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This was what it meant to be Ronan Lynch. Dream to reality.
Ronan had the hideous thought that they’d already killed Adam and that was why he didn’t rise, because he was already dead and cooling, murdered by Ronan’s dreams while he floated helplessly overhead—
“God, Ronan, God! What did you do?” “I’m fixing it.” Ronan slid out of bed.
Their mother had taught them all this sort of low-impact criminality. Not taught-taught, not like flash cards. In a lead-by-example way.
People only believed in fake art because they wanted to, so really he was just giving them what they wanted.
Stealing from criminals was like multiplying negative numbers. It turned out positive in the end.
He wasn’t ordinarily into figurative art, but it made him feel things in his parts. Which parts he hadn’t worked out yet. Multi-part feelings.
A thousand little lies, pal, that’s the way to do it, not a big lie.
A scream came from elsewhere in the mansion. It was hard to tell what age or gender of person had produced it. It did not appear to concern Hennessy.
At the very least they all stood like her, like they would fuck you or fuck you up.
Declan called at some point. “I told you to text in the morning. The rules of this were very simple.” Ronan tested his voice, found it wanting, and then tried it again. It worked this time, even though he did not think it sounded particularly like his own. It said to Declan, “I ruined his dorm.” There was silence, and then Declan said, “I’m going to call Adam.”
It felt like sadness was like radiation, like the amount of time between exposures was irrelevant, like you got a badge that eventually got filled up from a lifetime of it, and then it just killed you.
“Tell me to go to school closer to you and I will,” Adam said in a rush, the words piled together. “Just say it.” Ronan pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, checking for nightwash, but it wasn’t bad yet. “I’m not that big of an asshole.” “Oh, you are,” Adam said, trying for humor. Failing. “Just not about that.”
You need a routine, Declan had demanded. I have a routine. I thought you said you never lied.
Look how each week was the same, the routine announced. Look how you can predict the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two hours, ninety-six hours, look how you can predict the rest of your life. The entire word routine depressed Ronan. The sameness. Fuck everything.
The house contained most of his childhood memories, which might have made it a miserable place for others. But for Ronan, the Barns had always felt like one of his few surviving family members. If he was imprisoned by circumstance, he thought, at least there were worse places than the Barns.
If you could dream a life out of nothing, should you? On weekdays, he gave in to the impulse of adding to his strange herds. On weekends, he spent Mass regretfully apologizing to God for his hubris.
“I just had a very troubling parent-teacher conference. I need you up here.” This didn’t immediately make sense to Ronan, as he had neither parents nor teachers in his life. Then he worked it out as he backed another careful step into the barn, the cow bobbing after. “Matthew?” “Who else?” Declan said. “Do you have another brother you dreamed who’s fucking up?”
A dreamer, a dream, and Declan: that was the brothers Lynch.
There wasn’t enough confession time in the Catholic Church to make Ronan feel good about the weight of dreaming another human into being. Matthew didn’t know that he was a dream.
The caller ID still showed an active call with DBAG LYNCH.
Declan Lynch was a liar. He’d been a liar his entire life. Lies came to him fluidly, easily, instinctively.
At a certain point, the truth felt worse. Truth was a closed-casket funeral attended by its estranged living relatives, Lies, Safety, and Secrets.
There were, Declan thought, so many damn things to be afraid of.
His promotion to legal guardian meant he could no longer be just a brother. He had to be Law.
Why did Declan withhold this bit of truth? Because Matthew had been raised as human by their parents and it felt cruel to take it from him now. Because Declan could only handle one brother in crisis. Because he was so thoroughly trained in secrets that everything was one until proven otherwise or stolen from him.
It was not that he was stupid. It was more that he had a deliberate absence of intellectual skepticism. Byproduct of being a dream? Deliberately dreamt into him?
Ronan was allowed to invoke Aurora because they all knew Ronan loved her as much as Matthew had. Declan, whose skeptical love was imperfect, could not.
Declan had complicated feelings on the topic of Adam Parrish. There was no way Declan would ever tell a significant other the truth of the Lynch family; it was too dangerous for someone disposable to know. But Adam knew everything, both because he’d been there when certain things had gone down, and because Ronan shared everything with him. So theoretically the relationship was a weak link. But Adam Parrish was also cautious, calculating, ambitious, intensely focused on the long game, so therefore a good influence. And one only had to spend a minute with the two of them to see that he was
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Stop protecting him, Declan told himself. Tell him the truth. But a lie felt safer.
He knew Ronan was failing alone at the Barns. The farm he adored wasn’t enough for him. His brothers weren’t enough for him. Adam wasn’t really enough for him, either, but Declan knew he hadn’t gotten that far yet. There was something strange and yawning and hungry inside Ronan, and Declan knew that he could either feed it or risk losing Ronan to a far more mundane ending and, by extension, lose his other brother, too. His entire family.
The French had a term for it. L’appel du vide, the call of the void. The urge even non-suicidal people felt to jump when confronted with a high place.
Everyone at this secret party thought Hennessy’s big reveal was that she was one of the most prolific art forgers on the East Coast. The real secret was this: Hennessy, Jordan, June, Brooklyn, Madox, Trinity. Six girls with one face. Hennessy had dreamt them all.
Hennessy wasn’t sure why they both preferred to work at night; it was bad art practice, surely. But the sun had never felt like a friend.
Jordan had been the first of the copies Jordan Hennessy had dreamt into being many years before. She kept Hennessy for herself. She gave away Jordan to this new girl.
Sometimes Hennessy forgot that Jordan was actually her. Sometimes she thought Jordan forgot, too.
If you stared at puzzles long enough, you started solving them even when you hadn’t set your brain on them.
Jordan had to do this because she gave a shit. That was the rule: If you gave a shit about the job, the job was yours.
At the end of the day, this was the difference between Hennessy and Jordan. While Hennessy imagined flinging herself from a roof and falling, Jordan imagined flinging herself from a roof and flying.
He was not easy, he was passive, which was another thing entirely.
He and Declan were at the Fairy Market, which Declan knew because Niall Lynch had frequented it and Ronan knew because a stranger had whispered it to him in a dream.
“He wouldn’t have been happy I was bringing you to this,” Declan said, glancing in the dark rearview mirror. For what, who knew. “He wouldn’t have wanted anything bad to happen to you.” He did not quite emphasize the to you, but it was understood. Nothing bad to happen to you, something bad could happen to me.
His dreams taught the boys secrecy, the importance of being hidden, the value of the unspoken. His dreams made them an island:
The Lynch brothers were not Niall Lynch’s dreams, but they grew into the shape of them anyway.
“The last one I went to with Dad was in Tokyo. First one was LA, I think. Maybe Berlin. Memories are liars.”
Ronan knew Declan was made of secrets, but he still managed to be shocked by the reveal of a new one.
“Ink on your skin means you’re hiding things,” he told Ronan. “That’s what breathing means,” Ronan replied.
“Each of those codes stands for something. Art, animals, weapons, drugs. Services.” “Cleaning,” Ronan said. “Accounting. Childcare.” “Probably yes, actually,” Declan said, “but not in the way you’re thinking.” He traced a finger down the card. “I don’t know all the codes as well as I should. But I think it’ll be in an eighty-four room, or a twelve. Maybe a Z-twelve.” “What are we looking for?” Ronan asked. Declan put the card in his jacket. “You aren’t looking for anything. You’re just looking. And sticking with me. Do you understand? Some of these codes—you go in that room, and you’re not
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“Dad would’ve hated this,” Declan breathed again, more to himself than to Ronan.
He’d idolized Niall before he died; maybe he didn’t want to know more about this side of him.
