Mister Impossible

by Maggie Stiefvater

  “Hello,” Declan said.

  Adam’s tone was dry. “Everyone in your family likes to make a surprise entrance, don’t they?”

  Declan smiled blandly and tapped the side of his phone on the table, glancing around at the surroundings with the same judgmental gaze he used when double-checking Matthew’s room-cleaning abilities.

  “Fletcher,” Adam said, “would you let the line know that we’re done for the night?”

  The other student pushed out of a chair and, waving his own phone, said, “Of course. You should know Gillian’s still going on about break. That’ll be the topic of debate.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  They were left discreetly alone.

  “Aglionby would be so proud to see you using all your talents here at Harvard,” Declan said. He turned over the top card of the deck. The writing on the bottom read Seven of Swords, but the art was too wiggly and complicated for Matthew to focus on.

  “Aglionby would be proud to see two of its students here at Harvard at the same time,” Adam replied evenly.

  “I see you lost your accent.”

  “I see you lost your jacket.”

  This all felt like a conversation in another language, one that Matthew would never speak. He couldn’t give too much thought to that, however, because suddenly he felt really weird.

  His head went weird first, then his legs. His head felt sluggish, but his legs felt the opposite. That walky feeling usually meant he was about to forget what he was doing and end up someplace entirely different.

  Nope, he told his legs. Be like a normal person.

  Declan and Adam had moved on from whatever they’d been talking about and were instead talking about Declan being a bit of a gossip sensation, according to Adam’s latest conversation with Mr. Gray, the Lynch son calling in favors and making himself useful in the market, going legit for a year. Rumor was people were courting him for jobs. Were they? Matthew couldn’t tell if he should have been able to tell that by Declan’s constant brisk texting and phone calls.

  “Even if that were true,” Declan said, “I’m not getting into that world.”

  Adam laughed in a hollow way. “You aren’t in it already?”

  Declan didn’t flinch, and for the first time, Matthew thought he might be seeing the situation in a complicated, real, grown-up way. Because when he looked at Declan’s blank, businesslike expression, he thought about how he could have just taken it at face value. But instead he saw how, if he squinted, he could see a little tension around Declan’s lips, a little tilt to his chin. He saw how this secret language showed that his older brother was both flattered and tempted by the statement.

  “The other rumor is that Ronan is into some kind of bio-weapons,” Adam said, and for the first time, a little wrinkle appeared in between his fair eyebrows, making him look more like the boy Matthew knew from before. “Leading Moderators on a merry chase with capital-U Unexplained weaponry.”

  In a bland voice, Declan asked, “Have you spoken to him recently?”

  Instead of answering, Adam replied, “Do you know anything about Bryde yet?”

  Then Matthew lost a bit of time, which he only realized because when he next came to, he was sitting in a chair by the window with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. Adam was standing close to Declan and they were muttering in low voices. One of them was saying Matthew.

  “Matthew, seriously,” Declan said. “Wake up.”

  Once Declan had spoken, Matthew realized the voice saying Matthew before hadn’t been Declan’s voice. It had been that voice he sometimes heard when he lost himself. The voice he sought when he threw himself into the security system at the end of the driveway.

  Matthew blinked up at Declan. He was so frustrated that he couldn’t follow his conversation with Adam. It seemed like a very important, grown-up conversation. He tried to recapture the mindset that had allowed him to decode Declan’s expression before, but it all felt too complex.

  “He looks strange,” Adam said. Then he seemed to realize this was rude, because he directed his next question at Matthew. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “This is what happens when your life is tied to my brother’s,” Declan said. “God knows what he’s up to.”

  Because the problem wasn’t truly with Matthew. He was like this because of a problem with his dreamer.

  “Is he normally this bad?”

  No. He wasn’t usually this bad unless …

  Declan said, “Matthew. Matthew. Matthew.”

  Matthew.

  The wizard’s tower and the wizard’s tarot cards and the wizard himself were melting away. All of Matthew’s thoughts were melting away.

  Wherever Ronan was, he was in deep trouble.

  Hennessy always dreamt of the Lace.

  Left to her own devices, it was always the Lace.

  Nightwash and blood and a barn full of dead turkeys behind them, nightwash and blood and a night full of desperation before them, because Hennessy couldn’t dream of anything but the Lace.

  The nearly invisible car burst through the night as Bryde tersely directed her down one road and then another and then another. Ronan was silent in the backseat. Every once in a while, she glanced over her shoulder to see if he’d died. Hard to tell. He was sprawled exactly as he had been thrown before. Dying people and dead people looked very similar.

  “Maybe it’s too late,” she said.

  Bryde’s voice was thin as wire. “I would know if it’s too late. Turn here.”

  She wondered if she would feel sad if Ronan died. Angry. Something. Because right now she didn’t feel anything at all. She didn’t care where they were going. She didn’t care if he was dead when they got there. She didn’t care if Bryde lost patience with her and left her standing by the roadside. She didn’t care if Jordan was angry that she hadn’t called to let her know how things were. Nothing felt like it would be particularly good or bad, except for sleeping an empty sleep, free of the Lace, free of everything. Empty sleep forever, never waking up. Not death, because that would ruin Jordan’s life. Just endless empty pause. That would be good.

  “Left, left,” Bryde said. “Hurry up. Stop over there. This will have to do.”

  Hennessy didn’t feel much in the way of any ley energy, but she followed his directions. Burrito lumped down a dark, unpaved road that dead-ended at a small ridge overgrown with stringy, limp grass. The headlights glinted off water beyond it.

  “Help me drag him,” Bryde said.

  Ronan looked dreadful, awash with black, slumped in the backseat of the invisible car. It wasn’t the oozing nightwash that made him look bad, though. It was the slackness of his face. The stiffness. He already looked dead.

  “What about his chicken?” Hennessy asked. His raven was a small pile of unmoving feathers.

  “Leave her,” Bryde said. “Bring your mask.”

  Her mask. She never wanted to see it again. “So it’s a Lace dream you’re after having?”

  “We don’t have time for petulance,” Bryde said. He was more agitated than Hennessy had ever seen him. “Imagine you were lost in your Lace, and there was no one to find you, ever. That is where he is. Deep. We might not get him back, even if there’s enough ley power to reverse the nightwash. Do you understand? He won’t have any use for this body the way he is now. He just goes out and out and out, a ball of yarn thrown into space.”

  “Still don’t get why you need me, mate.”

  “He’ll be drawn to you more than to me.”

  “That would be a first in the history of the world.”

  Bryde snapped, “If he dies, this is the last time you’ll see him and then all of this was for nothing.”

  Hennessy brought her mask.

  Hennessy dreamt of the Lace.

  She dreamt of the Lace, its checkered edge, its simmering hate, and then—

  She was climbing through the dark.

  The Lace was gone. It was gone so thoroughly it was difficult to r
emember it had ever been there.

  Instead there was the dark, and there was a full moon right above her, bigger than any moon she’d ever seen before. She couldn’t see its face but it seemed upset.

  She was climbing.

  It was too dark to see what she was climbing over, but she could feel rocks and stones sliding beneath her feet.

  She was not alone.

  She was aware of a companion making their way beside her, although she could not see them. She could hear their process, though, the scrabble and skitter of feet on the rocks. Her companion seemed lighter than her, different than her, although the sound might have been distorted by the hidden landscape. It seemed more like a body hopping and flapping, talons or claws finding purchase before lifting off. But it could not be a bird, she thought, because a bird would fly. Unless it was just suffering alongside her to be companionable, she thought. To appear more like her.

  She didn’t know where they were going, apart from up, where it was a little lighter. She could see it, a suggestion of gray. Not dawn, but the promise of dawn, the best that dawn could do in the current situation.

  Up. Up. Up they went and her legs were heavy, but it felt crucial to get out of the dark. It was getting lighter up ahead, she thought, light enough that she thought the sky might even have some pink to it. Light enough she thought she might see an edge to the bare rock they climbed.

  The edge was just shattered enough to remind her of—

  “I know this is not my dream,” Hennessy said. “Because it doesn’t have—”

  “Don’t say that name here,” her companion said. “That is not what the dream is about. Who are we looking for? This is important. I’m not going to help you remember.”

  “Ronan,” she said.

  The black clung to them as they climbed. It was everywhere. Nightwash.

  Yes, she remembered.

  “You can do it,” her companion said. “You are not different when awake and when asleep.”

  Hennessy remembered a little more. “Rhiannon Martin would think differently. Your optimism in me, bruv, killed her. How’s that feel?”

  Her companion said nothing, climbing in the dark. Scrabble and claw, flap and click. It put her in mind of Chainsaw, Ronan’s raven.

  “I would dream it away, if I could,” Hennessy said. “I would wake up without it. Just walk away.”

  “You insult her death,” Bryde said, because now it was certainly his voice. “You insult what we’re trying to do.”

  The sky above them lightened still more. It was becoming that complicated pink and gold and red and blue that sunrises can be without conflict. There was a definite line to the summit now, a jagged edge that would mark the end of their climb. It looked like the Lace, but Hennessy didn’t say it out loud.

  “You say the lines are getting worse,” Hennessy said. “You’re saying the dreaming is worse. But it’s the same for me. It’s always looked like this. It keeps looking like this. How many dead dreamers you want with my name on them?”

  Now it was light enough that he had come into view beside her, his silhouette climbing, face pensive. He was a peculiar-looking person, she thought. Most people could be put into this pile or another. So-and-so reminds me of whatsherface, one says. This dude is this sort of person. Oh, they’re that kind of a person. But what was Bryde? Bryde. Party of one. If he reminded her of anything, he reminded her of … the resemblance slipped away.

  Bryde said, “Get better, then.”

  “Get better, he says, bread-and-jam, easy. You’re a real ass, did you know? When have you ever failed at anything?”

  “You’ve been at this for weeks,” he said. “Do you know how old I am?”

  There was something a little dangerous about the question. Hennessy couldn’t tell if it was dangerous to answer it correctly or dangerous to answer it incorrectly, though. Eventually, she said, “Older than Ronan thinks.”

  “Yes,” Bryde said.

  Now it was possible to see they were headed toward a great hollow stump, a tree that must have been enormous when it was alive. But then Hennessy remembered: It was alive. It was the tree from West Virginia, transplanted. Ilidorin.

  “Yes,” Bryde said again, and he sounded tired. “Older than he imagines.”

  The tree grew from bare, dark rock on a precipice that jutted high above a vast and glittering pink-orange-yellow-blue ocean. The sea below looked cold and ancient, the barely audible waves breaking slow and sure. Everything was still black where the sun had not yet reached.

  It was beautiful, and Hennessy hated it. She hated it, or she hated herself.

  That one.

  “Self-hatred is an expensive hobby paid for by other people,” Bryde said. “Look. Here he is.”

  Ronan was in the tree. Or rather, a Ronan was inside the tree. The Ronan inside the tree was dressed in black, curled inside the hollow, his arms crossed over each other, his posture undeniably the same as Ronan in the real world. But this Ronan was old. Well, older. Grizzled. This Ronan had walked and walked through this world. His cheeks were hard and chiseled beneath scrubby shadow. Deep crow lines formed around his eyes from decades of laughing and frowning into the sun. His shaved head had grown out just enough to show that his temples were gray, same as the hair that shadowed his jaw. There was one thick trail of nightwash that oozed from one of his closed eyes, but two tiny mice the size of walnuts were furiously working away at it with their paws and their tongues.

  Old. Older than he imagines.

  Hennessy wanted to say something to cut the moment, but she couldn’t. She was so angry, so tangled in the grips of this wild ocean, this distant sunrise, this lightening peak, this wearied Ronan from another time curled in an ancient tree. Why did it have to be this way? she kept thinking. Why did she have to be this way?

  She longed for the Hennessy in the car, the one who thought she didn’t care about anything. What a splendid liar she was. She cared about everything.

  After the mice were done, they scurried away into the darkness of the hollow of the tree, leaving Ronan motionless in the protective curve of the stump.

  “Come back, Ronan,” Bryde said softly. “The nightwash will not have you this time.”

  Silence. Just the barely heard sound of that slow, old ocean down below.

  “Ronan Lynch,” Hennessy said.

  Ronan’s eyes opened.

  They were his eyes after all, bright blue and intense.

  He looked at them both, this young, old Ronan.

  “No more playing,” he said. He sounded tired. “We save the ley lines.”

  Declan had been told a long time ago that he had to know what he wanted, or he’d never get it. Not by his father, because his father would have never delivered such pragmatic advice in such a pragmatic way. No, even if Niall Lynch believed in the sentiment, he would have wrapped it up in a long story filled with metaphor and magic and nonsense riddles. Only years after the storytelling would Declan be sitting somewhere and realize that all along Niall had been trying to teach him to balance his checkbook, or whatever the tale had ever really been about. Niall could never just say the thing.

  No, this piece of advice—You have to know what you want, or you’ll never get it—was given to Declan by a senator from Nevada he’d met during a DC field trip back in eighth grade. The other children had been bored by the pale stone restraint of the city and the sameness of the law and government offices they toured. Declan, however, had been fascinated. He’d asked the senator what advice he had for those looking to get into politics.

  “Come from money,” the senator had said first, and then when all the eighth graders and their teachers had stared without laughing, he added, “You have to know what you want, or you’ll never get it. Make goals.”

  Declan made goals. The goal was DC. The goal was politics. The goal was structure, and more structure, and yet more structure. He took AP classes on political science and policy. When he traveled with his father to black markets, he wrote papers. W
hen he took calls from gangsters and shady antique auction houses, he arranged drop-offs near DC and wrangled meetings with HR people. Aglionby Academy made calls and pulled strings; he got names, numbers, internships. All was going according to plan. His father inconveniently got murdered, but Declan pressed on. His father’s will conveniently left him a town house adjacent to DC. Declan pressed on. He kept his brothers alive; he graduated; he moved to DC.

  He made the goal, he went toward the goal.

  When he took his first lunch meeting with his new boss, he found himself filled with the same anticipation he’d had as an eighth grader. This was the place, he thought, where things happened. Just across the road was the Mexican embassy. Behind him was the IMF. GW Law School was a block away. The White House, the USPS, the Red Cross, all within a stone’s throw.

  This was before he understood there was no making it for him. He came from money, yeah, but the wrong kind of money. Niall Lynch’s clout was not relevant in this daylight world; he only had status in the night. And one could not rise above that while remaining invisible to protect one’s dangerous brother.

  On that first day of work, Declan walked into the Renwick Gallery and stood inside an installation that had taken over the second floor around the grand staircase. Tens of thousands of black threads had been installed at points all along the ceiling, tangling around the Villareal LED sculpture that normally lit the room, snarling the railing over the stairs, blocking out the light from the tall arches that bordered the walls, turning the walkways into dark, confusing rabbit tunnels. Museumgoers had to pick their way through with caution lest they be snared and bring the entire world down with them.

  He had, bizarrely, felt tears burning the corners of his eyes.