Page 16 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“Spooky?” Atta finished for her sarcastically. But the tone went right over Imogen’s head and she pointed a pink fingernail at her as if it was the first time the adjective had come up to describe the prof.

“Yeah.Spooky.”

Atta made a mental note to scrounge up her course catalogues and see if she could learn more about this Professor Murdoch before she was expected to meet up with him in the morning. It had already been a long, insane day and she still had assignments to finish. “I’m headed for bed.”

“Sweet nightmares, you freak.”

Atta didn’t care to respond. Imogen wasn’t really that far off.

Taking another bite of sharp Coolia and a bushel of grapes for the ever-so-long trip down the hall to her room, she saluted her roommate and left the kitchen.

Before beginning on her studies, Atta pulled out the little piece of wilted flora from her desk and found her course catalogue at the back of the desk’s bottom drawer. She twirled the broken stem of the foreign lungflower, relieved it wasn’t giving her another migraine as she sprawled out on her bed and flipped through the glossary of professors.

There he was:

Dr. Sonder Murdoch, PhD

Imogen was right. Professor Murdoch was horribly attractive, in a scholarly way as she had put it, with piercing eyes, a cut, stubbled jaw, and brown hair so artfully careless it was begging to have fingers run through it. There was something strange and mysterious about him, as Imogen also mentioned, and Mrs O’Sullivan alluded to as well, come to think of it. But Atta found it alarmingly alluring, more than anything.

Shaking off those unhelpful and inappropriate thoughts, she read the rest of the description under his photo:

Doctor of Medicine, specialisation in Pathology

TCD Class of 1977 Morbid Anatomy and Greek Studies;

1983 Discipline of Histopathology and Morbid Anatomy

Professor of Morbid Anatomy, Pathology, Autopsy

Atta didn’t know much about pathology aside from what she’d taught herself out of curiosity about the Plague, but it was hopefully enough to help grade papers or file things and make copies—whatever it was TAs did.

Atta

Atta stared up at the entrance hall of the building with its mix of Neoclassical limestone columns and Gothic stone architecture. Her nerves were frayed by the idea of meeting Professor Murdoch and her trepidation gave the Medical Building an air of eeriness she’d never felt there before.

Atta hadn’t many occasions to enter the Medical Building, but she’d toured it before undergrad, her father beside himself over the stunning domed roof of colourful brickwork. It was a masterpiece of a building in her eyes as well, second only to The Long Room—her heart of hearts. Sure, The Berkeley was great as far as libraries went, but The Long Room was unmatched. There were rumours that Trinity planned to rope off the study tables and the books to protect the sacred texts, and though she saw the logical side of that, it made her inexplicably sad to consider losing time huddled in the stacks at an old table, surrounded by tomes and bent over open pages.

She made a mental note to study there as soon as possible, then climbed the steps to the second floor of Medical College where she’d been told to find Lecture Hall 26.

It was a smaller classroom, much like the others at Trinity, but it was larger than those in Botany College.

One hand raised to knock on the open door and alert the man bent over at his desk, Atta caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall behind him. She was early. Before he could look up and notice her, she decided to back out and wait in the hall for another few minutes, but the opportunity to openly study her new employer—for all intents and purposes—in live and living colour was too hard to pass up.

She couldn’t see his face, not with him scribbling on the papers in front of him, but she noted the crisp white of his shirt, his hair a semi-tamed mess of chestnut brown waves and just long for some of the ends to spill forward and conceal his brow as he looked down. His jacket was a lovely forest green tweed Atta was instantly envious of, but then she saw the elbow patches and contemplated stealing it, though it would be far too large for her. She was no tiny waif, but even seated she could tell Professor Murdoch was tall and lean, but broad-shouldered.

“Are you going to come in or just stand there and lurk?” he asked without looking up from his work. His deep voice, like the smooth burning warmth in the first sip of whiskey, startled her, and Atta almost tripped trying to appear like she’d just arrived.

“Yes, of course.” It occurred to her that she’d said something similar to his words last night to a creepy man watching her, but then Professor Murdoch looked up and Atta lost all rational thought. A curl of his hair slipped over his forehead as he removed a pair of round, wire-framed glasses to regard her with disinterest.

She continued down the few steps past rows of desks and he stood, coming around his desk to meet her. When she made herself look up to meet his gaze, his brows pinched in the middle, just for a second, a note of something she couldn’t quite place lighting in his hazel eyes before he smoothed his face back into indifference.

“I take it you’re Ariatne Morrow.”

“Yes, sir.” She shuffled her books to one arm and held out a hand. Professor Murdoch removed his right hand from his pocket and shook hers firmly. Atta gave the sourpuss a point in his favour for that. Actually, something about him was familiar, only she couldn’t quite place it. “But please call me Atta.”

Murdoch nodded once and moved to sit on the edge of his desk, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Jesus of little Nazareth.No wonder Imogen had given her crass description of the man. Atta was not usually one to be distracted by a handsome face, but it took a great deal ofeffort not to soak in every detail of him. That photo in her course catalogue had not done the good doctor justice. The stubble on his jaw was just the right amount and the lines etched next to his eyes made her think he hadn’t always been so sombre as his reputation made him out to be. She thought if he smiled she mightactuallygo weak in the knees.

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