Dissonance (37 page)

“I'm sure Del will find that tremendously useful,” she said. She shifted her attention to me. “In your career as a professional basketball player, of course.”

“It's always been my dream,” I said, drawn in despite myself. The affection between them was so obvious, and they included
me as if it was perfectly natural. A pang of envy ran through me.

He ran a hand along my calf. “Don't tease, Delancey. I have other talents.”

I kicked him as discreetly as I could.

“He makes an excellent toasted cheese sandwich,” Amelia said, as if she was giving the matter great thought. “And his chicken soup has come a long way.”

Simon nodded gravely. “I'm amazing with a can opener.”

“Delancey,” Amelia mused over her teacup. “That's a pretty name. Unusual.”

Traditional, for Walkers. “I was born in New York,” I said. “But my parents knew we were coming back here, so they named me after the subway stop near our apartment. I'm lucky we didn't live near Flushing.”

“They named you after a train stop?” Simon said. “Wait. Addison? Montrose?”

“My family has a strange sense of humor,” I said weakly.

Simon raised his eyebrows. “Your family is strange, period.”

“All families are,” Amelia said, a hint of strain showing around her eyes. The teacup clinked as she set it down. “Chamomile makes me sleepy. I think I'll turn in early, give you two some privacy.”

Simon clambered up. “You okay?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “It was wonderful to finally meet you, Del. Promise you'll come back again.”

Iggy padded along beside her as she left. Simon watched, worry etched around his mouth and eyes.

Finally,
she'd said. As if he'd mentioned me before today. Before he knew the truth.

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah. She gets tired pretty fast.”

“I shouldn't have come,” I said, and he dropped onto the ottoman, one leg on either side of mine.

“I'm glad you did. So is she. Besides,” he said, sliding his hand around my neck and drawing me in for a brief kiss, “she's heard a lot about you.”

“You didn't tell her about . . .”

“How could I explain it? And after you said it was impossible, there wasn't any point.” He fit our hands together, his fingers twining with mine. “You said bringing back a treatment could do more harm than good. What changed?”

“Me,” I said. “If we do this, I have ground rules.”

He leaned back. “Never thought I'd hear you say that.”

Neither had I. “One, if it puts the Key World in danger, we stop. Two, if it puts either of you in danger, we stop.”

His jaw tightened, but he nodded.

“Three, your mom has to be sure.”

“I'm sure,” he said quickly.

“Not you.
Her.
I can't guarantee that I'll find a treatment, but if I do, you have to tell her the risks, and she has to sign off on it. I won't use my Walking to take away her choices.”

He bent his head, his words muffled. “Fine. Once we find a cure—if we do—how do we get it back here?”

“I don't know yet. It's fine to bring things from the Key
World to Echoes. When I Walk, I leave stars behind. They're so small, hardly anyone notices them—we call them breadcrumbs, because we can use them to find our way home if we get lost.”

“Does that happen?”

“My grandmother,” I said after a minute. “A few months before I was born, she went out for a Walk, and she never came back. That's when Monty started to lose it. It's why we left New York—to take care of him.”

He brushed his lips over the back of my hand. “I didn't know it was dangerous.”

“We navigate by listening to the differences in frequencies. That's why we've got such good hearing, but the sound wears us down after a while. It's not bad in limited amounts, but if you stay too long, it starts to scramble your brain. The longer you stay, the worse it gets. That's why we usually go with a partner.”

“Like Eliot.”

Not anymore. “My grandmother went out alone. People do it, especially on short Walks. But she disappeared.”

“You don't think she left on purpose?” He sounded skeptical.

“No. We think she got disoriented, and the farther she Walked, the more lost she got. The Consort—our leaders—sent people to look for her. My grandfather is still looking. But she's gone. There's no tracking someone through the multiverse after so much time.”

He squeezed my leg, the contact scorching even through my jeans. “At least she didn't bail on you guys.”

Unlike his dad. “How long ago did he leave?”

He grimaced. “I was three days old. I have it on good authority that I was a delightful infant, so I guess he wasn't cut out for fatherhood.”

“I'm sure you were adorable,” I said.

“I really was.”

Something buzzed at the back of my mind, a warning prickle, and I tried to focus on it. But Simon kissed me again, and it slipped away like water through cupped hands.

“You said medicine from an Echo might hurt her. How are we going to get around that?” he asked.

“I think the trick is not to bring the drugs themselves. That way we're not introducing a new frequency to the Key World. I could track down the formula, and then we could. . . .” I trailed off. We could what? Open an illegal pharmaceutical lab? Find a chem major at the university who was willing to experiment? And what if it wasn't medicine, but a surgery? What if I'd given Simon a second round of false hope? “I'll find a way.”

“
We'll
find a way,” he said.

“You can't go with me,” I reminded him. “And if there's a problem with the frequencies overlapping, I'm calling it off. I can't put you or the Key World in danger, even if it means you hate me for the rest of my life.”

“You're risking your own life to help her,” he said. “How could I possibly hate you?”

I shrugged. Easy for him to say that when he didn't know what I'd done. “Just so we're clear.”

“Crystal,” he said, and kissed me again, pulling me onto
his lap, one hand sliding along my back, his lips tracing my ear. “Take me with you.”

“You tried, remember?” I sat up, braced my hands against the wall of his chest. “You couldn't follow me through.”

“You could help me,” he said. “Like a guide. Come on, Del. Pretend I'm a breadcrumb.”

“I'm not a guide,” I said, tugging the hem of my shirt back into place. “And you're not a breadcrumb.”

Simon wasn't the way home. He
was
home.

“What's the worst that could happen? I get left in the equipment closet again?”

“I don't know what the worst is. I don't know how the frequency would affect you. The equipment closet was a terrible location, by the way.”

“It lacked ambiance, but I enjoyed it.” His hand inched along my thigh.

I smacked him. “For
Walking
. It's easier when the pivots are established.”

“So we'll find one that's established.”

“You passed a bunch of them the other night at the Depot, and you never noticed. It won't work.” But part of me wondered. I'd learned to Walk by holding on to Monty's hand and letting him lead me through Echoes. My dad's team had carried him back unconscious.

“One try. If I can't cross, I won't bug you again. If I can, and there's a problem, we'll come back right away.” His touch made me light-headed. “Let's go break some rules.”

•  •  •

Twenty minutes later we were sitting in the Depot's half-f parking lot, staring at the train crash's memorial.

“How does it work?” he asked in a low voice.

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don't know. Felt like a whispering kind of moment. Clandestine.”

“Everything with you is clandestine,” I said.

“It doesn't need to be. You want to announce to the school we're together, I'm more than fine with it.”

“One thing at a time, okay?” Bree's reaction didn't worry me nearly as much as the Consort's.

I climbed out, Eliot's map in hand. The edges of pivot points caught on my coat, stronger than before. We needed a large, stable rift, one I could cross without much concentration. No sense making this more difficult than necessary.

“You have to hold on to me.” I checked the screen and headed for the far end of the parking lot. “Don't let go, even for a second.”

“Got it.” He gave me a smile that tilted toward nervous, and took my hand in his.

“I can do this alone,” I told him, trying to give him an out. “You don't need to come with.”

“Yeah, I do. It's dangerous, right? Even for you?”

“It can be. But I am very, very good.”

His smile quirked up. “I'm sure you are.”

“Do you see the rift?”

The air around the pivot looked more dense, a sliver of night that the amber glow of the streetlamps couldn't penetrate. I gestured, and his eyes locked on my hand.

“Nope. But I feel weird, like an electrical storm is coming.” He took my hand. “Go ahead, Del. I trust you.”

Not many people did—not even me. But belief is a powerful thing. In that moment I was trustworthy because he believed in me. Simon's faith transformed me into the person he thought I was.

•  •  •

With Simon's hand gripping mine, I felt my way through, the air oppressive and unyielding. I breathed out, slow and steady, my entire body attuning to the frequency, fixing the sound in my mind, pushing away thoughts of Simon, of the Consort, of anything except the world I was trying to reach.

My foot slid forward a few inches, the air resisting the entire way.

It had to be Simon. His frequency was locked into the Key World, holding us back.

When I looked over, his jaw was set in concentration. He'd never agree to quit.

I pressed on, inch by inch, and gradually my hand pushed into the other world, the resonance unpleasant but not painful. Foot, knee, elbow, shoulder, head, each a struggle.

Finally I was clear, except for my hand holding his. I willed the pivot to part, planted my feet, and tugged.

There was an awful, excruciating tension as the pivot ground
along my wrist. It wouldn't work. I'd lose him. Maybe I'd lost him already, and he'd disintegrated in the subatomic spaces between worlds. I swore under my breath, hauled as hard as I could, channeling my panic into action.

Like a cork from a bottle, Simon burst free. We went down in a tangle of arms and legs on the pavement.

“You're here,” I said. “Oh, God, you're really here. I thought—”

“It worked?” Wide-eyed, he took in the nearly deserted parking lot. We'd landed at the end of a row, at the base of a parking meter. “We did it? Holy crap, Del.”

I fought back tears of relief. We'd made it. Simon could Walk, and everything I'd ever been taught was wrong. I flopped back onto the ground, heedless of the gravel biting into me, and stared up at the sky, surprised the stars were lodged in their familiar constellations. My whole world tilted on a new axis. The stars should be different. Everything was different.

I listened carefully, gauging the pitch and stability, searching for any breaks that might hint at a problem, but the Echo sounded safe. How had the Consort been so wrong?

It wasn't the first time. I thought back to the girl with the note cards, how I'd caused an Echo to transpose. How Monty had promised tuning could stabilize entire worlds. Maybe they weren't wrong. Maybe the Consort wasn't telling us everything.

Simon pulled me to my feet. “Are you okay? You said it can make you sick.”

“We've got a few hours before frequency poisoning kicks in. Hear the difference?”

He shook his head. “Still staticky, though. Where are we?”

The Depot was gone. In its place stood a boxy redbrick building, and the platform was lined with benches and warning signs. “New station. I bet the crash happened, but they didn't move the location. But we can't know for sure.”

Simon took it in, his eyes catching every detail. “It's so real.”

“For the people in this world, it is.” I wondered if Simon would be visible, or go unnoticed, the way Walkers did.

“And my house is here? Can we check it out?”

“That's not a good idea.” Echo objects weren't supposed to come in contact with their Originals, and I assumed the principle applied regardless of where the meeting took place. The strain on the threads could be dangerous. “Maybe we should—”

“Do you think my mom is there?” He started off, not waiting for my response.

I chased after him. “Wait! You don't know what you'll find. It's not a good idea to rush off.”

God, I sounded like Addie. All caution and common sense, while Simon viewed the world like he'd gone through the looking glass. My usual recklessness waned when he was at risk.

“Listen to me, okay? We can check out the house. But she's not your mom. She's your Echo's mom. She might not even be home.”

“I have to see,” he told me. “You said we have to find a world where she's cured. Maybe this one is it.”

“On the first try?” Unlikely. But he looked so hopeful, I matched my stride to his, and we went in search of his family.

“The town moved,” he said after a few blocks.

At home it was the north side of town that was busy, even at night. Restaurants and shops and lots of pedestrians, even when the weather was lousy. But here the business district had shifted south, toward the train station. We passed by Grundy's, and he paused.

“Some things are the same,” I said, nodding at the familiar sign. “It's hard to predict what changes from world to world.”

“But it's only the Key World that matters?” He sounded troubled.