Page 15

Leaving the empty doctor’s bag on the floorboard, she hauled her heavy satchel onto her shoulder and began the climb of three flights to her suite.

Halfway up, she realised she was going to have to move now. Locate boxes and pack amidst all the other things she had to do and leave her beautiful, picturesque view of the campus. Atta dropped her satchel to the stairs and hung her head.

“Deep breaths.”

She ascended the rest of the steps, her bag thunking along behind her because she was too tired to carry it any further.

Two guys in band t-shirts sandwiched a pretty, punk-looking girl—an obvious Kurt Cobain fan—as they watched a horror movie in the common room. One of them waved at Atta, but she ignored it. He’d asked her out twice since the start of term and she couldn’t even recall his name. Chad or Brad or something. As much as she, too, loved Nirvana, the lad’s grunge obsession and hairless face did nothing for her. She’d never really been attracted to men her own age, let alone one who’d hardly been considered an adult save for a handful of years.

When she unlocked the door of her suite and went in, Atta found Imogen sitting at the tiny island between the kitchenette and the living area, munching on cheese and crackers.

“Did you have dinner?” Atta asked, leaving her bag by the door along with her Oxfords and the umbrella she’d stolen from her roommate that morning.

Imogen gestured to the poor-grad-student version of a charcuterie. “All I’ve got. Colin conned some poor girl into making him spaghetti. Leftovers are in the fridge if you’re willing to face the wrath.”

Atta reached for a cracker and popped it into her mouth. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough Colin for a lifetime already.”

Imogen giggled and pinched a piece of cheap cheddar between her fingers.

“Hey, what do you know about a Professor Murdoch?”

Imogen tipped the last of her wine into her mouth, her lips purple when she finally responded. “Dr Frankenstein?”

Atta pulled down a clean wineglass, the fancy kind Colin’s parents bought for him before they wrote him off. “Is that what you call him?”

Snatching the wine bottle straight out of Atta’s hands, Imogen poured another glass for herself. “That’s what everyone calls him, babe.”

“Why is that?”

“He’s just so. . .” Imogen visibly shivered. “Spooky.”

Atta watched her roommate warily, reclaiming the bottle and pouring the last of it—which wasn’t much—into her own glass.

“Did you know he’s the youngest professor to have so many accolades in the history of Trinity? He’s only been here a few years, I guess right after your undergrad days, but he”—she flipped her hand around like a dead fish—“came up with somethingto do with postmortem stuff, and the board was beside themselves.”

“Postmortemthing?”

“Yeah, he’s the professor of some grotesque study area.”

Atta chewed on her bottom lip, one hip against the counter, wondering how Imogen received scholarships for graduate studies, and she was about to be working her fingers to the bone for her tuition. “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

Imogen scoffed and eyed Atta with disgust, all their camaraderie used up. “I don’t know all that gross stuff. That’s your area of expertise, not mine.”

She couldn’t think why Trinity would have her TA for someone not in her area of study after the whole grant denial occurred because of it, but it did not behoove her to scoff in the face of serendipity or good fortune. The only kind of fortune she knew: dumb luck.

“Anyway,” Imogen went on, smacking on a piece of Coolia cheese and adding a dried fig to the jumble in her mouth, “I guess all that renowned stuff the prof did was before the Plague. He’s a doctor of some kind, but he actually gets really pissed if you call him that.”

“Call him what? Dr Frankenstein?”

Imogen chewed her bite of food so grossly that Atta wanted to slap it out of her mouth. “No, as in pissed if you call himdoctorat all.”

“Strange,” Atta mumbled. “It’s usually the other way around. Doctors love to have their arses kissed.”

Imogen shrugged. “I dunno. Now he lives in a huge creepy house on the outskirts of Dublin, Murdoch Manor, like a total Boo Radley.”

Atta had to give her roommate credit for even knowing who that was.

“And he’s so mysterious and broody and completely fuckable in the most scholarly way, but no one will go near him.” Imogen shivered again. “Not like that, anyway. He’s too. . .”