Chapter Seven. When You Have a Morning of Meddling and Metal
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN YOU HAVE A MORNING OF MEDDLING AND METAL
FARREN
I have to start getting used to some things around here.
Like James Murphy walking into the kitchen so early the sun has barely awoken.
I’m scrambling eggs on the stove for my dad and me, our normal Monday summer ritual.
One minute it’s a typical Walsh morning, with Mom organizing the weekly schedule at the table, and Dad in the other room taking a call that, by his tone, could be him discussing a life-threatening illness or ordering a ham sandwich for lunch. And then in walks Murphy.
He’s wearing that same impenetrable solemn expression. I think some people read mysterious as sexy. Maybe that’s why so many girls have a crush on him.
What a bunch of dragon dung.
On the other hand, he’s wearing simpler clothes than I’ve ever seen on him.
No buttoned-up school uniform. No flying guards or silver chest plate.
Just a white shirt, and riding pants with suspenders.
His hair is also wet. Something I haven’t seen since I pulled him out of the water.
A flash of memory returns of us both soaked, me clinging to him as I flew Daphine to the medical tent.
I revert my attention back to the eggs, scraping at the pan.
“Well, good morning, James. Farren wasn’t joking. It seems we have another early riser on our hands.” Mom laughs as she sips her coffee. “I have to admit, I assumed most teenage boys sleep in late.”
I huff. I wouldn’t joke about James Murphy’s strangeness, especially when it could affect everything. I knew he’d be awake. Yet watching him awkwardly stand in my kitchen is still shockingly odd. Wrong.
“I saw the lights on,” James gives in explanation.
“Please, join us.” Mom whips her attention to me. “Farren, could you add some eggs for James?”
I’ve added dozens of eggs for Jeffrey and Shelly over the years. I still have the horrid impulse to object.
“I’m fine,” James inserts, but then he casts his eyes around the kitchen like the faded wildflower wallpaper is going to produce a new Farren-free menu. His awkwardness literally hurts to look at.
“How do you want them?” I ask without even glancing up, stunned that I’m about to learn how James Murphy likes his eggs. This is plain unnatural.
“Whatever you are making is fine.” He pauses. “Scrambled is fine.” He sits at Jeffrey’s designated seat. When I peek at him, he’s fidgeting with the pepper shaker.
I whisk up more eggs and off I go, making the nemesis breakfast. I find myself unable to ignore him though. James’s focus, however, is pulled toward my dad on the phone in the other room. The phrase “Do you see the bone?” can be heard in the calmest of voices.
“Patrick is probably discussing something awful,” Mom says.
“You’ll get used to his upbeat tone and the fact that it never changes.
Even when he is talking about the most gruesome of injuries.
But that reminds me. Your mother wanted to make sure you knew where the phone was and that you are allowed to use it anytime.
” She presses her lips together. “I do hope you won’t be too homesick. ”
“I won’t.”
I plate the eggs, enthralled in my semi-eavesdropping.
Mom doesn’t take his short responses as indication to stop her questioning and she continues with, “Yes, but you may not see your friends all summer and, oh, what about a girlfriend? Someone as handsome as you must have a girlfriend.”
The pepper shaker clatters to the table.
I turn with the plates as James fumbles with the mess and answers. “No.” His gaze flicks to mine. “No, I don’t.”
I scowl as I lay down breakfast in front of him.
Don’t look at me when you say that, I want to shout.
My mom is going to think I’m harboring some secret boyfriend.
And I’m not the one that would keep that a secret.
James’s name gets circulated in the potential dating pools of school so often half the time I do believe the rumors he’s dating three people at once.
Mom sips coffee, unbothered by how uncomfortable she’s making everyone—namely me. “Well, that’s good. It can be a lengthy drive to town and long distance like that can be hard.”
I need us to be done with chitchat. Mom made her awkward long-distance point and isn’t inspired by James’s lack of response. He’s all-consumed with his eggs like they are the only thing in the room. But then Mom keeps going.
“Farren isn’t into all that,” Mom says matter-of-fact, but also proud. Like me not being normal is something to be treasured, to be sought after. Nothing about the confusing ways I feel would be desired though.
God, I’m embarrassed, because I’m pretty sure any normal girl would be into “all that,” meaning boys or girls.
Yet I’m into no one. I used to think maybe I’m just not a people person, but the thing is—I am.
I like people, and talking, and romance.
These past weeks, I’ve consumed every dragon training session with Jeffrey with questions about his proposal to Shelly.
I’ve lived vicariously through their love story for years.
I want to date and marry someone one day, have sex, become a mom.
I want that future and still it seems unattainable.
A part of it, a large part, is that I don’t think I get it.
And by it, I mean how to even develop sexual feelings.
Like I can note someone is attractive, but I’ve never been attracted to anyone.
An extroverted romantic who has never even had a crush. It sounds wrong.
Dad bustles into the room, throwing his coat over his chair. “Farren, we’ve got a six-one-two at the Murphy tracks. We’ll head out as soon as we eat.”
I nod. He’s my hero for interrupting this awful breakfast.
He scoops up his plate. “So, what’s the topic of conversation today?”
Mom smiles. “James was telling us about his dating life.”
As Dad’s eyes sparkle in amusement and he lets out a little excited “Oh?” James chokes on his eggs. For the next thirty seconds, the boy spouts into a coughing fit. Dad pats his back. I grab a glass of water and push it in front of him. He sips only to keep coughing.
“You okay?” my parents ask in interloping intervals.
“Yes,” James finally wheezes, clearly not fine, but at least speaking again.
“Good. We wouldn’t want to be known as the family that saved your life and then killed you two weeks later.” Dad laughs. Mom laughs.
They are both terrible. This is their fault. Mom always initiates girl talk with Shelly and me. I just didn’t think she would try it on someone like James Murphy. Discussing his dating life. My god.
“That reminds me. Your parents were very clear about you taking your silver.” Dad sobers up the room.
“I have the hot water ready for you,” Mom adds. I was wondering why a kettle was in the way of my Monday egg making. We aren’t big morning tea drinkers.
“I … um…” James holds up his cast. “I actually don’t need it. The arm is healing well. Unnaturally well, the doctors say.”
I busy myself eating my eggs, not meeting anyone’s eyes. In this one respect I have a secret that is solely mine. My parents, and especially James, must never know.
“Your parents were insistent I not let you miss a day. You’ll want your arm to keep healing fast,” Dad implores.
I look up to watch James’s face. It seems like he wants the complete opposite. But that can’t be right.
“Farren, get James a cup of hot water,” Mom requests.
I stand, used to being helpful. Not used to being James’s maid.
James springs from the table. “No, I’ll do it.”
Since I’m the seat closest to the stove I beat James to the kettle. He beats me to the handle though, picking it up before I can.
I stand back and cross my arms. And I wait.
One beat. Two. Surely, he’ll just ask. If we were alone, I think he’d have some snide remark, demand the whereabouts of the mugs.
But he’s back to normal James, the one I knew before I saved him.
Who wouldn’t have dared lean into my personal space and challenge me to try my worst. I don’t understand these two or three sides of him.
Stoic and calm and then arrogant and self-assured.
“Mugs are in the cabinet to your right,” I relent.
He sucks in a breath of relief and grabs a ceramic one and pours a half cup of hot water.
Then quickly, like it’s some illegal drug and not what wealthy people use even when they have a simple headache, James empties a small vial of silver powder into the water.
With the smallest sizzle the metal drifts to the bottom.
James’s fingers twitch over the steam, crafting the silver, mixing it so the particles dissolve properly.
One dose of that size could cure the flu, could mend a bruise, or treat an aching back.
But it would take a full silver-plated scale ground down to powder to do it.
A week of my father’s salary at the bottom of that cup in order to heal an arm that I know for a fact will heal just fine.
I don’t even realize I’m leaning in until James shifts. “Checking my work?”
“No.” I leap back. “Obviously not.”
“You sure?”
What I wouldn’t give for a full lesson in crafting healing teas.
I like my school, but they keep us pinned in place according to the hierarchy of crafting.
Copper doesn’t hold health benefits like bronze and silver, so potion class gets stripped from my curriculum.
More than that though, the knowledge is a coveted secret one must prove themselves to obtain, to even be able to drink.
In fact, it’s an age-old belief that drinking above your metal is bad for you.
And I mean bad. Deformities, chronic illness, death.
The list of fearmongering goes on. It almost makes sense why everyone thinks metals shouldn’t mix in relationships, if our own bodies can’t even handle tea.
Only twenty years ago marrying someone outside of your metal class was illegal.
I don’t believe for a second drinking silver will hurt me though.
Just another lie perpetrated by silver-crafters so they can hoard silver for themselves.
James looks down at the mug and then to me. “Want it?” he offers suddenly.
I gape at him. Silver teas are still illegal for me to drink without a medical prescription. If anyone found out he gave this to me, a copper? Well, crafters have been convicted for less. This must be another test, just like Hort’s scale yesterday. “Of course not.”
With a sigh, James tips back the mug and downs the medicine. “I’d simply be returning the favor, right?”
My blood goes cold. He can’t know. There’s no way. And yet I’m trying to piece together his reference and only come up with the worst-case scenario. That he does know. That I’ve already blown my family’s secret. “What did you just—?”
“Farren,” Dad calls. “Let’s get going.”
I jerk to attention. For now, I’ll ignore. Ignorance and avoidance can be some of the best concealment skills. “Yes, I’m ready.”
James steps forward as if to join us and Dad pauses, realizing his mistake.
“You may want to sit this one out, James. It’s Hendrix. He broke his wing half an hour ago and it sounds bad.” Dad pauses, shifts. “Your dad will be there as well.”
Hendrix is Hort’s littermate. They look like twins, bright orange, black undertones. Hendrix can’t match Hort’s sweetness, but still, seeing a dragon like yours in pain would be difficult.
“I would like to go, si—” James stops himself. “I’d like to go.”
They have a silent standoff before finally Dad nods. “Okay then. You and Farren can fight over who has to sit in the middle seat.”