Mister Impossible - Maggie Stiefvater (ereader manga TXT) 📗

small desk covered with tubes of poster paints and cheap brushes. There were a few pieces of rippled paper there that had been painted on, and some child had painted the top of the desk instead. Hennessy respected that child.

With a shiver, Hennessy told her dreamt phone to call Jordan.

It rang for nearly a minute, and then:

“Jordan Hennessy,” Jordan said politely, not recognizing the caller ID. “Hello?”

Jordan’s voice hit her like a sack of stones.

Hennessy’s best forgery. Jordan, by way of Hennessy. All those years together. All the other girls, dead. Why hadn’t Hennessy called her before now? How had she forgotten how Jordan was the only thing that ever made this feeling inside Hennessy go away? This awful dread, this feeling of the Lace, even when she was awake.

Hennessy hadn’t spoken yet. She didn’t know what to say.

On the other side of the line, a bland voice sounded in the background. “I’m getting it to go—it’s faster that way, even with the walk. Do you want baba ghanoush or no?”

Declan Lynch.

Declan Lynch.

Why was she surprised to hear his voice? She’d known Jordan had left in his car, weeks and weeks before.

Jordan’s words were slightly muffled as she turned from the phone. “If you’re paying, yes. Get me every side dish they have.” Then, back to the phone, “Sorry, who’s this? I don’t know you’re coming through very well. I can’t hear you.”

This voice, the one she was using on the phone, was a very different voice than the one she’d just used for Declan Lynch. She’d used her outside, professional voice to talk to the phone, her inside, real voice to talk to Declan Lynch. Hennessy and her girls were the only ones who used to get the second one. They’d been the only ones who were important.

Hennessy’s cheeks felt hot.

“Hello?” Jordan said. Then, to Declan, “No, a crank caller, I guess. Or a bad connection. One doesn’t like to assume malice.”

“Safer to assume,” Declan said drily, and Jordan’s laugh faded as she pulled the phone away from her head.

Hennessy hung up.

She sat back on the mattress.

She let herself think it. This is what she’s always wanted.

It wasn’t that Hennessy had wanted Jordan to be unhappy in her absence. After all, Hennessy was the one who’d insisted Jordan go with Declan in the first place—right? Her memories were muddy. She could hear a little voice suggesting Jordan had actually come up with the idea, but carefully worded it so Hennessy would think it was hers. Was that true?

She thought about going upstairs to find Ronan. He would remember. He was there that night.

But finding Ronan meant finding Bryde, too, because they were together in the bunk bedroom, and also because the two of them were inseparable. And Bryde would just try to spin her current misery into a lesson. Hennessy didn’t think she could take any more lessons.

The basement was cold. She pulled up the sheet around her to cover her shoulders and, just like that, was transported to her memory in Jay’s studio. Little ghost.

What if Jordan stopped loving her? What if she’d never loved her, only needed her? What if Hennessy had lost the only real thing in her life by running off to chase dreams with Bryde and Ronan Lynch?

What was she doing here?

They weren’t a company of three dreamers. Bryde and Ronan were one thing. Hennessy was something else.

Hennessy was so tired of being alone.

She was so tired.

She turned the phone over in her hands. Even the phone was a reminder of how little she belonged here. If not for Ronan, it wouldn’t be a phone in her hands, it would be the Lace, just like at Rhiannon Martin’s farm. Angrily, she tapped through the options, looking to see what her subconscious and Ronan’s subconscious had dreamt into it. Contact numbers. Speakerphone. Text messaging.

Timer.

Before Ronan and Bryde, Hennessy had always set a timer before she fell asleep. Twenty minutes. That was the longest she could sleep before starting to dream. Eventually she had to set the timer while she was awake, too, because it turned out that sleeping without dreaming eventually left one prone to drifting off even while painting or driving.

This phone’s timer had only one setting. Twenty minutes.

Was it her subconscious or Ronan’s that had guessed she might come looking for it at some point? Which one of them hadn’t trusted her? She wondered if she could go back to that life. Everything seemed imaginary with that little sleep. Surely it had been worse than this reality.

Surely.

Hennessy tried not to think about the sound of Jordan’s voice.

She tried not to think of the sound of her voice talking to Declan.

Little ghost. Hennessy was haunting Jordan’s life. She knew which of them was the more vital Jordan Hennessy.

The hideous feeling grew and grew in her. She knew if she went to Ronan and Bryde, they’d whisk her off into a dream full of impossible things, thinking this would remind her of the joy of dreaming. They never considered how it only reminded her of the joy of their dreaming. No, she needed to deal with this herself.

She just wanted to put this feeling down for a few minutes. Everyone else in the world could sleep it off.

Not Hennessy.

It was always the Lace. Always going to be the Lace.

Closing her eyes, Hennessy thought back to that last time she’d seen Jordan. She ignored the little mean voice. She was sure Jordan hadn’t wanted to leave Hennessy. She was sure it had been Hennessy’s idea to send her off with Declan for safekeeping. She was sure Jordan had believed in her.

She was sure.

Shrugging off the sheet, Hennessy climbed off the mattress. She didn’t set the timer. Instead, she asked her phone to show her one of John White Alexander’s paintings. He was one of their favorites. Jordan and Hennessy. Hennessy and Jordan.

She went to the desk covered with art supplies, squeezed some paint out, and picked up one of the brushes.

Then she began to do one