Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(22)

Ronan gave the drawstring three little twitches and, just as in the dream that had created it, the blanket began to float, taking the cow with it. Now Ronan had a cow on a string. A cow balloon. A bovine blimp. In the back of his head he’d thought he might spend the winter trying again to dream something that would rouse a dead sleeper’s dreams, a task that would be more pleasant in the climate-controlled long barn. He’d just needed a cow transportation device.

He was pleased the cow transportation device worked, even if he was unconvinced that he would have any more luck waking the cows than he had over the past several months.

He wondered suddenly if this other dreamer, Bryde, might know how to wake another dreamer’s dreams.

That would be a thing that made Bryde’s game worth playing.

“Kerah!” A cry came from overhead. He tilted his head back just as a murder-black bird swooped down to him.

It was Chainsaw, one of his oldest dream creatures. She was a raven and, like Ronan, all the parts that made her interesting were hidden from the casual glance.

He reached a hand out to her, but she just barked and shat a few inches from his shoulder as she circled the floating cow.

“Brat!”

“Krek!” Chainsaw spat. Her invented vocabulary mostly had room for extremes: stuff she liked a lot (kerah, which was Ronan) or stuff she hated (krek-krek, an emphatic form of krek, her word for dreamthing, referred to a specific and hated dreamthing named Opal, Ronan’s other psychopomp). Snack was a good word, too, already raven-shaped. So was Atom, which was nearly recognizable as Adam if you were listening hard.

“Yeah,” Ronan said. “Come on if you’re coming.”

He began to walk his cow balloon to the long barn, keeping a good hold on it. He didn’t think the leaf blanket would ever stop going up if he let go, and he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of the cow heading out to space.

As he got to the barn, his phone buzzed. He ignored it as he did a little whistle at the door until it obligingly unlocked. He had a bad moment when he realized the cow was never going to fit through his ordinary entrance, and he had to tie her to the doorknob in order to go inside to open the bigger sliding door.

His phone buzzed again. He ignored it.

Inside, the barn was piled with his dream creations—clawsome machines, gearish creatures, supernatural weather stored under tarps, and heartbeats contained in glass bulbs—the mess adhering to no system but his own. He hastily cleared a cow-sized area in front of the sliding door.

His phone buzzed again. He ignored it.

Ronan towed the still-floating cow in, careful not to knock her head on the doorway. He wrinkled his nose. Something smelled rank around here.

His phone buzzed, buzzed, buzzed.

“Goddamn it,” Ronan remarked to Chainsaw, who flew skillfully into the barn without touching a feather against any of the clutter. Gripping the cow-leash with one hand, he answered the phone. “What, Declan? I’m trying to fucking tow a cow.”

“I just had a very troubling parent-teacher conference. I need you up here.”

This didn’t immediately make sense to Ronan, as he had neither parents nor teachers in his life. Then he worked it out as he backed another careful step into the barn, the cow bobbing after. “Matthew?”

“Who else?” Declan said. “Do you have another brother you dreamed who’s fucking up?”

A dreamer, a dream, and Declan: that was the brothers Lynch.

Chainsaw was an old dream of Ronan’s, but Matthew was older. An accident. Ronan had been a toddler. He hadn’t even realized it at the time; he’d just accepted the new presence of a surprise baby brother who, unlike Declan, was nearly always happy. He’d loved him at once. Everyone loved Matthew at once. Ronan didn’t like to think about it, but it was possible that this lovability had been dreamt into him.

Here was the reason why Bryde’s game would be worth the hassle if he knew how to wake dead dreamer’s dreams: Matthew would go to sleep with the rest of Ronan’s dreams if Ronan died.

There wasn’t enough confession time in the Catholic Church to make Ronan feel good about the weight of dreaming another human into being.

Matthew didn’t know that he was a dream.

“Okay,” Ronan said. The awful smell was building; it was nearly to the breathe-through-your-mouth place. “I—”

Abruptly, the unpleasant smell took concrete form as Gasoline, the minivan-sized boar, rematerialized. Ronan was knocked from his feet. His phone skirled merrily across the gravel and dirt. The cow flitted into the air, rope flapping like a kite tail.

Ronan spewed every single swear he’d ever learned. The cow, eyes closed, oblivious, innocent, gently drifted toward the sun.

“Chainsaw!” Ronan shouted, although he wasn’t immediately sure what words he thought would follow that one. “The—the—krek!”

Chainsaw winged out of the barn, circling him and barking gleefully, “Kerah!”

“No!” He pointed at the cow, which had now floated to the level of the barn roof. “The krek!”

Chainsaw flapped upward to circle the cow ascendant, looking at it curiously. What a fun game, her body language suggested. What an excellent cow, what strong decisions it had made this morning, how delightful that it had taken to the air like she had. With several cheerful barks, she swirled close before wheeling back playfully.