Dissonance (2 page)

My world hopping caught up with me in a forest preserve. A dull ache spread through my skull, and my ears rang with the key change. Time to get to work and head home. I could terrify Eliot with my near miss, find out what new disaster my parents had fixed.

Humming the frequency my mom had given me, I stepped into the rift. The string responded, gaining strength, and I followed it through. The massive oak trees disappeared, and when my vision cleared, the dirt path underfoot had shifted to asphalt. Leaf-strewn grass spread out on either side of me. The clouds parted, late-afternoon sunlight warm on my face. I turned in a slow circle, taking in the changes. A big jump in frequencies, for this world to look so different from ours.

On the other side of the pivot, the roadside memorial flickered like the afterimage when you stare at a bright light for too long.

Then it vanished, only a slight ripple marking where someone had died and the world had split in two.

Vibrato fractums
(commonly called “breaks”) are areas of instability within an Echo and an indicator of significant problems. Direct contact with vibrato fractums should be kept to a minimum.

—Chapter One, “Structure and Formation,”

Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five

A
CCORDING TO FAMILY
legend, I took my first Walk when I was eight months old—long before my first steps and years before most other kids. Wearing nothing but Pampers and a dimple, I'd crawled through a pivot outside our living room, leaving behind my stuffed panda and my outraged older sister.

Even at four, Addie was a fan of rules, and rule number one in our house was no Walking without an adult. So she fetched our grandfather, Monty, and he came after me.

Addie might have caught me, but Monty brought me back.

My grandfather liked to say it was the first sign I was something special, even among Walkers. Addie said it was the first sign I was going to be a pain in the ass. Everyone agreed it was a sign of things to come. I'd been named the problem child; Addie was the good girl. Sixteen years later, and the labels stuck fast.

I gritted my teeth at the frequency surrounding me. My mom had predicted this world would be mildly off-key, but the wavering pitch was stronger—and more unstable—than expected. At most I could last a couple of hours.

I followed the jogging trail around the perimeter of the park, past the duck pond and the picnic shelter, heading for the playground. It would have been pretty, if the whole Echo didn't sound so awful. Two guys played Frisbee at the water's edge, the ebb and flow of their laughter obscured by a screeching that made me wince.

Break by the duck pond. Noted.

For an Echo to sound this unstable, there had to be multiple breaks nearby overtaking the primary frequency. I listened for them, ears straining as I put some distance between me and the Frisbee game.

The wind shifted in the trees, bringing the rich smell of autumn with it. Joggers and cyclists passed by, oblivious to the noise surrounding them, their eyes sliding over me.

The playground teemed with shrieking kids leaping off the monkey bars, going down the slide headfirst, playing freeze tag. Two moms pushed their toddlers on the swings, gossiping about playgroups and marital woes. Distracted and jittery from the discord, I slid a pale purple square of paper from my backpack, creasing and folding until a four-pointed star took shape. As I worked, another noise fought for my attention. More ragged, less musical. Annoying. I looked around.

A little girl, four or five, huddled at the base of a tree, sobbing
in the unashamed, exceedingly wet way kids do—snot and tears and misery plastered down her front, her wails nearly as loud as the world's pitch.

Except for breaks, everything in an Echo, living or dead, should resonate at the same frequency. I moved closer, brushing a hand along the girl's dimpled elbow, wondering if I'd missed something.

I hadn't. Her signal matched, which meant she was off-limits. Interacting with her would only make things worse, could actually
create
a break. Smarter to move along and leave her to her sobfest.

The problem was, touching an Echo—even a stable one—caused them to notice you. The kid snuffled and clutched my sleeve, tipping back her tearstained face to look directly at me.

Once one Echo sees you in their world, they all can. But nobody on the playground was paying attention to either of us. Not a single turned head or furrowed brow. It was easier for people to ignore her than listen to her, and I knew what that was like.

I pried her fingers off my arm. “What's wrong?”

She scrubbed at her eyes. “I was playing and I saw the ducks and I wanted to show them my balloon. And I went on the grass to show the ducks my balloon and I fell and the string went up and now it's gone and it was
red.
And red is my favorite color, but my red balloon is
gone
.” She spoke in one unbroken rush.

“Your balloon is gone.”

“And it was
red
,” she wailed, a fresh flow of gunk cascading down her face. She pointed skyward. “See?”

I did see—caught in the tree branches overhead was a bedraggled red balloon. “Can your mom buy you a new one?”

“Mommy went to work. I came with Shelby.”

“Shelby?” The little girl pointed to a bored-looking brunette Addie's age, sucking down a smoothie and texting nonstop. “Nanny?”

She nodded, chin quivering.

A tiny tweak wouldn't matter, considering how unstable this world was. It was like a symphony—a single wrong note in a perfect performance could ruin the whole thing. But if the song was already riddled with mistakes, one more wouldn't make a difference.

“No problem.”

Had I known I'd be climbing park benches in an attempt to rescue wayward balloons, I would have dressed differently that morning. Still, I dropped the backpack and climbed up, hoping a sudden breeze off the pond wouldn't cause my skirt to pull a Marilyn Monroe.

“Almost there,” I said, wishing I were taller. Even atop a park bench in my motorcycle boots, I could not reach the ribbon. The kid eyed me dubiously. “Back of the bench should do it.”

I put one foot on the back of the bench, wobbling in my heavy boots, the string dangling inches away.

So much for a quick fix.

“Need a hand?” came a new voice.

Startled, I lost my balance. Someone grabbed me, one hand on my leg, the other at my waist. I looked at the fingers curving
around my thigh—a guy's hand, wide and strong, slightly calloused, with a leather cuff around the wrist—as dissonance roared through me, twice as loud as before. My knees buckled.

I knew him. A version of him anyway. I'd spent a lot of time studying those hands when I should have been focused on math or history or Bach. They belonged to Simon Lane. And Simon Lane, even back home, belonged to an entirely different world than I did.

He guided me down until I was standing on the seat, balance restored, dignity shaky. He let go, but the noise remained.
He
was the break by the duck pond. I focused on his sweatshirt, the faded blue logo of Washington's basketball team, and willed the discord away.

He glanced at the kid. “Balloon got stuck?”

Her lower lip trembled. “This girl isn't big enough.”

It was tempting to point out, standing atop the bench, that I was currently taller than Simon. But he was standing closer than he ever had at school, and his dark brown hair was a good two inches longer and shaggier than I was used to, and I got distracted. He knew it too, judging from the flash of amusement in his eyes.

“I can do it myself,” I said.

“She's stubborn,” he told the girl, as if he was confiding in her. “If she'd lean on me, we'd have your balloon down by now.”

“You lean,” she ordered.

“Charming,” I said.

He nodded. “So I'm told.”

Some things—eye color, gravity, mountain ranges—were constant no matter how far you Walked. And Simon's reputation as the guy all the girls wanted, even though they knew better, was apparently one of them.

I shook my head to clear the ringing.

“Fine. But don't drop me.” I braced one hand on his shoulder and climbed up, both feet perched on the narrow back of the bench, feeling myself sway. His hands closed over my waist and I stretched, catching the string of the balloon, tugging until it came free of the branches. “Got it.”

“Jump,” he said, and I did. His thumbs brushed against my rib cage, lingering when they didn't need to. This close, his eyes were a darker blue than I'd realized, more thickly lashed, and there was a tiny scar at the corner of his mouth I'd never seen before.
Simon Lane
, I thought dizzily, and pulled away.

I tied the balloon around the girl's wrist, and she ran off without another word.

“You're welcome,” I called after her.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” he said, grinning at me. “I'm Simon, by the way. You look familiar.”

“Del,” I said. “I go to Washington. With you.”

He squinted, trying to place me. It wasn't his fault. Walkers didn't have Echoes, the way regular people did. But we left an impression through the worlds, like a daydream. When I was in class with his Original, this Echo would see my impression hovering in his peripheral vision. If he tried to look at me directly, the image would fade away, and he'd forget about me.

Which was not so different from the Key World, now that I thought about it.

“Aren't you supposed to be in class?” I asked.

He ducked his head for a moment, then looked up with a mischievous smile.
Trouble,
I thought. Way more than his Original, which was saying something. “Aren't
you
?”

A voice from behind me, bossy and superior, said, “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

Addie.

Simon didn't hear her, of course. Unlike me, Addie would have been careful to avoid touching any Echoes. Casually I looked over my shoulder. My sister stood ten feet away, hands on hips, foot tapping, eyebrows drawn together in disapproval.

“You cut class again?” she said.

“It's only school,” I replied, keeping my eyes on Simon, answering both questions at once. “Most useless part of my day.”

I didn't mention that I found my classmates equally so. They'd probably say the same about me.

Suddenly a soaking wet chocolate Lab raced past us, Frisbee clamped in his teeth, a red bandana around his neck. He circled Addie twice and dropped the orange plastic disc at my feet. He let out a thunderous bark and panted up at me as if looking for approval.

“Iggy,” Simon said warningly at the same time I said, “Good puppy.”

Which was all the encouragement Iggy needed to shake himself off, spraying pond water all over me.

“No!” groaned Simon. “Bad dog!”

I brushed at my clothes as Iggy romped around. “Serves you right,” Addie said, snickering. “You know Mom and Dad don't like you Walking alone.”

Iggy woofed in her direction and put his paw out for me to shake. Gingerly I took it. Monty said animals liked Walkers because they could hear the difference in our frequencies, and we sounded good. Whatever the reason, the dog was all lolling tongue and blissful unrepentance, even when Simon grabbed his collar.

“Leave her alone, Ig.” The dog ignored him. “Sorry. I think he likes you.”

“Animals do,” I said, pulling at my drenched sweater.

“He's got good taste.”

Addie tapped her watch, her face drawn. The noise was already getting to her. Iggy must have heard it too, pressing damply against my leg and whining.

“Chill, boy,” Simon said, scratching the dog's ears. “Let me make this up to you? There's a kick-ass band playing at Grundy's tonight, and we just got new IDs. You should come with.”

“Absolutely not. Tell him no,” Addie said.

The real Simon would never go to a bar during basketball season. He had too much to lose. I must have frowned, because his eyebrows lifted, dark lines over dark blue eyes. “Okay, not Grundy's. What about the Depot?”

In the Key World the Depot was a coffee shop on the south side of town, in the old train station. After a huge crash decades
ago, the city built a new station on the north side, and the Depot became a landmark and a place for locals to get lattes.

Walkers believed every accident came from a choice. Nearly forty people had died that morning; another hundred were injured, simply because the engineer picked the wrong time to throw the brake. Countless worlds had sprung up in the aftermath, a lesson in the way a single decision could transform the fabric of the multiverse.

I wondered what choices had shaped this version of Simon, who cut class and used a fake ID. Despite his dissonance, I was tempted to find out. He was definitely the break, and it was just my luck that the one time he noticed me, there was something fundamentally wrong with him.

Iggy bumped my legs, and I fell heavily into Simon again. His arms came around me, and for an instant I let mine circle him. Then I took a quick, unsteady step back. “I'll think about it.”

Now it was his turn to frown. Most girls would have been falling all over him for that kind of invitation, but I wasn't most girls.

“Playtime's over,” Addie said, her expression like a storm front. “Wrap this up.”

I gave Iggy one last pat. “See you around.”

“Count on it,” he said, scooping up the Frisbee and tossing it toward the pond. Iggy raced away, Simon followed, and I turned, awaiting the wrath of Addie.

“We're not here to troll for guys, Del.”

“You're not, anyway. I'm sure we could find you someone.” I
pointed to a girl biking on the other side of the pond. “She's cute.”

Playing matchmaker for Addie wasn't a bad idea. Not that the outdoorsy type was right for her. She needed someone as effortlessly polished as herself. But if she had a girlfriend, maybe she'd be too busy to notice my mistakes.