I exert the last amount of will I have, but it’s not enough. I am sick, my stomach purging more than I have to offer.
I roll onto my back, looking up at the ceiling (an interlocking tapestry of branches and waxy leaves), and I think only one thought.
I’m empty as a husk.
Hunger.
It’s like a force of its own: a heavy, weighty feeling that you sort of forget about after a while, even though it’s always with you. At first it’s uncomfortable. A rumble, like stones, deep inside you. Then comes the choking, gagging nausea. Then come the daydreams. Roast ham. Gravy. Buttery potatoes. Peas soaked in butter and garlic. Then the imagining becomes torture. That food seems sickly. Disgusting. But it’s infected your mind, so you can’t stop.
GravySausageLimeTomatoBreadPeanutButterSquashRiceChicken— So you cough and gag and you throw up nothing. Eventually it fades into a dull, heavy ache. Your eyes droop. Your mouth bleeds dry. Your head pounds. Your tongue grows thick and heavy and you feel slow-headed and stupid. Clumsy.
Hunger.
It’s always with you.
I try the words on my furry tongue. “It’s… always… withoo…”
I remember the time Mam took me to the National Gallery of Art. It was before Nori, so maybe I was nine. Maybe ten. Was Mam pregnant? I can’t remember. We went out for a “girls’ day” together, and the museum was free, so it was the perfect choice.
I walked along the corridors, my hand in hers, and I could smell her vanilla oil, which she used like perfume, even though it was meant to be for potpourri, and I could hear the click, click, click of her heels.
This one particular section was all still life paintings. Huge pieces that stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling. To a seven-year-old, they looked enormous. Galaxy huge and impressive. And they were mostly food. I stared at these paintings in awe, thinking: People painted food! Actual food that existed all those years ago. Right here in front of me! Pears, apples, bread, cheese, meats—all of it laid out so neatly.
I remember wanting to pluck a giant pear from one of the bowls in the painting, imagining how it would taste and feel. Wondering how long it would take me to get through the whole thing. Thinking about how tiny I would be standing next to it. How I could eat myself a little corridor inside, live like James and his Giant Peach.
After that, I told Mam I was hungry. She found ten pounds in her pocket and we went to McDonald’s and had a feast. I was sick for three days straight after that, but it was worth it. Mam kept saying it was all her fault, she should have fed me better, stopped me at McChicken Sandwich number two, but I kept grinning while I puked and told her it was the best day of my life.
Hunger. It stays with you.
It’s like a disease that you can never shake.
Well, I suppose that’s not strictly true.
If you’re dead, there’s not much use for hunger, is there? So all I have to do is die.
Ha.
The pain passes slowly, and my stomach moves and complains inside me. When it is silent enough that I can move, I find that I am lying at the entrance to a dark, wet-smelling cave. I sense the depth within it the same way I sensed the depths of the hole. This is not a place I want to be.
Deep within the chasm, I hear dripping water— and a tinkling bell.
“Don’t go in there.”
I gasp as I spin, hands raised to defend myself. Gowan’s own hands are limp at his sides.
“Why the hell not?”
“Please, Silla, could you just trust me?”
“No.”
He sighs. “I love my anger.” He quotes my own words back at me, and I nod.
My anger is all I have now.
“And I’m going to find my sister, so you better stay out of my way, Creeper Man.”
“You know I’m not him.”
I raise my eyebrows—a monumental exertion of will. “Oh, really.”
His lips are set in a grim line and he nods. “Let me come with you. You don’t have to do everything alone.”
I want to protest right away. I want to say, No. No, I don’t need your help. I don’t need you.
But I would be lying.
Instead, I turn back to the cave and walk carefully inside.
The light disappears.
Nothing much happens for a long time. The walls around us curve upward, and I have the impression of willingly walking down the gullet of some giant stone creature—a long granite snake, maybe. Not even that would surprise me now.
And all of a sudden, this seems irrationally funny.
And I laugh.
And I can’t stop laughing.
My laughter becomes hysterical before I can contain it and I fall against the wall, clutching my sides.
“A—snake!” I manage, giggling.
Gowan looks at me like I have, finally, snapped. But he is grinning, too.
“I just… This is so messed up.”
Gowan looks around him, at where we are, at where we’ve come from, and grins. “Yeah.”
A tinkling echoes between us, cutting my laugh off like a diamond scalpel. Sharp and brutal. Quick and silent.