Call Down the Hawk

by Maggie Stiefvater

  The bed itself was on a pedestal accessible by marble steps on three sides. It was barely made: someone had spread two comforters on top of the bare pillow-top mattress.

  Hennessy was a small dark smudge in this shapeless nest.

  She was neither sleeping nor cussing. She was quietly crying. Not sorrowful sobs, but small, splintered noises of pain. One hand covered her mouth, as if she didn’t want even the empty room to hear her.

  He wasn’t sure if she’d heard him come in.

  “Is that bullshit?” Ronan asked.

  The crying stopped.

  Her eyes came open. Focused on him. They were dark, intelligent, skeptical.

  “It’s just me,” Ronan said. “Your girls are in the living room. So if it’s bullshit, you can cut the act now.”

  Hennessy sat up. It appeared to take a great deal of effort, particularly to do it without making a sound. Once she had finished it, she took a moment to pull herself together. She didn’t look angry about being accused of putting on an act. She looked appraising.

  She asked, “Why are we having this conversation?”

  Ronan handed her the palm cross he’d taken from The Dark Lady’s shore. Hennessy’s fingers shook as she held it. Her knuckles were white. She said nothing. She ran her thumb across the papery knot that held the cross together.

  “I knew there had to be another one,” she said, her voice small and tight. “Statistically. And here you are, aren’t you? I killed the latest one, didn’t I? I drowned her.”

  He just held her gaze.

  She nodded a little, bitterly. “And you gave them a little run round the showroom. Were they impressed?”

  He shrugged a little as if to say, who wouldn’t be.

  “And you didn’t drown any of them with that ocean,” Hennessy said. It wasn’t a question. “Because you’re not a rubbish dreamer. You’re good at it.”

  He shrugged a little again.

  “And now they’ve sent you in here to ask you to save me,” Hennessy guessed.

  “I know you’re lying to them. I just can’t figure out why,” Ronan said. “Is it that you want them to feel like shit? Do you get off on them feeling guilty?”

  “My poor girls,” Hennessy said. She put her fingers to the tattoo on her throat, gingerly. She had one more flower there than all the other girls had in their choker, and it was a little brighter than all the others. When she touched it, he saw pinprick bits of blood well up. Not just within the shape of the new flower, like a fresh tattoo, but all across her throat and her cheeks, as if her skin was permeable. Her eyes rolled back.

  This wasn’t fake.

  As she slumped toward the edge of the bed, Ronan vaulted forward to catch her. He propped her against the headboard as the expression returned to her face. He saw now that the comforter beneath her was smeared with blood. Not a lot. But enough.

  Her phone was faceup beside her. It ticked down a timer. Eleven minutes.

  Even now she’d been keeping herself from dreaming again.

  “So it really is hurting you,” he said. Maybe he was wrong, he thought. Maybe his experience of dreaming copies wasn’t universal. Maybe there was a cost to copying yourself more than once that he hadn’t experienced, even if he couldn’t think of why it would be true. Maybe—

  “That part is true,” Hennessy said. “I really am dying.”

  Ronan left her there in the bed and rummaged in the bathroom for towels. The lights were all burned out and there were no windows, so he had to make do with the roll of toilet paper he could glimpse in the light through the open door.

  He returned with it. She took it and dabbed her strange, damaged skin.

  “Dying, but not from making copies,” he said. “Why make them go to all the work of hunting down The Dark Lady, then?”

  “It’s not the copies killing me,” Hennessy said. “It’s the dream itself.”

  “No,” Ronan said.

  “Yes, Ronan Lynch,” Hennessy said. “You’re gonna have to trust me on this one. This is the truth. If I could change my dream, I wouldn’t be dying.”

  “It did change your dream, though. You dreamt an ocean.”

  “I dreamt that cursed ocean and the same dream I always do,” she said. “And look at me: another step, step, step, waltzing toward death.”

  He puzzled this out. “But if the copies aren’t killing you, how do you know how close you are?”

  She gestured to that choker of flowers around her throat, careful not to touch it. “I’ve got my countdown, don’t I?”

  It is not as easy as you think, Bryde had said.

  Ronan frowned at her. He tried to imagine if he could dream her something to conclusively alter her dreams. The Dark Lady’s spell was strong, though, and if she’d managed to dream her recurring dream even over the top of The Dark Lady’s seashore, she needed something incredibly powerful. And with space for only two more flowers around her neck, there wasn’t room for error. Perhaps he could dream something that would eat her dreams as soon as she had them. It was hard once one got into the very abstract dreams; they sometimes had unexpected side effects, like a fairy bargain from an old story. He didn’t want something that would eat all her dreams and her thoughts as well, or something that would eat all her dreams and then her living dreams, too. Perhaps—

  “Ronan—it is Ronan, right? Lynch?” Hennessy broke into his thoughts. “Brother of Lynch, Declan, son of Lynch, Niall? Yeah, so I thought. I’m gonna give you a very solid piece of cheddar to chew. I can tell you’re looking at me and thinking you can fix this. You’re looking at me and thinking you’re a big-shot dreamer”—she wiggled the palm cross at him—“and you can make this work. You’re running those numbers of how to get it done before I die. But here’s the thing, Ronan Lynch. I’ve killed so many people. You wouldn’t believe how much blood these hands have on them. You’ve seen my girls. Their blood’s on my hands, too, when I die. I can’t change any of that. But I can stop you from being just more blood that won’t wash out. Get out of this cursed place while you can.”

  “You don’t care about me,” Ronan said. “You just met me.”

  Her eyes glittered.

  “So you don’t care if I get dragged into something.”

  Her timer went off. Automatically, she thumbed it to begin counting down again. Twenty minutes. Who could live like that? She had to be tired every minute of every day of her life. It had to feel like she was sleepwalking. Nothing mattered to Ronan when he hadn’t slept, because nothing felt true.

  Every minute of every day of every week of every month of every year, that had been her life.

  The girls said Hennessy didn’t give a toss about anything. How could she?

  “So sending me off is about you, not me,” Ronan said. “What are you afraid of? What is this dream that’s killing you?”

  There was no trace of the spoiling, catty rock star the other girls had painted large in their stories. Whatever this thing was, it loomed over her, bigger than the need to impress him. She was hiding from it. He found that cowardice far more acceptable than the lying. Some things took time to look in the eye.

  “If I haven’t told them for a decade,” Hennessy said, “I’m not sodding telling you.”

  Because Ronan wouldn’t pick up his phone, because nothing had changed, because it was always Declan being responsible at the end of the day, Declan went to Great Falls himself.

  It was a wide-awake day, too bright and too warm for a Virginia November, the cloudless sky a sick, hazed blue. Declan had to wind around strolling locals and foreign tourists as he made the familiar walk along the canal. His pockets were ten dollars lighter from the parking fee; how much money had he spent coming to this place on Matthew’s behalf? Tourists glanced at him as he walked, and he knew he was conspicuous in his suit. It made him invisible downtown, but not here.

  Matthew wasn’t at the first viewing area, nor the second, nor the third. There were only old folks with their dogs and chattering tourists askin
g Declan to take a photo for them.

  The canal walk was ever so long when one was looking for a brother who had to be caught somewhere along its length. On past visits, Declan had walked for nearly an hour before finding Matthew. He didn’t have that kind of time today. His work might have been torpedoed, but he still had a chance of making his adviser meeting, and, after that, his volunteer hours at the gallery.

  “Can you make a photo?” a lady asked Declan in accented English. “Of us?”

  “I can’t,” Declan said. “I’m looking for my brother.”

  She became solicitous. “Do you have a photo?”

  He did.

  “Good-looking boy,” said the woman’s companion.

  “I saw him,” said the other woman. “Number one deck. Number one. He was looking at the falls so nice. Now can you make a photo?”

  He did. He returned to the first observation deck. Matthew still wasn’t there; no one was. Declan leaned on the railing long enough to text his adviser that he had to reschedule again. Rescheduling again wasn’t good; it was not invisible. The falls roared. Dry leaves rattled. Voices lifted from the trail. He ate three antacids. He gave himself a little pep talk. So he was failing as a student and as an intern, he thought, but at least he had shepherded Ronan to another birthday alive. And in a month he would have managed to get Matthew to eighteen, all the Lynch brothers surviving to adulthood. Surely that was worth something.

  Leaning on the edge of the observation deck, a dark assemblage in the nearby trees caught Declan’s eye. He studied it for a long minute, trying to decide if it was a collection of dried leaves or something else, and then he climbed into the woods to get a closer look, the underbrush snarling at his suit pants.

  It was Ronan’s damn bird.

  Chainsaw, the raven. It could have been another raven, of course, but what were the odds that another raven would be here where Ronan’s other dream came to stare at the water? With a glance behind him to make sure he wasn’t being observed by any tourists, he stepped closer, using trees to keep his footing; the ground sloped precipitously down to the river.

  “Bird,” he hissed. No response. “Chainsaw.”

  Now Declan saw something else on the branches around her: several trembling blue moths, a handful of jet-black hornets, two mice, an improbably colored skunk, and one of those damned double-sided murder crabs that he’d had to haul out of Adam Parrish’s dorm.

  A confluence of Ronan’s dreams at the riverside.

  Declan narrowed his eyes. He tilted his head back to look at the other dreams. It was impossible to tell if the hornets or the moths or the murder crab were distressed, but the mice and the skunk looked as out of sorts as Chainsaw.

  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.”

  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?”


  Ronan had read the texts. “It wasn’t like it was a big surprise where he was going to end up. He always goes to the falls, to the exact same place at the falls. Overlook One, rinse, repeat. My phone was in the car, man, stand the fuck down.”

  “I had work,” Declan said. “I had appointments. This created a situation that put me into a difficult place.”

  A prime Declanism.

  “Created a situation,” echoed Ronan.

  “Where were you really?” Declan asked. When Ronan just raised an eyebrow, Declan said, “Fine, don’t tell me. I assume you’re just blowing off everything I told you about not chasing trouble, because that’s what you do, isn’t it? I keep my head down and you dream up a fucking skywriter that says kill me please.”

  “Goes to show,” Ronan said, “you don’t need a priest in the house for a sermon. We still hitting the zoo?”

  Declan, to Ronan’s surprise, grabbed both of Ronan’s arms and propelled him to the doorway of the nave via biceps. Ronan could feel his brother’s fingers digging into him. It had been a long time since either of them had landed a fist on each other’s faces, but Ronan remembered it in the pressure of those fingertips.

  Declan hissed in his ear, “You see that kid there? Head down? You know him, right, your baby brother? I don’t know where the hell you really were, but while you were there, that kid was putting the pieces together. While you were out doing fuck all with yourself, he figured out you dreamt him. So no, we are not. Still. Hitting. The. Zoo.”

  Declan released him with such force that it was as if he were throwing Ronan away from himself. “I’m going to the car to put out some fires. You can go look him in the eye now and be a fucking smartass if you want.”

  Ronan was left standing looking into the tiny green nave at his little brother. He could now see that he was seated in a very un-Matthew-like position. Head down. Hands folded over the back of his neck.