The Dream Thieves

Standing in the doorway with Ronan and Gansey, Blue said, “We need your advice.”

“I’m sure you do,” replied Calla, in not the warmest of ways. She had one of those low, smoky voices that always seemed more appropriate to a black-and-white movie. “Ask your question.”

Politely, Gansey asked, “Are you sure you can think that way?”

“If you’re doubting me,” Calla snapped, “I don’t see why you’re here.”

In Gansey’s defense, Calla was upside down. She hung magnificently from the ceiling of the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room; the only thing preventing her from crashing to the floor was a deep purple swath of silk wrapped around one of her thighs.

Gansey averted his eyes. He whispered in Blue’s ear, “Is this a ritual?”

There was something a bit magical about it, Blue supposed. Although the green gingham-wallpapered room was full of a multitude of odds and ends to lure the attention, it was difficult to look away from Calla’s slowly spinning form. It seemed impossible the length of silk would hold her weight. Currently, she was rotated toward the corner, her back to them. Her tunic hung down, revealing a lot of dark brown skin, a pink bra strap, and four tiny tattooed coyotes running along her spine.

Blue, holding the puzzle box in her hands, whispered back: “It’s aerial yoga.” Louder, she said, “Calla, it’s about Ronan.”

Calla readjusted, wrapping the silk around her other thigh instead. “Which one’s he again? The pretty one?”

Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue’s look said, I’m so, so sorry. Gansey’s said, Am I the pretty one?

Calla continued turning, almost imperceptibly. It was becoming more obvious as she swiveled that she was not the thinnest woman on the planet, but that she had stomach muscles like whoa. “The Coca-Cola shirt?”

She meant Adam. He’d worn a red Coca-Cola shirt to the first reading and was now and forevermore identified by it.

Ronan said, his voice a low growl, “The snake.”

Calla’s rotation finished just as he said it. They looked at each other for a long moment, him right side up, her upside down. Chainsaw, on Ronan’s shoulder, twisted her head to get a better look. There was nothing particularly sympathetic about Ronan just then, handsome mouth drawing a cruel line, eerie tattoo creeping out the collar of his black T-shirt, raven pressed against the side of his shaved head. It was hard to remember the Ronan who’d pressed that tiny mouse to his cheek back at the Barns.

Upside down, Calla was trying to look dismissive but it was clear that one of her arched eyebrows was terribly interested.

“I see,” she replied finally. “What sort of advice do you need, snake?”

“My dreams,” Ronan replied.

Now Calla’s eyebrows matched her dismissive mouth. She allowed herself to circle away from them again. “Persephone’s the one you’ll want for dream interpretation. Have a nice life.”

“They’ll interest you,” Ronan said.

Calla just cackled and stretched one of her legs out.

Blue made an irritated noise. Taking two strides across the room, she pressed the puzzle box to Calla’s bare cheek.

Calla stopped spinning.

Slowly, she righted herself. The gesture was as elegant as a ballet move, a swan dancer unfolding. She said, “Why didn’t you say so?”

Ronan said, “I did.”

Her plum lips pursed. “Something you should know about me, snake. I don’t believe anyone.”

Chainsaw hissed. Ronan said, “Something you should know about me. I never lie.”

Calla continued performing aerial yoga for the entirety of the conversation.

Sometimes she was right side up, her legs curved beneath her. “All of these things are still a part of you. To me, they feel precisely the same as you feel. Well, mostly. They’re like your nail clippings. So they all share the same life as you. The same soul. You’re the same entity.”

Ronan wanted to protest this — if Chainsaw fell off a table, he didn’t feel her pain — but he wouldn’t feel the pain of one of his nail clippings, either.

“So when you die, they’ll stop.”

“Stop? Not die themselves?” Gansey asked.

Calla turned herself upside down, her knees bent and her feet

pressed to each other. It made her a cunning spider. “When you die, your computer doesn’t die, too. They never really lived like you’re thinking of life. It’s not a soul that’s animating them. Take away the dreamer and — they’re a computer waiting for input.”

Ronan thought of what Declan had said all those months before: Mom is nothing without Dad. He’d been right. “So my mother is never going to wake up.”

Calla slid slowly upright, freeing her hands. “Snake, hand me that bird.”

“Don’t squeeze,” Ronan said narrowly, folding the raven’s wings against her body and relinquishing her.

Chainsaw promptly bit Calla’s finger. Unimpressed, Calla snapped her teeth back at the raven.

“Careful, chickadee,” she told Chainsaw, her smile deadly. “I bite, too. Blue?”

This meant she wanted to use Blue’s invisible ability to hone her vision. Blue rested one hand on Calla’s knee and used the other to keep Calla from rotating. For a long moment, Calla hung there with her eyes closed. Chainsaw was motionless in her hands, fluffed up over the ignominy of it all. Then Calla fixed her gaze on Ronan, a sharply structured smile manifesting on her plum-painted lips. “What have you done, snake?”

Ronan didn’t reply. Silence was never a wrong answer.

Calla stuffed the bird into Blue’s hands, who tried to placate her before returning her to Ronan.

Calla said, “Here’s the deal. Your mother was a dream. Your fool father took her out — what, there aren’t enough women in the world without making one? — and now, she has no dreamer. You want her back, she has to go back in a dream.”

She did several elaborate procedures then, all of them elegant and effortless looking. They reminded Ronan a bit of the movement of the puzzle box in that they seemed to be a little illogical, a little impossible. It was hard to understand how she extracted an arm from the silk without getting her torso tangled. Difficult to see how she twisted that leg without falling to the floor.

Ronan interrupted the silence. “Cabeswater. Cabeswater is a dream.”

Calla stopped rotating.

“You don’t have to tell me I’m right,” Ronan said. He thought of all the times he had dreamt of Cabeswater’s old trees; how familiar it had felt to walk there; how the trees had known his name. He was tangled in their roots, somehow, and they, in his veins. “If Mom is in Cabeswater, she’ll wake up.”

Calla stared at him. Silence was never a wrong answer.

Gansey said, “I guess we really do have to get Cabeswater back, then.”

Blue tilted her head so that Calla was slightly less upside down to her. “Any ideas?”

“I’m not a magician,” Calla said. Blue gave her a spin. Calla laughed all the way around, a filthy, pleased sound. She pointed to Ronan as he headed out the door. “But he is. Also, get rid of that mask. It’s a nasty bit of work.”

22

Last Will & Testament of Niall T. Lynch Article 1 Preliminary Declarations I am married to Aurora Lynch and all references in this Will to my spouse refer to Aurora Lynch.

I have three living children, named Declan T. Lynch, Ronan N. Lynch, and Matthew A. Lynch. All references in this Will to my “child” or “children” or “issue” include the above child or children, and any child or children hereafter born to or adopted by me. All references to “middle son” refer to Ronan N. Lynch.

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.

Article 2

Specific Bequests and Devises

I give the sum of Twenty-Three Million Dollars ($23,000,000) to a separate trust which shall provide for the perpetual care and maintenance of the property referred to as “the Barns” (see item B) and for the care, education, and housing of my surviving children. This trust shall be executed by Declan T. Lynch until all children have reached the age of eighteen.

I give the sum of Three Million Dollars ($3,000,000) to my son Declan T. Lynch, once he has reached the age of eighteen.

I give the sum of Three Million Dollars ($3,000,000) to my son Ronan N. Lynch, once he has reached the age of eighteen.

I give the sum of Three Million Dollars ($3,000,000) to my son Matthew A. Lynch, 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 child in the baby carriage. It 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?”

Article 7

Further Condition

Upon my death, none of my children shall trespass the physical boundaries of “the Barns,” nor disturb any of the contents there, living or inert, or the assets dealt with in this Will shall be bequeathed instead to the New York-Roscommon Fund, apart from the Trust established for Aurora Lynch’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.