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But this used to be Declan’s world, Ronan reminded himself. Before the gray town house, before the gray suit, before gray tone of voice, before invisibility, before their father’s murder, Declan Lynch came to these often enough to be recognized. Sometimes Ronan wasn’t sure he knew any of his family.
Unmistakably Niall Lynch’s sons, unmistakably brothers.
They were good at this, she reminded herself, being each other, being forgeries of Hennessy.
Most men do not go to Mass every Sunday and most men do not fall in love with other men. And no one brings dreams to life. No one brings dreams to life. No one brings dreams to life. These were the things that made Ronan Lynch himself, but he didn’t realize it until he met the rest of the world.
He didn’t know if he belonged here, but he suspected he belonged here more than in the world where he’d been hiding. Declan must’ve known it, too, but he hadn’t told him. His father must have known it, but he hadn’t told him, either.
“Your brother is Niall’s son for sure.” Declan’s expression changed. From one blank expression to another, blanker one. He’d always seemed annoyed that Ronan looked so much like their father.
“Makes you miss the bastard, doesn’t it?” “I’m used to it,” Declan said.
“Do you like them?” Ronan asked. Declan said, “They make me want to goddamn cry.” Ronan had never seen his older brother goddamn cry and could not remotely begin to picture it.
Bryde says if you want to kill someone and keep it a secret, don’t do it where the trees can see you.”
Declan hadn’t told anyone that he knew Aurora Lynch was dreamt. It was a secret, after all, and he knew how to handle secrets. It was a lie, too, because Niall expected them to believe that she was as real as the rest of them, but Declan knew how to handle lies. It was a little heavier to carry than Declan’s other secrets and lies. Not heavier. Lonelier.
He couldn’t bear looking at Ronan right now. Something foul and dark had nested inside Ronan the moment he’d found their father’s body; it was as if it woke up as everything else fell asleep.
The brothers Lynch. They didn’t think their hearts would break more.
He was going to be alone, he thought, he was going to be alone and it was going to be just him and that new terrifying Ronan, and Matthew whose life depended on him, and somewhere out there was something that killed Lynches.
“The will is in the cedar box in our bedroom closet,” she said into his hair. Declan closed his eyes. He whispered, “I hate him.” “My dauntless Declan,” Aurora said, and then she slid softly to the floor. The orphans Lynch.
Ronan sounded furious, which told Declan little about what he was really feeling. Every emotion that wasn’t happiness in Ronan usually presented itself as anger.
I don’t want it, Declan had said. He was going to keep his head down. Be invisible. Pretend that part of his life had never happened. I don’t want any of it, and even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. But what was Declan Lynch but a liar?
Niall had left each of them a piece of property—the Barns to his favorite son, an empty field in Armagh, Northern Ireland, to Aurora’a favorite son, and a sterile town house in Alexandria to the son left over—
It wouldn’t have hurt Ronan a bit if he made his peace with lying for good cause, Declan thought.
Somehow, objectively troubling truths about their parents had been unable to mar Ronan’s feelings for them. Declan envied him. His love and his grief both.
He didn’t like how the guy said Boudicca, either. It sounded like power. It sounded like malice.
It was dangerous tonight; it was always dangerous at these places. Declan had known that and he’d come anyway. He’d brought Ronan. He’d edged out on this limb and reached for this painting from his past. He knew better than this.
A truth, given away. A truth, transcribed forever. He hated it. So much softer to lie.
Hennessy’s father had collected art, including her mother, and her mother had painted portraits right up until she’d died. Her mother’s portraits had been a little famous before her death and now they were very famous. This was, Jordan discovered, because art always lasted longer when mingled with blood.
Conservative, expensive gray suit. Conservative, expensive black watch. Conservative, expensive silk black tie. All behaving so well in concert that they were utterly forgettable.
Jordan glanced up at him. He was young and handsome in a way so in line with cultural expectations that his appearance passed through attraction straight into boredom.
People are always saying talent when they mean practice.”
“You remind me of my brother.” “Congratulations,” she said. “On what?” “On having such a beautiful brother.”
“Can I ask what you’re doing here tonight?” “No,” he said. She looked up at him. He smiled that bland smile but didn’t back down from that no. It was a no that wasn’t malicious or rude. It was simply a fact. No. You’re not allowed to know. Suddenly, she saw how he might survive in this world.
A woman waited on the other side, hands in the pockets of a gray bomber jacket. First Ronan saw the way she stood. Tense, coiled, a predator. Then he saw her hair: golden. Then her eyes: pretty, blue. Cornflower, sky, baby, indigo, azure, sky. For the second time that night, Ronan found himself looking directly at his dead mother, only this time she was in the flesh. His brain was rejecting it—this doesn’t happen when you’re awake, it’s not what you think—
Now they’ve built the whole thing inside out. Conscious, that’s what they call being awake. Unconscious, that’s what they call dreaming. Subconscious, that’s what they call everything in between. You and I know that’s bullshit. But thus spake Zarathustra or whatever and now they gave us spirituality and took actuality for themselves. The audacity of it.
You need to understand this: They need you to be broken. They can’t stand it otherwise. If you could do what you do, but without any doubt?
I don’t want you to think this ever again: It was just a dream. That’s a good way to get yourself killed.
Ronan didn’t know how to make things right again, and he was afraid of making things more wrong. So he just texted him: dreamt of you.
He was always doing that—guessing Ronan’s next action correctly, guessing his motivation incorrectly.
“Evolution favors the simplest organism, Ronan, and right now we’re the simplest organism.” Ronan made a vow to never be as dull a person, as passionless a person, as dead a person as Declan Lynch. “A fucking single-celled organism is the simplest organism,” Ronan said. “And there are three of us.” Declan looked at him heavily. “As if I don’t think about that every single day.”
Your father has the geis of blarney, Aurora often said. He has to tell stories or he’ll die. Geis of bullshit, Declan had replied once,
Declan texted as he got closer to the hotel. Tell me when you get that taken care of. Ronan knew that the real meaning of the text was Tell me when you are safely installed at the Barns instead of chasing things I told you not to chase.
Ronan hadn’t thought there was someone less cautious in a car than he, but it turned out there was.
This feeling—the feeling of being unmade, undone, unstitched in ways that other bodies had never been sewn in the first place—had no name, but he knew it meant he had to dream.
You think it’s hard for you to hear the dreams when you’re far away from your mountains. From our ley line. From your forest. From Lindenmere. That’s not right. It’s not wrong, but it’s only half right. It’s hard for the dreams to hear you.
Ronan reached, and the darkness reached back. Hold on, kid.
Poor Jordan. She didn’t deserve this. None of them did, but especially not her.
Jordan, of all the girls, should have had a life of her own. She wasn’t Hennessy. She was Jordan. Her own person, trapped in Hennessy’s shit life. Hennessy’s fault.
That, Hennessy thought, was the biggest difference between the two of them. Like Hennessy, Jordan would try almost anything, but in the end, Jordan could always toss away the stuff that was bad for her before it killed her. Except for Hennessy. Hennessy was the deadliest habit any of them had, and none of them could quit her.
It had been designed to work upon waking emotions, a sort of dream object Ronan ordinarily avoided. Fucking with free will felt distinctly uncatholic to him—one of those slippery slopes one is warned about.
Adam sounded irritable. “I saved your life because I love you and I was scared and I didn’t know what else to do. That doesn’t sound like Bryde.” This statement simultaneously pleased and aggravated Ronan. His mind stored away the first half for safekeeping, to take out and look at again on a rotten day, and decided to discard the second half because it felt deflating.
I don’t think you have to spend your life under a rock, but I don’t think you should go chasing tigers until you’re sure you have matching stripes.”
It had been over a year since either had sat in a Latin class, but it lingered as their private language. It had been one of the languages spoken in Ronan’s dreams for a very long time, and so Latin had been one of the few classes Ronan had thrown himself into when they were at school. Adam couldn’t stand not to be the best at whichever class he was in, so he’d had to throw himself into it with just as much fervor. It was possible that no two students at Aglionby had ever come away with such a thorough understanding of Latin (or, possibly, of each other).
She and Hennessy had an agreement: Jordan would not work in the Sackler next door, and Hennessy would not work in the Freer. One thing, at least, that they didn’t share.
She checked the time. She was a little late. Hennessy said that arriving late for a meeting was an act of aggression. It was like reaching into someone’s pocket, she said, and thumbing out their wallet. It was leaning against their car and siphoning their fuel, she said, while making eye contact.
