Page 40 of The Exorcism of Faeries

He donned the mask and ducked out the window, hand latching onto the large tree outside it before leaning back in. “Make sure she locks her fucking window, too. This was too easy.”

“Most people don’t climb in other people’s windows like creeps,” Gibbs shot back.

Sonder snorted. “I like this no-holds-barred version of you, Gibbs.”

He climbed down the tree, hopping from the trunk to the soft dirt, and began the long walk back to Achilles.

Atta

“That one.” Emmy pointed to a heather-taupe knit jumper Atta held aloft opposite the exact same jumper in brown. Emmy was on Atta’s bed, lying on her stomach, chin in her hands and ankles crossed. “It perfectly matches the trousers.”

Atta agreed, slipping the sweater over her lace bra and tucking it into her plaid, tapered trousers. It was nice having simple, mindless girl talk. She hadn’t had many friends in her life—the peculiar girl with her nose always in a book, who lived above a morgue. She found herself thankful on a daily basis that Emmy and her other roommates had accepted her right away. They didn’t even care that she was older than them, though they mercilessly teased her for it when she tried to make Domhnall chicken soup when he fell ill a couple of weeks prior.

“How are things going with Dr Frankenstein?” Emmy waggled her eyebrows. “I certainly wouldn’t mind all those hours you spend alone with him. What did your friend call him?”

Atta laughed despite herself, plaiting her hair into a messy braid over one shoulder. “‘Fuckable in a scholarly way,’” she quoted Imogen with a laugh. “He’s not exactly a chatty fellow most days, but it’s not so bad. How are things with Professor Vasilios?”

Emmy sighed and rolled over onto her back while Atta began putting on too many rings. To clear her mind enough for sleep after her night in the graveyard with Gold Stitch, she’d painted her nails a chocolate brown and all the silver rings brought out a hint of dusky purple in the polish. She liked it.

“Marguerite is Marguerite,” Emmy said. “She has this new idea—a fad she read about in the Psych Journal, I’m sure—that group therapy is more beneficial.”

Atta grimaced. “That sounds terrible.”

“It is. The students loathe it. Airing all their sins and kinks for their peers to assess? It’s fucking mental. I don’t think it’s helping at all. And their papers?” She blew a breath through her lips that made them sputter together. “They hate what it’s making them into.”

“What’s Vasilios’s aim with this group therapy thing?” Atta asked, straightening the tassels on her loafers.

Emmy sat up, her cream silk robe opening to reveal part of her breast. “She claims it will help them see they aren’t alone—the effect of a mediator without having one. Do you know what I mean?”

Atta nodded, slipping her arms into her wool blazer. “As in, people feel more comfortable airing grievances when there are other people around. A buffer.”

Emmy snapped and pointed at her. “Exactly that.”

“Does it work?”

“So far, no. But maybe it will only take more time. I think Marguerite is blind to the fact that this type of therapy is for those in a family unit or other common life scenario, not veritable strangers in a lecture. I think she should try it in her smaller classes.”

Atta nodded. “I like that about Murdoch’s classes. They're so small that it's almost like being part of a fellowship. The students, by semester’s end, will be rather close in many ways.”

“That would be the perfect setting for group therapy, what with all those bodies you slice open and the nightmares it must induce.” Emmy shivered, and Atta laughed.

“Emmy!” Dohmnall shouted from the common room. “Atta! Come out here, quick!”

The women shared a befuddled look and hurried out into the common room where Dohmnall had the telly at full blast and was uselessly hitting buttons on the remote to try and make it louder.

A sombre newsreader was standing in front of Campanile Tower, a microphone to her mouth and autumn leaves billowing behind her. Atta could see her old window, second floor, third from the right.

“Thank you, Peter,” she was saying. “I’m live here at Trinity College Dublin where a student has been found Infected. The student was found in her dorm in House Seven of student accommodations late last night and succumbed to the Plague. According to reports, the young woman was found in front of her telly, so long gone that ivy had crept in from outside her closed window and nearly concealed the body. At this time, Trinity has not decided whether they will shut down the campus. . .”

The rest faded out, a ringing beginning in Atta’s ears because a photo of the student had popped onto the screen.Lauren Kennedyit read under her photo. But all Atta saw was the girl from her class. The one she’d run into weeks ago and seen die that exact way. Covered—picked apart—by creeping ivy.

Gagging, Atta ran to the toilet and threw up bile.

* * *

Directly after her only lecture for the day, Atta rushed across campus to the Medical Building, hoping to catch Professor Murdoch before class.

After she’d vomited that morning, Emmy filled her in on the rest of the report. She said Murdoch had been on the news with Dean Lynch and the other heads of the medical department. He wasn’t in his office, but she found him pacing around the surgical theatre.

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