Page 81 of The Exorcism of Faeries
“Thanks, Katie. Always wanted to meet you. You’re so pretty on the telly. Better in person.”
Katie laughed uncomfortably. “That’s so sweet of you. So tell us what happened with your mam today.”
“Ye’, so, my mam has been sick. Ya’ know, coughin’ and snot ‘n all that for a few days. But then it started gettin’ worse. She couldn’t remember a thing. Started sleepin’ all day, then the wee veins in her arms started goin’ black. So I called the hotline, ya’ know, the one they tell us on the news to call if ya’ think it’s the Plague.” Katie the newsreader nodded along patiently. “Next thing I know, I get a call from a woman who says she’s sendin’ someone out to help me. That he’s. . . em— Gonna pay me to do a special sorta research or somethin’.”
Sonder glanced at Atta, but she couldn’t look away from the telly.
“So this man came, and then what?” Katie said into her microphone before holding it back in front of Lisle’s face.
“He came, dressed like he was headed to mass, ya’ know, in his nice clothes. Except he had a mask on.” Lisle gestured in a way that anyone else would think he was miming an elephant trunk, but Atta knew it was the leather beak of a plague doctor mask. “One o’ those old scary lookin’ ones with the big goggles and bird beak.”
Katie looked genuinely interested for the first time. “Like an old plague doctor’s mask?”
“Ye’! Just like that. Only he wasn’t alone. He had a girl with him. She had a mask too, so I couldn’t see nothin’ of her face but the rest of her was—” He mimed several vertical waves with his hands that Atta took to mean her curves and she blushed. “Kind o’ girl ya’ won’t soon forget, ya’ know?”
Katie laughed awkwardly on screen and Sonder smirked at Atta.
“What happened after that?”
“Well, I don’t know. They paid me, I left, and when I came back the medics were there haulin’ my mam away, but she didn’t have the Plague anymore.”
Katie pointed the mic back to herself. “And you have no idea what they did? How she was cured?”
“Not at all, neither did the docs. She had to stay in hospital for a few hours, she’s em. . . Had a rough go in life. But then a doc from college came and put my mam up in a rehab facility. Paid for it himself.”
“Really now?” Katie was saying, astonished, but Atta was turning her head slowly toward Sonder, her eyes wide and accusing. He winced.
“Well, you had a load of anonymous heroes today, didn’t you!” Katie turned back to the camera. “You heard it here first. The Plaguecanbe cured and we are doing our best to find these masked heroes and coax them out of hiding so we can eradicate this Plague once and for all.”
Gibbs shut off the telly, and they all stood there looking at one another.
“The hotline has been flooded,” Gibbs finally said. “What in hell did you two do?”
“We need Marguerite here,” Sonder said, ignoring Gibbs and pushing past him. They followed him out into the hall as he stalked to his study and picked up the receiver of a vintage phone Atta had thought was only decorative.
As he dialled, Gibbs sidled up to Atta. “Are you fucking him then?” he whispered accusatorily.
Atta elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop talking.”
“It’s a fair question,” he spat, rubbing at his side.
Whirling on him, Atta spat right back, “Is this why you wouldn’t fucking look at me the last few weeks? You’re part of Agamemnon?”
Gibbs looked away. “I was going to come find you. Later. Once I figured out where you were, and make sure you were all right.”
She was saved from responding when Sonder spoke into the receiver, and they were both drawn away from their whispered argument.
“Yes, Marguerite. It’s Sonder. Can?—”
He held the phone back from his ear and Atta could make out the shrill tone on the other end.
“Marg—” He pulled the phone away again, frowning. “Marguerite,would you stop shouting?”
He listened intently while Gibbs and Atta looked between one another, Atta on edge.
“Yes.” Pause. “I completely disagree.” Pause. “Fine. See you then.”
Sonder slammed down the receiver.
