Back at Monmouth, Ronan Lynch dreamt.
The dream was a memory. Summer-green Barns, lush and messy with insects and humidity. Water fountained up from a sprinkler nestled in the grass. Matthew ran through it in swim trunks. Young. Pudgy. Curls bleached white from the sun. He was laughing in a rolling, infectious way. A second later, another boy hurtled after him, tackling him without hesitation. Both boys rolled, covered with wet pieces of grass.
This other boy stood. He was taller, sinuous, self-possessed. His hair was long and dark and curled, nearly to his chin.
This was Ronan, before.
Here was a third boy, leaping tidily over the sprinkler. Jack be nimble, jack be quick.
Ha, you thought I wouldn’t, Gansey said, resting his palms on his bare knees.
Gansey! This was Aurora, already laughing as she said his name. The same wild laughter as Matthew. She directed the sprinkler right at him, soaking him immediately.
Ronan, before, regarded Ronan, after.
He felt the moment he realized he was dreaming – he heard his electronica pounding in his ears – and he knew he could wake himself. But this memory, this perfect memory … he became that Ronan, before, or the Ronan, before, became the Ronan, after.
The sun kept getting brighter. Brighter.
Brighter.
It was a white-hot electric eye. The world was seared into light, or shadow, nothing in between. Gansey shielded his eyes. Someone emerged from the house.
Declan. Something in his hand. Black in this harsh light.
A mask.
Round eyes, gaping smile.
Ronan remembered nothing of the mask but horror. Something about it was terrible, but he couldn’t remember what right now. Every thought was burning out of him in this nuclear waste of a memory.
The eldest Lynch brother strode out, purposefully, shoes squelching in the soaked lawn.
The dream shuddered.
Declan began to run, right at Matthew.
“Orphan Girl!” Ronan shouted, scrambling to his feet. “Cabeswater! Tir e e’lintes curralo! ”
The dream shuddered again. An apparition of a forest superimposed over all of it, a frame snuck into a movie reel.
Ronan pelted across the sick white grass.
Declan reached Matthew first. The youngest Lynch brother tilted his head back to him, trustful, and that was the nightmare.
Grow up, asshole, Declan told Ronan. He slapped the mask on Matthew’s face.
That was the nightmare.
Ronan snatched Matthew from Declan; the dream heaved again. He had the familiar form of his younger brother in his arms, but it was too late. The primitive mask was an effortless part of Matthew’s face.
A raven flew overhead and vanished mid-sky.
It’ll be OK, Ronan told his brother. You can live like that. You can just never take it off.
Matthew’s eyes were unafraid in the wide eyeholes. That was the nightmare. That was the nightmare That was the
Declan tore the mask off.
A tree behind him oozed black.
Matthew’s face was lines and dashes. It was not bloody; it was not horrific; it was simply not a face, and so it was terrible. He was not a person, he was just a drawn thing.
Ronan’s chest was shaking in airless, silent sobs. He had not cried like that for so long —
The dream shuddered. And now it was not only Matthew who had fallen apart; everything was undoing. Aurora’s hands were pointed at each other, all fingers bent backwards to her chest – lines, unmade. Behind them, Gansey was on his knees, his eyes dead.
Ronan’s throat was raw. I’ll do anything! I’ll do anything! I’ll do anythi
It was unmaking everything Ronan loved.
Please
In the Aglionby dorms, Matthew Lynch woke. When he stretched, his head hit the wall; he’d rolled right up against it in the night. It was only when his roommate, Stephen Lee, made a noise of grotesque frustration that he realized he was awake because his phone was ringing.
He pawed it to his ear. “Yah?”
There was no reply. He blinked at the screen to see who was calling, then put it back to his ear. Sleepily, he whispered, “Ronan?”
“Where are you? In your room?”
“Dur.”
“I’m serious.”
“Hur.”
“Matthew.”
“Yah, yah, I’m in my room. SL hates you. It’s like two or sumthin’. Whatdya want?”
Ronan didn’t reply right away. Matthew couldn’t see him, but he was curled on his bed back at Monmouth, forehead resting on his knees, one hand gripping the back of his own skull, phone pressed to his ear. “Just to know you’re all right.”
“ ’m all right.”
“Go to sleep, then.”
“Still sleeping now.”
The brothers hung up.
Outside of Henrietta, nestled on the ley line, something dark watched all of this, everything in the Henrietta night, and said, I’m awake I’m awake I’m awake.