Page 100 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“I’ve given him a sedative,” Sonder explained, scrawling out the name of it on a slip of paper. “You’ll need to tell the medics what it’s called when they arrive and tell them to check his lungs, heart, nose, and throat.”

“Nose, throat, heart, lungs,” Mr Whelan repeated out of order, his nerves causing his eyes to dart around, landing on his brother’s eye sockets.

“Among the obvious things,” Sonder finished solemnly.

“Right. Thank you. Thank you both so much.”

“No thanks is needed, mate.” Sonder squeezed his shoulder and gestured with his head for Atta to follow him out.

They barely made it down the stairs before Sonder dropped his medical bag and lifted both their masks, searching her eyes. “Say it again,” he demanded, his voice tumultuous. “But only if it’s true.”

“Sonder, I’m all right.” She laid her palm against his cheek again and he leaned into her touch.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life, Atta.” He fitted her mask back on and donned his own, but he wouldn’t let go of her hand as they lugged all their supplies out to Gibbs’s car.

“Well?” Gibbs jumped on them as soon as they got in. “How did it go?”

“Another success,” Sonder told him plainly.

Atta clutched the bag housing a jar with a live faerie in it as they passed the wailing sirens of the medics on their way to tend to Mr Whelan.

The anatomical structure of the Fae mirrors that of humans, though on a much smaller scale, and situs inversus. It stands to reason that this gives them insight into the human form, and is potentially why our species has been selected as the root.

-Excerpt,Collection of Faerie Findings, Dr Sonder Murdoch, PhD, circa 1993

Sonder

“There are several things to note.” Atta had a pen sticking out of her mouth, distorting her words.

He hadn’t let her out of his sight for the last few days. It felt like she was sand about to slip through his fingers if he looked away.

They’d had six more successful exorcisms since Mr Whelan, and they were riding high. He knew he needed to make an appearance at Achilles House—that Lynch would expect him to autopsy at least one of the bodies and that there was no way he hadn’t begun to put together his absence with thecuresall over the news. . . but Atta.

There were jagged cuts on her arms, healing now. She’d told him they were from falling in the grove, and it felt like a half-truth.

She’d seemed fine. Happy, glowing, eating. She’d even crawled on top of him the night before and again that morning. She’d felt glorious in his hands then, alive and real andhis. They’d lain there in the wintery morning light discussing their findings of the live faerie sitting in the cellar, and she’d had an idea, left his bed stark nude and returned with a towering stack of books against her breasts and climbed back into bed with him. He’d decided that would be the painting he made of her, standing there nude with her books.

Still, something wasn’t sitting right. Like a stone in his gut. Achilles awaiting the downfall of his Patroclus. Could he have stopped it if he’d known?

“Are you even listening to me, Professor Murdoch?”

Her face was contorted with ire. Even her smart mouth was there in typical fashion, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. She’d spoken in a strange language that day at Whelan’s. Trembled and looked terrified of what she saw that he couldn’t.

“No,” he said, pushing away all the darkness. “Tell me again.”

She rolled her eyes and straightened behind his desk. He’d offered it to her and taken the coffee table so her back wouldn't hurt being hunched over.

“The Dryad Faeries seem to be the ones with the highest rate of success, which makes a great deal of sense. They’re quite close to a successful Inhabitation, and they’re also the ones choosing their hosts more selectively.”

Intellect finally closed the door on his worry and cataclysmic thinking. “I’m listening.” Sonder leaned forward, elbows on his knees, brow furrowed.

Her face lit up like it always did when she was lost to her academia. “From what I saw when I touched them, some of the Inhabited were selfish, yes, but some were beyond kind. Selfless. Protective. In ways that were potentially detrimental to themselves.”

“Go on.” The professor in him never could be turned off. It was best to draw out a person’s thoughts, not interject one’s own.

“The faeries possessing people are all under the same umbrella of Fae, though different variations. Unless we can recruit more people to help us, our focus needs to be on Stage 3 Inhabitations because those all seem to be Dryads, and they’re bordering on the success of Stage 4. I’m not sure there’s another stage after that, and if there is?—”

“Then they’ve won.”

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