The Dream Thieves (22 page)

“I was thinking we could all get together for the Fourth of July,” Matthew said, peering up at Ronan; the late evening light made his curls cherubic. At Ronan’s request, they’d met for dinner at the downtown park square. It was a selfish act. Both Declan and Ronan treated Matthew as their security blanket. “The three of us. For fireworks.”

Ronan hunched above him on the edge of the battered picnic table. “No.” Before his younger brother had a chance to say something to unintentionally guilt him into it, Ronan gestured to Matthew’s paper-wrapped tuna fish sandwich with his own. “How’s your sandwich?”

“Oh, it’s good,” Matthew said enthusiastically. It was not much of an endorsement. Matthew Lynch was a golden, indiscriminate pit into which the world threw food. “It’s real good. I couldn’t believe when you called. When I saw your phone number, I nearly shit myself! You could sell your phone, like, as new-in-box.”

“Don’t fucking swear,” Ronan said.

A
RTICLE 2

S
PECIFIC
B
EQUESTS AND
D
EVISES

I
GIVE THE SUM OF
T
WENTY
-T
HREE
M
ILLION
D
OLLARS ($23,000,000) TO A SEPARATE TRUST WHICH SHALL PROVIDE FOR THE PERPETUAL CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF THE PROPERTY REFERRED TO AS “THE
B
ARNS” (SEE ITEM
B)
AND FOR THE CARE, EDUCATION, AND HOUSING OF MY SURVIVING CHILDREN.
T
HIS TRUST SHALL BE EXECUTED BY
D
ECLAN
T. L
YNCH UNTIL ALL CHILDREN HAVE REACHED THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN
.

I
GIVE THE SUM OF
T
HREE
M
ILLION
D
OLLARS ($3,000,000) TO MY SON
D
ECLAN
T. L
YNCH, ONCE HE HAS REACHED THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN.

I
GIVE THE SUM OF
T
HREE
M
ILLION
D
OLLARS ($3,000,000) TO MY SON
R
ONAN
N. L
YNCH, ONCE HE HAS REACHED THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN.

I
GIVE THE SUM OF
T
HREE
M
ILLION
D
OLLARS ($3,000,000) TO MY SON
M
ATTHEW
A. L
YNCH, ONCE HE HAS REACHED THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN
.

Ronan took one of Matthew’s potato chips and gave it to Chainsaw, who mutilated it on the table’s surface, more for the sound than the taste. On the sidewalk, a lady pushing a baby carriage gave him a dirty look for either sitting on top of the table or for looking disreputable while trafficking with carrion birds. Ronan reflected her look back at her after adding a few more degrees of shittiness to it. “Look, does Declan still have his panties in a twist over us going back to the Barns?”

Matthew, chewing fondly, waved at the contents of the baby carriage. The contents waved back. He spoke through his mouthful. “They always are. His panties, I mean. Twisted. Over it. And you. Is it true we’ll lose our money if we go back? Was Dad really as bad as Declan says?”

A
RTICLE 7

F
URTHER
C
ONDITION

U
PON MY DEATH, NONE OF MY CHILDREN SHALL TRESPASS THE PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES OF “THE
B
ARNS,” NOR DISTURB ANY OF THE CONTENTS THERE, LIVING OR INERT, OR THE ASSETS DEALT WITHIN THIS
W
ILL SHALL BE BEQUEATHED INSTEAD TO THE
N
EW
Y
ORK
-R
OSCOMMON
F
UND, APART FROM THE
T
RUST ESTABLISHED FOR
A
URORA
L
YNCH’S CONTINUED CARE
.

“What?” Ronan put his sandwich down. Chainsaw angled in. “What does he say about Dad?”

His younger brother shrugged. “I dunno, just he was never there, or something. You know. Hey, Declan’s not that bad. I don’t know why you guys can’t get along.”

Mommy and Daddy just don’t love each other anymore
, Ronan thought, but he couldn’t say it to Matthew, who gazed up at him with the same trusting eyes the baby mouse had turned on him. This dinner wasn’t enough to restore his balance. His illicit visit to the Barns, his realization about his mother, and Calla’s assessment of the situation had badly shaken him. Suddenly, he was presented with a decision: whether or not to revive their mother. If he could have his mother back, that would help, surely, even if she had to live in Cabeswater. One parent was better than no parents. Life was better than death. Awake was better than asleep.

But those words of Declan’s needled Ronan:
She’s nothing without Dad.

It was like he knew. Ronan wanted badly to know
how
much Declan knew, but it wasn’t like he could ask him.

“Declan started hating me first,” Ronan said. “In case you were wondering. So that wasn’t me.”

Matthew blew out a tuna-scented breath with the sanguine, pleasant air of either a nun or a pothead. “He was just upset Dad liked you the best. I didn’t care. Everybody has favorite things. Mom liked
me
best anyway.”

A
RTICLE 2A

F
URTHER
B
EQUESTS

I
GIVE MY ENTIRE INTEREST IN THE REAL PROPERTY WHICH WAS MY RESIDENCE AT THE TIME OF MY DEATH (“THE
B
ARNS”
),
TOGETHER WITH ANY INSURANCE ON SUCH PROPERTY, TO MY MIDDLE SON.

They both quietly ate their sandwiches. Ronan thought they were probably both considering how this left Declan as no one’s favorite.

If I was your favorite
, he asked his dead father,
why did you leave me a home I could never return to?

Carefully — this was difficult, because Ronan never did anything carefully — he asked, “Does Declan ever talk about dreams?”

He had to repeat the question. Both Matthew and Chainsaw had gotten distracted by a circling pair of monarch butterflies.

“Like, his?” Matthew asked. He shrugged elaborately. “I don’t think he dreams. He takes sleeping pills, did you know?”

Ronan didn’t know. “What kind?”

“I dunno. I looked at the bottle, though. Doc Mac gave them to him.”

“Doc the fuck who?”

“The Aglionby doctor?”

Ronan hissed. “He’s not a doctor, man. He’s a nurse practitioner or something. I don’t think he’s legal to give out drugs. Why does Declan take sleeping pills?”

Matthew stuffed the remaining quarter of his sandwich in his mouth. “Says you’re giving him an ulcer.”

“Ulcers are not sleeping problems. They are when acid eats a fucking hole through your stomach.”

“Says you and Dad were both dreamers,” Matthew said, “and you’re going to make us lose everything.”

Ronan sat very still. He was so still so quickly that Chainsaw froze as well, her head tilted toward the youngest Lynch brother, purloined tuna sandwich forgotten.

Declan knew about their father. Declan knew about their mother. Declan knew about
him
.

What did it change? Nothing, maybe.

“He put a gun under the seat of his car,” Matthew said. “I saw it when my phone fell down between the seats.”

Ronan realized that Matthew had stopped chewing and moving and was instead just curved on the bench of the picnic table, his liquid eyes uncertain on his older brother’s.

“Don’t say burglars,” Matthew said finally.

“I wasn’t going to,” Ronan replied. “You know I don’t lie.”

Matthew nodded, fast. He was biting his lip. His eyes were unselfconsciously damp.

“Look,” Ronan said, and then, again, “look. I think I know how to fix Mom. She won’t be able to stay at the Barns and — I mean, we can’t go there anyway — I think I know how to fix her. So at least we’ll have her.”

N
IALL
L
YNCH WAS, AT THE TIME OF SO EXECUTING SAID
W
ILL, OF SOUND MIND, MEMORY, AND UNDERSTANDING AND NOT UNDER ANY RESTRAINT OR IN ANY RESPECT INCOMPETENT TO MAKE A WILL.
T
HIS
W
ILL STANDS AS FACT UNLESS A NEWER DOCUMENT IS CREATED.

S
IGNED THIS DAY:
T’L
IBRE VERO-E BER NIVO LIBRE N’ACREA.

This was probably why he’d called Matthew. Probably he’d meant to promise this impossible hope from the very beginning. Probably he needed to say it out loud so it would stop chewing a fucking hole through his stomach.

His younger brother looked wary. “Really?”

The decision galvanized Ronan. “I promise.”

I
t took the Gray Man several days to realize he had lost his wallet. He would have noticed it sooner if he hadn’t been overcome by gray days — days where morning seemed bled of color and getting up unimportant. The Gray Man often didn’t eat during them; he certainly didn’t keep track of time. He was at once sleeping and awake, both of them the same, dreamless, listless. And then one morning he would open his eyes and find the sky had become blue again.

He had several gray days in the basement of Pleasant Valley Bed and Breakfast, and after he’d roused himself at dawn and shakily eaten something, he reached into the back pocket of his pants and found it empty. His fake ID and useless credit cards — the Gray Man paid for everything in cash — all gone. It must be at 300 Fox Way.

He’d try to swing back there later. He checked his phone for messages from Greenmantle, let his eyes skip unseeingly over his brother’s missed call from days before, and finally consulted his jotted, coded notes to himself.

He glanced out the window. The sky was an unreal shade of blue. He always felt so alive that first day. Humming a bit, the Gray Man pocketed his keys. Next stop: Monmouth Manufacturing.

Gansey hadn’t been doing well with Cabeswater’s disappearance. He’d tried to come to grips with it. This was just another setback, and he knew he needed to treat it like every other setback: make a new plan, find another lead, throw all the resources in a new direction. But it didn’t
feel
like any other setback.

He had spent forty-eight hours more or less awake and restless and then, on the third day, he had bought a side-scan sonar device, two window airconditioners, a leather sofa, and a pool table.

“Now do you feel better?” Adam had asked drily.

Gansey had replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hey, man,” Ronan said, “I like the pool table.”

The entire situation made Blue apoplectic.

“There are children starving in the streets of Chicago,” she said, her hair bristling with indignation. “Three species go extinct every hour because there’s no funding to protect them. You are still wearing those incredibly stupid boat shoes, and of all the things that you have bought, you still haven’t replaced them!”

Gansey, bewildered, observed his feet. The movement of his toes was barely visible through the tops of his Top-Siders. Really, in light of recent events, these shoes were the only things that
were
right in the world. “I
like
these shoes.”