Rocks Fall Everyone Dies

by Lindsay Ribar

  “You’re right, Aspen. I should have taken my nonexistent car instead.”

  The narrowed eyes. The sarcastic tone. The wry smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She suddenly reminded me a whole lot of Brandy—except annoying instead of hot. Which made it that much harder to say what I had to say next:

  “You think maybe you should spend the night?”

  The air between us seemed to go taut. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to flirt again,” she said, except this time it came out uncertain instead of sarcastic.

  “No. And I wasn’t flirting before, either,” I said. “Anyway, I’ve got a girlfriend now.”

  After a few moments of staring at me, Leah said, “If you’re telling the truth, and you didn’t steal his sight, then what is it? Just a coincidence?”

  “It has to be, right? I did the ritual the same as always.” I held my hand up like I was in court. “I swear, if anything happened differently, it wasn’t me who did it.”

  She bit her lip. Glanced over at the window again—just in time for what looked like an entire tree branch to ricochet off the window with a clunk. “Yeah, I probably should stay over. Thanks for offering.”

  “I’d say stay in one of the guest rooms, but my friends are in them right now.” I smiled and corrected myself: “My friend and my girlfriend. But here, you take the bed and I’ll—”

  “No way,” she said abruptly, eyes widening. “Sorry, I know it’s dumb, but … that’s Heather’s bed.”

  “So?”

  “So you don’t think it’s weird? Sleeping in Heather’s bed when she’s … and with all her sheets and stuff still on it?”

  Ah.

  “I’m sure they washed the sheets. Plus it’s been five months.”

  “Yeah,” said Leah slowly. “It’s only been five months.”

  Right. She’d just found out like two seconds ago, where I’d had five months to process it. Not that much processing had to be done, since I’d barely known Heather. Usually, when I’d come up here for the summer before this year, it was to complete the triad for a little bit while Heather took a vacation. We’d intersect for a few hours here and there, but never long enough to actually spend time together.

  But it was past two in the morning, and the adrenaline rush I’d gotten from Leah waking me up had long since faded. I was very, very tired.

  “Well, hey,” I said, “if you want the floor, I’m not gonna argue.”

  BEFORE

  I remember thinking it was weird that Dad came to meet me at the door when I got home from Theo’s place. He never did that. But that one random evening, more than a month after Mom had left, he did. He watched as I took off my shoes and put my umbrella on the drying mat, and he said, “Your mom emailed.”

  My insides did a weird flippy thing. “Oh yeah? What’d she want?”

  “To know if you’re okay,” said Dad. “Apparently she’s been trying to get in touch with you? And you’ve been ignoring her?”

  This was very true. It was the end of spring break, right in the middle of March, and aside from the one time I’d picked up the phone and she’d said that weird thing about Heather’s funeral, I’d been ignoring all her calls, all her emails, all her texts.

  “I guess,” I said.

  Dad nodded. “Well. That’s understandable, I suppose. And it’s your decision, obviously. But your mother does have a right to know that you’re still alive.”

  “Obviously I’m alive,” I said, heading into the kitchen for some water. “Doesn’t she think you’d tell her if I died?”

  Dad sighed. “That’s not the point, son.”

  “Then what is?”

  “If you’re not going to talk to her, at least—I don’t know—update your profile once in a while? So she can see it?”

  I thought about that. It was true that I hadn’t posted anything online in a while. But who could blame me? Everything in my life basically sucked right now, and I didn’t want to be one of those douche bags who always posted shit like People are the worst or Hate everything right now, don’t even ask or whatever, in hopes of getting some internet sympathy. Brandy’s friend Lauren did that all the time, and it drove me nuts.

  Still, Dad had a point. I didn’t want to talk to Mom, but I also didn’t want her worrying about me.

  So I pulled out my phone, snapped a picture of the glass I’d just filled from the tap, and posted it with the caption, Dinner = one pint of pure vodka.

  “There, happy now?” I asked, showing Dad my phone.

  He peered closer to read the caption, then laughed softly. “I just hope Child Services knows you’re joking.”

  I shrugged. “If they don’t, I’ll steal their memories. Whatever.”

  “There you go,” said Dad, shaking his head. “Anyway, speaking of dinner, did the Valdezes feed you?”

  “Yup,” I said. It had been spaghetti night at Theo’s place, and Mr. Valdez made the best garlic bread in history. So obviously I’d said yes when they’d invited me to stay.

  “In that case, in honor of your pint glass, how about joining your old man for a nightcap?” I gave him a blank look, and he clarified: “A drink. I just picked up a new Scotch that I’ve been wanting to try.”

  Scotch? I’d never had Scotch. Beer, sure. Fruity mixed drinks, sure. The cheapest liquor my fake ID could get me, sure. But never anything as classy as Scotch.

  (Also, I was kind of unsure what to make of the question. Was this a peace offering after the other night, when I’d stayed out too late without calling? Had my dad forgotten that I wasn’t legal? Did he just miss having another adult in the house?)

  “Um,” I said.

  “Come on, try it,” he said. “If you hate it, you can have something else.”

  As it turned out, I actually kind of liked Scotch. It tasted like fireplaces smelled—in a good way. After I told my dad as much, he clapped me on the shoulder, steered us into the living room, and turned on the TV. He flipped through the channels until he found some old show about mobsters, and we watched an entire episode, sipping our drinks the whole way through.

  “You see?” Dad muted the TV. His voice had gone a little blurry. That was fine. I felt blurry, too.

  “See what?” I said.

  “Father-son time,” said Dad, gesturing to me, then to himself. “It’s important. And you’d’ve missed out on it, if you’d picked your mom.”

  “Picked?” I frowned. “There was nothing to pick. She left.”

  “Ehhh!” He gave an expansively dismissive wave of his hand. “Here, let me get the bottle. I’ll top us off.”

  As he went into the kitchen, I thought about what my mom had said before she’d left.

  If you ever want to leave, too …

  If you want to get out of all this …

  I can help you …

  Dad came back with the Scotch bottle. He tipped more fireplace-smelling liquid into my glass, then into his, and then he clinked his glass against mine. “To father-son time,” he said.

  “Cheers,” I said, because that’s what you were supposed to say. And, yeah, because I was pretty sure Mom was out of her mind. I didn’t want to leave, and I didn’t need her help. I had everything I needed, right here.

  I got Leah a giant pile of spare blankets from the linen closet, plus a pillow. Then she made me swear that I wouldn’t steal anything from her while she slept. I swore. And I meant it, too.

  When I woke to the warm smell of bacon cooking downstairs, and the sounds of rain on the roof and Leah snoring softly on the floor, it took me longer than it should have to remember what’d happened the night before. Probably because I hadn’t gotten much sleep, thanks to Leah’s breakin.

  And when the pieces clicked together, two facts came into very sharp focus in my sleep-deprived brain:

  First: Nobody was allowed to find out about Leah being here. Definitely not Aunt Holly or Grandma, since they hated her, but preferably not Theo or Brandy, either. Trying to explain her presence to them would just
be awkward.

  Second: I needed to shower. Immediately. And probably shave, too. I hadn’t done that in a while, and somehow the presence of an almost-stranger in my room turned that simple fact into a problem that required immediate solving.

  Right.

  Taking care not to wake Leah as I crawled out of bed, I dug out some fresh clothes, then closed the door behind me as I left. I could hear the faint sounds of Aunt Holly and Grandma talking downstairs. Over in the east wing, though, it was still quiet. Both guest room doors were closed. Brandy and Theo were still sleeping.

  Once I was safe in the bathroom, I ran a quick finger over the stubble that had accumulated on my chin over the past few days. More than a few, actually. It had been at least a week since I’d last shaved, and the result didn’t add up to much more than a normal guy’s five o’clock shadow. My dad, who could grow a full beard in about ten seconds, enjoyed telling me that I should stick to warmer climates. And never become a lumberjack.

  Maybe it was because I didn’t do it very often, but shaving always put me in this zen sort of mindset. Something about the buzz of the razor combined with the level of concentration. Tilt jaw just so. Lift chin. Make sure hair doesn’t get in the way. Make mental note to get a haircut. Be extra careful around the mole tucked way under the left side of my jaw—

  Except—

  I leaned closer to the mirror for a better look. There was no mole there. I’d had a mole just under my jaw for my entire life, and now it just

  Wasn’t

  There.

  I’d tried to steal Leah Ramsey-Wolfe’s mole just the other day, and it hadn’t worked. Now mine was gone.

  It wasn’t until after I’d turned the shower off and grabbed a towel that everything clicked into place.

  At the bookstore, I’d tried to take Leah’s mole away, and mine had disappeared instead.

  At the party, I’d tried to take some of Leah’s sobriety away, and what little remained of my own sobriety had disappeared instead, leaving me so drunk that I’d actually, for the first time in my life, blacked out.

  And in the course of my first triad ritual of the summer, I’d tried to take away Leah’s love of being out on the water—but it wasn’t Leah who’d suddenly lost her desire to keep going up to the Elmview lake.

  It was me.

  I toweled off as fast as I could, got dressed, and dashed back into the bedroom.

  “Leah,” I said, not even caring who heard me. “Leah!”

  Her tangled hair stirred in the little blanket-nest she’d made on the floor, and she looked up at me with one bleary eye.

  “Mmmmsleep,” she said, and the eye closed.

  “Leah,” I said again … and then stopped. Because while I really, really wanted to know how she was deflecting my magic, pushing it all back on me, I was suddenly sure that she wasn’t the one who could give me that answer. She’d looked awfully surprised last night, when she’d realized I had the same abilities as Heather—which meant that if she was doing something to make my magic bounce back on me, it probably wasn’t on purpose.

  Of course, as soon as I’d decided not to say anything, Leah was sitting up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “Fine, fine, I’m awake. What’s up?”

  “Um. It’s morning.” I pointed toward the window, where faint light was sneaking in around the edges of the curtain. “Think maybe you should go before someone finds you here?”

  Leah groaned. Rubbed her eyes again. Then sighed and said, “Yeah, guess so.”

  “Good. Aunt Holly and my grandma are downstairs. I’ll go down and keep them distracted so you can get out.”

  “My hero,” muttered Leah, and heaved herself to her feet as I left the room, shutting the door behind me.

  Coffee. I needed coffee. Then I could actually think, with my actual awake brain, about what to do with all this … whatever it was that Leah was doing to my magic.

  Luckily, coffee was being made right now. I could smell it. So I closed the door quietly behind me, and headed downstairs. Maybe, since Grandma was already up, I could ask her about the Leah situation—without naming names, of course. Maybe she was a distant relative or something. Maybe she had just enough Quick blood that she had magic of her own, but not enough that she could use it consciously.

  But when I reached the kitchen, four heads turned to look at me.

  “Oh,” I said, looking at Brandy, then Theo. “I didn’t know you guys were up.”

  “Bacon,” said Theo simply, shoving a piece into his mouth.

  Brandy, though, didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, head to toe and back again, like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh at me or not.

  “What?” I said.

  “You’re all … neat and tidy,” said Brandy, who was still in her rumpled polka-dot pajamas. “Spick-and-span.”

  “So?” Sure, I’d showered before breakfast, and sure, I didn’t usually do that, but she was giving me this weird smile, like I was an adorable puppy who’d finally figured out what the newspaper was for.

  “So it’s different. In a good way. Come on, sit down.”

  I poured some coffee into a mug, and sat next to Brandy, who leaned over and gave me a peck on the lips. Which made me feel slightly less like a puppy, slightly more like a guy with a hot girlfriend. So that was something.

  There were eggs cooling on the stove, and bread on the counter for toast, but those things were for days when my stomach was less jumpy. When I hadn’t just learned, halfway through shaving, that my own magic could be turned back on me.

  Today, all I wanted was the big plate of bacon in the middle of the table.

  Aunt Holly grunted as I crammed a few long, crunchy strips into my face.

  “Boys,” said Brandy, offering her a sympathetic look.

  But Aunt Holly ignored her. She just took a delicate sip of her tea—Aunt Holly wasn’t a coffee drinker—and regarded Grandma coolly. “Well?” she said. “The bridge?”

  “I haven’t finished my eggs,” said Grandma. “Simmer down. A few more minutes of human interaction won’t kill you.”

  Aunt Holly looked at me, drinking my coffee. At Theo, still stuffing bacon into his mouth. At Brandy, who smiled at her. Aunt Holly didn’t smile back. She just stirred her tea with her spoon.

  “What bridge?” I asked, more to cover up the awkwardness than because I actually wanted to know.

  “The one that crosses the creek going into town,” said Grandma, as Aunt Holly rolled her eyes at me. “One of the supports was damaged in the storm last night. Old wooden structure like that, it won’t be able to hold any weight until it’s fixed. Not safely, at least. Holly and I have to mend it before it breaks completely.”

  I blinked at them. “You’re going to fix it? I thought that was the town’s job. Or the … the county, or something.”

  “It is,” said Grandma. “And I’m sure they’d do a perfectly fine job, if we don’t mind waiting the rest of the summer for them to get around to it. Your aunt will have it done in minutes.”

  “You do carpentry?” said Brandy, her face brightening a little as she peered at Aunt Holly. “That’s so cool. I’ve always wanted to learn that kind of stuff.”

  She had? Yeah, right.

  “No, I—” But Aunt Holly cut herself off at an ahem from Grandma. She sighed. “Only as a hobby.”

  Ahh, okay. Probably there was just some hairline crack in the bridge’s support, and Aunt Holly was going to reach in and steal it away. More power to her, I guess. Reaching into sentient beings was so much easier, and the reaching hangover wasn’t nearly as bad. The few times I’d reached into inanimate things—opening locked doors, mostly—the process had left me practically catatonic for a solid five minutes. I didn’t do it anymore, as a rule.

  “That’s so cool,” said Brandy again. “Can I come watch?”

  “No,” said Aunt Holly, standing abruptly. “Ma, are you ready yet? I’d really rather get this over with.”

  “Such a rush,” murmured Grandma. She
forked another bite of eggs into her mouth, but then stood up, too, leaving the rest unfinished. “Fine. Go on. I’ll meet you outside.”

  That was all Aunt Holly needed. Without another word, she turned and tromped out of the kitchen. I heard the screen door slam on her way out.

  “You’ll pardon my Holly’s rudeness,” said Grandma, mostly to Brandy. “She still hasn’t quite recovered from … events.”

  Brandy’s face softened. “Well, of course she hasn’t. She lost her only daughter.”

  Grandma squeezed Brandy’s shoulder. “Sweet girl,” she said. “Aspen, keep an eye on the house. We won’t be gone long.”

  Only once we’d heard the screen door slam a second time did Brandy ask, “Keep an eye on the house? Does she think we’re gonna set it on fire?”

  More like she thought Brandy might try to sneak out and see Aunt Holly’s carpentry skills in action, and I was in charge of preventing that. But the difference between me and Grandma, in this case, was that I could tell Brandy had just been faking interest to be polite. So I just shrugged and kept chugging my coffee.

  Once we’d all finished, and Theo called first dibs on the shower, I said, “Hey, I have to make a phone call upstairs. Brandy, you good on your own for a while?”

  Theo snorted as he disappeared upstairs. Brandy just tilted her head a little. “Who are you calling at nine in the morning?”

  Nine in the morning. God. No wonder I was still so tired. Usually that bacon-and-coffee smell didn’t wake me up before ten thirty.

  “My dad. He called last night and I didn’t get it. So I’m calling back.”

  It was partly true. My dad had called last night, just like he did every few days or so, just to check in. I’d picked it up halfway down to the May Day tree, and we’d had our usual boring yeah-everything’s-fine conversation as Grandma listened in and Aunt Holly glared at me.

  Right now, though, my priority was putting Leah’s blankets away before anyone saw them and started asking questions.

  “Ah,” said Brandy. “Tell him hello for me. I’ll get started on the dishes.”

  “Eh, leave them for Theo,” I said. “He never takes a turn.”

  “Touché,” said Brandy. “In that case, I’ll just be reading.”