Dissonance (15 page)

“Shouldn't that be Shaw's job?”

He peered into the living room, with its jumble of instruments. “I assure you I'm qualified.”

Addie sloshed cocoa everywhere at the sight of a Consort member strolling into our kitchen.

“Not Eliot,” I said.

“Councilman!” She shot out of her seat. “We're—I'm—how can we help you?”

“I'm here for Delancey's progress report. Since your parents have placed you in charge, I thought it simpler to get the information directly.”

He gave her an expectant look, as if his patience was already wearing thin.

“I haven't written a formal report yet,” Addie hedged, “but she did well. We spent today reviewing navigation and cartography, and discussed strategies for directly analyzing breaks.”

Impressive. It was a much better spin than, “We hung out at a coffee shop and burglarized a school.”

“I trust you've limited her Walks only to supervised training?”

“Yes, sir. We've monitored her very closely.”

“We. You and your grandfather, I presume.” He looked up at the ceiling, where Monty's shuffling gait was audible. “Are you certain neither of them slipped away unnoticed?”

A direct question from a Consort member was virtually unheard of. He must have been genuinely curious, and his curiosity fueled my own. Was he here to check up on me, or Monty?

Addie was too caught up in the implication she'd been lax in watching me to notice his slip. “The Consort's expectations were very clear. I had eyes on Del the whole time.”

I did my best to look obedient and remorseful.

“It's important that you supervise your grandfather as closely as you do your sister, lest he wander off. Also, you should be aware his methodology often conflicts with standard practice.”

“He's got years of experience,” I blurted. “Why not learn from that?”

He turned on me, predatory as a hawk. “The lessons you can take from him are cautionary at best. You'd do better to learn from your sister. We need more Walkers like her.”

Addie straightened, her posture more impeccable than usual as he turned to her.

“We appreciate your willingness to help, Addison. Once your apprenticeship is concluded—and assuming your work with Delancey is successful—the Consort will make sure you're given a position worthy of your abilities.”

On the surface the words sounded complimentary. But the underlying message had an ominous note: If I failed, I wouldn't be the only one punished.

“Yes, sir,” she said, eyes wide. She'd heard it too. “Thank you.”

“Excellent. Send me your written reports, as well as your plans for the upcoming week. I'll continue to check in personally.”

“That's not necessary, sir. Del's caused you enough trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” His smile fell several degrees short of warm. “It's the least I can do for the granddaughters of my old friend. Especially considering that he's in no condition to do it himself.”

Before Addie could manage another timid “Yes, sir,” he was gone.

“Well, that wasn't creepy.” I threw the dead bolt and headed to the kitchen. “Why does the Consort care so much about me? I figured they'd hand me off to Shaw again, especially since they're busy with Mom and Dad's special project.”

Addie stared into her mug, lost in thought. “Grandpa was a big deal when he was a Cleaver. A lot of people thought he would
be selected for the Consort, before Grandma disappeared. Maybe they think they're doing him a favor.”

“Some favor,” I said. “Monty and Lattimer can't stand each other.”

“No, they can't. But he was important. Mom and Dad are important. They can't publicly show favoritism, but behind the scenes . . .” She shrugged. “Regardless, Lattimer's right about Monty being a bad influence. He keeps losing time, Del. He's slipping.”

The cocoa coated my tongue, making it thick and clumsy. “Only a little. When it's important, he focuses.”

“It's what he deems important that worries me,” she replied.

My whole life, Monty had encouraged me to stretch myself. To find out what I was capable of, instead of blindly following instructions. “Teaching us. Making sure we can find our way home.”

“Those are secondary,” Addie said. “He wants to find Grandma, and if he can't do it himself, he'll use us. He'll use anyone. He's training us to keep going once he can't.”

“You think he knows they're talking about sending him to a home?”

“I think he's not as lost as he seems.” She shook her head, rinsed out her cup. “I'm going to write that report.”

After she left, I texted Eliot:
U back? Movie night?

The reply was immediate:
B there asap.

The textbooks Addie and I had fought over this morning lay scattered across the table. I stacked them neatly, but my mom's office,
a narrow windowless room off the main hall, was locked as usual. The only books I could reshelve were the journals, leather-bound diaries kept by my grandparents and other long-dead relatives, stretching back generations. These days most Walkers kept their journals on a computer, but there was something reassuring about seeing row after row, each stamped with the author's initials.

The Monty I glimpsed in the journals was nimble and canny, even if he didn't follow protocol. He relied more on instinct and the deft manipulation of strings rather than the bloodless, data-driven style we were taught in school. His later entries degenerated into ramblings about the Consort and his attempts to find Rose. I didn't read those volumes as much.

My grandmother's journals were more like scrapbooks: a few maps, lots of notes about medical cases she'd treated, home remedies and recipes for the desserts Monty loved, brief melodies she'd composed.

When I was a kid, I'd read my grandparents' journals again and again, looking for clues about where Rose had gone and how Monty had searched for her. I'd thought if I could find her, he'd be restored—not just my beloved, dotty grandfather, but the brilliant Walker contained in those books. He'd be happy, and I'd finally meet my grandmother instead of only hearing stories.

I knew better now. Too much time and too many worlds had passed to find my grandmother. The best we could hope for was to keep Monty from losing himself, too.

I headed into the living room, picking up my mom's viola and running through a few arpeggios, fingers dancing over the
strings. The lively, complicated scales usually did the trick when I wanted to fend off melancholy.

Eliot let himself in the back door, calling, “Miss me?”

“Like you wouldn't believe.” I met him in the kitchen and gave him a quick hug. “Have you been out this whole time?”

“Yeah. Tricky stuff today.” He grabbed a can of pop from the fridge and swallowed noisily. “Boring without you.”

“Naturally. Did anyone ask about me?”

“Callie said you should call her. Everyone's bummed you're gone.”

I wanted to believe him, but my phone had been awfully quiet since the sentencing. “What about Shaw? Did he say anything?”

Eliot settled into the blue brocade armchair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “ ‘Be nice to Addie.' ”

“Pfft. He knows what she's like.” I played another arpeggio, pleased. Shaw was on my side. If we could prove the cleaving wasn't my fault, he would back me up with the Consort.

“I went to the Archives after class,” he added. “Pulled a bunch of files and read them on the way home.”

My pulse kicked up. “What did you find?”

“Nothing yet. A lot of the data was lost in the cleaving. I'll keep looking.”

I tried to sound upbeat. “Did Shaw like the map program?”

“I'm not ready to show him.”

Eliot would be eighty before he was ready—he was a total perfectionist. Usually it made me nuts, but this time he was right.

“Yeah, the software's glitchy. I meant to tell you yesterday.”

His eyebrows shot up. “What did you do to my map?”

“I was testing it during history, and the display kind of . . . exploded.” I waved my bow around for emphasis.

“Why didn't you mention it?”

“I rebooted and it looked fine. Besides, it wasn't like we had a lot of time to chat yesterday.” Between my detention and his training, I'd barely seen him.

“It's working now,” he said, sweeping his fingers over the screen. “What were you doing when it crashed?”

“Nothing! I was sitting in class, testing the range, and it froze. I took it back to the music room so I could check things out in person, and it started working again.”

He scowled. “I wish you wouldn't Walk by yourself.”

“Shhhhh.” Before he could scold me—or ask who I'd seen—I added, “There should have been a million pivots coming from the music room, but there was only one. What's up with that?”

“Only one?” He paced around the room as he worked. “You're sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure. Saw it, heard it, felt it.” Rather than watch him wear a path in the carpet, I started playing again, trying to recreate the melody I'd heard at Grundy's. “I bet my mom can figure it out.”

“Quit goofing around,” Addie called, coming downstairs. “And don't bother Mom. She doesn't have the time to fix your latest gadget, Eliot. No offense.”

“None taken,” he muttered.

“It's not a gadget,” I said, tucking away both the viola and the memory of Echo Simon. Addie's easy dismissal of Eliot rankled. “It's a map. A real-time map. And it's amazing.”

“Real-time? Let me see.” She plucked the phone out of his hands.

“There are a few bugs I need to work out,” he said.

“Let's bring it with tonight,” I said. “Test it again.”

“You've been Walking with it?” she asked sharply.

“I'm not allowed to, am I?” Which was not exactly a denial, and Addie knew it. She also knew she couldn't prove I'd done anything wrong. I let her stew and turned to Eliot. “We should take off.”

“Your wish is my command,” he said, easing the phone out of her grip.

“You two aren't going out tonight.” She raised her eyebrows, a perfect imitation of my mom. “We're not done training.”

“Don't you have friends? Or a date? Something to do that doesn't involve sucking the joy out of my life?”

“For your information, I did have plans tonight. But since I'm not interested in rehashing the adventures of my delinquent baby sister, I decided to pass.” She didn't look too upset about it.

“That's the stupidest excuse I've ever heard,” I said. “As if you'd even mention me to your friends. What's the real reason?”

“I don't need to justify myself to you. Get your coat, Del. We're going to a basketball game, and you're going to map it.”

“Are you joking?”

Her mouth was a tight line. “Do I look like I'm joking?”

“You look like you need to get—” Eliot jabbed me in the ribs, and I glared at him. “What? She does.”

“Not helping,” he muttered. He gave Addie an apologetic half smile. “We kind of have plans. It's Saturday. Movie night.”

“She knows it's movie night,” I said. “Saturday is
always
movie night. She's just being a bitch.”

Addie sniffed. “Nice, Del. Very classy.”

“You can't stop us,” I said.

“Can't I?” She brandished her own phone like a sheriff's badge. “I talked to Mom, and she agreed with me. Ask her yourself—they'll be home any minute.”

“I'm going to kill her,” I told Eliot through gritted teeth, following Addie to the kitchen. “Smother her with a pillow. Garrote her with a violin string. Maybe a poisonous snake in her bed. Aren't you glad you're an only child?”

“It has its advantages,” he admitted.

I was tempted to start in on my mom as soon as my parents walked in the door, but she looked so exhausted—bags under her eyes, hair falling out of its usual neat bun, skin pale with fatigue—I bit my tongue.

“Eliot,” she said warmly. “I feel like I haven't seen you in ages. How are you?”

“Good. Dad says you're keeping him busy.” Eliot's father led another one of the teams Mom worked with.

“Never enough hours in the day,” she said with a weak laugh, and then turned to me. “Out with it, Del. What's wrong?”

“Addie says I have to go to a basketball game, but it's movie night!” When she looked unimpressed, I added, “I've spent the whole day training and now she wants to hijack our plans.”

“Quit whining,” Addie said. “You two can try out his map gizmo another time.”

“Map gizmo?” Mom asked, sitting down at the table. Monty wandered in and took his usual seat.

Eliot handed over the phone, bashful and proud mingled together. For few minutes, my mom was lost in it, asking him questions and half-listening to the answers. I tried not to feel hurt that a computer program got more attention than me.

“Impressive. Can I get a copy of the software?” asked my dad. “Could be handy out in the field.

“The code needs a few tweaks,” Eliot hedged.

“No time like the present,” my mom said, shooting my dad a look. “Send us a copy, Eliot. Tonight.”

My mom usually encouraged Eliot's inventions and gadgets, but never with this kind of gravity. If my parents wanted the map, it wasn't for entertainment purposes.

“Mom, Addie's not allowed to take over my whole life, is she?”

“Your sister knows better than to abuse her position.” She gave Eliot a sympathetic smile. “It's a shame you two won't have as much time together, with Del's . . . new situation.”

She was right. With Eliot on his regular training schedule and me at the mercy of a power-crazed Addie, we wouldn't be hanging out the way we normally did. Eliot was one of those parts of my life that was so familiar I barely noticed it, much like
the Key World. He was my constant. The prospect of him moving on to apprenticeship without me pinched my heart.