Aunt Veronica had warned me it was like this sometimes, right after a family’s incorporation. The bubbles overflowing the glass.
“I’d miss my dorm sisters,” I said.
Faraday scoffed. “They aren’t family.”
“But we are.” I took her hand and kissed it. “Whether we live together or not.”
With that, she was happy again.
We finished the bottle, my usual tricks hardly needed to make her drink more than me. When the porter came in to light the fireplace, we moved up to my room.
The sunset had caught fire by then, and Faraday wanted to go out onto my widow’s walk. We took the last of the champagne in half-empty glasses.
“No coat?” she asked.
I looked at my bare arm, the goose pimples budding there.
“I like the cold.”
“What did your family do? To make them give up?”
“Don’t ask,” I said, with nothing behind the eyes.
Faraday bravely held my gaze before turning back to the red sky. “Funny. I thought you’d say you didn’t know.”
I knew.
“It seems like magic, is all,” she added softly.
“That’s the best way to think of it.” Though, really, it was more like clockwork.
People are machines. They have inputs and outputs, pinions and springs. You can stop them, overwind them, reset them.
Faraday took a long drink. “Where are you spending the summer?”
“New York, I hope. At Garrett’s gallery.”
“The hot non-uncle! He’s an artist?”
“A gallerist. He finds artists and makes them famous.”
“I didn’t know you liked art.”
“I’m learning to,” I said.
Peter’s collection of animal bones now lived in my room. Sometimes I took them out and arranged them on my desk, creating hybrid creatures, impractical weapons, spiraling patterns of eye sockets, spines, jaws.
The results were pleasing to look at, but nature had done most of the work.
“Sebastian was so sweet at the funeral. I think I need to kiss him.” Faraday turned to look at me, her expression more intent than her tone. “Those soulful eyes.”
I had to laugh.
“What?” she demanded. “I’m not joking.”
“I know, dear. But you’re funnier when you aren’t trying to be.”
Faraday sighed. “Do you think it’s unwise?”
