Call Down the Hawk Read online

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. No, it was good that he’d opened up the back of the painting and found it had been for nothing. Good that he hadn’t gotten Jordan’s number, that he’d left the ball in her court, so he wasn’t tempted.

  It was all good. It was all good.

  Everything was back to the way it had been before.

  “How are those printouts coming, Declan? We gotta get out of here,” called Fairlady Banks, the senator’s personal assistant, who was not as fair a lady as her name suggested.

  Declan interned part time with Senator Jim Rankin, which meant, practically, that he spent several hours a week making copies in the Hart Senate Office Building, a place of windowless offices and plaques and fluorescent lights and suits and ties and staffers walking without lifting their eyes from their phones and take-out brought up from the lobby by people like Declan.

  He was not making copies that morning, but only because he’d already finished them—they were fresh enough from the printer to be still sweet-smelling and warm. He was binding them into handouts, a slightly different menial task. He regarded his watch—God, there was so much more of this day left, it had only just begun—and guessed at the answer Fairlady wanted. “Ten minutes.”

  “How about eight?”

  When he nodded, she moved on to carry two cases of locally sourced organic beverages outside to the hand truck in the hall. The senator was visiting a group of local growers today to discuss how they felt about regulation of farmers’ markets, and it was important to show solidarity when feeding and watering them.

  Declan didn’t hate his job, which was good, because he’d probably be doing some version of it for the rest of his life. There was a point before his father died when he thought he might one day have a word like Senator or Congressman in front of his name, too, but he knew now that was too much exposure for his family. Still, there were plenty of jobs in government that didn’t draw attention. Plenty of jobs that were fine. Livable. He just had to keep performing the delicate, inconspicuous dance of being just good enough to continue being hired, but not good enough to stand out.

  Fairlady clicked by him again, making her path to the next case of drinks cleave close to him, not because it needed to, but to remind him that he had a job to be done in six minutes.

  He kept working. When he was finished here, he’d pick up Matthew from school, and then meet Ronan for his birthday. Last year, Ronan had given himself the gift of dropping out of high school for his birthday, throwing away all of Declan’s studious efforts to drag him through to a degree. He hoped Ronan wasn’t intending on doing anything as stupid for this birthday. Declan had gotten him a membership for the zoo; what did you get for the man who could make himself anything? It would be a nice outing. A quiet afternoon. Ordinary.

  Everything back the way it was before.

  Declan, said Jordan Hennessy, standing in the museum like a piece of art herself, enigmatic, open to interpretation, unobtainable.

  He’d pulled so many strings for that Tyrian purple. Dangerous, complicated strings, a game of criminal telephone until he found someone overnight willing to trade him the pigment for the dreamt clock of Niall’s that he’d had hidden in his bedroom closet for ages.

  What an idiot. What was he thinking? He hadn’t been thinking. He’d just been galloping after his id. That was Ronan’s thing, not Declan’s.

  Last night he’d dreamt of the ocean, but not The Dark Lady’s ocean. It seemed like he’d broken The Dark Lady’s spell by tearing the backing paper from the canvas. The ocean he’d dreamt of hadn’t been the tattered Irish seashore, not the pure, sandy Kerry beach that he was sure Aurora Lynch had never been to and Niall Lynch had.

  No, Declan had dreamt of a tropical beach, his feet buried in the sand. In this paradise, he’d been forever putting sunscreen on his arms, never done putting sunscreen on his arms, an endless loop of squeezing coconut-scented cream onto his fingertips and swiping it onto his skin and squeezing coconut-scented cream onto his fingertips and swiping it onto his skin and squeezing coconut-scented cream onto his fingertips and swiping it onto his skin and …

  A boring dream.

  Better than the dream he’d had before. Better than the dream of him standing on The Dark Lady’s sandy Kerry shore and feeling seen, truly seen, truly exposed, watched from the high rocks and from the sky. Better than the dream of him stepping into that aqua water one foot and then another and then another, and then beginning to swim, and then diving, and then swimming so deep that the sunlight stopped piercing the water and he became invisible in the depths.

  If he had Ronan’s ability, would he have woken up erased?

  “David,” snapped one of the aides.

  Declan looked up. He knew this meant him. “Declan.”

  “Whichever. Is that your phone? Shut it up—he’s on a conference for the next two minutes. Are those things done? We’re leaving in three.”

  Declan’s phone was ringing, fussing chaotically on top of a pile of paper clips. Caller ID: Matthew’s school.

  With an apologetic look at the aide, he picked it up. “Lynch.”

  “This is Barbara Cody from Thomas Aquinas,” said the voice at the other end of the phone. “Your brother seems to have left the school grounds without notifying any of the staff again.”

  Again.

  A half-dozen stories contained in that single word, every single one of them ending at Great Falls. Declan clenched and unclenched his jaw. In a low voice, he said, “Thank you for letting me know.”

  “We don’t want to start marking him up for it, but …”

  They should’ve already; who was allowed to leave school grounds a half-dozen times without consequence? Sunny Matthew, of course, and his benevolently wandering feet.

  “I understand. You and I are on the same team here.”

  “Please tell him that the school counselor would love to talk to him. We want to help.”

  “Of course.” After Declan hung up, he stood there for a moment, feeling as if he was a suit that had been hung up.

  “Lynch,” barked Fairlady. “It’s been nine minutes. The van is double-parked.”

  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.

  “Lynch,” Fairlady said.

  Declan texted: I can’t leave work

  “Van,” Fairlady said.

  Declan texted: Please get him from Great Falls

  “Now,” Fairlady said. “Bring the name tags.”

  Fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck

  For a brief moment Declan imagined hurling the phone and these collated copies and the pile of paper clips at the wall, trashing this whole place, marching out of his life, diving into the ocean, disappearing.

  Then he slid his phone into his suit pocket and balanced a stack of printouts beneath his chin and said, “My youngest brother’s having a health issue. I’m seeing about getting my other brother to handle it.”

  “Why have I never heard of this other brother?” Fairlady said.

  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.

  Fairlady called over her shoulder, “Odds that you’ll have to handle it yourself?”

  Declan said, “One hundred percent.”

  Everything exactly as it was before.

  Ronan found himself standing on The Dark Lady’s seashore once more.

  Behind him, tumbled black rocks rose, and under his feet, pale sand stretc
hed in both directions. Before him was the familiar turquoise sea, the one that he’d just let out of the bathroom of the McLean mansion. He shivered. The cold was thorough and damp.

  Bryde’s voice came from somewhere above, among the rocks. “It used to rain more. The surface of this bare and drying planet used to be billowing with trees. Complicated with trees. These increasingly cloudless skies used to be tangled and alive with rain. Silver and black and purple above. Green and black and blue below. You should have seen it.”

  Ronan knelt and pushed his fingers into the sand. Feeling it. Really feeling it. The damp abrasion of this coarse sand, the cool pooling of the water when he pushed his fingers down far enough, the itch when the sand had been against the sensitive skin of his wrists for too long. He was far from his forest, but The Dark Lady’s spell was strong enough to invoke the seashore clearly.

  “I know you feel anxious on sunny days,” Bryde remarked. “You haven’t said it out loud. You barely think it. They love the sunny days, after all. They love a naked sky with a savage white sun set in it like a killer jewel. It doesn’t worry them. It’s a string of rainy days that makes them grow languid and unsteady. Energy draining, depression eating the marrow out of their bones. Rainy days aren’t for them. Do you think a tree hates a rainy day?”

  Ronan straightened, looking around himself. Sand, rocks, a little palm leaf cross like a child would make for Palm Sunday wedged between rocks.

  “Think of it this way: Fill a swimming pool and throw a fish in it,” Bryde said. “You wouldn’t do that because no one does. But imagine it. In goes the fish and it swims, swims, swims, all of the pool available to it. Now imagine the same pool without water in it. Throw a fish in it. What happens? You know what the hell happens. This is why there’s nothing so ugly as a cloudless day. What will this world be like for us if they stop the rain? Sometimes I fucking weep for all those dead trees.”

  “Shut up,” Ronan said. “I’m trying to work.”

  He was trying to hold both his sleeping and waking truths in his head at the same time—to stay conscious enough in the dream to shape the events within it, but not become so wakeful that he woke right up.

  Bryde sounded amused. “Someone wants to show off.”

  Ronan ignored this; he wouldn’t be goaded by someone who wasn’t even visible.

  And so what if he wanted to show off.

  Bryde was quiet, in any case, as Ronan hunted up and down the beach; there wasn’t anything impressive he’d want to take back to the mansion. Sand, rocks, some broken shells when he thrust his hand into the chilly water. He took the little palm leaf cross, but he wanted more.

  “This is your world,” Bryde said. “Only you limit it.”

  Only Ronan and The Dark Lady, really. Because he could feel how every time he pressed on the contents of the dream, something outside him tried to shape it back to this moment on this seashore.

  “I’m too far away,” Ronan said.

  “I’m not going to help you,” Bryde said. “Not when you can do it by yourself. Hop. Skip. Throw the pebble. What’s in the next box? Surely you know this game by now.”

  Ronan thought of his physical body. On the couch, sprawled back, fingers splayed across the gaudy, expensive upholstery. Those paintings leaned up against it—yes.

  Bryde laughed.

  Bryde laughed. He knew what Ronan was going to manifest before he even began.

  Ronan began to dig in the sand, imagining, remembering, projecting the truth of what he wanted with all his might, until his fingers felt a hard edge. He pawed with increasing intensity, pausing only to put the palm cross in his shirt where it wouldn’t get crushed or forgotten. He could feel it scratching against his skin. Good. Then he’d be sure to remember it.

  Then he dug and dug and dug until he’d uncovered his prize.

  “Fucking A.” He was pleased. Very pleased.

  “A king always enjoys his throne,” Bryde noted drily.

  I don’t do drugs, Salvador Dalí once said. I am drugs.

  Ronan Lynch was breaking Jordan’s brain. In the precise same moment that he woke from his dream in the McLean mansion, Jordan realized that she had never really believed that Hennessy had once dreamt things other than herself. She wasn’t sure she’d ever really believed, on a gut level, that Hennessy had dreamt anything, which seemed ridiculous. Of course Jordan knew Hennessy was responsible for the girls with her face. But no one had ever caught her in the act. The only thing they’d ever each been present for was their own creations: coming to life beside a Hennessy paralyzed and agonized from the process. They never saw her go to sleep and wake with anything.

  So although they lived this truth every single day, Jordan was astonished to find that she’d never truly believed it.

  It was properly morning by now, and the light came in full and colorless through the big, pollen-crusted windows on one side of the room, erasing all shadows, turning the space into a showroom for modern art and urban decay. Above the house, a plane flying into Dulles was audible, the productive roar reminding them all that despite the bizarre night, an ordinary world was continuing for the rest of the greater DC area. The girls were all arrayed in the living room, gathered round the yellow Lexus as if around a warming fire, attention more or less upon Ronan Lynch, who was stretched on the shiny brocade sofa with its bullet holes in the back. He was tall enough that his shaved head wedged up against one corner and his boots crossed over the opposite armrest. While he slept and while Jordan recovered from her dream episode, she’d studied him and imagined how she would paint him. All the dark, angular lines of his clothing, the pale, angular lines of his skin, the coiled restlessness of him apparent even as he slept. What a portrait he and his brother would make, she thought.

  Then Ronan woke, bringing his dreams with him.

  And it broke Jordan’s brain.

  It wasn’t that he woke, and things appeared suddenly beside him. It wasn’t that they faded into existence. It wasn’t anything that easy. It was more that he woke, and something about the time around him changed, something about the way everyone experienced the time around him. Because Jordan knew—she knew, she knew logically and academically and completely—that Ronan had been sprawled empty-handed on that couch, but now he held a large parcel, and her brain was trying its best to convince her that he had always been holding this new thing. Somehow reality had been edited to allow for the presence of something that hadn’t been there before, without allowing her the revelation of seeing it come into being.

  Trinity breathed, “Aw, pants,” which seemed as good a response as any.

  He had sand on his knees. Had he had sand on his knees before? Part of Jordan’s mind said, Yes, it’s always been like this, and part of it said, No, remember, he was soaking wet with the rest of you in the hallway.

  Magic.

  Jordan had always thought of Hennessy’s dreaming as a terminal diagnosis, but now she realized that it could be magic.

  “How long will he be like that, do you think?” Trinity asked, leaning close over him.

  Ronan was paralyzed, just like Hennessy always was after a dream, so at least that part was universal. Madox waved a hand back and forth in front of his face.

  “Don’t be a shitbag,” Jordan said.

  “Crikey,” June said. “Jordan, is that what’s supposed to happen? Is that what it’s supposed to be like for her? Look.” She pressed a finger into Ronan’s hand, showing how his skin sprang back, ordinary and healthy.

  Jordan didn’t have an answer. They only had two data points, which was not enough for even the shoddiest of theses.

  “Maybe he could teach her,” Trinity said.

  “Because if there’s a thing Hennessy’s good at, it’s taking instruction,” Madox scoffed.

  Jordan said, “Maybe he could dream something just for her. Not like The Dark Lady. Something that does the job.”

  June started to carefully lift the parcel off his chest, and then, unexpectedly, Ronan smacked the
back of her palm.

  “Fuck you very much,” he said, and stretched.

  All the girls laughed at him, with both surprise and something else, something less definable. Jordan could tell they were excited. Optimistic. Today, they looked like her, rather than Hennessy.

  Jordan was more grateful to Ronan for this than for opening the door on the flooded bathroom. Hope was a thing that died easily in this house these days.

  “Welcome back,” she said. “What’d you bring for us today? Do I get a prize if I guess?”

  Ronan hefted the wrapped parcel to Jordan to open, careful not to spill June’s juice on it as he did. Glancing at him—she definitely already had a guess—she peeled down the brown paper.

  Inside was a painting in a very familiar gilt-edged frame.

  It was a woman in a periwinkle blue dress, hands defiantly on her hips, a man’s jacket thrown across her shoulders. She peered at the viewer defiantly.

  Like Jordan’s tattooed Mona Lisa, this painting was nearly a perfect likeness of the original. It was The Dark Lady, the painting that had taken them hours upon hours upon hours to copy for the Fairy Market, but with Hennessy’s face and throat and knuckle tattoos.

  A perfect and cunning forgery, as good as theirs. No. Better. Because it oozed with the same magnetic, otherworldly desire that the original had and that their copy had missed. This was not a real-world copy of a dream. This was a dream of a dream. Perfect. Beyond perfect.

  And he’d done it in half an hour.

  Jordan knew the other girls were thinking the same thing, because Trinity said, “That took Jordan forever.”

  Ronan shrugged.

  “You could do anything we do here in a night,” June said.

  Ronan shrugged.

  “What do you even do all day?” Brooklyn asked.

  He grinned at her. The arrogance of him. The swaggering arrogance. And why not? What could it possibly be like living like that? He could do anything.

  Including, perhaps, saving their lives.

  There are some days, Dalí had said, when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.