Mister Impossible

by Maggie Stiefvater

  Jordan peered at her, trying unsuccessfully to place her. She must have met Hennessy or one of the other girls.

  The woman’s face turned cartoonishly worried. “Oh, you don’t remember me! Don’t worry, I know some people around here get a little S-H-I-T-T-Y about these things, if you know what I mean, but not me. I’m Barbara Shutt.”

  She held out her hand to shake and Jordan was running, running, running the scenarios, testing out replies that would work to make her seem reliable, like the real Jordan Hennessy, replies that didn’t promise knowledge she didn’t have, replies that didn’t have trapdoors with crocodiles underneath them.

  They shook—Barbara did that shake with just her fingers—and Jordan said, “Oh, right, DC, yes?”

  Barbara wagged her finger at her. “That’s the one. I’m so glad, just so glad, you could make it here when I’m sure you haven’t even settled in. I’m sure Jo’s already touched base with you to talk about apartment options. Jo? Jo Fisher?”

  “Oh, no, I’d remember a Jo,” Jordan said.

  “Of course you would,” Barbara replied. “Jo is that way. I’ll make a note in the little old brain-a-dex”—she tapped the rim of her glass against her temple—“to have her add you to the schedule. Don’t think we haven’t been keeping a good eyeball out for you, though. That little adventure on the Potomac certainly made a lot of people sit up and take notice, didn’t it! And we just have been doing our best to make sure none of that notice gives you the time of day here.”

  Now Jordan felt truly uncomfortable. Had Boudicca been keeping menace from her doorstep? Or were they just saying it to pull her into the fold? She needed to say something. Something that kept Barbara from completely having the upper hand. Something Boudicca couldn’t know about. Think, Jordan.

  Jordan smiled broadly and took a risk. “It’s nice to have Bryde on our side, too, after all this time.”

  Barbara’s smile was fixed in concrete.

  Bingo. They didn’t know a damn thing about Bryde, either, except for his power.

  “If you’ll ex-kwoooooooooooze me,” Barbara said, tapping a dainty silver watch on her wrist with the bottom of her wineglass, “I should get this rolling. I know you’re looking forward to it. So glad. So glad you could make it. Don’t forget about Jo. She’ll be around.”

  The first time Jordan had been approached by Boudicca it had been a bit of a joke, a bit of a compliment. She and Hennessy and June had sniggered about it over a few drinks and a few tubes of paint in the way they might have snickered over bumbling, unwanted flirtation at a bar. Nice to be wanted, I reckon. As if. Dream on. But it was a different feeling now that she was alone in Boston. She’d forgotten that there was a disadvantage to being not one of many Jordan Hennessys, but rather one of one: vulnerability.

  Jordan stood there with her orange drink and her orange top, feeling misgiving pile upon misgiving, and then she discovered the music had stopped and all the partygoers were moving generally toward the back of the building. They murmured and checked watches and eyed each other, and Jordan realized they must all be headed to the real reason for this party.

  Eventually, after they had all pressed into a large room in the back, Barbara’s voice came over the speaker. Jordan could hear her unamplified voice as well, so she had to be close, but she couldn’t see her over the crowd.

  “Thanks for coming,” said Barbara. “We have a really splendid group here today. You’re all really spiffy women. I know we’re excited about the events coming up and we’re all excited about, uh, where are my notes, Fisher? Fisher, you do this.”

  A petite woman with very good posture and aggressively straightened brunette hair pressed past Jordan and through the crowd toward the front. She was dressed in a cocktail dress that said, Look at me, and also said, Now that you’re looking, did you notice I think you’re stupid? It was a good dress. She did not say excuse me.

  Jordan just had a glimpse of her accepting a wired microphone; then a voice that matched the cocktail dress came over the speakers. “Everyone here has a dependent in their lives. Some of you know one, some of you are thinking of introducing one into your lives, others have inherited one, and some of you are one.”

  Partygoers glanced around at each other.

  Jo Fisher continued. “Boudicca is proud to be able to offer a variety of sweetmetals in different formats this year. As always, these are available by private arrangement. Demand is high, as sweetmetals have been losing their efficacy faster than usual and many of you are replacing empty ones this year. I trust everyone here’s had an opportunity to see that the dependents we’ve brought in to demonstrate the sweetmetals are genuine. Some have asked if these dependents are available; not at this time. They are for demonstration. For demonstration.”

  “Let’s bring in a sweetmetal!” Barbara’s voice rose, unamplified. “Be nice, now, let everyone get a look!”

  To Jordan’s surprise, people listened. The crowd reassembled, allowing her, for the first time, to see what they were all pressed close to.

  The centerpiece of the room was a kid.

  He was a lovely little thing, a boy of three or four years old, with fine dark hair, thick eyelashes, a thoughtless pout. He was presented sentimentally in a wingback chair, which sat directly in the middle of the room. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

  No matter how loud the voices rose around him, he remained asleep.

  Scattered around him on the bright brocade fabric were a few other objects. Some butterflies lying limp. A soft, small rabbit, stretched on its side. A pair of shoes.

  It was clear he was an exhibit, like the rest of the art.

  “This is very exciting, isn’t it!” Barbara said, still shouting without the microphone, sounding like a kindergarten teacher. “It’s a really nice sweetmetal, a very good one for your home, they’re not always good for a living area, but this one is! How L-U-C-K-Y are we all? Let’s all be quiet and look. Here it is!”

  A side door opened.

  Two women carried a large, framed painting into the room. The subject wasn’t very exciting, just a bucolic landscape dotted with sheep, but the art was nonetheless appealing in some way. It bothered Jordan, actually, that she couldn’t pinpoint why she found it so appealing. She couldn’t stop looking at it. She wanted to get closer, but the crowd and her dignity wouldn’t allow it.

  She glanced at the other partygoers to see their reaction to the painting, but their gazes were all firmly focused on the wingback chair in the middle of the room.

  “Can I put my shoes on?”

  It was a small, high voice. The boy had half sat up in the chair. With one youthful hand, he rubbed his eyes, and with the other, he reached for his shoes. He searched for a familiar face among the women looking at him. “Mum? Is it time for shoes?”

  All around him, the previously still butterflies had taken flight. The little rabbit made a small thud as it jumped from the chair to the floor and made haste. The partygoers drew back to allow it to lope softly into their midst.

  “Mum?” said the boy.

  “As you can see, this particular sweetmetal is effective for multiple dependents at a distance of several yards,” Fisher said into the microphone. “Please inquire for a full list.”

  Barbara made a sweeping gesture with her wineglass and the attendants carried the painting back to the side door.

  “Mum?” said the boy again. “Oh, my shoe.”

  One of the shoes had fallen from the chair. The boy reached for it just as the door closed behind the attendants. The painting was gone.

  With a little sigh, the boy, too, fell from the chair to the floor beside it. The butterflies dropped from the air around him. One of the partygoers came forward long enough to lay the now-sleeping rabbit back in its initial position on the chair.

  Jordan’s heart was an elevator with snapped cables.

  Dreams.

  The dependents were dreams without dreamers. And the sweetmetal—the painting that Jordan, a dream, h
ad found strangely alluring—had temporarily woken them.

  Just like that, Jordan realized Boudicca hadn’t invited her here because they knew Jordan Hennessy was an art forger. They’d invited her here because they knew Jordan Hennessy was a dreamer.

  They’d invited her here because they knew Jordan Hennessy would have dreams she wanted to keep awake.

  The rules of the game had changed.

  Matthew Lynch woke to the sound of his oldest brother screaming.

  His brother’s old bedroom was down the hall and Matthew’s door was shut, but the sound came in clearly anyway. These old houses were full of nooks and crannies.

  Matthew climbed out of bed, saying oof oof oof as the old floorboards chilled the bottoms of his bare feet, and then promptly smashed his head against the slanted ceiling.

  Declan was still caterwauling.

  Matthew went down the hall to brush his teeth (the movement of the bristles over his gums and teeth made it sound like Declan’s shouts were oscillating) and got a drink of water (Declan’s voice sounded higher when Matthew was swallowing and lower when he wasn’t) and looked at himself in the mirror.

  He thought the same thing he had thought every morning for the past several weeks: I don’t look like a dream, do I?

  The boy in the mirror was taller than the one who had appeared in the mirror a year ago. When he opened his mouth, he had all the proper teeth. He looked all right. He could be forgiven for having thought he was just like everyone else, all this time. But looking all right and being forgiven didn’t really change the truth, which was that Matthew was not human. He was just human-shaped.

  The boy in the mirror frowned.

  His face didn’t look used to frowning.

  Declan’s screams escalated.

  Right.

  Matthew shuffled down the hall to his brother’s room.

  The scene was the same as it had been every morning for the past several days. There was a pile of mice. Some winged lizard things. A badger with a secretive kind of smile, but just around the eyes. A pair of deer the size of cats. A cat the size of a deer, with hands like a person. A collection of birds of varying sizes and shapes. And possibly the most impressive thing, a rough-coated black boar the size of a minivan.

  All of these creatures were piled on top of Declan’s bed, which was where the screaming was coming from.

  “Deklo!” Matthew said. “Mmm, cold.”

  The room was chilly on account of the open window, which was the work of the hand-cat. Matthew had accidentally caught it in the act before, when he was out walking the hills in a dazed, lost, predawn walk. He’d heard a clank and a clatter and looked up to see the hand-cat swiftly climbing the gutter to the dormer that led to Declan’s room. Without any pause at all, the creature had shimmied the window open. It was both impressive and creepy to watch the hand-cat working its little nails under the edge to get it open. Opposable thumbs really were splendid things.

  Declan’s voice was muffled. “Get them out.”

  He was difficult to see in the bed because he’d made himself a sheet-blanket cocoon, the edges sealed against the mattress as much as possible to keep the smaller creatures from burrowing against him. They were not put off, though. The hand-cat plucked at the sheet near his face with intense devotion. The cat-sized deer were mewling and pawing (hoofing?) at the legs of the bed. The winged lizard things pounced playfully on Declan’s feet each time they moved beneath the blanket.

  “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 trust
ed 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.