Mercury Boys

by Chandra Prasad

  Goddamn.

  Saskia ran her fingernails over the rough mesh. She felt a jab of pain when one of them snapped off.

  “You went through a lot at the fountain, didn’t you?” continued Paige.

  Saskia refused to say anything.

  “You weren’t afraid to admit you’d messed up, and you accepted your punishment. As your friend, I was really proud of you. I didn’t think you’d break rule number twelve again. So I was really surprised when you did.”

  Saskia studied Adrienne. She turned evasively and tucked her legs underneath her body, as if trying to look smaller. It was an impossible task for such an Amazonian girl.

  Why would you want to look smaller, Adrienne? Because you’re feeling guilty?

  Saskia knew in an instant what had happened, how Adrienne had shown up at her house the other day not because she needed advice, but because she’d wanted to trick Saskia into breaking yet another club rule. And Saskia had. As soon as she’d suggested that Adrienne “leave things to fate” instead of urging her to focus on Emery, Saskia had broken her promise. And Adrienne had probably wasted no time in telling that to Paige.

  Savagely, Saskia tore off the rest of her broken nail with her teeth and tasted blood. She’d learned that the sisters could be difficult and even calculating at times, but she never would have guessed sweet, simple Adrienne could be.

  Adrienne stared at her and mouthed, I’m sorry, but Saskia wasn’t in a forgiving mood.

  “Why—why set me up?” she demanded. “I was trying to help you.”

  “I asked her to,” Paige interjected. “It’s my job to make sure we’re following the rules. And I had a feeling, even after the last punishment, that you weren’t complying, Saskia.”

  “God, talk about backhanded,” Lila groaned. “Paige, you’re, like, the textbook definition of toxic.”

  “She’s not,” Sara Beth said defensively. “She’s tested me, too—her own sister! She’s just being protective of our guys—and the club in general.”

  “I’m sorry, Saskia,” Adrienne repeated. “I really am.”

  “Stop apologizing,” Paige scolded. “Saskia’s the one who should be sorry. Right now I would do anything to see Samuel. I would swim across the ocean if I thought I’d find him. And here you are, Saskia, telling Adrienne it’s okay to choose Benny over Emery.”

  “That’s not what I said,” Saskia protested.

  “It’s what you implied,” said Paige. “Did you not say, ‘leave it to fate’? That’s like telling her to roll the dice or pick a card. What you didn’t do was stand up for her Mercury Boy.”

  Pick a card—like Josh asked me to do?

  “I was just trying to be a good friend,” Saskia replied.

  “A good friend—or a good member of this club?”

  “Are they mutually exclusive?”

  “In this case, yes.”

  “Paige,” interjected Lila, “stop acting all high and mighty. You’re not innocent, either. You and Adrienne basically set her up.”

  “Look, it’s not like Saskia did only one thing wrong,” Paige said, clearly irritated. “When she broke up with Cornelius, she didn’t ask permission from the group. I know she had to do it—or thought she had to, but she still broke rule number eleven.”

  The metallic tang of blood stayed in Saskia’s mouth. She hated being called out. Picked on. Scapegoated. What had happened to Paige thinking of her like a second sister? What had happened to the special bond Saskia could’ve sworn they’d had?

  “Saskia broke two rules,” continued Paige. “The bottom line is, if she wants to continue being in the MBC, she has to do another punishment. And look, I’m not trying to be mean, even though I know you think I am, Saskia. I’m just trying to keep us accountable. Maybe someday you’ll see it’s for the best.”

  See it’s for the best. Where had Saskia heard that before? Oh yes, her mother had said it when she’d tried to convince Saskia that breaking up their family to be with a thoroughly mediocre twenty-something was the best option for everybody.

  Sure . . .

  The thought of her mother tossing her to the side like a pair of jeans that would never fit again walloped Saskia. Maybe it was because she was still reeling from her breakup with Cornelius. Or maybe it was the distinct possibility that she’d fallen out of Paige’s good graces forever—if she’d even been there to start with. Maybe it was even the memory of a wild-eyed Kim Novak plunging many stories to her death—exactly like the audience knew she would. Whatever the cause, Saskia began to sniffle and then to sob, which was—second to falling—the last thing she wanted to be doing.

  She wondered if there was something inside her, something in that metallic blood of hers, that was inherently repellent and unlovable. There had to be. Why else did the women in her life always cast her away? Her own mother. Heather. All those other girls in Arizona who Saskia had thought she’d be friends with forever. And now Paige and Adrienne and probably Sara Beth, too. Maybe even Lila would abandon her, too, eventually. All those people had decided that Saskia wasn’t worth the trouble.

  They couldn’t all be wrong.

  “The punishment won’t be any harder than the first,” she heard Paige say.

  “Not harder than almost drowning?” said Lila. “Wow, Paige, you’re so charitable.” She faced Saskia. “You wanna jet? I’m kinda over this soap opera.”

  “I’m assuming that means you’re over your girlfriend, then, too,” said Paige.

  Lila glared at her.

  “I don’t know why you keep it such a big secret,” Paige continued. “You’re gay. So what? Where’s the scandal? This is the twenty-first century, not the Middle Ages.”

  “I like to keep my private life private. And I don’t like when people get all up in my business.”

  “Get all up in your business?” Paige repeated amusedly. “If you’re trying to sound tough, Lila, it’s not working.”

  “What I’m trying to do is get you to back off.”

  “Don’t get all triggered! All I did was pay attention. The truth’s not hard to see. And by the way, I’m happy for you. You found love. It should be something you want to share with the group.”

  Lila bristled. “I have to do things in my own time.”

  “Okay, I can understand that. But we have to be open with each other. If we keep secrets like we’ve been doing”—Paige looked pointedly at Saskia—“this club’s gonna implode.”

  Though the mesh floor was still holding up, Saskia felt herself sinking. Sinking back to the place she’d been when her mother had packed her bags, when Heather had ghosted her, when Josh had ditched her in front of Ethan’s house. A place she seemed to return to again and again, though it was the last place she wanted to be.

  “I’ll do it,” Saskia heard herself say.

  “Sask, no. Let’s just get out of here,” Lila said. “It’s not worth it.”

  “I’ll do it,” she repeated.

  Because if I don’t, then I’ll be alone. And I can’t bear that—not now, not again.

  “You will?” Paige asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Attagirl,” Paige replied.

  Sara Beth was the first down the ladder, followed by her sister, and then Adrienne. Saskia watched them scramble down effortlessly, their long, coltish limbs seemingly made for the job, and wondered if the descent would be easier for her. It wasn’t. The volume turned up on her vertigo. Her head spun. The world heaved. She clutched the rusted rungs for dear life. A few feet below, Lila voiced encouragement. It was just enough to get her down, step by step, in slow motion.

  Back on firm ground, she wiped away the tears that clung stubbornly to her cheeks. She sucked at her still-bleeding finger and blanched as Paige approached, trying to brace herself for whatever Paige had to say. But it was hard for Saskia to steel herself when all the fi
ght had left her.

  Paige came close, uncomfortably close, and stared at Saskia with wide, beseeching eyes. Then she dug into her pocket and produced something. The medal. Samuel’s medal.

  She must carry it with her everywhere, Saskia thought. She must sleep with it tucked under her pillow.

  “Here, I want you to have this.”

  Saskia was too dumbstruck to react.

  “Go on, put out your hand,” said Paige.

  “But—I couldn’t. It’s yours.”

  “Wanna know why I’m giving it to you?”

  Saskia shook her head.

  “It’s because I can tell you think I’m being too hard on you. And maybe you’re right. Maybe I am. But that’s because I hold you to a higher standard. Higher than the other girls, but don’t tell them that—especially not Sara Beth.”

  Still, Saskia couldn’t speak.

  “And I hold you to a higher standard,” Paige continued, “because you’re important to me. More important than you know. Sometimes I think that if there’s one friend I want to have forever—one friend who’s smart and cool and funny, who sees through all this petty high school BS—it’s you.”

  Saskia struggled to hold back tears. She didn’t want to cry again. She couldn’t. But it was as if Paige had applied a balm to all her hurt, ragged edges. Saskia hadn’t realized how desperately she’d needed reassurance and validation.

  The next thing she knew, Paige was taking her hand and pressing the medal into her palm.

  “But—it’s so important to you,” Saskia sputtered.

  “You’re more important.”

  Saskia felt its weight in her hand. She marveled at the serenity of Queen Victoria’s face. She thought about how lately the club was both the best and worst aspect of her life, and how its seesaw effect was getting harder and harder to endure.

  “After I do this, the punishment,” she asked, closing her fingers around the medal, “do you think we can go back to the beginning? To when we first discovered how to visit our Forever Boyfriends and things were . . . easier?”

  Better? Happier? Saner?

  “That’s exactly what I want, too,” Paige replied.

  Saskia trudged to where the others were waiting beside the holding pool. It was shallow and large. Up close, the color of the liquid reminded her of orange Jell-O. She could only imagine what kind of chemicals had combined to create such an unnatural shade. Dozens of dead flies dotted the surface, their diaphanous wings stained tangerine. And then there was the carcass in the middle, a gruesome clump of dingy, matted fur that was better left unidentified.

  Saskia noticed that the water was even with the top of the containment tarp. There had been runoff, if the wet ground around the periphery of the pool was any indication. She thought again about her conversation with Lila on hysteria and how there could be environmental triggers. She wondered what kind of secrets scientists would find if they ever bothered to test the soil and water around Coventon.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by grunts of exertion. The sisters were dragging a long two-by-four toward the pool. Saskia didn’t know where’d they found it, but here it was. With Adrienne’s help, they hoisted it upright, one end arrowed at the sky, then let it fall with a booming clatter across the pool. The two-by-four extended past either end of the containment tarp. Liquid lapped against the bottom.

  “Saskia, maybe you’ve already guessed the punishment,” Paige said. “You have to walk across this beam.”

  “You can do this, Saskia,” said Adrienne, her voice full of forced cheer. “I know you can.”

  Paige nodded. “It’s way easier than the fountain punishment. Concentrate, keep your balance, and you’ll be done in no time.”

  “Unless I fall in,” Saskia said.

  “You won’t.”

  Saskia took a deep breath, then regretted it. The air around the pool smelled wretched, like burnt plastic, wet dog, and stale beer all mixed together. She was pretty sure it was as toxic as it was nauseating.

  “It’s not too late,” whispered Lila from beside her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yeah,” Saskia whispered back, her jaw clenched. She thought back to better times, to when she had been as drunk on the club as she’d been on the sisters’ booze.

  Lila gave her a boost onto the plank. For several seconds Saskia clung to her hand. “Just let me make sure it’s stable,” she said. “Feels kinda shaky.”

  When she took her first step, she knew she’d been right to distrust the board: it was rickety. She looked back at Paige, who nodded encouragingly. Moving slowly, Saskia shuffled along, arms raised for balance. She’d taken two gymnastics lessons in second grade, then quit because she’d hated wearing a leotard. Now she wished she could throttle her second-grade self.

  With every inch of progress, her stomach lurched. She imagined falling into the tangerine murk. She imagined it entering her mouth, her nostrils. She imagined it eating like acid through her innards. She tried to glance again at Paige, but tottered, a little to the left, even more to the right. Gritting her teeth, she regained her balance just in time.

  Finally she reached the midway point. She was now inches away from the dead animal. A possum, Saskia saw. Its eyes were gone. Eaten or dissolved. It would be the perfect prop for a Stephen King movie. Propelled by fear, she moved faster. Adrenaline pumping, she lifted her gaze and fixed it on a point in the distance.

  Look at where you’re going, not where you might fall.

  One foot over the next, body straight, head high, she literally ran the rest of the way. When she jumped off the end, she said a Hail Mary in her head.

  “You did it!” gushed Paige, rushing over. Adrienne and Sara Beth were a half step behind, followed by Lila, faces beaming, arms outstretched to hug her. Saskia let herself be enveloped in the dubious safety of their arms.

  Adrienne

  The gauzy green dress was, frankly, completely inappropriate. But Adrienne didn’t care because all she saw was the way she looked in it, as reflected in Emery’s appreciative eyes. She hitched up the skirt a few inches. Even though the field hospital grounds were far cleaner now, they were still no place for fancy clothes. Her dress would be filthy in no time.

  She fingered the brooch, which sat in the cleavage she’d tried to create with one of the awful corsets Paige and Sara Beth had bought. The brooch was impressive; the cleavage, not so much. Adrienne smiled, remembering how the girls had erupted into laughter the first time they’d tried on those corsets, which fit like straitjackets. The girls had paraded around the sisters’ house like a bunch of nineteenth-century floozies, whiskey in hand. The funniest part, though, was that those corsets weren’t nearly as bad as what Victorian women had really worn: pantalettes, chemises, petticoats, camisoles. So many clothes Adrienne figured it must have taken them an hour to get dressed every day.

  As Emery had promised, there was a carriage waiting on the outskirts of the field.

  It was small and shabby with a couple of old, tired-looking horses tethered to the front. Even so, when she looked at it, Adrienne felt like Cinderella bound for the ball.

  Emery smiled at her. “Ready?” he asked, extending his hand.

  Adrienne’s own smile was more restrained. She still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. The pills, the Nyquil, the half-bottle of mercury she’d swallowed—the combination was more than she’d ever taken before. The mercury alone was probably enough to put her over the edge.

  Soon, if not already, she’d lose control. The mercury and the drugs would take over, and then fate would decide. Fate would lead her, like Saskia had said. Fate would determine if Adrienne rode away with Emery into a new future, never again waking up to the present, or if she’d see Benjamin again.

  “Ready,” she answered, forcing a smile. She tried to ignore the fact that her vision was going blurry at the edges
.

  “Good. Everything is prepared.”

  It was true. Their bags were packed. The horses had drunk. Emery had been offered a job with the printer he had apprenticed with before the war. It wouldn’t be much money, but he assured Adrienne it would be enough. She took his hand and placed one foot cautiously on the folding step of the carriage.

  But she was suddenly shaky. She couldn’t trust her legs. They were starting to capsize. And what was that new feeling in her mouth? It was awful—a hundred needles simultaneously pierced her tongue.

  “Careful now, sweetheart,” she heard Emery say, catching her mid-fall. Her eyes were open, but he, too, had gone blurry. “No need to be nervous. You’re going to love your new life.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lila and Saskia reached the tree and crawled through its dangling branches, which shifted back into place with uncanny precision. A dozen votives flickered on the soft earth. The sisters were already there, sitting on the ground. They looked like beautiful ghosts in their period clothes: delicate lawn dresses adorned with eyelet embroidery and yards of lace trim. Saskia remembered the dresses from the trunk. Their color reminded her of tea, of the patina that yellowed many of the daguerreotypes in the library.

  Though the dresses were modest—long-hemmed and high-collared, bits of skin peeked out. Saskia saw a calf, a forearm, a flash of thigh. She hadn’t realized how tan the sisters had become. The summer sun had made them almost as dark as she was.

  “Thanks for coming to the meeting,” Paige said, watching the flame of a candle. “Now Adrienne’s the only one we’re missing.”

  “She’s probably running late,” Sara Beth said.

  “Should we wait?” asked Saskia.

  Paige glanced at her phone. “Nah, let’s just get started. I’ll fill her in later so that she can update the minutes.”

  As soon as Paige called the meeting to order, Sara Beth reached her hand behind her back and pulled out a bottle. “Since our last meeting was not exactly easy, I thought we needed a boost,” she said, grinning. “This is fifty-year-old Glen Grant Single Malt Whisky. It’s worth at least a grand. Our dad’s been saving it, but his loss is our gain.”