The Future Falls (25 page)

“Catherine told me the sky was falling.” Auntie Jane's slate-gray brows nearly met over her nose. “She didn't mention anything as prosaic as an incoming asteroid.”

Straightening from the oven, Auntie Bea set a steaming apple pie down on the cooling rack. “You probably said something to put her back up.”

“Catherine's back is always up,” Auntie Jane pointed out. “And you didn't pinch your edges properly, Bea. There's juice dripping onto the counter.”

“First, you can't see my edges pinched or not from the angle that laptop is set at, and, second, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to Catherine's position.”

“First, you never pinch your edges properly, you haven't for fifty years, and second . . .” Thirty-six-hundred kilometers to the east, Auntie Jane's frown deepened. “. . . Catherine has never grown out of the
I know something you don't know
stage. She enjoys taunting the family with it.”

“She enjoys taunting you with it.” Auntie Bea set another pie on the rack. “The rest of us are not so favored.”

“I'm pretty sure she enjoys taunting me,” Charlie put in.

A third pie joined the first two. “I stand corrected, Charlotte.”

Auntie Gwen slid one of the big chef's knives out of Auntie Bea's reach, and the women not in the kitchen shifted so they were more definitively between Auntie Bea and the men. As the Calgary circles had grown, Auntie Bea had become less Auntie Jane's eyes and ears in the west and more her competition.

“Enough.” The lights flickered and the kettle, although it hadn't been plugged in, came to a boil. Charlie glanced over at Allie who clearly had no intention of allowing the shifting power dynamics to take center stage, not when her babies were at risk. “My grandmother's part in this is done.”

Auntie Bea pulled off the oven mitts. Auntie Carmen and Auntie Trisha, holding pie lifters, moved to flank her. Auntie Gwen set a stack of dessert plates on the island. All four aunties stared into the center monitor with such intensity that the two flanking laptops flickered in and out of blue screen, once, twice, three times, until they settled.

Glancing around the room, Charlie knew everyone present had come to the same conclusion—they'd skip the pie. “All right. We have an ETA, a trajectory, and an impact site. What do we do?”

“We could throw up berms to the northeast,” Allie said, tucked up against Graham's chest. “Deflect the blast wave and the debris.”

“
We
can,” Graham agreed, glancing over at the laptops on the sideboard, “but we're a province and a half away from the impact. Southern Ontario is . . .”

“Toast.”

“Toast?” Auntie Carmen turned on Roland. “This is your expensive law school vocabulary? Toast.”

“If we throw a berm up to protect Darsden East, it'll only become an advance wave of the debris field.” Roland spread his hands. “Superheated earth and rock, destroying everything in its path. Toast, Nana.”

“We can protect Calgary with a full first circle.” Auntie Gwen passed Roland a piece of pie. He passed it on.

“It's a little early to discuss shifting the family around, Gwen,” Auntie Jane sniffed.

“No, it isn't.” Auntie Meredith sitting in a rocking chair away from the computer, raised her voice enough to silence four rooms of ambient noise. “We can't stop the asteroid.”

“Can't?” A glance at the four aunties in the kitchen showed a surprising lack of argument. Charlie's skin felt too tight. “Just like that? You haven't even discussed it!”

“We are of the earth,” Auntie Bea said, and Charlie noted how at least half the people in the room turned to look at David. The other half kept their attention on the aunties, which was always wise.

“It's a rock,” Charlie growled. “I can't Sing it in a vacuum, but it's a
rock
.”

“Do not use that tone on me, Charlotte Marie Gale.” The pie lifter left Auntie Bea's hand and hit the granite countertop with a definitive crack. “We are of
this
earth. The rock is not. It's not even in contact with the earth, and we have limited influence in the sky.”

“You might remember that when the police helicopters are up,” Auntie Carmen muttered.

“I said limited influence,” Auntie Bea snapped. “Not grounding myself for every jackbooted thug in a uniform.”

Auntie Trisha stepped between them, hands spread in a placating manner. “Not the time, ladies. Really not the time.”

“Don't ladies me, you young punk,” Auntie Bea growled. “My eyes didn't turn dark yesterday . . .”

David stamped his foot. Even in sneakers, it sounded like a hoof against the hardwood.

“We can't stop it,” Auntie Gwen said softly. “We have to concentrate on surviving it.”

Charlie took a deep breath and counted it in.
One, two, three . . .

The family dissolved into argument again. Graham crossed the room to argue NASA with Melissa. Half a dozen of the second circle women had gathered together and Charlie could feel the power building. Their men were securing the breakables. Cameron, Heather, and Bonnie had gathered around a tablet. Lucy kept shaking her head at Roland. Rayne was on the phone. So were Sandy and Gen, two of the other third circle girls on Cameron's list. Probably talking to their mothers back in Ontario.

“We don't have time for this,” she muttered. They'd had twenty-two months back when Dr. Mehta found out. Twenty-one and a half now.

“Let them have a moment,” Allie said quietly behind her. “They need to process.”

It wasn't the incoming asteroid that needed processing, Charlie realized. It was the aunties saying
we can't.

“All right. Enough.” Allie's voice cracked like a whip over the family, even the aunties falling silent. Apparently, when she'd said moment, she'd meant moment. “I need a list of everyone willing to move to Calgary—third, second, and first circle. Once we have numbers, we'll work on housing.”

Auntie Vera leaned in close to the camera. “You can't absorb the entire family, Allie.”

“She won't need to.” Auntie Jane cut Allie's reply off. “We have time to branch again.”

“Branch out?” Auntie Bea sniffed disdainfully. “You say that like it's so easy. If you'll recall, it took a great disturbance to root this latest branch.”

“An asteroid is about to have a go at wiping out all life on the planet,” Charlie muttered. “Is that a great enough disturbance for you?”

“It
might
be enough,” Auntie Bea admitted reluctantly.

“Australia usually survives. I say we go south . . .”

“. . . and throw a shrimp on the barbie!”

Charlie couldn't see them in the monitor, but there was no mistaking her sisters. She was a little surprised they were home, given the way they'd been bouncing around the world.

“We can help the survivors,” Auntie Mary pointed out, leaning in close to the camera.

“The weather will change, there may not be many survivors.”

“The family will survive.” Auntie Jane's declaration moved her back to the center of the monitor. “That is our bottom line. How many non-family will also survive is still under discussion.”

“There's too many people in the city now who aren't us.”

Allie's head whipped around, trying to identify who'd spoken. Charlie knew who it was, but she wasn't going to say. They were right. If protecting Calgary meant protecting all the inhabitants, then after the impact they also had to keep them fed and warm. Smarter for Allie to empty the city, leaving only the family, but Charlie doubted she would.

“What about you, Jack?” Heather asked in the pause, cramming the words in as a distraction. “You fly high.”

Charlie turned to where Jack was sitting in time to see him shake his
head, hair flopping down over his eyes. Her fingers itched to stroke it back. Surrounded by family. Under the eyes of the aunties. Her fingers had a death wish.

“Not that high,” he said.

“What about sorcery?”

To Charlie's surprise, the question came from Auntie Jane.

“You're certainly capable of turning items into things they aren't.”

At least she hadn't specifically mentioned the butterflies. “I already said Jack can't stop this, Auntie Jane.”

“And I believe you, Charlotte.” The clear implication being that they were all fully aware Charlie could ensure belief and no one liked the idea much. Or at all. “Nevertheless, I'd prefer it if Jack spoke for himself.”

Everyone, physically and digitally, looked at Charlie. Then at Jack. So Charlie looked at Jack, too.

Jack swallowed a mouthful of pie and stacked the empty plate with the others on the floor beside him. “Charlie and I already talked about this, back when we assumed the Wild Powers could stop it. I don't actually control what I do. Things don't change because I want them to; they change because I
need
them to.”

“You need this rock to change, dude.” Carmen reached out and punched him lightly in the shoulder.

“He's had no training,” Graham reminded them.

“Training.” Auntie Jane leaned in, dark eyes narrowed. “Sorcerers in this family are self-taught.”

“And then killed,” Graham growled.

“But if it
were
heading right for you?” Heather asked, stretching out and poking Jack in the back with her foot. “If the asteroid was overhead, over
your
head, and it was clear you'd die in the impact, would you make it disappear? Instinctively.”

“I don't know. It'd disappear or I would.” Jack shrugged. “I might just return myself to the UnderRealm. I wouldn't know until it happened.”

“So let's drop a really big rock on him and see what happens.”

“Not helping, Auntie Bea!” Allie snapped, as Jack began to smoke. “Jack, what about your uncles, the Dragon Lords?”

“My uncles?”

Charlie figured that anyone who hadn't expected the puff of smoke and
had inhaled at the wrong time deserved what they got. How could they not know that Jack's relationship with his uncles was violent at best and . . . Actually, violent pretty much summed it up.

“My uncles,” Jack repeated, once the coughing had died down, “might be convinced to not hunt the family to extinction should they take refuge in the UnderRealm. Although I'd probably have to kill a couple to get that much out of them,” he added thoughtfully. “Besides, we can't go to the UnderRealm— Charlie already explained.”

The family turned to look at Charlie. She spread her hands in the universal gesture for
well, duh.

“All right, then . . .” Allie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Joe, what about the rest of the UnderRealm?”

With a room full of Gales searching for him—although Auntie Gwen looked right at him, Charlie noted—Joe slowly became visible over by one of the bookcases. “What
about
the rest of the UnderRealm?”

“The Courts. Can the Courts stop the asteroid?”

Charlie caught Jack's gaze and opened her mouth to say they'd discussed that, too, but snapped it closed again as Auntie Jane said, “The family does not deal with the Fey.”

No subtext. No undertone. A bald statement of inarguable fact, it smothered every other sound in the room. In all four rooms, Charlie realized.

“We do not interfere with them, and they do not interfere with us. We deal with them if they step over the line here in this world,” Auntie Jane continued, her words etched into the silence, “and that is all.”

“That's clearly not all,” Auntie Gwen muttered. The entire family held its breath. “Joe . . .”

“Was brought into the family by Alysha,” Auntie Bea replied. It seemed that in this, at least, she supported Auntie Jane.

“Jack . . .”

“The events leading up to his conception and subsequent acceptance into this side of his birthright, were entirely unique.”

Charlie saw Auntie Gwen's lip curl and braced for impact. Auntie Bea was significantly older, but that didn't necessarily mean more powerful. Only in her twenties, Allie was more powerful than any second circle Gale in memory—and that was the sort of thing the aunties never forgot.

“Gwendolyn Victoria Gale,” Auntie Jane cracked the name like a whip, a third circle naming, not a first.

And all the fight went out of Auntie Gwen.

Fine. Charlie had fight to spare. “In case you've forgotten a point I made earlier,” she snapped, “an asteroid is about to have a go at wiping out all life on the planet. If that's not unique enough for you to find a little . . .”

“Wildness, Charlotte?”
You are treading on very thin ice.

“Flexibility, Auntie Jane.”
I can swim.

“And should we invite the rest of the world into our councils?”

Charlie jerked her arm free of a cautioning touch—probably Auntie Gwen's, she was the only woman close enough—and glared at the monitor. “That's not the same, and you know it.”

“Yes, I do. As I know we do not deal with the Fey.”

“Some of them are already leaving.”

“Good. We deal with this situation as we have with others, within the family.”

“Situation? Seriously? That's what you're calling this? You know what? Fine. The family deals with it. When you've figured out just how the family is going to keep from dying in less than twenty-two months, you let me know.”

Allie moved toward her, but Charlie shook her head and sidestepped, slipping out the patio door as Auntie Carmen said, “I don't trust the Fey, present company excepted for the most part.”

There was a single lounge chair left out by pool, the old-fashioned construction of aluminum and nylon tape that had never taken a charm well, next to it a small, round plastic table that had been white before Lyla went at it with her paints. Charlie kicked the table into the pool, gave some serious consideration to sending the chair after it, and sat down instead.