Mister Impossible

by Maggie Stiefvater

  “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.

  “House looks festive,” Bryde said, although he had not appeared to give any attention to the house when he walked in, apart from picking up the framed photograph.

  “Christmas is coming up,” Rhiannon replied. “Don’t know if I’m spending it here or with my aunt. She asked me to come stay with her for a bit, you know. I told her I might drive up tomorrow, just in case you really did come … I didn’t know if you were real.”

  Bryde smiled that private smile of his.

  Rhiannon put her hand to her face again and gazed first at Hennessy and then at Ronan. “But you are. You’re all very real. You three look just like you did in the dream. Ha-ha … I didn’t dream you guys, did I?”

  “I don’t know about these two jokers,” Hennessy said, “but I assure you I’m real.”

  Rhiannon put a long hand over her mouth. “You even sound like you did in the dream. Maybe this is all real.”

  “Put that away, Rhiannon,” Bryde said impatiently. “You already know it is. I told you—you make reality. I’m not here to reteach you what I have told you already. You know it in your heart. And could you dream us? With the ley line as it is?”

  The truth stung. Bryde had come to Rhiannon Martin just as he’d come to Ronan. He’d come to her as a dreamer, in her dreams. How many other dreamers had he also approached this way? Ronan knew he had no right to feel jealous or betrayed that Bryde wasn’t simply his and Hennessy’s. He’d known Bryde was infamous before he ever rescued them. For what? For this, perhaps. For showing up in people’s heads.

  “So you’re a drea
mer,” Hennessy said. “And Bryde here gate-crashed your dreams, too, and invited us over. That’s what’s going on here? Yeah? Sorry, I’m a little slow. This one”—she indicated Bryde—“didn’t explain what we were doing today when we came out. He fancies himself a mysterious stranger. These biscuits are very good. The ones shaped like stars. You’ve got a gift.”

  “Oh, yes, Rhiannon is a dreamer,” Bryde said, standing. “Here in this stagnant valley. She is a very, very good dreamer.”

  Rhiannon blushed. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  It was so peculiar to see a dreamer like her. All the others they’d saved so far had been a little like Ronan and Hennessy. Not exactly of the world. Living on the fringes in some way. Punky or funky or estranged or drifters. But Rhiannon seemed quite … not ordinary, but … content. Settled. Like a good mom.

  Like the world wasn’t dismantling her.

  “Take a look,” Bryde said, indicating the mirrors that covered the walls of the room. “That’s her work.”

  Ronan and Hennessy each took a station at a different mirror. Ronan’s was about the size of a large envelope, just big enough to show his face. The frame was ornate, painted roughly with white paint so that the wood showed through in places.

  He looked into it.

  The Ronan in the mirror was older than he thought of himself as—somehow Ronan was always a little behind in his own estimation of his age. When he was in middle school, he saw himself as a little kid. In high school, he saw the awkward pimpled kid in puberty. After high school, he still perceived himself as the jagged rebel kid.

  But the Ronan in the mirror was a young man. A little handsome, he saw, to his surprise, like his father had been at his age, and he could see that as he got older, he’d probably be a lot handsome. Normally he did not think his outside appearance at all reflected who he really was on the inside, but this mirror showed him an exterior Ronan just as complicated as the interior Ronan. The mirror presented a guarded bruiser, but one whose eyebrows gave away startling gentleness. There was a cruel and arrogant dismissiveness in this Ronan’s face, but also bravery. The line of his mouth held at once a crumple of depression and the shape of a grin. Anger simmered in his eyes, but so did an intense, savage humor.

  To his shock, he found he liked the person in the mirror.

  “They’re quite cunning, aren’t they?” Bryde said. “No one likes photographs of themselves. And the mirror has never had a reputation for kindness. But these do, don’t they, Rhiannon?”

  Ronan joined Hennessy by her mirror, which had a fat gilt frame like an old painting. In it he saw the two of them, fast friends, a Ronan capable of trusting someone without his last name, a Hennessy capable of caring about someone without her face.

  Hennessy muttered, “I look like Jordan.”

  “What do they do?” Ronan growled.

  “What do you think they do, Ronan?” Bryde asked.

  He didn’t want to say it out loud. It felt too earnest. Was this reflection the truth? Or was it what he wanted to be true?

  “How often do you dream one of these mirrors, Rhiannon?” Bryde asked.

  She was still blustery and flattered. “Oh, I don’t know. It takes me quite a while. I have to get them together over a lot of dreams; it takes me a lot of concentration and if I’m busy with other things I put them down for quite a while. This is all that I’ve ever done except for one, and I’ve been dreaming them since I was a little girl. They take me five years, maybe? I don’t know. I don’t keep track, I just putter along on them. I’m glad you like them.”

  Ronan considered the sort of person she must be that all she dreamt was mirrors that were kind to people. Not physically flattering, but truly kind. The invisible car felt a little stupid in comparison.

  He put his fingers to his temple. He was beginning to feel hungry again. He didn’t know if it was real hunger, or if it was the same thing he had felt in the fast-food restaurant.

  “And she does that here, with the ley line as it is,” Bryde said, as if he could tell what Ronan was thinking. Perhaps he could. What do you feel? “Probably she would put you to shame, kids, if she ever left this place.”

  Rhiannon tucked her hair behind her ear over and over, her cheeks pinked. “Oh, I don’t know about that. It’s my little thing, is all. And as I told you in the dream, I can’t leave.”

  “I understand,” Bryde said. “We are not all born to be wanderers. But the world is changing. You won’t be able to stay here for much longer, not in this strangled valley.”

  It seemed unfair for Bryde to ask her to come with them. Bryde had warned them that leaving with him would break their worlds, and it had. But Ronan’s and Hennessy’s lives had already been in disarray. Rhiannon’s life seemed as tidy and comfortable as a tray of newly baked cookies.

  Rhiannon said uncertainly, “My great-grandfather built this house on the ruins of a house my great-great-grandfather built. My dad had turkeys in that barn. My brother, too, until he died. I raised my kids here. And I can only dream the mirrors, nothing fancier.”

  Bryde folded his hands behind his back as he peered into one of the mirrors (from this angle, Ronan could not see what he saw, only the top of his own head), and then he said, “There used to be a great house full of nobles who oversaw everything important and good. Because they oversaw everything important and good, everyone began to think of the men and women who lived in this great house, this mansion, this castle, this tower on the rock, as important and good, too. This has always been the way of it; those who take the credit get the credit because, as Ronan Lynch has discovered, when the world shouts, other people listen, whether or not they are right.

  “These men and women in the great house were listened to in all things and no one who was not a member of this house could make law or change the hearts of men; who but a fool or a traitor would speak against the holders of everything important and good, after all? A young man who was not known to them came to the great house and asked to be made a member of this household so that he, too, could change the world, and they asked him why he felt he belonged.

  “I am a poet, said the young man.

  “No, they replied, we already have a poet.

  “I am a swordsman, he said.

  “No, they replied, we already have a swordsman.

  “I am a smith, he said.

  “No, they said, we already have a smith.

  “I am a wizard, he said.

  “No, they said. We have a wizard.

  “But, he said, do you have someone who is a poet and a swordsman and a smith and a wizard all at once?

  “They had to admit they did not, and so they had to let him in. And he took over the castle on the hill and changed the world.”

  Bryde turned back to them.

  “We are that young man. All of us together. This is about your mirrors and her art and his feelings and my weapons. This is about being a poet and a smith and a wizard so they will have to let us in. People who are one thing have never known what to do with people who are more than one thing. They seize existing towers and build them higher. They make the rules. They think the people who are many things are outliers. The people who are many things believe them. So they keep begging for entry to the great house. And the lords and the ladies keep building up the towers to keep you out. You and every other thing they cannot understand.”

  Rhiannon touched the corner of her eye in that fast way people do to strike away a tear. Ronan was trying to remember exactly what Bryde had said when he listed their skills. Rhiannon’s mirrors, Hennessy’s art, Ronan’s … feelings? But that was not what Ronan would have said he was good at dreaming at all.

  “And you, Rhiannon, have been keeping yourself small,” Bryde said. “You have done well in this world because you have made yourself one thing, stayed in this place where you are one thing. And even if you never dreamed anything more than your mirrors, you would make a difference, because neither of these two dreamers can see themselves clearly w
ithout them. But you could do more. You’ve been dreaming with one hand tied behind your back. Ronan, tell her what it is like when there’s actual power running through the ley line.”

  Ronan was surprised to be called on, but he was even more surprised to find he wanted to make her believe in what Bryde was saying. He wanted to be one of her mirrors, but showing her the dreaming instead of her face. He struggled. “It’s—I don’t know. It’s French fries from the freezer section, and French fries from the county fair. They’re called the same thing but they aren’t. Because one of them you want to eat and the other is just a thing with the picture of the thing you want to eat on the front.”

  Hennessy laughed merrily.

  “Would you like to contribute, Hennessy?” Bryde asked.

  Hennessy stopped laughing. “You want me to convince her to leave her family?”

  Bryde and Rhiannon both looked at Hennessy.

  Bryde said, “Her family is dead.”

  They all looked at Rhiannon.

  Bryde tilted the closest mirror to reflect her. They just had time to see Rhiannon’s true self: face puffy with tears, mouth hopeless with grief, and then he returned it to its place, restoring her dignity.

  Suddenly, the emptiness of the house seemed obvious to Ronan. It couldn’t have been long, because he knew from experience it did go away eventually. It was only the first few months that everything inside the walls was still shaped like a family that no longer existed.

  That framed portrait Bryde had picked up had been a snapshot of the past.

  “Oh,” said Hennessy. “In that case, it’s like fucking Disneyland. Who wouldn’t want to try it at least once.”

  Bryde cast a withering look at her.

  Rhiannon whispered, “It just feels impossible.”

  “We are impossible,” Bryde told her. “You have always been impossible. Tell me how you felt when you opened the door and saw it was us.”

  She bit her lip, thinking, but then her expression abruptly changed. “Oh, darling, you’re—” Darling meant Ronan. She was gesturing to him, to his face. “You’ve got—”