Rocks Fall Everyone Dies

by Lindsay Ribar

  “That’s kind of the point,” I said. “I thought—”

  “You thought you’d just upend our entire way of life without even asking anyone first?” she said, moving steadily toward me. “Think of your aunt Holly, Aspen. The ritual is the only thing left in her life that gives her purpose.”

  “No, the ritual is the only thing tying her to this town,” I said. “The town where her daughter died. You don’t think she’d be happier if she could leave?”

  “Perhaps,” said Willow. “But what about everyone else? I had two children, Aspen. They both had children of their own, and they had children of their own. There are hundreds of us, all over the world! Will all of them be happier once you take their powers away?”

  “How the hell should I know?” I said. “I’ve never even met most of them.”

  “My point exactly. And as for me …” She trailed off meaningfully.

  “You, what?” I said. “You’ll die somewhere down the line? Like a normal person? Because, oh, boo-hoo, right? Because nobody else has ever had to deal with getting old and dying? People’s bodies break down. That’s just what happens. Suck it up and deal with it.”

  She shook her head. “Things like that are so easy to talk about when you haven’t lived them. How old are you, Aspen? Sixteen?”

  I frowned, feeling indignant. “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen, then,” she said. “An infant. How foolish of me to think you’d care a whit for immortality. People your age already think they’re immortal.”

  “I do not,” I said—then immediately shut up, because I sounded like a whiny little kid. I was proving her point.

  She tilted her head. “Even so. Do you really think it will be as easy as that? You steal away the Cliff’s means of survival, and you cause it to fall, and I’m free to grow old like a regular person?”

  “Well … yeah.”

  “Sweetheart,” she said, coming closer to me. “The Cliff has been keeping me alive for centuries. Fixing me, sometimes before I even know I’m broken. And why? Because it trusts me to return the favor. It trusts me to protect it. What do you think it’ll do to me, if I betray that trust?”

  When I’d reached into the Cliff, I’d seen nothing about trust and betrayal. Those were human concepts. Too human for the Cliff to understand.

  “Nothing,” I said firmly. “It won’t do anything at all.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Says the boy who doesn’t have the Cliff’s voice in his head. If the Cliff falls, Aspen, it will take me with it.”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “You don’t know it’ll do that.”

  A mirthless smile. “You don’t know that it won’t.”

  Maybe not. But there was one way I could find out.

  I lunged for her, catching the hem of her robe in my hands—but only for a moment, before she jerked it away.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said, circling away from me. “Don’t you dare reach into me, Aspen Quick. You know the rules—”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said, following her, step for step. “No reaching. No stealing. No lying. But you’ve been lying to me since the day I met you, so I don’t think I’m gonna feel really bad about breaking the other rules.”

  I lunged again. Again she jumped back, just out of my reach.

  “I didn’t know!” she said. “How could I have known that your incompetent father had muddled your memories so badly? I thought you already knew the truth about me!”

  “Not the whole truth,” I said. “You never told anyone about the Cliff keeping you immortal. Listen, if you don’t let me reach into you, I’ll just keep assuming that you’re lying.”

  She considered me.

  I considered her.

  And that was when I heard it: a crunch, soft and sharp, like footsteps on twigs. And then a voice.

  “You found him.”

  Aunt Holly. Her skin was pink with exertion, and she was clutching at her chest like she was about to pass out. She glared at Willow. “I told you—I can’t run—as fast as you—”

  “Few people can run as fast as me,” said Willow, smiling placidly.

  “You ran here?” I said. I mean, she wasn’t out of breath at all. Had the Cliff stolen someone’s speed for her? Or was this her healthy lungs—Heather’s healthy lungs—at work?

  “Indeed I did,” said Willow. “Since you stole Holly’s car, we were left with no other option. Don’t you know that stealing from family is against the rule?”

  A little smile played around her lips. She was joking. She thought this was a joke.

  “What are you—what are you doing—up here?” said Aunt Holly, who was slowly beginning to catch her breath.

  “Oh!” said Willow, still calm as ever. “He was just about to decide whether killing his own grandmother was a worthy price to pay for the alleviation of his guilty conscience.”

  “You’re what?” said Aunt Holly, gaping at me.

  “Tearing down the connection between our family and the Cliff,” I replied, more to Willow than to Aunt Holly. “Tearing down the whole screwed-up system that lets us keep thinking we’re better than everyone else, just because we can do some shitty magic that other people can’t.” Willow wasn’t smiling anymore. I added, “Also, you’re not my grandmother.”

  “But I’m still your family.” Her voice was dangerously soft. “And family comes before everything.”

  I shook my head. “Not when we’re the kind of family that screws up other people’s lives just so we can have it easy.”

  “Unimportant people,” said Willow, waving a dismissive hand.

  “Was Heather unimportant?” I asked.

  Willow fell silent. My question hung heavy in the cool night air.

  “Heather?” said Aunt Holly. “Aspen, what do you mean?”

  “You saw her letter,” I said. “The one she wrote to Leah. She tried to protect Leah by stealing from herself instead, for the ritual—”

  “Aspen there’s no need to get into all that,” said Willow, looking almost fearful.

  Ignoring her, I went on: “But the Cliff took more from her than what she offered it. It took her lungs. She tried to protect Leah, and the Cliff killed her for it. And do you know why?”

  “Why?” asked Aunt Holly, barely audible.

  “To keep her alive.” I pointed at Willow. “She keeps the Cliff alive by doing the triad ritual, and the Cliff returns the favor by skimming extra stuff off the people we steal from. Leah’s sister’s voice. Her friend Jesse’s eyesight.” Deep breath. “Heather’s ability to breathe. The Cliff took that stuff and gave it all to Willow.”

  “But … but my Heather …” Aunt Holly’s hands were claws. Her face was a mask of pain. She turned toward Willow. “You knew this?”

  “Our family does what it has to, in order to survive,” said Willow, her face hardening. “Your daughter chose her friend over her family. She forged her own path.”

  “You … you …”

  Aunt Holly didn’t finish. Maybe she couldn’t.

  Willow turned back toward me. “Let our family continue to survive, Aspen. That’s all I’m asking of you.”

  “You aren’t talking about our family,” I said. “Our family’s gonna be fine. And I think you’ll be fine, too. I think you’ll live for a long time, and I think you just don’t want to. I think you’re afraid of getting old for real.”

  “And I think you’ll be sorry,” Willow replied, “when you don’t have me anymore. When the Cliff takes me, and you’re back to being surrounded by people who will never understand you. People who will never appreciate how unique you are. Your girlfriend, who fled the moment she learned the truth. Your poor mother, who never stopped distrusting the most special, most unique part of you… .”

  But if I severed the connection, my magic would be gone. I’d be normal.

  “Yeeeeah,” I said. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be sorry at all.”

  I crouched down again, pressing my palms into the grass. But before I could begin to
force my way into the Cliff again, Willow sprang forward.

  “Aspen!” she said.

  My name came out half formed, though—cut off before it could even take its full shape. Because Aunt Holly had grabbed Willow, jerking her backward, holding her in place with elbows hooked under Willow’s shoulders and hands clasped behind Willow’s neck.

  It was the single most ridiculous-looking headlock I’d ever seen in my life, all flailing arms and flyaway hair and bubblegum-pink nightgown peeking out from under her robe.

  “Aspen, do it fast!” said Aunt Holly. “She’s really strong!”

  “Don’t you dare, Aspen!” Willow cried. “Holly, let me go… .”

  Ignoring her protests, I dug my fingers into the grass. I found the spot … and I reached.

  It took me less than a minute to reach back in, to find all those little tendrils of connection between the Cliff and my family, and to wrap my will around them.

  I took a deep breath.

  And I pulled.

  I’d expected it to be difficult—at least as difficult as getting into the Cliff in the first place—but it wasn’t. Maybe because the connection wasn’t tangled up in thousands of other things, like it would have been for a human being. Whatever the reason, it came away easily.

  I withdrew my will from the Cliff and opened my eyes, still holding the connection firmly in my mind. It sat there, a pulsing mass of instinct and energy and possibility …

  … and then I let it go.

  Just like that, we were free.

  The reaching hangover was different from anything I’d felt before. Usually I simply didn’t want to move, but this time I felt like I literally couldn’t move. I was myself, but I was also immense and immobile and ancient. I’d seen things—I knew things—but I couldn’t translate that knowledge into logic.

  Despite all that, one thought—one thought that was purely my own—managed to shine through the confusion:

  I couldn’t believe it had been that easy.

  The thought made me feel giddy and lightheaded and human—enough that the hangover began to fade in earnest. I sat back on my heels, and I looked at the two women who’d fallen silent just a few yards away from me.

  Willow wasn’t flailing or shouting anymore. She’d gone slack-jawed and limp, like she knew it was done, and knew there was no going back.

  “Aspen.” She said my name like a funeral prayer.

  “Did you do it?” asked Aunt Holly.

  But before I could answer, I heard something. A faint sound, like rumbling, deep and dark. And getting louder.

  “Shit,” I said. “Shit, shit, shit. We have to get out of here.”

  Willow hung her head, and a tiny sob escaped her.

  “The Cliff?” said Aunt Holly.

  Now I could feel it, too. A tiny earthquake, blooming right under our feet.

  “It’s falling,” I said. “It’s falling right now. Run. Run!”

  Aunt Holly unhooked her arms from around Willow, and took off. She disappeared into the trees, and she didn’t look back once, probably because she trusted that we were right behind.

  And I would have been right behind, except …

  Except Willow wasn’t moving.

  She was just staring into the void beyond the edge of the Cliff.

  I grabbed her hand. But her fingers were slack.

  “Willow?” I said. “We have to go. We really, really, really have to go.”

  A crack resonated through the air, and I knew what it was, deep in my bones. A rock, maybe a big one, breaking off. Crack. Crack. Then something crumbling.

  The ground was shaking under my feet. The edge of the Cliff would start disappearing soon. My heart clanged against my rib cage.

  Willow still wouldn’t move.

  “For god’s sake, come on!” I gripped her hand tighter, and I pulled.

  But she pulled away, stronger than me, and turned to look me right in the eyes. Then she smiled and said softly, “I wasn’t lying, Aspen. I can’t live if the Cliff falls.”

  Then she turned and ran—so fast that one of her ugly shoes slipped off, Cinderella-style, and landed in the grass. She ran toward the night, toward the blackness beyond the edge of the Cliff.

  And she kept running until, soundless, she fell.

  AFTER

  By the time I made it back through the woods and down to the car, the crack crack of the Cliff falling had grown into a roar.

  Aunt Holly was down there already, pulling on the handle of the car door like she could unlock it by sheer force of will.

  “Oh, thank god,” she said, when she saw me tearing toward her. “You still have my keys, and—”

  Her gaze landed on the blue Croc dangling from my fingers.

  “Where’s Ma?”

  I shook my head and dug in my pocket. Threw her the keys. “It’s still falling, and I don’t think we’re far enough away to be safe. Let’s go.”

  She unlocked the car and jumped in behind the wheel, and I took the passenger seat. She started the engine, and off we went: away from the Cliff, away from the rumbling and the quaking and Willow running and running and not stopping …

  The winding mountain lane began to even out, and soon we were driving down an empty four-lane road. We were not in Three Peaks anymore. Aunt Holly pulled over. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, eyes closed, breath heavy.

  “Did she fall, or did she jump?” Aunt Holly asked quietly. There was a weary accusation in her tone:

  Or did you push her?

  “She jumped.” And in my mind’s eye, she was still jumping, over and over again, disappearing over the edge, and …

  I had an idea.

  “Hold on,” I said. And then I reached into Willow’s shoe.

  I moved quickly past layers of anger and indignation, of hatred and love, of memories upon memories of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and pain and pain and pain and crushing, crushing pain—I moved past all that, and I found the two things I sought, and I ripped them away, as fast as I could.

  “Done,” I said, and threw the shoe into the backseat. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.

  “You … stole something?” she said, straightening up so she could meet my eyes. “From Willow?”

  I slumped down, letting the cool leather of the passenger’s seat cradle me. I nodded. “I stole her consciousness. And her ability to feel pain.”

  Confusion creased Aunt Holly’s face. For the space of three seconds, I had no idea why. But when Aunt Holly spoke again, it wasn’t to ask me why I’d done what I’d done. What she asked was, “How?”

  It hit me then. Spread like ice water through the pit of my stomach.

  “No, no, shit, no. I shouldn’t have been able to—it was supposed to be gone,” I said, my voice frantic as my heart pounded against my ribs. “Why isn’t it gone? The Cliff’s the reason we have magic in the first place, isn’t it?”

  Aunt Holly’s lips thinned. She shook her head. “Ma’s children inherited their magic from their father. Not the Cliff. The Cliff just shaped it.”

  Of course. I was such an idiot. I’d heard that part of the story, too. I just hadn’t bothered remembering it.

  “Then I did all that for nothing,” I said. “I … I wanted to fix us. Make us normal.”

  “Isn’t that what you just did?” said Aunt Holly. “We don’t have to keep the Cliff intact anymore. We don’t have a reason to keep stealing.”

  I swallowed hard. “We also don’t have a reason to stop stealing. I wanted to make it so we couldn’t do it anymore.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her face change as she began to understand. I saw my intentions reflected in the line between her eyebrows as they furrowed, in the thin set of her lips, in the way her nostrils flared as she breathed deep.

  I saw her see me for what I was. Not a person willing and able to make the choice to stop stealing, but a person who preferred to have the choice taken away from him, so he’d never have to make
it again.

  “I see,” she said at last.

  I covered my face with my hands. I’d basically killed my not-quite-grandmother, and nothing had even changed. I could still reach and steal, and so could all the rest of her hundreds of descendants. There was nothing stopping me from being the same selfish asshole I’d been when I’d arrived here.

  “How long have you known the truth about Ma?” asked Aunt Holly. “I mean, the truth about … how Heather … um …”

  “Only since tonight,” I replied, my skin crawling at the memory of Willow taking me out to the tree. “I’d’ve told you when you came home, but you were a little bit … you know.”

  “Upset at Leah,” she supplied.

  “Yeah.”

  There was silence, then. Off in the distance, the very edge of the sky began to turn purple.

  “We’ll have to tell your father,” said Aunt Holly, drumming her index finger on the steering wheel.

  “And everyone else,” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “As if they care. Come on. Let’s go home.”

  Right. The rambling mansion, with its turrets and its history and its attic full of strangers’ forgotten May Day tokens. And its lack of Willow.

  “That place isn’t home,” I murmured.

  Aunt Holly gave me a tight little smile. “I know the feeling.”

  I offered to be the one to call my dad, but in the end it was Aunt Holly who did it. She told him that she was driving with me down to the city that very afternoon, and that he’d get the full story when we arrived. I packed up my stuff and threw it into Aunt Holly’s car. She’d packed a suitcase, too.

  I plugged my phone into the car’s speakers and cranked up music as loud as Aunt Holly could stand it. That way, we had an excuse not to talk. We’d done plenty of talking before we left Three Peaks, and all I wanted to do now was think. About what I’d tried and failed to do, and about what that meant for my future.

  Because if I was really going to try and be a decent person from now on—a person who didn’t suck the life out of every single friend he ever had—it was going to take a lot more than knocking down a mountain and expecting all my problems to be over. It was going to take effort. Willpower. It was going to mean giving up a lot of shortcuts that I’d always taken for granted.