Resonance (7 page)

“This is pointless,” I said, and pushed back from the table. Monty jerked upright, the chain rattling.

“Where are you going?”

“You promised to give me information.”

He grinned. “And indeed I have.”

“You've made excuses and insulted me. Not the same thing. I'm done.” I knocked on the door.

“You'll come back, won't you?” His tone was plaintive, like a child's. “There's more I want to tell you.”

“I don't want to listen.”

As the guard ushered me out, Monty began whistling our old song.

Nothing's done that can't be un-,

Nothing's lost that can't be found,

Make a choice and make a world,

Find another way around.

Lattimer strode toward me, not bothering to mask his irritation. “You were supposed to draw him out, not get into a shouting match.”

“He's not going to give us anything. This was a waste of time.”

“I disagree. He said you knew all the names you needed to—what did he mean?”

“Exactly what he said,” I replied. “Rose is the only name he mentioned. Nobody else matters.”

“Not to us,” Lattimer said. “You'll have to go back in.”

He reached for the door again, and I crossed my arms.

“He's done for today,” I said. “Early evening is his worst time. Once he starts with the singing, he's useless.”

Useless was an exaggeration. Monty was slipping, but he would have rambled on for as long as I'd stayed. The more incoherent his story, though, the greater the chance he'd let slip something valuable—and dangerous.

“Finding that weapon and locating the Free Walkers are crucial to our plans,” Lattimer said, and his eyes met mine, steely and cold. “If you can't get the information from him, I will.”

C
HAPTER ELEVEN

M
Y PARENTS SPRANG TO THEIR
feet as soon as I returned.

“How was he?” Mom asked.

“More importantly, how are you?” said my dad, wrapping his arms around me.

“I'm fine,” I said, unsure if I should tell them how diminished he seemed. “Monty . . . is Monty. A cell won't change him.”

It was true. Even in an oubliette, he was still scheming, still searching for Rose. I was the one who'd changed. I didn't need him anymore.

“Delancey's too easily led by her emotions,” Lattimer said. “He'll make use of that, to everyone's detriment.”

“Considering the situation—” my father began.

“I'm sure next time will go more smoothly,” my mom said swiftly, cutting him off.

“Next time? I'm not going back in there.” I didn't want to witness his decline, or risk him giving away the truth.

“The visits continue,” Lattimer replied. “I will make sure your grandfather understands better how to conduct himself.
You
will practice holding your temper.”

He left without further good-byes, and my mom frowned. “Don't let your grandfather get under your skin.”

“You want to deal with him? Be my guest. I'd rather be at school.”

“That's saying something,” my dad said, forcing a laugh.

“He doesn't want to deal with me,” Mom said, her words edged with hurt. “He won't even let us visit.”

I hadn't thought about how it would make my mom feel, to have her own father shut her out and betray her people. Her guilt probably rivaled Addie's.

“He's impossible,” I said.

“Find a way to make it work,” she said. “Having a Consort member's support will open up all sorts of doors, but only if you succeed. They care about results, not intentions.”

Once again my dad stepped in, trying to defray the tension. “Why don't you head back to class? You could catch the last hour, at least.”

“No way. I got yanked out by the Consort on my first day back. I go in there, and they'll treat me like a circus freak.”

“I'm sure that's not true,” Mom said.

“Really? Don't people look at you strangely now? Don't they watch you out of the corner of their eyes, or go quiet when you walk past?”

She folded her arms. “My work speaks louder than anything they could say.”

“Or maybe you're not hearing it.”

She looked at my dad, who lifted his hands and eyebrows in
unison. “Fine. Today only. You'll be back in class on Saturday, no excuses.”

“Whatever. Can we get out of here now?”

“You can head home,” my dad said as they exchanged glances again. “We have work to finish.”

The Tacet. “Addie said the Consort's planning a big cleaving. Tons of branches?”

My dad nodded. “A project this complex requires a lot of planning. Every branch has to be analyzed, every cut orchestrated. It's hard to pull off correctly, but the results will be worth it.”

The results would be catastrophic.

“You've already done the crazy hours thing,” I said. “Can't someone else handle it?”

If I couldn't tell them the truth, at least I could steer them away from committing more cleavings.

“It's only a few more weeks,” Mom promised, her expression softening. “Besides, when the Consort asks . . .” She trailed off, and I knew she was thinking of Monty. She straightened her shoulders. “. . . we're happy to help.”

To prove her loyalty, she meant. We were all paying for Monty's sins, and in the process, committing our own.

CH
APTER TWELVE

O
UR RAMSHACKLE QUEEN ANNE WAS
dark when I arrived home. No lights, even on the porch. No sound once I'd let myself in, except for Amelia's pivots quivering and rustling like the wind through grass.

What would happen if the Free Walkers brought down the Consort? Would there be a place for my family? Would they take it? Walking shaped every aspect of my parents' lives. The Free Walkers would unravel their world as swiftly as a cleaving, and I didn't have a clue if they'd be able to knit it up again.

I was starving, so I munched a piece of peanut-butter toast while I turned on every light in the house. The shadows fled, but my dark thoughts lingered, and my footsteps sounded too loud. I needed music.

The honeyed wood of my violin felt warm and reassuring as I positioned it under my chin. Without thinking, I began to play Simon's song.

We hadn't meant for it to sound sad—some phrases were sly, some were merry, some were tender—but the ache of missing him found its way through my fingers, turning the notes unbearably wistful.

I heard Eliot let himself in, but I kept playing, improvising well beyond the tune Simon and I had written together. I was on my own.

“Sounds good,” Eliot said when I'd finished.

It sounded incomplete.

“You're out early.” I tucked the instrument into its case.

“Shaw let me go.” Eliot unwound his scarf and threw his coat in the chair. “Which you would know, if you'd checked your phone. Tell me what happened.”

“Cocoa?” I replied.

He groaned but followed me into the kitchen, squirming on the kitchen stool while I warmed cocoa and sugar and milk on the stove. “You're killing me. Why'd they yank you out of class?”

I passed Eliot a mug dotted with extra marshmallow fluff, just the way he liked it. “Lattimer wanted me to visit Monty. Technically, the Consort asked, but it was totally his show.”

He choked on the first sip. “You said no, right?” he asked between coughs. “Because if there are two people in the world you should be avoiding, it's Lattimer and Monty.”

“I wish. There was no way out of it.”

“This is not going to end well,” he said. “No prison visit ever does.”

“This one certainly didn't.”

It took a moment for my words to register. “You've already gone in?”

“Monty won't talk, and Lattimer basically said I could do it or leave the Walkers.”

Eliot scowled. “He wants something.”

“Yeah. The Free Walkers. They have some sort of weapon, and he wants to find it before the Consort's big cleaving.”

“Not Lattimer. Monty. What's he after?”

“Forgiveness,” I said, making air quotes.

His brow furrowed. “Monty's crazy, but he's not stupid. You're never going to forgive him, and he knows it. What's he really after?”

“Same thing as ever. Rose.”

“Rose is dead,” he replied. “There's no way she could have lasted in the Echoes for this long. Even if she had, Train World . . .”

Was gone, along with everyone in it.

He broke off and ducked his head. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” I said, and turned the mug of cocoa around and around. Not telling Eliot the truth left me feeling wormy and small. “How was class?”

“Who cares? How was Monty?”

“His usual awful self,” I said. “I lost my temper and bailed. Lattimer was thrilled.”

“What did he say? Monty, I mean.”

I snorted. “He kept going on about stories, which is Monty-speak for lies.”

Eliot nudged his glasses up. “Maybe not. What exactly did he say?”

“He called me slapdash.” The accusation stung, hours later.

“He insulted you? Doesn't sound like him. And it's a crap way to earn forgiveness.”

“He doesn't care if I forgive him. He wants to mess with my head. It's his only form of entertainment.”

“There's got to be a reason,” he said. “We just don't see it yet. What else did he say?”

Anger blurred my memory. “He talked about stories, I guess. He said they were more than words on a page. And he called me sloppy.”
You'll have no one to blame but yourself. . . .

“
Words on a page,” Eliot repeated. He spun the stool in a circle as he thought.

“You're going to make yourself dizzy.” I put out a hand to stop him, and he grabbed my wrist.

“He wasn't insulting you, Del.” He lifted my hand with his, pointing to the bookshelves in the living room, filled with neat lines of matching leather-bound books. “He was telling you where to look for clues.”

“The journals? You think he left me a message in their journals?”

Eliot nodded, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of a fresh puzzle. “Better make popcorn.”

•   •   •

An hour later the popcorn was gone. I rummaged through the pantry looking for more snacks. Eliot sat at the kitchen island surrounded by haphazard piles of leather-bound journals and a mess of papers, his face bathed in the blue glow of his screen.

“Rose took nearly two hundred Walks in the six months before she disappeared.” He groaned and took off his glasses, rubbing at his eyes. “At least the data sample's sufficiently large.”

“Do you really think there's a pattern?”

“There's always a pattern,” he said, resuming his usual hunt-and-peck. I tossed a bag of Oreos on the table—another sign that life hadn't returned to normal. Three months ago my mother would have taken a flamethrower to any processed snacks that crossed the threshold of our kitchen. But baking had fallen by the wayside, and now our pantry looked like any other family's. I kind of liked it.

Careful not to scatter crumbs, I ran my finger over the pages of my grandmother's journal. Traditionally, Walkers kept journals as a record of their personal Walks, but Rose's felt more like a scrapbook. Scattered among handwritten reports were recipes, notes about patients, brief snippets of songs, even photographs. Mom had told me Monty was the more free-spirited of my grandparents, but if this book was any indication, Rose was the definition of eclectic.

Now that I knew where she'd gone, Rose herself had become the true mystery. The woman in these pages didn't seem like a rebel. She was a healer. A mother and a musician, happiest in her work and in her home. Happiest with my grandfather, certainly.

And yet she'd run.

People—Originals and Walkers alike—are contradictions. They hold within themselves a jumble of impulses and beliefs; circumstances polish some facets and chip away others. But amid the jumble lies their heart, diamond hard and incontrovertible. Like a kaleidoscope, the aspects of a person can shift and reform, but the center holds true.

It was easier to see in Originals, because we could compare versions. I'd met countless Simons, and no matter how different he appeared, each at their core was strong and sharp and challenging. Walkers were fixed, their alternate, contradictory selves existing only in imagination.

Or in stories.

The woman in this journal was more than a contradiction. She was a careful construction of a life, a tale meant for an audience.

She was a lie.

“Rose knew the Consort would read these,” I said, fixing myself a cup of coffee. “They'd analyze the Walks she took, same as we're doing.”

Eliot looked up. “So they're either fake, which means we're wasting our time, or they're genuine, which means they're useless. Which means we're wasting our time.”

“Rose was a medic,” I pointed out. “She shouldn't have taken this many Walks.” Walker medics served multiple teams, so they usually stayed in the Key World unless called out for a specific emergency.

“Fakes, then.” Eliot pushed the laptop away. “But why bother making up an entire book of bad data? Why did Monty send us here?”

I stared at the scatter of pages in front of us. Two hundred Walks. For a medic, that alone was suspicious. “Maybe it's not completely fake.”

Eliot started to pace around the island, pencil spinning. I
frowned into my mug and waited, but the pacing didn't stop. His lips moved silently.

I finished my coffee and poured another cup. He kept going.

“Hey—” I said, but he held up a hand to silence me. “You're going to wear a groove in the floor.”

Impatient, I pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and listed Rose's Walks again—just the numeric frequencies. There was no pattern, no cluster of worlds or range of pitches she seemed to favor, and I huffed in irritation. When I was done, I had a list of random numbers and Eliot standing over my shoulder, smelling of pine sap and buttered popcorn. “Solved it yet, Genius Boy? Because I'm stumped.”

Wordlessly he pulled the pen out of my hand and drew a thick black slash through two of the Walks.

“Hey! I actually worked on that, you know.”

“Del, look.” He ran down the paper, crossing out the duplicate frequencies. “Signal to noise. The real information is here, but you have to dig through a lot of meaningless stuff to get at it.”

“I don't understand.”

“The Consort would have read these journals, same as us. So it means anything obvious is probably useless—like Echoes she went to more than once. The Consort would assume they're important, but their true purpose is to throw Lattimer off the trail and obscure the real data.”

I studied the remaining frequencies. “Those are the Walks she actually took?”

“Some, yes. But I'm betting we need more exclusion criteria.”

“I don't speak genius,” I muttered. “Translation?”

“We need another filter. Other ways to separate out which frequencies are important and which are camouflage.”

“She took this one with Monty,” I said, pointing to one of the numbers at the bottom. “According to his notes, it was their last Walk together before she left. Is it important?”

“He said her story was the one that mattered, right?”

I nodded and stuffed another Oreo in my mouth.

“If we cross out any Walks they took together . . . ,” Eliot said.

I leaped up and grabbed Monty's journals from the living room.

“Read me the frequencies from each trip,” Eliot ordered, and I obeyed. He crossed out batches, pen flying over the paper. “I'm dropping any world they both visited, even if it was at different times.”

“Do you think she really went to these places?” I asked when he was done.

“Hard to say. It's possible she wrote down frequencies that fit the code, rather than places she visited.”

We stared at the list in silence.

Eight frequencies in all. I wrote them on a fresh piece of paper, but they still didn't reveal their secrets.

“I'm not seeing it,” he said around a mouthful of Oreo. “Are these a map? Was this her escape route? A list of worlds with Free Walker outposts?”

I stared at them, trying to discern a pattern. “We could check them out. See what we find.”

He sprayed crumbs across the table. “That's a terrible plan. We don't know what we're looking for. You want to show up with a sign that says ‘Honk if you're a Free Walker'?” He shook his head. “Not to mention, neither of us is licensed. I'm not going to let you—”

“Let?” The warm, easy feeling between us vanished. “You don't ‘let' me do anything. You're not my mom. You're not even Addie.”

His shoulders tensed. “No. I'm just the guy—”

The back door slammed open with a noise like a gunshot. “Damn it, Del! Have you completely lost your mind?”