“Sometime this century,” Declan’s voice said. “Out.”
They were all dreams.
Since Declan and Matthew had moved out of the Barns, Ronan had apparently dreamt himself quite a menagerie. Although they seemed to have been feeding themselves perfectly adequately while Ronan was gone, they nonetheless quickly decided their morning ritual was to wake Declan for tending. Matthew wouldn’t have minded being woken, but they never came to his window. The dream creatures seemed to have somehow divined that Declan was the person least likely to enjoy them and therefore the most desirable to woo.
“Come on, guys!” Matthew said cheerily. “Let’s get some brekky! Not you!”
This was directed toward the minivan-sized boar, which was too big to fit through either door or window. It had come into the room as a noxious-smelling gas and Matthew had learned that it had to be reduced back to the same form in order to get out.
Matthew clapped and shouted in the boar’s face.
“Come on! Come on!”
Flinching, the boar backed away, but remained persistently solid. Its giant butt smashed into the dresser. Its shoulder swept books from the shelf. Declan’s laptop made an ominous crunching sound beneath its hoof. It was getting used to Matthew, which was the problem. Every day it took more and more effort to startle it.
“Was that my—” Declan’s strangled voice came from beneath the blanket. “I have to do everything myself.”
He rose abruptly from the bed, sheet wrapped all around him, a ghost.
Both Matthew and boar staggered back in surprise.
The boar instantly dispersed into a cloud of noxious-smelling gas, the world’s biggest fart.
Matthew remained Matthew.
“Mary give me patience,” Declan snapped. Flapping his sheet swiftly up and down, he blew the boar gas out the window. One of the dreamt birds pecked curiously at his bare foot with a beak shaped like a screwdriver. He picked it up and threw it out the window after the fading cloud.
“Hey!” Matthew said.
“It’s fine. Look, there it goes.” Declan slammed the window shut. “Get them out of here. That’s it. I’m figuring out a lock today. I’m gluing it shut. I’m putting spikes up there. Out. What are you waiting for, Matthew? You’re slower every morning. Don’t make me write you a chore list.”
Before all this, Matthew would have laughed this off and then done whatever Declan asked. Now, though, he said, “I don’t have to do what you say.”
Declan didn’t even bother to reply. Instead he began to briskly collect clothing for the day.
This annoyed Matthew even more, which combined in a thrilling and toxic way with the feeling Matthew had experienced when looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. He said, “You just threw one of my siblings out the window.”
The statement was meant for effect, and effect it got. Declan gave Matthew his most Declan of faces. He generally used one of two expressions. The first was Bland Businessman Nodding at What You’re Saying While Waiting for His Turn to Talk and the other was Reticent Father with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Realizes He Must Let His Child Use the Public Restroom First. They suited nearly every situation Declan found himself in. This, however, was a third expression: Exasperated Twentysomething Longs to Yell at His Brothers Because Oh My God. He rarely used it, but the lack of practice didn’t make it any less accomplished or any less pure Declan.
“I don’t have the capacity for your identity crisis this morning,” Declan said. “I’m trying to get us a car while remaining off the grid and avoiding getting completely screwed by our irresponsible father’s associates. So I’d appreciate you penciling it in for a weekend instead.”
Only recently had Declan actually begun to express his feelings about Niall Lynch out loud, and Matthew didn’t like that change, either. He said, “You can’t tell me how to feel. I don’t trust you anymore.”
Declan got a tie. He applied ties to his person like most people applied underwear; he clearly didn’t think himself decent to appear in public without one. “I’ve already apologized for keeping the truth from you, Matthew. What would you like? Another apology? I can work on crafting one more to your liking in between the rest of my work.”
“You lied,” Matthew said. “It’s not just going to be okay.”
Declan was somehow already fully dressed in full corporate splendor. He studied Matthew for a moment, and his face was serious enough that Matthew wished that it was like old times, that he still thought his older brother had all the answers and could be trusted implicitly. “Go get a sweater. Let’s go for a walk and check the mailbox.”
Proper rebellion, a real Ronan-like rebellion, would have required Matthew to storm off at this request, but Matthew merely sulked off with all the animals following. He fetched his llama hoodie and a box of animal crackers before meeting up with Declan in the mudroom.
“You’re shoveling that hand-cat poop out of my room,” Declan said serenely to Matthew as he stepped outside.
Matthew slammed the door behind them.
Outside, it was beautiful; it was always beautiful. The Barns was located deep in the foothills of western Virginia, hidden in a protected fold of hill and valley beneath the watchful eye of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Matthew had grown up in the old white farmhouse. He’d rambled over these fields. He had played in the various barns and outbuildings that spread right up to the trees that surrounded the property.
Now the cold mist rose up from the colorless fields and got caught in the dark red-brown lingering leaves of the surrounding oaks. The blue sky soared high overhead. White streaky clouds glowed with morning pink, just like the white-painted outbuildings down below.
It was really nice.
He guessed.
For several minutes he and Declan walked in silence down the long, long driveway. Declan tapped away at his new cell phone in his peculiar Declan way, his thumb on one hand and his pointer finger on the other, glancing up just often enough to keep from walking off the driveway. Matthew threw animal crackers for the trailing dream creatures, careful not to chuck the food at the forever-sleeping cattle that dotted the pastures. The cows had been dreamt by his father. Well, by Niall Lynch, since Niall was not really his father. Matthew was father-free. Dreamt, just like the cows. And, just like them, doomed to an eternity of sleeping forever if something happened to Ronan.
When something happened to Ronan, Matthew thought.
A sour mood was rising.
He didn’t have a lot of practice at sour moods. He’d been a happy, feckless kid. Pathologically happy—he saw that now. Dreamt to be happy. Matthew had a hard time finding any memory that wasn’t full of good cheer. Even if it wasn’t a happy time, the youngest Lynch brother appeared in the memory with a plucky grin, like a sun flare in an otherwise dark photo, or maybe like a team mascot posing along with the players. Goofy and out of place but not necessarily unwelcome.
Like a pet, he thought.
All around him, unseasonable fireflies winked in and out. As Matthew watched them fade in and out even on this cool fall day, he wondered what kind of dream Ronan had been having to produce them. He wondered what kind of dream Ronan had been having to produce him.
His mind kept shouting the truth at him: You are a dream.
He hadn’t told anyone, but he was terrified of falling asleep forever. He’d already had a taste of it. Every time the ley line faltered, he went all … dazed. Enchanted. His feet began to walk, his body began to move, his mind went somewhere else. When he came to, he always found himself in a completely different location, his disobedient body having tried to take him closer to ley energy.