The Future Falls (31 page)

“Maybe,” Charlie added, “she wants to be a pain in the ass, one last time.”

“That,” Auntie Jane snorted, “I believe. Well, come on, then. Mary's waiting in the kitchen. We're canning some pumpkin before we start another set of pies.” She turned expectantly, so Charlie fell into step beside her. “Your mother's garden had some lovely pie pumpkins this year. Stop by and see her when you bring Mary back. I'm trusting you to keep her away from David should Alysha's boy babies scramble her mind.”

“Is that likely to happen?”

“Who knows? The women in this family have a complicated relationship with their boys. Scarcity adds value. An appalling number of us have the same attraction power, not to mention poor impulse control, the first of us did. That said, I assume Jack informed you that I want the two of you participating in ritual a week Wednesday. No
fourth circle
nonsense.”

Air quotes from the aunties were always frighteningly definitive. Mouth primed to say no, Charlie met Auntie Jane's dark-on-dark gaze and heard herself say, “What?”

“We're not leaving either your power or his out of a possible solution.”

Charlie stopped in the kitchen doorway and stepped back into the dining room, shooting an insincere smile and wave at the aunties, aunts, and cousins around the table ladling steaming pumpkin puree into jars. The asteroid had poked a stick into an anthill, and until the ritual freed them from hope, the aunties, aunts, and cousins were doing what Gales did when they had time to kill. “What's this about a solution? You and Auntie Bea actually agreed—with each other—that the aunties can't stop the asteroid.”

“
Possible
solution,” Auntie Jane repeated. “We don't know what the whole family working together can do until we try. When this is over, however
over
ends up being defined, I want no one able to say that we didn't try everything.”

She hadn't been able to argue about that with Jack. Couldn't argue with it now. “Okay. What if Jack stays in Calgary and I come here?”

“You're staying in Calgary.” Standing on the worn threshold, Auntie Jane turned her back on the kitchen and dropped her volume from commanding to
we can pretend not to hear this
. “Katie can't handle Jack. You can. I realize this will make your personal complicated relationship even more so, but we're trying to stop the world from ending and, as your sisters say, it sucks to be you.”

“You talked about this with my sisters?”

“They were referring to you and Jack in general, not the upcoming ritual in particular.”

“Small mercies,” Charlie muttered. It wasn't pity. That was something.

“If you don't want to participate, Charlotte, you have an option.”

“I do?”

“Save the world before next Wednesday.”

And given that the subtext added a terrifyingly sincere,
which I'm quite sure you could do if you only put your mind to it
, Charlie had nothing to say.

“Look at how big they've gotten!” Releasing Allie, from a second or possibly third extended hug—Jack had lost count—Auntie Mary bent to lift one of the twins off the floor. “And this one's Evan . . . ?”

“Edward,” Jack told her from a position of relative safety behind the sofas. He'd been hugged once, that was enough. He liked Allie's mother well
enough—newly changed, she'd often intervened between him and the older aunties during the summer he spent in Ontario—but that much desperation and power mixed together was a little off-putting and he still had trouble separating hunger from, well,
hunger
.

Allie laughed as her mother peered from twin to twin. “Even Graham and I can't always tell. Jack's the only one who never gets them mixed up.”

“They smell different,” he explained as Auntie Mary glanced over at him.

She hefted Edward higher and pressed her mouth and nose against his hair. “They smell wonderful!”

“Sure,” Jack sighed. “That end. Now.”

He caught the stuffed turtle Allie threw at him as Charlie came into the apartment and tossed it from hand to hand when their attention shifted to her. From the laughing and the teasing, they didn't seem to realize what it meant when she set her guitar case down by the door. Jack knew. He saw the tight curve of Charlie's smile, the way her right thumb strummed against the outside seam of her jeans and the red boots she carried out of Allie and Graham's bedroom.

Oh, and how her gaze kept sliding past his face. He saw that, too.

During an argument about feeding the twins bananas and peanut butter . . .

“Gales don't have allergies, Mom.”

“Maybe not allergies, but, if you'll recall, peas don't agree with Auntie Vera.”

“No one agrees with Auntie Vera; the peas are in good company.”

...he slipped out and waited down by the mirror. After four winters in the MidRealm, he understood what the mirror intended when he saw his reflection holding a bunch of roses and a heart-shaped box, but he kept getting distracted by the impractical design. Every time his reflection moved, chocolates spilled out of the left ventricle.

“Because I have to have a Song to follow out of the Wood, Mom, and Australia is a bit vague. No, Australia itself isn't vague, I meant that putting what I know about Australia into a Song could as easily dump me at Russell Crowe's house. Or Nicole Kidman's. I agree, Mom, neither an entirely bad situation, but not exactly useful either especially since I'm pretty sure Nicole Kidman lives outside Nashville. What?” Phone in one hand, guitar in the other, Charlie's gaze slipped past Jack once again as she came down the last
few stairs. “Yes, I know most of what lives in Australia can kill you. The twins will feel right at home. Gotta go save the world. Love you, too, bye.”

“You're not going to save the world,” he told her as she reached the hall.

“Harsh.” Frowning at the mirror, she tossed him her phone. “Hang onto that for me, will you.”

Jack caught it without thinking. “I meant tonight.” The silver-capped toes of her red boots were visible under the edge of her jeans. “Where are you going?”

“To find a band to sit in with.”

“I know what that means.” It meant the same thing the boots meant.

“Tonight it means a dark bar where your feet stick to floor, beer in plastic bottles, a couple of broken strings, and, if I'm feeling like I really need to let go, I may have a go at a banjo.”

“And after the . . . banjo.”

“A greasy breakfast, coffee you can stand a spoon up in, and an argument about Martins versus Taylors if I'm lucky.”

“Take me with you. I know, you can't take me through the Wood. There must be a band in a crappy bar with bad beer in Calgary.”

He couldn't understand her expression. It looked like pain. “This isn't something we do together, Jack.”

“We have.” He reached out to grab her sleeve and changed his mind, not wanting to look desperate. He wasn't desperate, he just wanted her to hear him. He just wanted to be with her. In whatever way the stupid rules allowed. “That summer in Cape Breton . . .”

“Things were a lot less complicated back then,” she interrupted. “Selkie stalking aside. All I want to do tonight is get out of my head for a while. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's not Wild; it's me, not me and you.”

“It could be.”

“No. We're not building a life together, Jack. We can't.”

If he asked her not to go, if he said, please don't go, would she stay? Probably not. But as long as he didn't ask, he could pretend she would.

When she touched his cheek, he felt her skin blister against his, but she maintained the gentle pressure, until he brought himself under control. She'd used the backs of her fingers, he realized as she blew a charm over the burn. Blisters on the tips, even with her calluses, even charmed, would have made playing painful.

“We're not a me and you,” he said slowly, trying to understand, “but having a go at a banjo means you're only having a go at a banjo?”

She grinned. “If you knew banjos, Jack, you wouldn't use the word
only
in that sentence.” The grin slipped. He had a feeling Charlie was keeping it on her face by willpower alone. “I'm not giving up the music, Jack. Didn't for Allie-cat, won't for you. Or, not-you, as it happens. Won't give up Allie for not-you either.”

“Why would I want you to?”

“Excellent question.”

He watched her reflection touch his cheek with her fingertips, scales flickering across the back of her hand. Her hand? The back door opened and without turning, he said, “We should be a me and you.”

“Sucks to be us.”

*   *   *

Up where the air had picked up a bite, he spread his wings and started a long spiral glide around the distant lights of Calgary. Charlie hadn't left the city. He could feel where she was and, with very little effort, he could track her.

He didn't.

She might have stayed in Calgary because she wanted him to track her. Because she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her. Because she didn't want it to be her decision. Given that their whole problem was all about him being so much younger, Charlie needed to stop being so fucking childish.

Allie didn't like it when he swore.

Charlie didn't mind.

As he descended, the sense of family in the city separated out into individual pockets—the houses at the north end of the park, the Emporium, the big house in Mount Royal, Katie's condo, Charlie . . .

The aunties, all four of them, were
in
the park.

Jack frowned. They took it in turns to drop in on David outside of ritual, but why all four of them. And why tonight?

Oh.

Auntie Mary was David's mother. If David's power pulled her to the park . . .

Jack didn't land. He didn't even look down. He thought he could hear David's hoofbeats.

Allie woke at five forty-eight on Tuesday morning, patted the empty space where Charlie wasn't, tugged her hair out from under her husband's arm, and stared at the ceiling for twenty-one minutes, fully aware she wouldn't be able to see the asteroid even if the ceiling were suddenly, miraculously transparent but unable to look away. Finally, she sighed and got up. She couldn't stop the asteroid or break the connection between Charlie and Jack's hearts . . .

Hand outstretched to grab her robe from the chair, she froze. She couldn't stop the asteroid, but she could break the connection between Charlie and Jack's hearts. Second circle was all about connection. With the power she held in ritual, she could remake them as two separate people, not two suffering halves of an impossible whole. Charlie would stop running. Jack would settle back into his skin. They'd stop pulling away from the family.

Of course they'd both have to be in ritual, she acknowledged, not merely skirting the edges of it, so as pleasant as it might be to think of, given how skittish they were, that wasn't likely to happen any time soon. And soon was all they had.

The great room of the apartment was quiet and the spill of streetlights around the edges of the curtains provided enough illumination for her to maneuver, illumination enough to see Jack sprawled out on one of the sofas. He'd gone flying after Charlie left; she'd heard him come in around three. Allie had no idea why he'd decided to sleep here instead of in his own room, but she certainly didn't mind. She preferred her family close. One hand curled against his cheek, he looked absurdly young. Then she moved slightly, and the shadows shifted and he looked like the man he was becoming.

Well, mostly man. His tail spilled off the edge of the cushions and curled on the floor, tip twitching slightly.

Should she talk to him about his recent changes, about how the dragon seemed to be trying to overwhelm the Gale? What would she say? Maybe this recent shifting was normal for a dragon of his age. She didn't have enough information. She wasn't actually his mother.