“Kennywood!” Hennessy said, with a certain amount of triumph. She let out a puff of breath. In the rearview mirror, Ronan could see that she’d exhaled on the backseat window and was now drawing in the condensation. “I hate that people go to Kennywood and then they tell you about it, as if it’s a thing we now have in common, a personality type, Kennywood. Pennsylvania! Yes, we both bought tickets to this tourist attraction and now we are bonded in a way usually reserved for people who have survived combat zones together. I hate—”
“Also,” Bryde said mildly, “your father lives here, does he not?”
Hennessy was momentarily silent. She had to switch gears from monologue to duet. “Let’s talk about your father. Father of the Bryde. Do you keep in touch? Who do you call late at night? Not with a phone, of course. That’s for normies.”
Bryde smiled faintly. He was a party of one. From mystery to mystery, that was where he was headed. Saving the ley lines.
“Speaking of calls, how did your call to the fam go?” Hennessy asked Ronan. “They doing well, keeping up your garden while you’re gone?”
Ronan said, “Please shut up.”
“As you pointed out already, my to-call list is shorter. Girls, dead. Mum, well, you know her, you met her,” Hennessy said. “In my dreams. About forty times. J. H. Hennessy, that portrait artist you might have heard of, collected, bid upon. Known best for her final self-portrait, entitled Brains on a Wall. Don’t have to call her, either. Now, you haven’t met the other one, Bill Dower, dear old dad, the one who dropped his seed into the ocean to make it boil. What! you’re thinking, what’s he doing in Pennsylvania, hateful Pennsylvania, in a story told with this accent? Well, Bill Dower came from Pennsylvania, and to Pennsylvania he returned after Brains on a Wall. I think he gave up the whole seeds-and-oceans thing, though.”
“And you said I had daddy issues,” Ronan scoffed.
“They’re like chicken pox,” she said. “More than one person can have them at a time.”
She didn’t say whether or not she’d called Jordan, and Ronan didn’t ask. The truth was that in the broad light of day, the phones did seem to belong to a different kind of life, one they didn’t live in anymore. Calling Declan had made Ronan feel more unmoored, not less.
“Your exit,” Bryde said, “is here.”
“And what is our destination?” Hennessy said. “You’re being even more ‘mysterious stranger’ than usual. Is it more French fries?”
“You said we could stand to add another dreamer, so I found one.”
Ronan snapped to attention. “You what?”
“I thought about the suggestion and decided Hennessy was right,” Bryde said.
“I was joking,” Hennessy said. “Do they have jokes where you come from? Jokes are concepts presented in a way to shock or delight because of exaggeration or, sometimes, subversion of cultural norms. There are ha-ha bits at the end of them.”
Bryde smiled thinly at her. “Ha-ha. We will have to be watchful. This is a dangerous place.”
It didn’t look dangerous. It was a treeless rural valley, objectively beautiful, the long-frostbitten fields rolling off toward a distant line of low mountains. The only sign of civilization was a fine old stone mansion and a massive commercial turkey house, the sort that housed thirty thousand birds who never saw daylight.
And somewhere in this place was another dreamer.
“This is quaint,” Bryde said as they pulled up in front of the mansion.
Hennessy growled, “Too bad it’s Pennsylvania.”
Ronan stared at the house. It was not as fancy as it had looked from a distance; the stone was old and discolored, and the roof had a bit of sway. There was a bright holiday flag with a turkey on it hanging on the porch. A dog bowl that said WOOF! A snow shovel with bright pink gloves stuffed through the handle. It was very ordinary and alive and welcoming, which was completely at odds with his suddenly sour mood. He was not at all excited to have another dreamer sprung on them.
Hennessy seemed to be feeling the same way, because she asked, “Can’t we just go save a different dreamer and be done with it?”
“Keep your wits about you,” Bryde replied.
On the porch, he rang the doorbell and then waited in his quiet way. There was something about the way he stood there now with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his expression expectant, that made him seem familiar. Every so often Ronan felt he almost recognized him, and then it went away again.
The door opened.
A woman stood on the other side of it. She was exactly the sort of person one would have guessed might open this door based upon the things on the porch. She was a very comforting sort of person. She was enough. Groomed enough to seem invested in the world, but not so much that she seemed like she was making the effort for them more than for herself. Eyes smiling enough that she seemed to have a sense of humor, but eyebrows serious enough that she wouldn’t shrug everything off as a joke. Old enough to be sure of who she was, but not so old to remind him of his worried uncertainty regarding the elderly.
Bryde said, “Can we come in out of the cold?”
Her mouth said oh but nothing came out. Eventually, she said, “Your voice. You’re … Bryde.”
Bryde said, “And you’re Rhiannon. Rhiannon Martin.”
Ronan and Hennessy shot each other looks. Ronan’s look said, What fuckery is this? Hennessy’s said, Guess you weren’t the only head he was in.
“Yes, I am,” Rhiannon said. She put her hand to her cheek, then put her hand over her mouth for a moment, allowing herself a few seconds of visible surprise and wonder. Then she stepped back to let them in out of the fine rain. “I am. Come in, yes, of course.”
Inside, the mansion was even less grand than Ronan had first thought; it was merely an overlarge farmhouse with stone cladding, although it was well-furnished and well-loved, easy with generations of care. The fitful weather outside turned everything dark and sleepy inside. Every light was a point of gold in the handsome gloom, putting Ronan in mind of the dreamt lights he always kept in his pockets.
Bryde picked up a framed photograph on the entrance table: the woman, a man, two small kids. He put it back down.
“Please, follow me.” Rhiannon hurried to settle them into a formal sitting room full of mirrors. “Sit. I’ll get us some coffee. On a day like this … ? Coffee. Or tea? For the young people?” She bustled off without an answer.
Ronan and Hennessy sat on either end of a stiff sofa and shot each other more raised eyebrows while Bryde stood by the carved mantel, looking pensively into one of the mirrors. The icy rain continued to spatter against the tall windows.
“Hsst,” Ronan said. “Is she the dreamer?”
Bryde continued to gaze into the mirror like a man perplexed at what he saw there. “What do you feel?”
“Benjamin Franklin Christ,” Ronan said. “Not again.”
“What do you feel?” Bryde insisted.
Hennessy muttered, “Turkeys.”
“Yes,” Bryde agreed. “And not much else. Ronan?”
Ronan was rescued by the return of Rhiannon, who set down a tray of drinks and cookies before retreating behind an armchair. Her hands kneaded the top of it as if she were giving it an anxious back massage, but her face remained kind and worried. Worried for their care, not her own. She clearly wanted them to feel welcome.