Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(82)

Which meant Matthew might be in the same condition.

Declan searched ever-widening circles, careful to not lose his footing on the steep hillside. The Potomac roared down below.

It didn’t take him long to spy a splash of white: Matthew’s school uniform shirt. He tried to move too fast, slid, and caught himself on a tree. He edged the last few feet more slowly.

Matthew sat on the jutted lip of a lichen-covered boulder with his arms wrapped around his legs. He stared at the water. His lips were parted a little, too, and his breathing was fast and shallow like Chainsaw’s. He looked dreamy, feverish.

Declan thought, Fuck you, Dad, because he couldn’t blame Ronan for Matthew—he loved Matthew too much. He had to blame Niall for keeping the dreaming so secret that he never taught them anything about the rules of it.

He knelt beside Matthew and laid his hand on his cheek. He wasn’t actually feverish. “Matthew.”

“I waited,” Matthew said.

“They called me from the school.”

“I felt tired,” Matthew said.

“Tired people sleep.”

“Hungry, then.”

“Hungry people eat.”

Matthew leaned heavily against Declan, like he would’ve when he was small. Declan wasn’t a huggable Lynch, but Matthew had never cared. He’d hugged him anyway. Matthew murmured, “Hungry for this.”

For the river. Always hungry for the river.

Fuck you, Declan thought prayerfully.

“Come on,” he said, guiding Matthew up. “We have to meet Ronan for his birthday.”

“I forgot,” Matthew said, with a sort of awe. He muttered something else, but trailed off at the end.

On their way back up through the steep woods, Declan paused by Ronan’s raven. It didn’t feel right to just leave her, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to handle her, either. She was a dustier, realer creature than he normally preferred to handle, particularly in his suit. Declan’s annoyance at the raven’s dirtiness and his annoyance at Ronan not picking up his phone battled with the knowledge of how Ronan would feel if something happened to this bird.

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Matthew said to himself. He was squeezing the thumb of one hand with the fingers of his other, absently swapping back from one to another, thoughtlessly self-soothing. “I can’t believe anything would make me forget Ronan’s birthday.”

Declan, finally resolved, stretched up and tapped on the raven’s shaggy legs until she half-flapped, half-fell into his arms. She lay there, feathers askance, beak slightly parted.

“What’s wrong with her?” Matthew asked.

Something about Matthew’s voice made Declan look sharply to him.

His youngest brother’s expression was very un-Matthew-like. Eyes tight. Brows low. Intense. Pensive. His blue Lynch eyes were fixed at a point directly past Declan; he was looking right at the other limp dream creatures.

Shit, thought Declan. He’d never thought it would happen. He had no road map for the journey after this.

“Same thing as me,” Matthew said flatly.

Fuck you, Declan thought miserably.

“If I was Dad’s, I’d be asleep,” Matthew said. “So I must be one of Ronan’s.”





52

St. Eithne was a weird little church, Ronan thought. Everything was small and green in it. Tiny green shutters on the tiny windows of the lobby, tiny green door to get in. Tiny green rugs on the worn old lobby floor. Tiny green banners that said ST. EITHNE 1924 hung on the walls. Tiny little pews with deep green pads on the kneelers. Tiny stained-glass windows acted out watery green Stations of the Cross around the church. A tiny Mary, tinted green by the stained-glass windows, a tiny Jesus behind the altar, colorless and sanguine except for his green thorn crown. A tiny green-painted ceiling that imposed itself from above.

Ronan was just dipping his fingers in a tiny font of greenish holy water when Declan grabbed his arm.

“Where were you?” Declan demanded.

“Hey now, psycho,” Ronan said, catching a glimpse of Matthew’s golden curls in the front row of the church right before Declan hauled him back on his heels into the lobby. “Someone didn’t take their pills today. Happy birthday to you, too.”

“Happy,” spat Declan, “birthday.”

At Declan’s raised voice, Ronan glanced around, but the church seemed to be empty. Not much call for a church for tiny green mermaids on a weekday afternoon during prime rush hour, he guessed. When the boys came on Sunday, the building was always full of little old ladies and men with hair tinged green by the light through the stained-glass windows, all presided over by ancient Father O’Hanlon in deep green vestments that seemed so strengthened with body odor that they should’ve been able to stand up even without Father O’Hanlon inside them. Ronan spent most of confession warring over whether or not he should confess how odiferous the process was.

Declan asked again, “Where the hell were you?”

Ronan wouldn’t lie, so he gave Declan a partial truth. “Adam came.”

“Today?”

“He left today, yeah.”

“I needed you,” Declan said. “It was an emergency.”

“A zoo emergency.”

“Did you even read the texts I sent you? Did you listen to the voicemail?”