Rocks Fall Everyone Dies

by Lindsay Ribar

  “I took the edge off your sadness,” said Dad, so gently that it made my skin crawl. “You’ve never been good at dealing with grief. No, that’s an understatement. Even your counselor said that boys your age usually process things much faster—that we might start looking at more effective options—”

  “My counselor?” My hand was shaking now, which made the phone unsteady. “When did I have a counselor?”

  Dad was quiet.

  “What about the Cliff?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Cliff, and what happens when it falls. What really happens, not the bullshit about it crushing Three Peaks. Did I know that? Did you make me forget?”

  “It used to give you nightmares,” said Dad, sounding a little desperate by now. “I didn’t know how else to make them stop.”

  “Nightmares. Come on. It can’t be that bad.”

  “It definitely sounded bad to you when you were eight. I told Holly you were too young to know the details. But she went ahead and told you anyway.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Aspen, it … it isn’t the town,” said Dad.

  I frowned into the darkness of the living room. “What isn’t?”

  “The Cliff. If it falls, it won’t be the town that gets crushed. It’ll be us.”

  I shook my head. “What do you mean? Us who?”

  “Our family,” he said. “All of Willow’s descendants. If we let the Cliff die, it takes us with it.”

  “All of Willow’s … Wait. So. Like, just you and me and Aunt Holly?”

  “And everyone else related to us,” said Dad. “Aspen, when your aunt told you the truth, you were terrified. You’d grown up thinking you were safe from the Cliff so long as you stayed far away from Three Peaks. Then Holly told you the truth—against my wishes, I’ll remind you—and you had such bad nightmares. You barely slept. You started acting out in school. Your teachers—”

  “So, wait, hold on,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “You stole memories from me because some stupid-ass teacher couldn’t deal with me? And some stupid-ass counselor?”

  “She said boys your age—”

  “Oh, my age. Great. So, what, I’m too old to be sad? Is that it?”

  “Jeremy,” he said firmly, which shut me right up. “You’re missing the point. You’ve always been this way. The same thing happened when my mother passed. Your grandmother. You were six, and you were inconsolable. You became obsessed with her death, you wouldn’t stop crying, and it interfered with—”

  “Wait. Wait.” The air around me seemed to grow colder. “Did you just say my grandmother?”

  “Yes … ?”

  “She died. When I was six.”

  “Well … yes. Don’t you remember? We went up to Three Peaks and scattered her ashes in the woods by the May Day field, just as we did with Heather.”

  I had to be hallucinating this. Or dreaming, maybe. I had to be. That was the only rational explanation. I pinched myself, just in case. Nope.

  “We’re talking about your mom? Aunt Holly’s mom? My paternal grandmother?” Obviously we were; Mom’s mother had died four years before I was born.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then who the hell is Willow?”

  “… What?”

  “She’s … not my grandmother.”

  “Aspen. No. Of course she isn’t. Your grandmother’s name was Ivy. You know that.”

  Ivy. The room was spinning. Or I was spinning. Or my brain was spinning, or something. I shut my eyes again. Because no, I didn’t know that. Ivy.

  “Okay,” I said. “So who told you I’d be better off not remembering my grandmother at all? Another counselor?”

  “What? What are you talking about? Aspen …”

  “Why’d you steal my memory of her?”

  “I didn’t!” Dad yelled. Then calmed down almost immediately. “I didn’t. And I can’t think why you’d have forgotten. You loved her.”

  I hadn’t forgotten. When you forget something, you can be reminded. A name, or an event, will ring a bell somewhere deep in your memory. But the name Ivy meant nothing.

  Except … no. That wasn’t true. I had heard that name before, and recently. From the guy in the bookstore where Leah worked. Ivy and Lily, he’d said—right before he’d added that he’d never met anyone named Willow. I’d meant to ask Grandma about that, and then it had slipped my mind.

  “You still there, son?” said Dad. “I really don’t know what happened, but we can figure this out, okay? I’ll talk to your aunt, and—”

  I hung up.

  BEFORE

  “You stole it, didn’t you.”

  My nine-year-old ears perked up, like they always did, at the word stole. Coming from most people, it meant something super mundane—but coming from Mom, it could easily go either way.

  I crept out of bed, eased my door open, and sidled down the hallway toward the light of the living room, where my parents were still awake. I hid just around the corner, just past the point where they’d be able to spot me. My dad was speaking now, but too softly for me to hear him.

  Then my mom again: “Andy, you can’t keep doing things like that for him.”

  (Andy, for the record, was not my dad’s original name. He’d legally changed it when he’d turned eighteen. I couldn’t blame him; I mean, who would want to be saddled with a name like Dandelion for his entire life? Apparently it’d been his idea, too, to give me a normal first name, and use my middle name to carry on the Quick family tradition.)

  “I was just trying to defuse the situation,” replied Dad, barely loud enough for me to hear. “That dog was huge.”

  “Yes, it was,” said Mom. “But that’s beside the point.”

  “No, that is the point!” Dad said. “It was huge, and it was lunging at him. I swear it was part wolf or something.”

  I didn’t know why Mom and Dad were fighting, but I did remember the dog. I’d come face-to-face with him on the way back from the grocery store with my parents, and as soon as he’d seen me, he’d started jumping and barking, all teeth and snarl and hungry eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” his owner had said, gripping the dog’s leash with both hands as she tried to calm him down. “He’s a rescue, and he—down, boy! He just gets excited—he doesn’t mean any harm. Down, Benny!”

  I remember thinking that of course he meant me harm. He could obviously eat me in one bite, and that was exactly what he intended to do. Every inch of me was trying to run away, but for some reason I couldn’t make my feet move. I was too scared.

  Then Dad had put a comforting hand on my shoulder, turned to the woman with the leash, and asked, “May I?”

  The woman had nodded, and Dad had gone over and started petting the dog. Jumping and barking instantly became sniffing and licking, and the dog suddenly wasn’t a would-be killer anymore, but a friendly pet desperate for some attention. I inched closer and closer, until finally I was close enough to pet him, too.

  He was a husky. His name was Benton, and his eyes were two different colors, and his fur was so, so soft.

  “Still not the point,” Mom was saying. “You can’t just magic things better every time there’s an issue.”

  “Come on, Annie, you saw how scared he was—”

  “Fear is a part of life,” said Mom. “It sucks, but that’s the way it is. And if you’re always there to play Mr. Fix-It every time he’s scared of something, he’ll never learn to deal with his fear on his own. Is that what you want?”

  Fear. The dog. Dad magicking things better. Well, that explained why Benton the husky had suddenly become so friendly—because Dad had taken away his meanness. Why did Mom think that was a bad thing?

  “Of course it’s not,” said Dad with a sigh.

  That was when I coughed. Or sneezed, or something like that. I don’t remember exactly. What I do remember was Mom darting around the corner and catching me.

  “Your bedtime was half an hour ago, you know,” she said.
/>   I looked back and forth between her and Dad. Decided there was no point in telling them what I’d heard.

  “I’m thirsty,” I said. “I just wanted water.”

  So Mom got me a cup of water and sent me back to my room, where I started thinking about Geoffrey, our tiny corgi who’d died almost a year ago. I still missed him a lot—but more than that, I missed having a pet. I fell asleep wondering how soon I should start asking my parents for a husky of my own.

  Dad called back a few times, but I didn’t pick up. Eventually he stopped trying, and just texted me instead:

  You ok?

  I replied—Yeah—and then went into the kitchen to make myself some coffee. This was way too much to process on only one cup.

  About twenty minutes later, I discovered that it was also too much to process on two cups. So I took a nap instead. Some time later, my phone woke me up. It was Aunt Holly.

  “Hello?” I said, my voice coming out scratchy. My eyes were dry from not taking my contacts out. My clothes felt gross. My neck hurt for no good reason, like usual.

  “Aspen, there’s a fault that needs repairing. Ma says it’s urgent.”

  Ma. Why did Aunt Holly call her that? Who the hell was Willow? I should have asked. I shouldn’t have hung up so quickly. I should have pumped my dad for information, but my brain had just been too fried.

  Anyway, it was too late now. There was a fault in the Cliff, and I had a job to do.

  “Be right there,” I said, reaching for my eye drops.

  “Good,” said Aunt Holly, and hung up.

  I trudged downstairs, willing myself to wake up. Aunt Holly and Grandma—Willow—were waiting for me by the door.

  It felt weird, walking down to the May Day tree in daylight. A little more mundane. A little less magical. Especially the part where Grandma instructed Aunt Holly, just as we stepped out of the woods and into the May Day field, to play lookout. Because while we never really ran the risk of people coming across us at night, midday was a whole different matter. People had picnics on this field. Hell, I’d had a picnic on this field.

  Luckily for us, it was empty, at least for now. As Aunt Holly planted herself between the tree and the road, I followed Grandma over to the tree and watched as her eyes began to rove over the offerings underneath.

  Your grandmother’s name was Ivy. You know that.

  “One object. A gift, not a throwaway. Something meaningful.” She moved counterclockwise around the tree until she spotted something. Pointing, she said, “That. Fetch it, would you?”

  It was a thick bracelet—a cuff, really—made of leather straps, all woven together into a pattern that looked like a really complicated braid. It looked kind of familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Whatever, though. It didn’t really matter.

  Once we were back inside and ready to go, Grandma nodded at me to go first.

  “My name is my self,” I said, feeding my aspen leaf into the fire, “and I give them both freely.”

  The holly leaf, the willow leaf, and the oak leaf all followed. The fire turned blue-green-turquoise, and the Cliff-stone underneath the logs glowed as it heated up. Grandma nodded toward the bracelet, and I picked it up and closed my eyes and reached inside.

  God, it was weird doing this with sunlight sneaking in behind the curtains.

  “Something small and sharp,” said Grandma. “Something that might never be missed.”

  I concentrated. There was a brightness that colored the bracelet’s memory of its owner. A female owner, I could tell right away. The bracelet had been a gift from someone she’d loved. A family member? No—a boyfriend. A boyfriend she’d loved fiercely, passionately, then suddenly not at all. They were just friends now.

  Suspicion surfaced; I reached further. I looked for a face to go with the story.

  And there it was. Brandy. I remembered her, now, asking me about the town’s May Day tradition. Leaving something under the tree, despite my protests. Refusing to tell me what it was.

  My eyes flew open as I withdrew my will from the bracelet.

  “What?” said Aunt Holly, clearly annoyed.

  “This is Brandy’s,” I said. “We can’t steal from her.”

  Grandma tilted her head just so. “Why not?”

  “She’s my girlfriend. That’s why not.” Grandma looked unmoved, so I went on: “Plus she doesn’t even live here. She just thought it was a quaint townie tradition. She didn’t even put it under the tree on May Day.”

  “Oh, Aspen.” Grandma reached out and touched my cheek. Her hand was shaky. A tremor, she’d said. Just a product of old age.

  Still, I pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “N-nothing,” I said, because I wasn’t totally sure why her touch had freaked me out. “Just …”

  “Just your grandma’s old-lady hands,” she said, shaking her head and flexing her fingers and letting out a little sigh. “Never get old, Aspen. Anyway, you were saying? About these new scruples you have with regard to stealing from your girlfriend?”

  Ah. Right. The woman who wasn’t my grandmother knew what I’d done to win Brandy’s affection. Or at least, she knew enough that her question hit its mark.

  “Family comes first, Aspen,” she said softly, as Aunt Holly looked on with furrowed brow. “Never forget that. Family comes first, and being a member of this family means doing as the Cliff commands. We are the only ones who can prevent its falling. So if the Cliff demands this energy in particular, this is the energy we shall give it.”

  If it falls, it won’t be the town that gets crushed. It’ll be us.

  “Do you understand?” asked Grandma.

  I understood that there were things she wasn’t telling me. I understood that as soon as this ritual was over, I was going to ask what I needed to ask.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  And I felt my way into the bracelet, searching for something small. Small and sharp. And there it was: a single memory, inextricably tied to the thing that contained it. The moment Theo had given Brandy this bracelet. Bought it for her on a whim at a street fair, after she made a casual remark about liking it. She put it on immediately, on her right hand—and then she switched it to her left, because it was exactly the right size to cover up this cluster of freckles that she’d never liked much—

  Ah-ha. Perfect. Wrapping my will around that tiny little cluster, I drew it out, ever so carefully, and pushed it into the fire. Aunt Holly sent it to the Cliff. And then, after a few long moments, Grandma nodded and said we were finished.

  “You did well, Aspen,” she said.

  I looked at her. Studied her hard. She resembled Aunt Holly, was the thing. And my dad. They all had the same rounded chin, which I’d inherited, and the same blue eyes, which I hadn’t. I’d assumed for so long that she was my dad’s mother. My grandmother. I called her Grandma, for god’s sake. And she’d never corrected me.

  “I talked to my dad earlier,” I said.

  “Oh?” she said. Over by the fireplace, Aunt Holly paused.

  “You were right. He stole my memories. A bunch of them, actually.”

  Aunt Holly looked sharply at me. “The rule, though.”

  “Guess he doesn’t care,” I replied. “But there was one thing he didn’t remember stealing. It’s … well, it’s you, Grandma. Willow. It’s—I mean—I mean, who are you?”

  “I don’t follow,” she said softly. Aunt Holly was stock-still.

  I felt so young all of a sudden. A little kid, standing in front of adults who didn’t understand him, saying, You aren’t my gramma.

  “My grandmother’s name was Ivy,” I said. “She died when I was six. My dad stole my sadness about her death, or something like that—but it’s more than that. I don’t remember her dying. I don’t remember her living, even.” I took a deep breath. Here was the truth. “I thought you were my grandmother.”

  Willow gaped at me. Aunt Holly’s eyes darted from me to her, then back again. The room, for several long
moments, was painfully quiet.

  To my surprise, it was Aunt Holly who spoke first. “God. I’ll kill him.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Your stupid father,” said Aunt Holly. “My stupid brother. Andy doesn’t know when to stop. Never has. He always reaches too far, takes too much. The number of times he’s screwed up the triad …”

  “Reaches too far?” I repeated, totally lost.

  Aunt Holly’s eyes were blazing by now. It was actually kind of cool to see her this pissed off at someone who wasn’t me. “I’ll bet you anything he tried taking away—what, your sadness, was it?—and didn’t know when to stop. Or how to stop, the idiot. I’ll call him and give him a piece of my mind—”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t. Not now. I don’t want to start a fight. I just want to know what’s going on, okay?” Turning back to Willow, I said, “I’ve been calling you Grandma since like forever. Why didn’t you correct me?”

  “Aspen, love,” she said. “Everyone has things that they call me. Holly calls me Ma; her daughter, rest her soul, called me by my given name. You call me Grandma. The fact is, there simply isn’t a term for how you and I are related.”

  My stomach flipped. I sat down on the couch, because I had to. “So how are we related?”

  She paused. “You really, truly don’t remember?”

  I shook my head.

  “In that case …” Willow leaned forward in her chair. “Jeremy Aspen Quick. May I tell you a story?”

  My full name, and a question phrased so formally that it sent a shiver skittering up my back. “Okay,” I said. “Sure. Story. Yes.”

  Willow smiled wide, leaned back in her chair, and began to speak:

  “A long time ago, I lived south and east of here, in a lovely town on the coast of what had recently become the Province of Massachusetts Bay.”

  “Recently?” I said, as the shiver grew stronger. “When did you—”

  “Please don’t interrupt me, Aspen.” She rubbed her forehead and sighed, as if thinking hard. “It was … 1690? 1691, perhaps. I really ought to make sure of the dates, one of these days. But as I was saying, I lived on the coast. I was married to a wonderful man, and I’d borne him two children. Ash and Rose, we called them, after two things my husband and I both found beautiful. The story begins when my children were nearly your age, Aspen. A few short months after my husband caught a fever and passed away.”