Page 102 of The Exorcism of Faeries

18 December, 1993

Atta woke in the moonlit grove, covered in frost, huddled beneath the old, twisted hawthorn. The Faerie Wood book lay on her lap, open to a drawing of a door.

She was trembling so fiercely she nearly couldn’t stand, could hardly hold onto the book as she raced for the manor in nothing but one of Sonder’s button-down shirts. She nearly slipped on a patch of frost outside the door but made it inside, tossing the book away from her onto the kitchen counter, and rushed for the shower.

The Irish Independent :

Dublin’s masked healers nearly identified!

Newly healed Plague victims have sung the praises of our city’s favourite masked duo just as everyone else has, and The Irish Independent had one of them sit down with a forensic sketch artist to capture a look at the duo for the general public

Atta

5 January, 1994

The last fortnight had been a blur of exorcisms, successes and failures, and studying their processes until the wee hours of the morning when Sonder and Atta would crawl into bed together. Sometimes, they would sleep wrapped in one another’s arms. Sometimes, they would expend the rest of their energies via their sexual appetite for one another. Sometimes, they would stare at the ceiling and speak in whispers about their fears, their dreams, their lives before they met.

I want to drown in this love, darling,he’d told her one morning when she apologised for hogging the bed.

Every moment with him had become her new most treasured.

Wrapped in a towel, Atta looked in the full-length mirror in her room that was essentially only used as a giant closet now. Her attention was drawn to where she’d tucked a Polaroid she’d taken of Sonder weeks ago and tucked it into the mirror’s edge. His hair was in disarray even more than usual because she’d driven her fingers through it just before, his car windows all fogged up. Starving, he’d dragged her out to the city for food and a night for them to be normal. He wore a maroon knit jumper over his collared shirt where they sat tucked in a dimly lit corner booth.

The night had been perfect. No Plague, no exorcisms, no Society breathing down their neck. Only the man she loved hiding his face with his hand when she pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped his photo. But he wasgrinningbehind his blurred hands that only managed to cover half of his face before the flash. The smile that sent peace flooding her heart. The smile of the man she would doanythingto protect.

“A stór!” she heard him call her, his voice climbing the stairs from the ground floor. “Your coffee is getting cold!”

She kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to Photograph Sonder’s lips. “Coming!” she called back and went to dress.

The last vestiges of her trepidation from waking in the grove yet again slipped out of her like faerie mist the moment she stepped into the kitchen and Sonder greeted her over his newspaper like he did every morning. The constant that settled her.

“Good morning, darling.”

She smiled, her gaze dropping to the front page of the Irish Independent, and her heart stuttered. A gasp escaped her, and Sonder pulled the paper to his chest, looking down at it.

“Ah, yes. Quite the cover story today, isn’t it?”

“Is that adrawingof us?” She came forward and snatched it from his hand.

“It is, indeed.”

There they were, immortalised in printer ink by sketches that were far, far too accurate for her liking. Sonder was there in his trousers, a button-up, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a sweater vest, while Atta was in her signature skirt and tweed blazer look. Thank Christ they had the plague doctor masks on. “Even the shoes are accurate!” she said, her voice hitting a pitch only dogs can hear.

“Lydia Callahan had a very keen eye the other day. She’d be my guess for who spoke to the forensic sketch artist.”

Atta was still gawking at it when a loud crash came from the foyer. Sonder was on his feet instantly, Gibbs’s voice cutting through the tension. “Oy! Are you lot up?”

“Christ!” Sonder shouted back, storming for the sitting room. “Haven’t you ever heard of fucking knocking, you eejit?”

But Gibbs’s voice was drowned out by the shrill ringing of the telephone on the wall of the kitchen. Atta answered it just to make it stop ringing, the chaos too much.

“Atta!” The voice on the other end was urgent.

“Professor Vasilios?” she questioned, unsure if she was correct.

“Marguerite, please,” she corrected. “But yes. You need to turn on the news immediately.”

Sonder crashed through the kitchen door. “We need to turn on the news!”

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