Everything Breaks by Vicki Grove

way back from that barrow, I knew right away it was that ancient structure, that Silbury Hill she’d mentioned, what else could it be?
    â€œAnd when I’d reached the bike, there was just enough light for me to see across the road and, well, there was maybe a hundred big old rabbits standing on different parts of that cone-hill, not one of them moving a single muscle. I started the bike and none of them twitched a twitch at the loud sound of it. Every single one of them faced the same direction, too—east, not a west-facer in the crowd. They seemed under some witchy spell or something. I hung around another couple of minutes, and when
still
nobody moved, well, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. And the next day I got me this tattoo to remind me of seeing a hundred frozen rabbits all up and down a pyramid hill.” He murmured, “I coulda got a rabbit tat, but I just knew whatever was going on with them had to do with those spirals on those burial rocks and inside that big old crop circle.”
    Something passed among the other three of us. Before, his story had been interesting, but we all knew a little bit about crop circle pranksters and static electricity that could play with your hair. My hair, for instance, had gone straight up when I was on a scouting camp-out on a mountain in Colorado right before a thunderstorm hit. Steve was so . . . something, romantic? A southern boy from Memphis, he swore he’d seen Elvis’s ghost at least four times, so what he saw with his own eyes was a bit suspect.
    But who would imagine a hill of frozen rabbits? Unlike Elvis, rabbits were ordinary and simple. What other ordinary things might go all spooky at any minute?
    â€œIf one small impossible thing happens, that makes
anything
possible,” Zero finally said, putting into words what I myself had been thinking. His voice had that awed, breathless tone typical of him when he was caught up in the beauty of science or planning something crazy.
    I remember wanting to turn my flashlight on or to go somewhere light.
    â€œThere are spirals in the Nazca lines in Peru,” I said, remembering a report I’d done. “I think other ancient Indian cultures used them in their sacred rites as well.”
    â€œYou start at the outside and spiral into the heart of a good piece of music,” Trey mused. “Any good beat does that, leads you inward toward the beat of your own heart.”
    Zero disagreed. “Nah, a spiral’s gotta lead
out
! You start at the center and journey outward, gaining constant acceleration until you reach the rim and go
airborne,
dudes!”
    Zero bounced to a crouch there on the grungy sofa, then took another bounce, propelling himself up onto the sofa’s sagging back. He assumed a skateboarder’s position against the rising moon, wrangling the darkness with both outspread arms and all the muscled will in the world while Trey and I slid to make a place for Steve to sit and finish his third ear of corn.
    If one small impossible thing happens, that makes anything possible.
    My eyes came open with a start and I saw that the shadow spiral on my bedroom ceiling had been replaced with weak, flickering daylight. I’d slept some after all and now it was morning, Sunday, which meant it was Janet’s busiest day at Bob’s Family Restaurant. She would have left at six. My digital clock said 6:37. She’d be gone.
    A feeling of overwhelming doom was coming awake along with me. I tried to hold it back, tried not to let it swamp me. But toxic images from last night came pouring like acid into my head, destroying all sense, all reality. I pulled my pillow over my face and concentrated on sending all my attention to the burning in my legs.
    They felt turned inside out. It was an ordeal getting up. My knees would barely bend, and the sheet beneath me was bloodied, a real mess that I couldn’t let Janet see. I hobbled into the bathroom, got into