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“I heard,” she announced, “you’re the son of the Devil.” Declan Lynch did not turn his head as she approached, but she saw his mouth tense in a suppressed smile. He said, “That’s true.”
What did one find when one looked up Jordan Hennessy? They found her mother, who possessed a tragic story so familiar it registered less as tragedy than as nodding predictability. The troubled genius artist, the life cut short, the body of work suddenly rendered meaningful and pricey. Hennessy had grown up with her in London; Hennessy had a London accent and so, therefore, did Jordan and all the other girls.
“I found out about your father. Tragic.” “I found out about your mother. Also tragic.” It was Hennessy’s tragedy, though, not Jordan’s. She said, “Less tragic than a murder. My mother’s was her own fault.” “One could argue,” Declan said, “my father’s was as well. Mm. Art and violence.”
“Don’t be boring and say ‘I can’t accept this,’” Declan said. “It took a lot of work to find that at short notice.” Jordan had not expected to feel conflicted about this experience. Everything about this experience was supposed to be disposable. A means to an end. Not a real date, nothing to beg the real question of would I like this person.
Normally this was where she’d correct people. Tell them, no, it’s just Hennessy, really, because that’s what Hennessy would say, and they were all her. But she didn’t correct him.
Belonging in more than one world means that you end up belonging in none of them.”
“I think you’re all safe and sorted. Why don’t you dress the rest of you like your feet?” “Why do you only paint what other people have already painted?” Touché, touché.
It was impossible to imagine him in class. In class for what. Probably business school. Whatever the most boring option was. She was beginning to understand his game; it was the same game as hers, played in the exact opposite way.
As one-sixth of a person—one-sixth of a person who was currently robbing this guy—Jordan knew now what the real answer was. But she answered as she would’ve if her life was her own. “Yes,” Jordan said.
“People like your mother were born to die young,” Hennessy’s father had told her once, before it had become obvious that his daughter was people like her mother.
Was it a side effect of being a dreamer, or a side effect of being Hennessy? There wasn’t anyone alive for her to ask.
Declan Lynch knew he was boring. He’d worked very hard to be that way, after all. It was a magic trick he didn’t expect any prize from but survival,
He knew what he was allowed to do and to want and to put in his life. He knew Jordan Hennessy didn’t belong.
For one second of one minute of the day, he didn’t run the probabilities and worst-case scenarios and possibilities and consequences. For one second of one minute of the day, he just let himself feel. There it was: Happiness.
You can’t unsee this, he told himself. This is not allowed in the life you are living, he told himself. I want so much more, he told himself.
Ronan remained fixed in place, uncertain. It was not that Adam looked wrong at all—he looked marvelously himself, in fact, his hair matted down from being under the helmet, his shoulders lean and fit in a leather jacket Ronan had not seen him in before, his cheeks bright and heightened from the journey. But after the last two days, Ronan could no longer believe someone’s face as proof of identity.
The idea of Adam Parrish on a motorcycle was more than enough birthday present for Ronan; he was senselessly turned on. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he said, “What the fuck.” Normally this was his job, to be impulsive, to be wasteful of time, to visibly need. “What the fuck.”
They hugged again, merrily, waltzing messily in the kitchen, and kissed, merrily, waltzing more. “What do you want to do with your three hours?” Ronan asked. Adam peered around the kitchen. He always looked at home in it; it was all the same colors as him, washed out and faded and comfortable. “I’m starving. I need to eat. I need to take off your clothes. But first, I want to look at Bryde.”
Adam Parrish was uncanny. Perhaps standing next to Ronan Lynch, dreamer of dreams, he looked ordinary, but it was only because everything uncanny about him was turned inside instead of out.
He was something like a psychic, if there was such a thing as a psychic whose powers extended more toward the future of the world than the future of people.
“Adam,” Ronan said. Adam stopped breathing. “Adam.” Ronan seized Adam’s shoulders and shook. The moment he released him, Adam slumped down and away. An unconscious body has an uncompromising feel to it; it is uninterested in reason and emotion. “Parrish,” Ronan snarled. “You aren’t allowed—”
It seemed incorrect that Adam visiting would have made his loneliness worse, but he missed him acutely even as he was looking at him.
There was no gore. No shrilling with terror. There was only the quiet that came after all those things. There was only the quiet that came when you were the only one left. Only the quiet that came when you were something strange enough to outsurvive the things that killed or drove away everyone you loved.
On many sleepless nights, Jordan had tried to imagine what she herself could possibly dream of that was so terrible she couldn’t bear even a minute of it. She couldn’t think of a single thing, but what would she know? Dreams didn’t dream.
He didn’t know if other dreamers had forests, or whatever Lindenmere was. Lindenmere was a forest like this: Ronan could close his eyes and get to it in his dreams. Lindenmere was also a forest like this: Ronan could get in the BMW and drive thirty minutes west, up into the mountains, abandon his car on a fire trail, and walk the remaining twenty minutes to the forest where it existed in real life.
He knew Lindenmere was not exactly a forest. Lindenmere seemed to have previously existed somewhere else as … something else. And then Ronan, in a dream, had chosen its form in this world. He had not quite dreamt it into being the way he’d dreamt other things into being. He had just opened the door for it and chosen a forest-shaped suit for it to wear.
There are costs, you know. Emotional costs. Philanthropy is a hobby for the emotionally rich. ”
“It is not as easy as you think,” Bryde said. “It’s not pull a lever receive a prize. There are a lot of ways to die.”
Jordan had only one thought: No one knew I existed. Her entire life had been spent as Jordan Hennessy, an existence shared with between six and ten other entities at any given time. Same face, same smile, same driver’s ID, same career, same boyfriends, same girlfriends. A flowchart where the only choices available were the ones she could crowd-source to the other girls.
She’d only ever lived someone else’s life. No one knew I existed.
He had lawless DNA, after all. Niall was a charming bastard who was always happiest darting in and out of the shadows, and Declan wasn’t stupid enough to pretend he didn’t like it, too.
Ronan had to already be nearly to DC for his birthday; Declan called him. It rang and rang and rang and rang, then went to voicemail. He called it again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Calling Ronan was like throwing darts into the ocean. Once in a hundred years a lucky bastard hit a fish and the rest of the time he went hungry. He texted: Call me, it’s about Matthew.
Because she hadn’t asked, and Declan never gave away a truth unless it was taken from his cold, balled hands. Because the safest shape was being both unknown and unchanging.
Don’t you have Hennessy’s memories? Ronan asked. Most of them, the girls said.
Brooklyn thought Hennessy killed her. Jordan said that if Hennessy was capable of killing any of them, she’d be living in a one-bedroom condo with a sugar daddy by now.
Jordan would do anything for Hennessy, and vice versa. They were basically the same person, after all.
Sometimes it was better to just pour a glass of vodka on the grave and accept that the heart had always churned poisoned blood.
Ronan had dreamt a copy of himself before. It had been an accident. It was long after he had begun to get a handle on dreaming but far before he’d begun to get a handle on his life, and he’d been trying for too much at once.
He gave himself a little pep talk. So he was failing as a student and as an intern, he thought, but at least he had shepherded Ronan to another birthday alive. And in a month he would have managed to get Matthew to eighteen, all the Lynch brothers surviving to adulthood. Surely that was worth something.
Matthew leaned heavily against Declan, like he would’ve when he was small. Declan wasn’t a huggable Lynch, but Matthew had never cared. He’d hugged him anyway.
I assume you’re just blowing off everything I told you about not chasing trouble, because that’s what you do, isn’t it? I keep my head down and you dream up a fucking skywriter that says kill me please.”
Declan, to Ronan’s surprise, grabbed both of Ronan’s arms and propelled him to the doorway of the nave via biceps. Ronan could feel his brother’s fingers digging into him. It had been a long time since either of them had landed a fist on each other’s faces, but Ronan remembered it in the pressure of those fingertips.
Matthew remained motionless. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t doing anything. Matthew was always doing something. Fidgeting. Talking. Laughing. Falling. Getting back up. Singing. But he wasn’t doing anything right now.
“What do you need me to say, little man?” he asked. Matthew said, “I don’t want …” He didn’t say anything else for a long moment. Then he added, “To hear you say anything—” He seemed to be measuring the words out, tipping them out of a jar and checking to be sure he still had enough to go on. “—because now I know—” He did not remotely sound like himself when he spoke that way. “—you’re as big a liar as Declan.” Ronan’s face felt hot. Stinging. “Oh,” he said.
She had always vowed she’d paint something original when she got to live as an original. So, never.
Hennessy said, “Don’t dig in this hole, Jordan. It’s not what you think.” “I’m thinking about the others. You might try it.” Hennessy’s eyes simmered. “As if I ever think about anything else.”
I’ve never lived my own life, thought Jordan.
She didn’t want this, she thought. She wanted to stop being afraid, and she wanted to be able to call Declan Lynch and give him something she’d painted with Tyrian purple, and she wanted to have a future that didn’t look exactly like her past. There had to be something they could do. This wasn’t living, it was just giving up while still breathing.
It was one o’clock in the morning. He was very awake. This was a side effect of not taking his sleeping pill. This was a side effect of Jordan Hennessy calling him at midnight. This was a side effect of him being a fool.
“We’ve both got things we can’t say,” Jordan said. “That’s just who we are, isn’t it? This was the only one that made me feel ugly to not say it.” He asked the question he couldn’t guess. “Why did you do it?” Jordan’s expression was frank. “Here’s the deal: You don’t ask me why I had it, and I won’t ask you about the man who made it. I can’t do any better than that right now.
