The Dream Thieves

“Have I ever lied to you?” Greenmantle demanded. “No! I haven’t lied to anybody, and yet, today, everybody is just insistent on — you know, why didn’t you just wait four months and tell me you couldn’t find it? Why didn’t you make a better lie?”

The Gray Man said, “I prefer the truth. The energy anomalies follow the course of the fault and escape through the established bedrock in certain areas. I’ve photographed some of the abnormalities in plant growth these energy leakages have caused. The power company has been battling surges connected to the leakages for quite some time. And activity has only intensified because of an earthquake that happened earlier this year. There’s full documentation of that available on online newspapers. I can walk you through it when I return the electronics.”

He stopped. He waited.

There was a brief moment where he thought: He will believe me.

Greenmantle hung up on him.

The Gray Man and Maura sat quietly and looked at the large, spreading beech tree that took up most of the backyard. A mourning dove called from it, persistent and dolorous. The Gray Man’s hand hung down and Maura stroked it.

“This is the ten of swords,” he guessed.

Maura kissed the back of his hand. “You’re going to have to be brave.”

The Gray Man said, “I’m always brave.”

She said, “Braver than that.”

47

Gansey had only a few seconds of warning before the Camaro hit him.

He was sitting at a stoplight near Monmouth Manufacturing when he heard the familiar, anemic sound of the Pig’s horn honking. Possibly he had imagined it. As he blinked out the windows and the rearview mirror, the Suburban shook slightly.

Something had pushed it from behind.

The Pig’s horn quacked again. Rolling down the window, Gansey craned his head out to see behind the Suburban.

He heard Ronan’s hysterical laugh before he managed to glimpse the Pig. And then the engine revved up and Ronan nudged the Camaro into the Suburban’s rear bumper again.

It was about the sort of homecoming he should have expected after the disastrous weekend.

“HEY, OLD MAN!”

“Ronan!” shouted Gansey. He had no other words. Wrecked. The quarter panel he could see looked fine; he didn’t want to see the rest. He wanted to preserve the idea of the Camaro, whole and entire, for a few moments longer.

“Pull over!” Ronan howled back. There was still rather a lot of a laugh to his voice. “Mennonites! Now!”

“I don’t want to see it!” Gansey shouted back. The light turned green above him. He didn’t move.

“Oh, you really do!”

He really didn’t, but he still did as Ronan asked, pulling through the light and making the next right into Henrietta Farm and Garden (and Home), a complex of shops largely staffed by Mennonites. It was a fine one-stop destination for vegetables, antiques, doghouses, Western wear, military surplus, Civil War bullets, chili dogs, and custom chandeliers. He was aware of eyes from the outdoor vegetable stands as he parked the Suburban as far away from the buildings as possible. As he climbed out, the Pig thundered into the spot next to him.

And there wasn’t a thing wrong with it.

Gansey pressed a finger to his temple, struggling to reconcile the texts from earlier with what he was seeing. It was possible Kavinsky had just been jerking his chain.

But still, here was Ronan, climbing from the driver’s seat, which was impossible. The keys remained in Gansey’s bag.

Ronan leapt from the car.

And this, too, was bewildering. Because he was grinning. Euphoric. It wasn’t that Gansey hadn’t seen Ronan happy since Niall Lynch died. It was just that there had always been something cruel and conditional about it.

Not this Ronan.

He seized Gansey’s arm. “Look at it, man! Look at it!”

Gansey was looking. He was staring, first at the Camaro and then at Ronan. Then back again. He kept rinsing and repeating and nothing made any more sense. He stepped slowly around the car, looking for a hammered-out dent or a scratch. “What’s going on? I thought it was wrecked —”

“It was,” Ronan said. “I totally was.” He released Gansey’s arm, but only to punch it. “I’m sorry, man. It was a shitty thing for me to do.”

Gansey’s eyes were wide. He hadn’t thought he would live long enough to hear Ronan apologize for anything. He realized, belatedly, that Ronan was still talking. “What? What did you say?”

“I said,” Ronan said, and now he grabbed Gansey’s shoulders, both of them, and shook them theatrically, “I said I dreamt this car. I did this! That’s from my head. It’s exactly the same, man. I did it. I know how my dad got everything he wanted and I know how to control my dreams and I know what’s wrong with Cabeswater.”

Gansey covered both his eyes with his hands. He thought his brain was going to melt.

Ronan, however, was in no mood for introspection, his or anyone else’s. He ripped Gansey’s hands from his face. “Sit in it! Tell me it’s any different!”

He pushed Gansey down into the driver’s seat and draped Gansey’s lifeless arms over the steering wheel. He considered the image before him as if analyzing a museum piece. Then he reached in over the steering wheel and snatched a pair of sunglasses that were sitting on the dash.

White, plastic, lenses dark as hell. Joseph Kavinsky’s — or maybe a copy. Who was to say what was real anymore?

Ronan put the white sunglasses onto Gansey’s face and regarded him once more. His face went somber for half a second, and then it dissolved into an absolutely wonderful and fearless laugh. The old Ronan Lynch’s laugh. No, it was better than that one, because this new one had just a hint of darkness beneath it. This Ronan knew there was crap in the world, but he was laughing anyway.

Gansey couldn’t help laughing along, rather more breathless. Somehow he had gone from such a terrible place to such a joyful one. He wasn’t sure that the feeling would be so profound if he hadn’t braced every bone in his body for an argument with Ronan. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, tell me.”

Ronan told him.

“Kavinsky?”

Ronan explained.

Gansey rested his cheek against the hot steering wheel. That, too, was comforting. He should have never gone without this car. He was never getting out of it again.

Joseph Kavinsky. Unbelievable.

“And what’s wrong with Cabeswater?”

Ronan shielded his eyes. “Me. Well, Kavinsky, actually. We’re taking all the energy from the line when we dream.”