The Future Falls (23 page)

“Yeah, well, the truth and I have been a bit pitchy lately.”

“I have Seen you and the young man I assume . . .”

“I don't want to talk about it, Auntie Catherine.”

They sat in silence for a moment. It would be easy to give up, Charlie realized. Easy to say,
we can't stop it, we're all going to die,
and spend at least some of those twenty-two months alone with Jack. But, the truth was, she
wasn't ready to die. She might be ready to trade in the so much less than it could be and slightly emotionally masochistic relationship she had with Jack for a happily ever after, but by no definition was twenty-two months ever after. She wasn't ready to give up Allie, music, the twins, pancakes, pizza and bourbon at two
AM
, sunrises, sunsets, pickup trucks, accents, and beer either. “You still haven't Seen the impact.”

“Not yet, no.”

She swept the edge of her boot sole back and forth, flattening then fluffing the nap of the carpet. Pale. Dark. Pale. “So maybe we can still stop it.”

“You and I? You and I are tapped out, Charlotte. I have Seen it. You can sing of it but not at it. As you haven't brought it up, I assume Jack's as helpless as we are.”

“I meant we, the family.”

“It's not what
we . . .”
The emphasis was mocking. “. . . the family, do.”

“No, we don't.” The family didn't interfere in the concerns of the wider world. They left that up to the Wild Powers, albeit not always graciously. Or consciously. On the other hand, the concerns of the wider world didn't usually interfere quite so emphatically with the family. “We're pretty fond of eating and sleeping and fucking, so I think
we
might make an exception this time.”

Auntie Catherine made a noncommittal noise Charlie chose to hear as agreement before saying, “I went back to Ontario to tell Jane.”

“Auntie Jane?”

Her answering snort was entirely committal. “No, Jane Banks.”

“What did she say?”

“Honestly?”

“That'd be nice.”

“I don't think she believed me.”

“So the aunties still haven't had a chance to weigh in.” Charlie chewed at the thought. The aunties were, well, the aunties. Individually, they were like cats, but working together . . . Charlie'd always believed that the aunties could do anything. Charlie'd been taught that the aunties could do anything. By the aunties. Who didn't believe in false modesty.

“
I
am an auntie, Charlotte, and I . . .”

“So the aunties,” Charlie repeated through clenched teeth, “still haven't had a chance to weigh in.”

“Not as such, no.”

“And
you
are Wild. That trumps auntie, or you wouldn't be staying in a hotel room in Vegas no matter how attentive room service . . .”

“Very attentive.”

“. . . might be. You'd be in Darsden East or Calgary complaining about the way your granddaughters never add enough tapioca to raspberry pie to soak up the juice.”

“Allie?”

“Katie, but that's not my point. We need to take this to the family because me and you and Jack, we're not a part of what they are. We're more. Or less, depending on your perspective. We don't see the world the same way.”

“
I
don't see the world through beer glasses.”

“Don't patronize me.” Charlie snapped. The champagne glass on the dresser hummed. “I'm over thirty and as Wild as you are.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you have a way to go to be as Wild as I am, but, by all means, gather the family.” Auntie Catherine spread her hands, the bracelets chiming with the movement, the gleaming silver fracturing the light around them. “Feel free to see if the collected power of the Gales is enough to save the world.”

The Bellagio fountains thumped again as Charlie got to her feet and turned to face the bed. “You don't think it will be, do you?”

“I don't know . . .” She stopped. Shook her head. Started again. “I don't know why I told Jane. I don't know if I was telling her the world was about to end, or if I was telling her to stop it.”

“Please. Like you can tell Auntie Jane to do anything.”

The edged smile softened slightly. “True enough.”

“Will you come if Allie calls the family together?”

“If Allie calls? Yes,” she continued thoughtfully before Charlie could respond. “They'll come for her. She'll do it for you.”

“Will you come?” Charlie repeated.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“
I
have slipped my leash.”

“Allie doesn't hold . . . Never mind.” Charlie headed for the door, turned and said, “So you haven't Seen yourself actually doing something about this, then?”

And the edge returned. “Charlotte, when I was ten years younger than you are now, I began the arrangements that ensured two of my grandchildren would be who they were and what they were, not to mention where they were, in order to stop a rampage by the Dragon Queen. What makes you think I'm not doing something?”

Charlie was back in the Wood before she realized Auntie Catherine hadn't actually answered the question.

She found Joe in the store going through a box of videotapes.

“If you're looking for Jack, he just left. Carmen had a problem.”

“With Dan. She called me first,” Charlie added when Joe looked up.

“If he wants to leave,” Joe began.

“Leave? I though he wanted to live in the bathtub?”

“As I heard it, Bea and Carmen had a fight about it, Carmen started to cry . . .”

“Auntie Carmen cries at Heritage Moments.”

“. . . and Dan said he wouldn't stay if he was going to be a cabbage.”

“Cabbage?”

“That's what Bea said. He got out of the tub . . .”

Elbows on the counter, Charlie dropped her head into her hands. “That should've made someone happy.”

“. . . and he tried to leave. Bea stopped him. And Carmen says you said that Jack should sort it out.”

“Jack the Dragon Prince, not Jack the Gale boy. He'll know what to say.” Joe made a noise so entirely noncommittal, Charlie lifted her head and turned to stare at him. “What?”

“Wasn't it you who argued so vehemently for his acceptance as a Gale boy?”

“I don't see any reason he can't be both a Dragon Prince and a Gale boy as the need arises.”

“No . . .” Joe set a stack of tapes on the counter beside her. “. . . you wouldn't.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means that if Dan wants to leave, he should be allowed to leave.”

Charlie watched Joe sort seasons one through six of
The
Littlest Hobo
into the correct boxes and finally decided, screw it, let him change the subject. “We're keeping him within the protection of the family for his own good,
but, yeah, it's a slippery slope. With great power, great responsibility, yadda yadda, and you have no idea how much I miss the days when all I had to worry about were broken strings and drunks who wanted us to play ‘Freebird.'”

Joe cocked his head and frowned at her. “When was the last time you slept?”

When she closed her eyes, she saw big rocks land on people she loved while she struggled to string her guitar. “I'm pretty sure I got a couple hours on the roof this morning. Why?”

“Because you look a little rough.”

“Good. Rough may get me some sympathy points.” Charlie picked up a 1997 tape of
Girls Gone Wild
and frowned at the fangs and claws. Not the wild she'd been expecting. “Allie upstairs?”

“She is. Gwen took the boys to the park.”

Allie was alone upstairs because the universe rearranged itself for Gales. Metaphysically speaking; geologically speaking, not so much.

“If any of the family come in, keep them down here.”

After a long look at her face, Joe nodded.

Charlie tossed the tape back in the box and wondered what he'd seen.

*   *   *

“Auntie Bea, I need to talk to Jack.”

“Of course you do. In case you're curious, although I notice you didn't ask, Dan is currently sitting at the kitchen table eating butter tarts.”

“I hope he's sitting on a towel.”

“Of course he is. Jack! It's Charlotte.”

Jack listened without comment as Charlie leaned on the wall beside the mirror and sketched out her meeting with Auntie Catherine. “I'm about to play the whole opera for Allie, then we'll throw the aunties at the asteroid.”

“If you threw enough of them, you could knock it off course.”

“Catapult it is, then.”

“You sure you want to tell Allie before I check with the Courts?”

“The Courts will assume the aunties already know. If we take it to the Courts before the aunties . . .”

“We'll be the first casualties.”

He was smiling—Charlie could hear the smile in his voice—but he was
also entirely serious. His uncles had seen to it that Jack's sense of survival was as finally tuned as any Gale boy's.

“Charlie?”

She'd been listening to him breathe for just a little too long. Twenty-two months, but he could save himself and that was . . . not exactly a comfort, but it helped. Her reflection stood on a pile of broken glass. It seemed the mirror had a sense of its own mortality. “We'll stop it,” she said, and hung up.

*   *   *

“Allie, we have to talk.”

Allie turned the mixer on low and poured the half cup of lemon juice into the bowl before looking up. “All right.” Her expression suggested relief, but Charlie could hear betrayal under her words, like the snares vibrating against a drumhead. Lovers, cousins, friends, they didn't keep secrets. Hadn't kept secrets. “Pass me the flour.”

Charlie slid the quarter cup of flour down the counter. “I thought this was another Wild Powers problem, like the Selkies. Keeping it from you had nothing to do with you personally.”

“Okay.” She tipped the flour into the bowl, then turned up the power.

“You're taking this well.” Charlie pitched her voice over the roar of the machine, not bothering to mask the sarcasm. Gale girls baked when they were upset. Allie, figuring there was pie enough in the world, baked lemon squares.

“You're obvious when you have a secret, Charlie.”

“In my own defense, this isn't an easy family to keep secrets in.” It would certainly be easier from Vegas. She felt another wave of understanding for Auntie Catherine. “Look there's no good way to do this so I'm just going to sing out. There's a huge asteroid heading toward an impact with Earth in twenty-two months, which probably isn't enough time for NASA to stop it, so unless we, being us, being the family, although mostly I'm figuring the aunties at this point, can stop it, we're all, and when I say all I mean all, going to die.”

Allie shut off the mixer and stared at Charlie while the silence vibrated through the apartment. “What?” she asked after a long moment.

Maybe a few more details wouldn't hurt. “What part did you miss?”

“The part where you're supposed to be telling me about you and Jack.”

“Allie . . .” The edge of the counter creaked under Charlie's white-knuckled grip. “There is no me and Jack!”

“I know, I can do the math.” Allie picked up a spatula. “We can all do the math. I understand why you don't want the whole family talking about it . . .”

“Wait.” Hand wrapped around Allie's wrist, Charlie stopped her from scraping the bowl and folding her emotional state into the lemon custard. “Are you saying, the whole family knows?”

“Did you miss me saying you're obvious when you have a secret? Between you running and him scorching and all the watching you've both been doing with little pink hearts in your eyes . . .”

“Actual?”

“Metaphorical.”

“Good thing.”

“But the point is, I have never closed my heart to you. Why didn't you come to me?”

“Oh, for . . . Allie, focus!” Charlie released her wrist and stepped back. “Jack and I are dealing. We talked. It's cool. Well, it's actually pretty fucking lousy, but everyone in the world dying in twenty-two months kind of puts our incredibly bad timing into perspective, don't you think?”

“No, it's . . .” Allie stared down into the bowl, at the spatula, up at Charlie. “You were serious about that?” She'd finally dropped the irritating, second circle, mom-voice. Charlie hated that voice. “You were serious about the asteroid? That's . . .” She blinked, stumbled sideways, bounced off the end of the dining room table, pulled out a chair, and sat. “Everyone dies in twenty-two months.”

And that was the difference between them. Allie went straight from the cause to the effect. “That's what they tell me.”

“That's not . . . I mean, we can't . . .” The lights flickered, throwing the apartment into momentary late October gloom, and the mixer turned on again.

Charlie unplugged it, then just to be on the safe side, turned off the oven before moving to the dining room, pulling out a chair, and turning it to face Allie. Hands on her cousin's knees, she leaned forward. “Calm down, you're going to hyperventilate. Rosin your bow, Allie-cat. I need you to call the aunties together.”

“Rosin my what?”

“Ow!”

The toddler weight lifting program had put some muscle behind Allie's swing. “How long have you known?” she demanded through gritted teeth.

“About the asteroid?” Auntie Catherine. Dan. Vermont. Gary. Charlie added it up. “Twenty-four hours. About everyone dying?” Southern California. Auntie Catherine. “Maybe ten.”

“Then can I have a minute to deal!”

“Sorry.”

Allie shrugged off her apology and frowned. “This is why you didn't come to bed last night.”