Page 22

“T hat one.” Emmy pointed to a heather-taupe knit jumper held aloft opposite the exact same jumper in brown. Emmy was on ’s bed, lying on her stomach, chin in her hands and ankles crossed. “It perfectly matches the trousers.”

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?”

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 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.”

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?” 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?”

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.”

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 laughed.

“Emmy!” Dohmnall shouted from the common room. “! 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. 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 ’s ears because a photo of the student had popped onto the screen. Lauren Kennedy it read under her photo. But all 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, ran to the toilet and threw up bile.

* * *

Directly after her only lecture for the day, 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.

The moment he saw her, he shifted toward her. His brows furrowed and he took a step forward. “Are you all right? Do you have a headache?”

regarded him strangely. He must have noted how flushed she was. How anxious. “No, no headache. Do you think they’ll close college?”

“No, I don’t. It would be unwise and I advised against it.”

“Why?”

Murdoch shoved his hand through his hair which was already in disarray as if he’d done that many times since the morning’s broadcast. “That isn’t how this works. Everyone knows it’s not a virus, at least as far as we understand viruses. It doesn't move like one. Her roommate is completely healthy, as are all the other peers she associated with. It would only induce panic in the whole of Dublin to shut down college.”

swallowed. Nodded. She was trying to remain calm, but his agitation was feeding hers. “I thought she’d been there so long ivy was growing.”

She watched Murdoch look away, consider. “She was a Botany student. Did you know her?”

nodded, barely, her fingertips feeling numb.

“When was the last time you saw her in class?” he asked finally.

“Last week.”

“Ivy grows that quickly?”

“Under the right conditions, it can grow eight or nine feet a year.” To her own ears, it sounded ridiculous. It certainly didn’t grow that much in the span of a week.

“That seems aggressive, doesn’t it?”

She couldn’t deny that. “It does.” But she didn’t know where he was headed or what he knew as a consultant to HPSC. “Maybe she had ivy inside her dorm already.” She watched his movements. Considered how familiar she felt with his presence in this particular conversation. “What are you thinking?”

His eyes searched her face for a long moment. “Can I show you something?”

“We have class in ten minutes.”

“I’ll cancel.”

“Won’t that scare them, today of all days, like you said?”

“Sometimes fear cleanses the soul, . It reminds us to look at the important things we took for granted while at peace.” He let his words sink in for a moment. “Come with me.”

There might be more magnificent libraries in existence, but none would ever compare to The Old Library. Not for . From the moment she stepped inside, her breath was stolen each time by the sheer volume of 200,000 books, the polished floor, the long, arched ceiling and the busts of academic forefathers observing their children at study.

“What are we doing here?” she whispered to Murdoch as they walked past the busts of Homer, Aristotle, and Plato.

Without answering, he climbed the stairs and followed. Abruptly, he turned into a row of books. Without hesitation, he stopped at a particular shelf and carefully removed a book. He laid it out on one of the narrow standing tables then stepped back and gestured to it.

“Page 419. Tell me what you make of it.”

watched him for a moment. He was still so ill at ease that it had her nerves frayed. She’d never seen him appear any other way but brooding or stoic. She approached the desk cautiously, like something within the pages might bite her or release a changeling faerie to take over her body.

The parchment was old and yellowed, and carefully flipped to Page 419. Her lips parted when she saw what he’d meant for her to look over.

It was a detailed diagram of how spores spread, followed by a description of how mushrooms communicate with the plant world around them, through electrical signals in their mycelium. All things knew, but Murdoch . . .

She looked from the pages to Murdoch. “What made you think of this?”

“I’ve done some consulting on Plague cases. I don’t think—” He closed his mouth and ran his hand down his jaw. “I don’t think that ivy should have grown like that. And I think the best way to figure out what happened is this.” He pointed at the spore diagram. “With your knowledge of Botany, I thought perhaps this would make more sense to you. Why the spore in Patient Zero was so important.”

licked her lips and leaned against the standing table, feeling like they took up the entire stall, the two of them and this conversation. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last six years. Since I first read about a spore in Patient Zero.” She licked her lips. “You asked me why I’m at Trinity?—”

“And that’s why, isn’t it? Why you blend Morbid Arts and Botany?”

dipped her chin, feeling overwhelmingly emotional that he’d pieced together her interests, and she couldn’t place why.

Murdoch ran a hand through his hair again, mussing it up even more. He reached for the pocket of his cord blazer and pulled out his glasses. Putting them on, he nodded toward the book. “Will you write down all you know? Put it in a report for me?”

Dumbfounded, blinked at him. He was standing so close to her that she was finding it a little difficult to breathe. “Yeah. I mean, sure. Yes, I can do that.”

His smile, though small, was real and true as it curved his lips. “Thank you, .”

He turned from her, selecting another book from the shelf. It was very near the one he’d removed for her to look at, so she assumed it was similar material, but her mind went elsewhere as he flipped a page.

“Oh my god.” She said it softly, but he turned in alarm, taking one step toward her.

“What is it? Your head?”

She screwed up her face at him. Why did he keep asking her that? “What? No. I know why you’ve looked familiar since I met you.”

Murdoch went still as one of the marble busts lining The Long Room. “Oh?” The word was tight. Forced out through his teeth.

“You would have been going for your doctorate when I was in undergrad, right?”

He bent his head to one side, calculating, then shrugged. “My doctorate was ‘78-’83. I took a gap year to live in Italy before beginning postgrad in ‘78.”

“Yes!” almost shouted, thrilled to finally have figured it out. “I was studying at that table right over there.” She pointed across the gallery to a stall on the other side. “I had my Folklore exam the next day, and you were there”—she pointed toward the end of that stall—“reading.” She looked at Murdoch, smiling, and she thought she saw his gaze drop to her lips before he met her eyes again. “You never did sit down. You just stood there, like you are now. Like you always do when you read. One hand in your pocket until it’s time to flip the page.” She laughed with a fondness she didn’t know she held, and he froze in place again. “It was rather annoying, actually.”

There was something searching about his gaze and she tried not to let her smile fade, but it was difficult the longer it took him to respond to her.

“Professor Murdoch?” she ventured after a moment.

“Sonder.”

“I’m sorry?” Her heart slammed against her ribcage as soon as he said it.

“Please, call me Sonder. I’m not really your professor and I’ve asked you here to help me with something as a peer.”

Her palms were suddenly feeling clammy, so she curled her hands at her sides. “All right, then. Sonder.” She tested his name out on her tongue and he swallowed, his throat bobbing, then he nodded.

“Very well.”