Mercury Boys

by Chandra Prasad

  “Look, I know I’ve been a pain, but we just need to go in one more time.”

  Rich sighed, looking like he wanted to say more, then gave up and waved them through.

  They entered the Collection room and ventured into the adjoining workshop. Saskia hadn’t been there for a while, and she realized now that she’d missed the place. All the chemicals and old-fashioned photography tools, the rickety tripods and ancient cameras, they made Cornelius seem closer to her somehow.

  Lila had given her a short list of items to look for. On a shelf above the sink, Saskia reached for a vial of mercury and a jar of crystal iodine.

  Then, suddenly, she sensed the presence of someone behind her.

  “Lila?” she asked, wheeling around.

  But it was Rich, still wearing a serious expression. Guiltily, she put the vial and jar back on the shelf.

  “What is it, Rich?” Lila asked, scurrying over.

  “Hey,” he said, fidgeting. “I didn’t want to scare you, but I’ve got to come clean: Marlene is on to you.”

  “How do you know? What’d she say?” Lila was fiddling with an old tripod, but Saskia could tell she was trying to hide her concern.

  “She said she noticed some of the daguerreotypes are missing. She asked me if I knew anything.”

  Lila locked eyes with Rich.

  “I said no one other than staff has been in here,” he continued.

  “Oh god. Thank you, Rich.”

  Saskia couldn’t quite read his expression, but she thought it teetered somewhere between irritation, affection, and avuncular concern. “Look, now that Marlene knows something’s off, you’ve really gotta stop.”

  “I know, but she has no proof it’s me,” Lila argued.

  “She doesn’t need proof. All she needs is reasonable doubt. Watch as many Law & Order reruns as I have, and you’ll know.”

  “We have a huge archive of daguerreotypes. Maybe a few just got misplaced . . .”

  Rich crossed his arms over his chest. Saskia figured he was trying to appear defiant and imposing, but he looked uncomfortable instead. “Listen up, both of you,” he said in a strict schoolteacher’s tone. “You keep doing what you’re doing, and sooner or later, you’re gonna get caught. It’s inevitable. And then everything you hope to do, everything you hope to achieve—it’ll be gone. You’ll be like freight trains going over a cliff.”

  He made a swooping motion with his hand.

  “I know you’re trying to keep us out of trouble, Rich,” Lila replied. “And I know Marlene means business. But we really are going to stop . . . soon.”

  “Soon?” he asked bleakly. “I’m not used to giving advice, but you two need it. I’d give anything to be where you are now—sixteen, your whole lives in front of you. You still have time to do anything. Be anything. But you keep making trouble, and there’s gonna be a chain reaction. Things will go from good to bad, bad to worse. Eventually, you could end up like me—living in your mother’s basement and mourning a dead snake.”

  “Oh, come on! Your life’s not so bad,” Lila replied. But knowing what she did about Rich, Saskia wasn’t so sure. “And as for us, we’ll be fine—we’ve got it figured out. Marlene’s intimidating, but she’s not that intimidating.”

  “Are we talking about the same Marlene? Genghis Khan Marlene?”

  “I just said we’ll be fine—and we will.”

  “I feel like I’m talking to a wall.”

  “No, just a teenager.”

  “Same difference,” Rich griped, rubbing his shiny scalp. He looked tired and exasperated. His attempt to sway them seemed to have taken a toll, Saskia observed.

  When he left dejectedly a few moments later, she looked at Lila with apprehension. “You sure we’ve got this figured out?”

  Lila held up a leg that had broken off the tripod. “Do I look like I have it figured it out? I just needed to get him off our backs.”

  “But a part of me agrees with him, Lila. I should quit coming here.”

  “And I should quit bringing you. But we can’t leave now. I’ve started something, and I’m gonna finish it.”

  Saskia knew Lila well enough to realize that once she’d made up her mind, there was no stopping her. There was really nothing Saskia could do except help Lila comb the room for more supplies—all the supplies they’d need to make a daguerreotype of themselves.

  Lila swore that she’d watched enough YouTube tutorials to understand the process. Saskia went along with it because a) she owed Lila a favor, b) she was intrigued by the prospect, and c) because she’d already done so many bizarre things this summer that one more wasn’t going to make much of a difference.

  Lila laid out the steps they needed to take. She and Saskia worked slowly and carefully, double-checking their steps. Saskia was pretty sure they’d mess up anyway. Making a first daguerreotype, she believed, was probably like making the first pancake. It was bound to be bad—the image would be blurry or, way worse, she and Lila would manage to poison themselves.

  Lila had more faith. Maybe it was bingeing all those YouTube videos, or maybe she was preternaturally confident. Whatever it was, Lila didn’t second-guess herself. She proceeded self-assuredly. Diligently, too. It was Lila who did most of the work, meticulously polishing the silver-coated copper plate for almost an hour, until its mirror finish was pristine.

  When she was through, it was time to make the plate light sensitive. In a bathroom-sized dark room adjoining the workshop, the girls donned rubber gloves—a modern convenience Cornelius hadn’t had. Lila brandished iodine monochloride and bromine monochloride. “Proceed with caution,” she warned. “These chemicals can cause birth defects, DNA damage, and cancer.”

  “Wonderful,” muttered Saskia.

  “Dealing with this stuff, those early photographers must have died young,” theorized Lila.

  “Not Cornelius. He lived a long time.” Saskia felt a surge of longing just saying his name. She wondered, with increasing shame, if he ever felt the same.

  When the plate was sensitized, she helped Lila put it in the plate holder. Then they secured the holder inside the camera, which was worrisomely brittle. Nothing like the shiny new model Cornelius owned. Then again, in the 1800s, the camera Saskia and Lila were using had probably been pristine.

  Finally, the girls were ready to take a picture of themselves. Cornelius’s photography studio had sported the brightest lamps from his shop, perfectly arranged at optimal angles for the best shot. But here, the girls had to make do with mediocre LED tube lights flickering on the ceiling. Still, Saskia wasn’t without hope. She’d never forget that haunting incident in which Cornelius had photographed the dead boy in dim light. She and Lila would just have to make it work.

  “Ready?” Lila asked, voice quavering.

  “I think so.”

  “I forgot how long we have to hold still.”

  “Five minutes,” Saskia confirmed.

  The girls stood side by side, their backs pressed against a wall.

  “Are you going to smile?” asked Lila.

  “No. Are you?”

  “Nah. Let’s look mean and badass.”

  Saskia laughed. “Okay, then.”

  “Anyone from the future who picks us should know what they’re getting themselves into.”

  “Mean and badass it is,” Saskia agreed. “You ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Here we go . . .”

  Saskia ran over to the camera, now mounted on the precarious tripod, and removed the lens. Then she bolted back and repositioned herself beside Lila. The girls put their hands on their hips—Saskia aware of a subtle pressure on her MBC tattoo—and stared at the camera like they meant business.

  It was hard to stay still, even harder not to blink. Five minutes suddenly felt like an eternity, but the girls were committed. They knew t
hey had to be statue still, or all their work would be in vain.

  When the time was finally up, Saskia inhaled deeply and hustled to put the lens back on.

  “Do you think it worked?” asked Lila, barely able to contain her excitement.

  It occurred to Saskia that this was the very first time she’d ever seen Lila exuberant.

  “Yeah,” Saskia replied, surprised by her own answer. “I think we may have pulled it off.”

  By and by, an image began to appear. It was only a vague, shadowy outline at first. The girls put the plate back over the lamp and waited several more minutes. When they checked again, they were shocked to see a perfect rendering of themselves.

  “No way,” murmured Lila.

  Saskia couldn’t take her eyes off the final product, either. Far from being the first pancake, the daguerreotype was sharp and focused. More than that, the girls looked strong, brazen, and bold.

  “We nailed badass,” said Saskia.

  For some reason, the picture made her feel like the temporal and physical distance between Cornelius and her had decreased. She supposed that was because she had created the very thing that gave her access to him. His daguerreotype was a type of portal. And now she’d made a potential portal of her own.

  “Do you really think someone from the future will bring us back?” she asked Lila. She had a hunch her friend was wondering the same thing.

  “I don’t know. I hope so. It’s our only shot at immortality.”

  “You really think that?”

  “Well, I told you before I don’t believe in all that Catholic stuff. I don’t think our spirits are gonna rise to heaven and we’ll spend all eternity with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or some other patriarchal BS. That’s imaginary. But this daguerreotype—it’s real.”

  “Say we get lucky and someone picks us,” Saskia said. “What if we don’t like them? What if they don’t like us?”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  Saskia wasn’t sure she was. “Don’t you think the gravestones might be right—that people really are meant to rest in peace?”

  “Was Cornelius meant to rest in peace?”

  Saskia was taken aback. “No!”

  “Thought so.”

  A little flustered, Saskia looked again at the daguerreotype. “So . . . where are we supposed to put this?”

  “Where else? In the collection, along with the rest of the daguerreotypes.”

  “And Marlene? She could find it.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Even if she doesn’t, the chance of someone finding our daguerreotype in the future—and figuring out what to do with it, with the mercury and all—is practically zero.”

  “Well, we’ll give them a little help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I made instructions.” Lila reached into her pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. “This explains the whole process.”

  Saskia’s eyes widened.

  “We can’t leave everything to fate,” Lila said matter-of-factly.

  “Lila Defensor, that’s ballsy.”

  “Well, we are badasses, aren’t we?”

  Saskia paused to think. She realized this was her last chance to change her mind before the daguerreotype was stored away, maybe forever. “Are we gonna tell the others?” she asked apprehensively.

  Lila gave her a withering look.

  “Okay. Guess that answers my question.”

  Back at Saskia’s house, Lila put on an apron and rummaged through the freezer. She took out a packet of chicken breasts and a bag of chopped vegetables and thawed them under running water. Then she found a big pan and began sautéing the vegetables in olive oil, ginger, and garlic. A delicious aroma soon filled the air. She fried the chicken in a separate pan and tossed everything together.

  Then Lila served Saskia the best meal she’d had since coming to Coventon.

  “Can you live here?” Saskia asked, swallowing a bite.

  Lila laughed. “Make sure you save some for your dad. He’s way skinny.”

  “I wish I could cook like you.”

  “It comes from having a hundred siblings. From age six on, I was my mom’s sous chef.”

  “I can barely pour a bowl of cereal,” Saskia replied.

  “So what do you guys eat?”

  “Well, my dad recently attempted Ghanaian shish kabobs. Again. He used so much cayenne pepper, my tongue’s still on fire.”

  Lila laughed again, but Saskia was more pensive. She had a serious question she’d been meaning to ask. “Lila, do you ever think that maybe, I don’t know, we’re fooling ourselves? That—and please don’t be mad at me—we could be making this up, Cornelius and Cassie, without even knowing it?”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, sighing. “Sometimes I feel like we’re in a play. Did you ever read The Crucible?”

  “The one about the Salem witches?”

  Lila nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one. The thing is, those girls weren’t real witches. They had an illness. Hysteria. Mass hysteria.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s when a bunch of people, usually girls, who all live in the same place start behaving strangely, but for no apparent reason.”

  “Strangely like how?”

  “Can be anything. Fits. Crying. Numbness. Blindness. Believing your dreams are real.”

  Saskia felt a rising dread.

  “Hysteria still happens,” Lila continued. “A few years ago it happened in this town in New York State. I read about it. All these girls started twitching. Having random fits. Hysterical episodes, they’re called. Even now, nobody knows why. Maybe it somehow spread from person to person, like yawns. Or maybe something in the environment caused it. Some kind of toxin . . .”

  “Like from a chemical plant?” Saskia suggested.

  “Like Arrivo? Yeah, exactly. Pollution can have psychological effects—it’s been proven. But it could be something else. Something simpler, something common. Like screwed-up families. The girls in that town had a lot of problems: money problems, divorce, absent parents. That got me thinking how all of us in the club kind of have family problems, too.”

  Saskia thought about that—about her own selfish mother, the Sampras sisters’ parents living like they were wild college kids, Lila and Adrienne having no fathers—or at least none worth mentioning. Some of what Lila was saying was hard to hear, but Saskia knew it was a conversation they had to have.

  “Nobody really understands hysteria,” Lila pointed out, “its roots, or how it spreads. Could be that some girls give it to each other like a virus. Could be some girls fake their symptoms. Or maybe, unconsciously, they mimic each other.”

  “So it’s possible that we’re all crazy?”

  Lila shook her head. “I wouldn’t say that. Psychiatrists don’t use the word crazy because, like, what’s normal? I just meant we might all be influencing each other without being aware of it. During the day, yeah, sometimes I think we might be imagining our Forever Boyfriends—and Girlfriend—without really knowing it.” She paused, her expression hardening. “But at night, I know we aren’t. I know what’s happening is real. Because Cassie’s too good to make up.”

  Saskia thought again about Lila’s dragonfly story, wondering for the millionth time where the line between life and death was. Did the girls in the club walk it every time they visited their Mercury Boys? What about the line between sanity and madness? Were they walking that line, too?

  Suddenly someone unlocked the door. Saskia was so on edge she jumped out of her chair. But it was only her father coming home from work.

  When he entered the kitchen, his face lit up, and he followed his nose to the pan. “Did you girls make this?”

  “Lila did,” said Saskia, hoping he didn’t notice how tense she was.

 
“I made enough for you,” Lila added.

  Saskia’s father stared at her with unabashed gratefulness. “If this tastes half as good as it smells, I’m gonna be in heaven.”

  “It tastes even better than it smells,” Saskia assured him.

  He stabbed a piece of chicken with a fork and chewed thoughtfully. Then he stabbed another piece, and another. “You don’t have to answer this right away,” he said to Lila, “but can you live here?”

  Lila burst out laughing. Saskia joined her, but inside she was still reeling. The conversation about hysteria had thrown her for a loop. Broken families, witches, toxins, mimicry—it was a lot to take in. She needed time to think, to let it settle.

  Her father spooned the remainder of the food into a dish and took a seat with them. He and Lila chatted amiably about things to do in and around Coventon. From time to time, Saskia nodded or smiled appropriately. But really, she felt separate, adrift in her thoughts. Barely tethered to the real world.

  Before his shift the next day, Saskia’s father reminded her to call her mother. Again. Saskia gave the obligatory nod, though she had no intention of following through. She had enough on her mind without adding her mother to the mix.

  Besides, Saskia reasoned, nothing good ever came of communicating with her mother. Inevitably, Saskia hung up the phone feeling hurt, angry, or disappointed. The last time they’d talked, her mother had said, “It’s time to move on, Saskia. Onward and upward!” The declaration had made Saskia feel small and pathetic, like she and her father were failing to climb to the upper rungs of her mother’s metaphorical ladder. But Ralph, improbably, had reached the very top.

  Saskia had wondered then, like she wondered now, why her mother considered Ralph so valuable. So precious, like a rare specimen. She spoke of him like an equal. But he wasn’t. Mathematically, he was half her mother’s age and had only a quarter of her brains and education. As for charisma, Saskia gave him a big fat zero.

  Saskia was sure her mother was aware of his deficiencies. She must know they made a strange pair—a middle-aged Black woman and a young white man. They looked less like girlfriend and boyfriend than teacher and student. Or even mother and son. Secretly, Saskia wondered if people ever stopped them on the street and mentioned adoption, the way they had stopped her father when Saskia was a little girl.