Page 26 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“I don’t know if I should be really fucking proud or horrified.”

Atta melted into the sofa, palms up on her knees. “I think both.”

“Definitely both.”

“What am I going to do, Emmy? I can’t lose this tuition.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have let her desperation show, but it was too late to pull the words back in.

“And I can’t lose my only female roommate.” Emmy bumped her shoulder with her own. “It’ll work out.”

They sat in silence for a long time, draining the whiskey and moving on to cider and Tayto’s. Dony showed up with a group of guys smelling of sweat and the rugby pitch, taking over the sofas with no regard for the women already there.

“Gross,” Emmy muttered, hauling Atta up. “You know,” she said as they headed for their suite, “he’s a fantastic lecturer.”

“Who?” Atta asked, too tipsy to put much together.

“The bastard.” Emmy opened their door.

“Murdoch?”

Emmy locked them in and proceeded to put a kettle on. Thankfully, it was just the two of them since Gibbs was off doing whatever it was he did in the evenings.

“Yes, Dr Frankenstein. Loads of students flock to his open lectures.” She pulled out a pot of something that smelled delicious as it began to heat on the stove. “I went to his seminar on Greek Tragedies, and it was—” She broke off, shaking her head, copper braid swaying. “He had this whole monologue about Achilles and his tortured relationship with Patroclus, the way he so savagely mourned Patroclus’s death and wanted his bones mixed with his after he, too, perished.” Emmy paused and pressed a palm to her chest. “It was moving. Otherworldly.”

Emmy brought Atta a cup of tea leaves, and she wrapped her fingers around it, though it didn’t yet have any hot water.

“His take on the tragedies through the lens of morbid anatomy was profound as well,” Emmy finished, stirring the pot and flicking off the heat for the kettle.

“Why doesn’t he like to be called ‘doctor’?” Atta asked as Emmy poured steaming water over their tea leaves. “My old roommate told me that.”

“No one knows exactly. All I’ve heard is that on the first day of class, he declares to all his students that his patients are dead, so don’t call him Dr Murdoch.”

Atta stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea, watching the crystals dissolve and contemplating what would cause Murdoch to take such a stance on his hard-won title. There had to be some reason and she surmised it was likely tragic.

They passed the rest of the evening and late into the night speaking of other things besides Murdoch and college, drinking tea and dozing in between conversations on Emmy’s bed.

Eventually, Atta startled awake from a dream of jagged, sharp teeth and the screams of a man she felt she knew.

Sweaty, hungover—again—and disconcerted, Atta made her way to her room, but it only made the nightmares worse.

The bell it tolls,

Its song eerie,

Twisting my velvet bones.

Every hour, it rings.

A reminder that it’s almost time.

Time for the man in coats of moonrise

to begin his lurking.

Seven. . .eight. . .nine it tolls.

I no longer attempt to hide.

Hiding doesn’t suit me, anyway.

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