Chandra Prasad - Mercury Boys

Copyright 2021 by Chandra Prasad

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Soho Teen

an imprint of Soho Press, Inc.

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Prasad, Chandra, author.

Mercury Boys / Chandra Prasad.

ISBN 978-1-64129-265-8

eISBN 978-1-64129-266-5

1. SupernaturalFiction. 2. Secret societiesFiction.

3. FriendshipFiction. 4. Racially mixed peopleFiction.

5.Moving, HouseholdFiction.

LCC PZ7.1.P697 Mer 2021 | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020055361

Robert Cornelius image restoration:

Tetyana Dyachenko/digitartgallery.com

Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my readers

Dont believe the naysayers.

You can do it.

Mercury acts in the body through oppositions. It is both poison and medicine, both solid and liquid, both gravity and flight.

Richard M. Swiderski , Quicksilver:

A History of the Use, Lore and Effects of Mercury

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.

Dorothy Parker

There is a young gentleman of this city, by the name of Robert Cornelius, one of the firm of the well known house of Cornelius, Son & Co., who has more genius than he yet supposes himself to possess.

Godeys Ladys Book

CHAPTER ONE

Obsessions usually begin in a fiery cauldron of anger, jealousy, love, or revenge, but Saskia Browns started in an ordinary high school classroom with bored students and a scuffed linoleum floor.

The class was Early American Innovation and Ingenuity. Shed decided to take it because it sounded hopeful and exciting, and also because it was Pass/Fail. Only last week she and her father had left Arizona and driven thirty-seven hours to Coventon, Connecticut. Though they were mostly settled into their new home, she still felt discombobulated. Better not to overload herself at school, she figured. Better to start slow. Next year, when she had the lay of the land, she could take some AP classes and really push herself.

Besides, there was only a month left in the school year. She hadnt even wanted to start at Coventon High so close to summertime. But her dad had insisted.

Better to keep busy, hed said.

To Saskia, it sounded like the same advice he probably gave himself . Keep your mind occupied. Dont think about Mom.

The teacher, Mr. Nash, wasnt young, but he acted like he was ... in a good way. He jumped from topic to topic at a pace that made her head spin. He got excited when he talked, gesturing with his hands, occasionally pumping his fists in the air. His job hadnt made him jaded and cynical like other teachers his age.

The last assignment of the year was to study little-known American pioneers. Mr. Nash had the kids draw names out of a hat. Saskia got a guy named Robert Cornelius. Shed never heard of him. Now she had less than two weeks to research and write a ten-page report and prepare a fifteen-minute oral presentation on him. Back at her old school, giving a presentation wouldnt have been a problem. Shed been outgoing. Extroverted. But here, all she wanted to do was blend in.

No, strike thatall she wanted to do was fade into the background.

Because faded is exactly how I feel , she thought.

Sitting back down, she shoved the scrap of paper aside. She glanced at her bland gray T-shirt and bare, chewed-down fingernails. In her old town, shed worn black and silver nail polish. Shed had a pair of jeans that shed splashed with colored paint, Jackson Pollockstyle. Sometimes shed scrawl words she liked on her T-shirts: agnostic , sensory overload , Rasputin , continental drift , abacus , ambrosia , mercenary . Back then, she hadnt been afraid to stand out. Not that shed been super popular. But shed been fine with that. Fine with being herself: the girl who watched too many old movies; who had a tendency to daydream; whose big, curly, uncontrollable hair seemed to have a mind of its own. The one no one could quite pigeonhole. (Is she Black? Nah, her dads white. Yeah, but her moms not.)

Those days seemed liked ancient history now. They had even before the move.

After word of her moms affair leaked out, lots of her so-called friends abandoned her, gossiped behind her back. Theyd called her mom a cradle snatcher. And Saskia couldnt deny it. Her fifty-year-old mother was seeing a twenty-four-year-old. Gross. Since Saskia had left Arizona, not a single one of her friends had called or texted to make sure she was okay. Not even her best friend, Heather. That hurt a lot. It upset her almost as much her moms infidelity.

Heather had been unpredictable, maybe even reckless, but Saskia had adored her. The bottom line was that Heather knew how to have funand Saskia had fun with her. During one memorable sleepover, theyd made White Russians at Heathers house on the down-low after her parents had gone to sleep. There hadnt been any milk, so theyd used cream. Small sips , Heather had said encouragingly, when Saskia admitted shed never tried alcohol before. She remembered vomiting as quietly as possible, her stomach churning, hoping the noise wouldnt wake up Heathers parents. She remembered laughing so hard her ribs hurt.

But she also remembered the final text Heather had sent her. Last minute, her supposed best friend had canceled their plans to hang out. Again. Heather had blamed a sore throat, but Saskia had seen her at school that very day, and shed seemed fine: lively, a little hyper, very Heather-ish. So it was pretty obvious she was blowing Saskia off.

It would have been better if Heather had just come out and said it: I dont want to be your friend anymore. Your family is hella embarrassing.

Better to rip off the Band-Aid all at once , Saskia thought now.

During free period she went to the library and googled Robert Cornelius on her laptop. She scanned the entries and picked up some basic info. Cornelius was a pioneer in early photography. Hed worked with photos known as daguerreotypes. His family owned a prosperous gas and lighting company. He had expertise in chemistry and metallurgy. Metallurgy? She made a mental note to look that up later, as well as daguerreotypes.

She clicked on images, not expecting much, but getting an eyeful. The same grainy, black-and-white photo appeared over and over again. Robert Cornelius: Self-Portrait, the captions read. Here was a striking young man with an intense, arresting stare. His arms were crossed defiantly. The collar of his dark coat was turned up. He looked, frankly, like a nineteenth-century badass.

She heard a whistle from behind.

Whipping around, she saw Lila Defensor, her new friendscratch that, her only friendat Coventon High. Lila was small, not even five feet. Fun-sized, she called herself. Her freckles, hair, and eyes were all the exact same color of dark amber, a synchronicity that was offset by the bright earrings and headbands she usually wore.

Saskia had gravitated toward Lila the second shed seen her. Walking near each other in a hallway, they had rolled their eyes in tandem at a girl leaning against her locker, pouting and preening as she took selfies. Thats a serious commitment to self-absorption, Lila had whispered to Saskia, whod known at that moment that she and Lila were like two Twix bars in the same wrapper.