In Noel's hands the collected pieces of Laura's coffee maker sat assembled.

  “I still think we should ask her first,” said Melody.

  “I'm sure she won't mind,” said Noel, turning on the stove, placing the contraption on the range. “I'll wash it for her when we're done.”

  “No, I mean, I just think you're liable to screw it up.”

  “What's there to get wrong? You watched me put it together. You've got the bottom and top piece. Fill the bottom with water. Coffee in the chamber. Screw it tight. Put it on the stove. Easy.”

  “What if it explodes in your face?”

  “It's not going to explode in my face.”

  “Okay. Well. I'm just going to … step back anyway.”

  Which turned out to be a great move on Melody's part, when, after several yieldless minutes (“Is it supposed to take this long?”), followed by an angry pressurized hissing (“Oh, that doesn't sound good.”), the coffee maker exploded in Noel's face.

  “See? Never trust anything with a safety valve.”

  “Uugh.” Noel, dazed, teetered over to the sink to empty his bloody nose, while his sister made her way around the kitchen, picking up the scattered pieces of the coffee machine: in one corner, the lower reservoir, which Noel had filled up with water, all the way to the top (“First mistake. Never fill it up past the safety release.”); in another, the top portion, black-handled and hinge-lidded, that octagonal chunk of metal which had launched itself into Noel's skull, each recollected frame of the impact a smear, nose squashed, cranium stretched; and lastly, under the breakfast table, surrounded by wet grounds, fashioned after some bisected hourglass, that small internal funnel into which Noel had tamped the coffee.

  “And that would be mistake number two,” explained Laura, who had come out to investigate the sound (M: “Sorry. Did we wake you?” L: “No, actually, I was studying. But what a relief, I thought your brother might've finally snapped or something … lost his marbles … gone werewolf wild ...” N: “Why me?”), and was now demonstrating the proper operating procedure. “Don't pack the coffee in so tightly. Just loosely like this is best. Shake it a bit, level it out.”

  Melody, nodding fascinatedly: “Hmm, yes. I see, I see.”

  “If you pack it in, it's like a bomb waiting to go off. That’s most likely what killed Noel.”

  “I’ll never forget him.” Melody wiped a tear from her eye. “He was a good brother.”

  Noel, stepping out from the bathroom, tissues rolled into his nostrils: “No, I’m still … I’m still alive.”

  And when the coffee finished brewing (“You can put that pot lid down. It won’t happen again …” “Yeah, fool me once …”) the process was repeated twice more, and before long three people sat around the breakfast table, freshman and graduate in the two lawn chairs, the dropout in the office chair he’d dragged out from his room, their conversation flowing from topic (“You know, this is probably the first time I’ve ever talked to your brother.” “That’s not true. I said ‘Hey’ to you on move-in day.” “That was … I’ve lived here two years now …”) to topic (“Elysia? She’s doing okay. She was back at school today, actually … She was so exhausted after that she’s just sleeping here tonight …”) to topic (“I’ve never actually been to the First.” “Before you ask, it’s not farmland.” “I, uh … Yeah, I know.”) before it was interrupted by a faint stirring, a listless shuffling from behind Laura’s door, through whose opening emerged, from out of the darkness, a pink pajama leg, followed by a white short arm cast, and then, at last, the somnambulist in full, who rubbed her eyes drowsily and called out from the open doorway: “Laura?”

  “Sorry. Were we being too loud?”

  The girl shook her head. “I had to use the bathroom.”

  Melody waved. “Hi, Elysia. I’m Melody.”

  Elysia, as though previously unaware of the siblings, straightened her back now in their presence and, slightly curtsying, introduced herself, addressing brother and sister as Prime and Prima respectively, to the particular delight of the latter, who remarked, excitedly, “Whoa! I’ve never been called Prima before! It’s like I’m in a—a Reconstituted-era serial or something! This is—this must be the work of an academy education!”

  Noel, somewhat annoyed: “You know, you’ve never referred to me as Prime before. Not even when we were kids. Just saying.”

  Melody clapped her brother on the back and laughed. “That’s because I’m an uncultured rube.”

  “Why is everyone drinking coffee?” asked Elysia, approaching the table. “It’s so late. You won’t be able to sleep.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem for any of us,” said Laura. “I’ve still got another three chapters to trudge through before bed. And Noel here, he’s the type of person who only comes to life late at night.”

  “Yup,” said Noel. “See … the truth is, I’m really”—leaning in, hands clawed, fangs bared—“a vampire! Bwa-ha-ha!”

  Elysia, matter-of-factly: “Vampires aren’t real.”

  “… and as for Melody,” continued Laura, “—actually, I don’t know her deal.”

  “Don’t have one. I just like the taste.” Melody paused to think. “Wait, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m probably just used to it.”

  “I’m not allowed to drink coffee,” said Elysia, taking a seat on the couch. “Papa doesn’t let me. But I don’t like the way it tastes anyway, so it’s okay. I do like the smell, though. It smells nice when Laura makes it.”

  It smelled nice when Laura made it. To such inanity, how could Melody not add some vacant remark of her own? And how could Laura, in turn, not follow one such rejoinder with another of equal inconsequence? And why wouldn’t Noel, on the periphery of the resulting exchange into which the three young women fell, just sit there awkwardly in his office chair, unsure if he should stay or go, polling in vain for points of ingress that he probably wouldn’t’ve discerned anyway, growing hotter and more self-conscious the longer his voice went unused, until, in his frantic search for some chance or hope (any! any at all!) at reintegration, his eyes narrowed in on the persistent, and seemingly unconscious, movements of Elysia’s unencumbered hand, whose fingers betrayed, in their drummings and grazings of the plaster shell that encased the true target of their alternations, an agony that Noel elegantly brought to the table’s attention, with the interjection:

  “That’s really bothering you, huh?”

  Elysia, on realizing she’d been asked a question: “Uh-huh.”

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  “I know a trick that’ll make it go away. Want me to tell you what it is?”

  Elysia (enthusiastically): “Uh-huh!”

  “Okay. This is what you do. You take a metal chopstick …”

  (Attentively): “Uh-huh …”

  “… and then you boil a pot of water …”

  (Hesitantly): “Uh … huh …”

  “… and you boil the chopstick for a while …”

  (Dejectedly): “Uh. Huh.”

  “… and then when it’s hot you stick it under the cast, for as long as you can bear it. That’ll kill the itch completely. It never fails. Trust me.” Then he winked, as if he believed he’d said something to merit such a gesture, and gave a thumbs-up to Elysia, who could hardly respond before Laura chimed in with concerns of her own.

  “That is the absolute dumbest advice I’ve ever heard anyone give to another person. Elysia, don’t listen to him. He’s being … he’s being an idiot.”

  “No, no, I’m not kidding! I do it all the time, like, uh … when I get hives for no reason,”—(his sister: “Whoa, you too?”)—“o-or, when my athlete’s foot is acting up. But in that case I usually use a spoon instead, since the shape of the bowl fits the sole better. I call it, uh … I call it foot-spooning.”

  “Right. Okay. Now I know for sure you’re being an idiot.”

  (Melody, in the background, unacknowledged: “You mentioned hives? Can we go back to ‘hives’ for a sec?”)

  “Just try it once, you’ll see how effective it is.”

  “How about, ‘Drink this bleach to cure your hiccups. Just try it once, you’ll see how effective it is.’ Does that sound like a good idea?”

  “Alright. Fine. Don’t listen to me, I guess. Let the girl suffer. I’m just trying to help.”

  “Help her what, exactly? Get infected? Burned? First off, you’re not supposed to put anything inside of a cast, let alone—”

  Noel cut her off with a tsk. “If she boils the utensil, it won’t get infected. And obviously she wouldn’t leave it on her skin long enough to—”

  “Can you let me finish?—let alone hot metal! That’s gotta be the most irresponsible …”

  In this manner their back-and-forth continued, deteriorating at one point into purely personal attacks (“unvetted shut-in!”) on the other’s character (“smug know-it-all …”), while their corresponding roommates, on the sidelines, exchanged apologies on each belligerent’s behalf (“Sorry about my brother. He’s the type of person who really doesn’t like being wrong.” “I know what you mean. Laura’s kinda the same way, too, sometimes. But … I also don’t hate that about her …”) before splitting off into their own incidental dialogue.

  “I’ve never broken anything before,” said Melody.

  “Same here. I mean, before this, obviously.”

  “Looks like you’ve racked up quite a few signatures already.”

  “Yup! But I could always use another one. Would you like to add yours to it?”

  Melody, marker already in hand, breathing heavily: “Ah, ah … If it’s okay with you … Don’t mind if I do …”

  Elysia offered her arm to Melody, who, searching for a suitable place for her name, read out the ones already written on it, as if off some roster or inventory, taking stock of all the friends and classmates and teachers (“Constance, Gloria, Mr. Haverford … And ooh, ‘Darrin’. Who’s that? Is that your”—teasingly—“boooy-friend?” “What? Gross, no way! He’s just a”—blushing—“just a weird kid in my class. I—I only let him sign it because I felt bad for him …”) who’d managed to find and contribute their own unique variations on the same phrase (Hope you feel better soon!, and Get well soon!, and Speedy recovery go!), and whose names were, for the most part, perfectly pronounceable—at least, if you ignored Melody’s own un-Third-like regional quirks: Vivi-enne rather than Vi-vienne; A-lab-aster over Al-abaster—all except for one in particular, the only name written with an index Melody couldn’t manage.

  “That’s, uh … Em? Or … Elle … Eke—no, that’s not it … Maybe, um, Ele-something?”

  “Elegia.”

  “Right. Ele-gi-a. Got it.”

  “He’s my twin brother.”

  “Whoa. You have a twin brother? Cool. Who’s older?”

  “We’re the same age. We’re twins.”

  “Right, yeah. But—”

  “Look. Our names share the same radix. See?” Elysia traced Elysia on Melody’s palm, speaking as she wrote. “He’s in the hospital. He’s been there for a while now. Sometimes after school I’ll go there, but then sometimes they won’t let me see him, like what happened last year, when me and Mama and Papa were there …. See, we’re always there, in his room, for his—for our birthday … but we couldn’t see him that time … they didn’t let us …” Elysia broke off, eyes downcast, peering into her cast, at her brother’s name, in remembrance perhaps of some one thing or as likely the suppression of another, as if this lull in her speech were itself the very naming of his condition—which Melody knew, and which Elysia knew Melody knew—or, failing that, at least a sort of formality, an act by which its presence post resumption might be established or sanctioned.

  Elysia shook her head and said, previous vigour reassumed, “But! But! It won’t be too long before he gets better. Prima Laura—Laura’s working on a cure. And when he’s better we’ll be able to go to school again. Together. In fact, that’s why I bring over my homework when I visit. So he’ll be ready. For when he gets better …”

  “Is that so ….”

  —was what she said, as she signed the girl’s cast. But even Melody Quick—the same person who had once thought, up until her second year of high school, that lions and tigers were different genders of the same species—had by Elysia’s age known better than to place any substantial faith in the assertions and boasts of her elders: especially when it came to matters and tasks beyond the scope of the terrestrial.

  So, then, why exactly was this academy schoolgirl so convinced that the key to solving an entire nation’s shared genetic defect lay in the hands of a single graduate student who was studying neither medicine nor blood? Could she really be that naive? Or did she simply have that much faith in her, as she would call her, Prima?

  “No, really. Laura’s that incredible.”

  “I, er, didn’t say anything.”

  “I’ll—I’ll get her to show you. Um … Hey, Laura?”

  The two girls faced the couple on the other end of the table—he in the middle of an ardent, misinformed dissertation involving protein denaturation and the spinothalamic tract; she wrapping up the tail end of a retort (“… you expect me to listen to someone who got his nose blown off by a coffee maker?”)—who stopped their bickering long enough for Laura to tilt her head and say, “Yes, dear?”

  “Show them that thing you can do.”

  “Mm?”

  Elysia, gesturing with her hands: “With the … you know …”

  At which suggestion Laura, failing at any sort of humility, quivered: “What? Nah. No way, nobody wants to see that, nobody’s interested in that kind of—Oh alright fine I guess I’ll do it.”

  And since “it” seemed to require something from her room, Laura fled the table, leaving the three to wait in—for Elysia, anticipatory; the Quicks, bemused—silence until she returned, which she did after several minutes, bringing back with her two items, the first of which she wore on her head, askew, its black brim wide enough to veil her eyes in shadow, its pointed crown tip folded crookedly down; and the second of which she, reclaiming her seat, fanned across the table, all fifty-two of its constituents face-up, while Noel let off as many witty remarks as he could manage (“You got, uh, you got a wand and cloak to go with that hat? Also, say, is this your first magic trick? You don’t look at the cards, you’re supposed to say something like, ‘Pick a card, any card.’ And, uh … can somebody—can somebody pay attention to me?”) within the nine seconds she spent intensely studying the arrangement spread out before her, after which completion she un-fanned the deck and handed it across the table over to Melody, who took the stack and stared cluelessly at it for some time before asking, “What should I do?”

  Laura, pulling the hat down over her eyes completely, advised Melody, who then proceeded to do as she was instructed, throwing down one card after the next, in a steady rhythm, becoming more amazed with every suit and rank pair called out from across the table by the hat-blinded voice, which, reciting composedly, correctly named each card in time with its own plastic-coated thwack against the growing pile on the table, the dealer and caller together in such unison that their twin consonance might’ve appeared to be something rehearsed, a practiced display of if not exactly prestidigitation then at least some other kind of spectacle, until at last Melody exhausted the deck, having sequenced it to exact parity with the unseen mental copy that existed in the head of Laura Staples, who took the hat off and smiled triumphantly at the siblings Quick: “Well?”

  Noel, affectedly aloof: “I mean, it was okay. I guess. Still don’t see why the hat was necessary … o-or how, for that matter, memorization has anything to do with blood corrupt—”

  Cutting him off was his own sister—by comparison supremely impressed, her eyes sparkling: “Again! Again! Do it again!”

  Laura smiled. She straightened the cards and shuffled them. She set the deck down and made Melody cut it. Then she placed her half on Melody’s half and turned the deck face-up and spread the cards out before her and studied them and nodded to herself and straightened them once more. Then she gave the cards to Melody and they began again.

  Thwack.

  “Five of Clubs …”

  Thwack.

  “Nine of Hearts …”

  Thwack.

  “Ten of Spades …”