, my notebooks shifting my centre of gravity something rotten. Now I understand Petaccia’s comments on my wardrobe—forget the lab, St. Elianto itself is dangerous if one wields only a skirt as armour.
The lecture halls are bigger than my father’s sepulchre, though lighter thanks to the many windows. Colourful beams shimmer through stained-glass scenes in the natural sciences hall—fields of glass grass below olive trees and twisting strikes of lightning catch the sun as it moves overhead. In the halls the seats and desks are slanted upwards, so it feels as though learning comes from the sky itself; the speakers stand on raised podiums at the centre of the room, like preachers on a giant anthill, and the feeling of the learner—at least this learner—is one of smallness. I’m in rooms crowded with people and I’ve never felt more alone.
Three lectures out of four before lunch I’m left with a seat at the hall’s bottom edge, craning my neck to see and my ears to hear. I leave each one with a mess of spindly notes and a spreading pain in my neck, my bewilderment growing. Petaccia said she wanted a partner. I assumed she wanted me to have a rounded knowledge so I could help her with her own research—but all I feel now is confused and stupid.
You want me to be stupid, I’d said to Aurelio. I replay his response over and over:You’re already stupid. I’ve never felt more of a fool than I do today, surrounded by scholars who have been preparing for this environment their whole lives. They have each been fed a steady diet of learning from the cradle, where all I haveis my father’s books. Shame prickles in the sweat beneath my arms as I fight to keep up.
I gather my notebooks after a lecture on medicinal beginnings, where I learned only that Professor Almerto does not speak loudly enough for a low-row seat, and stumble out of the hall. The corridor is swarming with lively scholars, cheerily elbowing one another, clapping backs, and ruffling hair. It is a far cry from the solemn silence in the philosophy hall.
At the edge of one of the groups is a man I think I recognise from more than one of my lectures—he is tall and thin, with broad shoulders and arms that narrow like the branches of trees to delicate, slender hands. His dark hair is oiled but unruly, curling across his forehead and over his spectacles, and the front of his sandy-coloured shirt is creased beneath his open scholar’s robe.
“Almerto is a quack,” one of the scholars says, loudly enough to elicit sniggers from his nearest fellows. “All this nonsense about mint and garlic, as though we don’t all eat it every day. If any of this were true, Alec’s dear, well-fed grandmother would still be alive.” One of the men bristles but laughs gamely; the others show no such hesitation. “He’s no proof but stories—and what good are those? What do you think, lady?” He turns to me, a smirk on his face, and I realise it’s the man from yesterday who laughed when the cyclist pushed me. “Must all be for fun if they’re inviting the village girls in to listen. I’m curious what perspective you bring.” The bespectacled man catches my gaze, brief alarm flashing across his features. It’s sweet that he’s worried about me.
I match the other man’s smirk. “I doubt that,” I say. “But shall I confirm it with Dr. Petaccia in my tutorial later? I’m sure the doctor would be very grateful to know if a single colleague is ruining the department’s reputation for you fellows.”
It feels like a risk to mention Petaccia in front of these men—I don’t know if half of them even know who she is, but from their reaction it’s clear the risk has paid off and her reputation does in fact precede her. The mouthy one goes instantly quiet and his two closest companions shift uncomfortably.
