Dissonance (28 page)

“Let me
go
.”

“Or what? You don't scare me, Delancey Sullivan.” He pressed a kiss squarely in the center of my palm. A shock ran through me, every single nerve in my body crackling to life. “Better?”

Words fled. Reason fled. I nodded, and he bent his head down, his mouth inches from mine.

The back door slammed.

“Del! Check it out!” Eliot called, his words carrying down the hall. He stopped short when he spotted Simon. “What's he doing here?”

“Wondering why Del doesn't have better locks,” Simon muttered, dropping my hand. Then, more loudly, “Powell's project.”

“Great,” Eliot said, making it very clear he considered this anything but. “I have something you should see.”

I knew better than to ask if it could wait. Already Simon was pulling on his coat.

“No problem,” he said. “I've got to get home anyway.”

I followed him out to the hallway. “Simon . . .”

“Tomorrow,” he said. But there was promise in it, and enough heat to make my knees wobble, and I held on to the doorframe as he jogged down the front steps to a red Jeep across the street.

He was going to kiss me. I'd felt the pivot form in the instant before his lips brushed my palm, and it was still there, tantalizingly close. I could cross over and kiss him back.

I wasn't even remotely tempted. Walking to that Echo and kissing Simon would be no different from any of the other times I'd interacted with his Echoes. And suddenly it didn't feel like enough. I wanted this one. The
real
one.

The knowledge made my knees buckle again. I'd told myself making out with his Echo and befriending his Original was enough. Now I had the chance for more. I had a chance at
everything.

Until Eliot scared him off.

“Knocking,” I said, stomping back in. “Have you heard of it?”

“Self-control,” he shot back. “Have you?”

He looked angry. Really angry—the cords in his neck standing out, his hand clutching a sheaf of papers so tightly they crumpled. It wasn't like him. Eliot was the good-natured, even-tempered one, and I'd managed to royally piss him off twice in one month. I thought back to our previous fight, the strange, icy tension between us, and my stomach clenched. I didn't want that again, so I dragged in a breath, let it out, and carefully closed the piano lid.

“I'm using it right now,” I said, keeping my voice even instead of snarky. “What's wrong?”

“We need to talk.”

I couldn't stay in the music room and talk with Eliot—not with the pivot of Simon's almost-kiss hovering like a ghost. “Can we talk and eat? I'm hungry.”

Eliot followed behind, papers in his hand. I grabbed a pear from a green ceramic bowl and bit in.

“Talk,” I said through a mouthful of fruit. There was no reason for me to feel guilty. The most Eliot would have seen was the two of us standing together. Close together. Simon's hand cradling mine, our mouths inches apart.

Eliot had seen plenty.

“You promised you wouldn't go out on your own,” he said, his words like knives. “You've been cleaving worlds.”

It was the last thing I expected him to accuse me of. “You're insane. I'll be happy if I never cleave another world again.”

“I don't believe you. Here's the branch we took readings from Tuesday.” He slapped a paper map on the counter. The primary Echo was a thick black line, with offshoots crowding around it like suckers on a vine. The sight made me claustrophobic.

“So? We'd seen it was throwing off a lot of Echoes. What's the problem?”

“I ran another analysis today.” He slid a second paper in front of me. The thick black line remained, but more than half the offshoots were missing. The ones left were nearly twice as wide as before, but they were bare, no other worlds springing from them like unfurling leaves. “The Echoes are gone. They must have been cleaved.”

“Not by me,” I said, a tremor in my voice at the idea of someone unraveling so many worlds.

“Then who? Those branches were stable,” he said. “The Consort wouldn't waste time cleaving them. But they're gone, and none of them showed traces of other Walkers having visited. The Consort's going to find this, sooner or later, and they're going to blame us. We're both going to get kicked out.”

“I didn't do anything!”

He threw the papers at me. “Evidence doesn't lie, Del. But you do.”

My throat closed, the words a ragged whisper. “Not this time.”

He turned away.

“Look at it,” I said, grabbing the paper. “Really look. If I'd cleaved those branches, the ones left behind would look the same. But these are stronger.” I raced around the table and held the paper out to him, my hands shaking. “I'm not brilliant like you, but I know cleavings. I've lived through one. That world was gone seconds after we escaped. There was nothing left. You said Park World destabilized the branches around it, but these Echoes are stronger.”

“As if they absorbed the weaker ones,” he said, taking the paper from me.

And then I understood. “They're Baroque events. Like the basketball game and the music room. The maps are showing a bunch of Baroque events.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But there are too many for them to occur naturally. Something's triggering them.”

I voiced the worry that had been gnawing at me for days. “Me?”

“You've been Walking for years, Del. There's got to be another variable. Something new.” He nudged his glasses up and studied me. “Or someone. Simon Lane was at the center of both those Baroque events. I told you there was something off about him. You know who has that kind of impact on the Key World? Abraham Lincoln. Hitler. Bill Gates. Not some dumb jock kid from the suburbs.”

“He's not dumb,” I protested, and Eliot threw up his hands in frustration.

“We have to tell Addie.”

“Not yet.” The Consort was looking for a problem. I didn't want them to decide it was Simon. “Can't you check if there's something wrong with his frequency? I don't want to tell anyone until we have proof.”

“Why does it matter if we have proof? Why does
he
matter, Del?”

Before I could answer, the back door banged open and two Walkers carried my unconscious father inside.

Overexposure to off-key pitches may result in frequency poisoning. While mild cases cause headaches or disorientation, prolonged or repeated exposure will result in hearing loss, cognitive impairment, and reduced stamina. The most extreme cases can be fatal if not treated immediately.

—Chapter Four, “Physiology,”

Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five

T
HE PAPERS FELL
from my hands like wounded birds. “Daddy?”

“Get him to the couch,” grunted the man to his left. “And find your mother.”

They half dragged, half carried him into the family room. A stream of gibberish poured from his mouth.

“What's wrong with him?”

“Frequency poisoning,” said one of the men. Clark, I remembered dimly. My dad's Second Chair. They eased him down on the couch, the other guy checking my dad's pulse. Clark staggered, bracing a hand on the bookshelf for balance. “We got separated, and the frequency destabilized too fast. We were lucky to get him out.”

“Magnet maple twisting fence. Lilac glissando, turning box,”
my dad cried out, thrashing wildly. I rushed to help him. Eliot ran to the office and pounded on the door.

“Never staircase rumpling the blue dog.” Dad's eyes darted around the room, showing too much white around the irises, and he struggled to sit up.

“Daddy, can you hear me? It's Del. Lie down.” I'd seen mild cases before, when my dad came home disoriented and absent-minded. This was the kind of massive dose Monty had endured, over and over, before the Consort called us home.

“Foster?” My mom shoved Clark and the Third Chair aside. “Foster, I'm here.”

She bent over my father, making soothing noises, brushing his hair back with trembling hands.

“What's the commotion?” Monty asked, peering around the corner. He spotted my dad, and his face turned grim. “Del, get the tuning fork from the office. And brew a pot of strong tea, plenty sweet.”

“Petals and thorns,” Dad said. “Mockingbird falling through stars.”

“Did you see Rose?” Monty brushed past me. “Where?”

“Dad, it's nothing!” my mom snapped. “They're random words.”

“You don't know what he saw!”

“Neither do you,” she said fiercely. “Del, tuning fork. Now!”

Eliot gave me a gentle push. “I'll make the tea.”

I stumbled into the office. Neat rows of tracking instruments and mapmaking tools lined the shelves. The main desk was a
broad expanse of maple, littered with papers and printouts. Her monitor showed a map like an air traffic controller's, all circles and movement and blinking lights. Above it was a shelf, empty except for a leather box the size of a pencil case. I grabbed it and ran back to the living room.

I held the case out to Monty. “Will it cure him?”

“It will help. Why haven't they taught you how to treat frequency poisoning?”

“They have. Just not for cases this bad.”

Mom held out her hand. “I'll do it.”

“She needs to learn, Winnie. You were younger than she was, the first time.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Go ahead, Del. Strike hard, and hold it near his head. Keep doing it until I tell you to stop.”

I set the box down on the end table and opened it. Nestled into the navy velvet were a rubber block the size of a hockey puck and a steel tuning fork, the tines shaped like a U, the ends squared off. I gripped the handle so hard it cut into my palm, and smacked the block. A sweet, familiar sound pealed through the room.

We fell silent. It was the exact frequency of the Key World, instantly recognizable. My dad sighed.

“Again,” my mom ordered as the note faded away, and I repeated the motion. With each strike, my dad struggled less. When he finally whispered her name, Mom motioned for me to stop.

“Tea's ready,” said Eliot.

Nobody knew why you gave sugar to someone with frequency poisoning, but tea was the standard treatment. Strong, sweet black tea. I'd never thought about it before, but Monty's insatiable sweet tooth suddenly made sense: He'd gotten hooked, after so many years of Walking.

My mom held the mug steady as my dad took a tiny sip. In the kitchen Clark and the other Walker spoke in low tones, faces drawn. Neither of them looked particularly good, and I poured them each a cup of tea, then set more water on to boil.

“Here,” I said. “You were out a long time too.”

They drank deeply, nodding their thanks.

“Foster?” Mom said, when my dad had finished the cup. “How are you feeling?”

He blinked, and his voice was thick and muzzy. “Candlewax linen, burning away.” He paused, breathed deeply, and spoke again, the words slow and rusty as an old hinge. “I'll live.”

“Did you see Rose?” Monty demanded, but my mom hushed him.

Dad closed his eyes, his head falling back on the pillow. “More tea,” my mom said, and I hurried to bring it over.

“Del, take over. Give him a little at a time,” Mom said, eyeing the pair of Walkers at our kitchen table. She touched her lips to his forehead and whispered something, then crossed the room to speak with Clark.

I sat on the very edge of the couch. “Daddy, drink more.”

He mumbled something incomprehensible, and I looked over at Eliot. “How long will he be like this?”

“It depends on how long he was exposed,” he said. “Most cases take a few days to recover, at least.”

In the kitchen, my mom said sharply, “. . . gone that long! I was very clear!”

“It was worse than we expected. If we'd known—” Clark said.

“Are you saying this is my fault?” Her voice took on a dangerous note, and Monty, Eliot, and I turned our heads in unison.

“Let's finish this in my office,” she said. “Del, get me if his condition changes.”

There was no way to hear the rest of the conversation, and none of us had much to say. I gave my father more tea, and he gradually came back to himself.

“Winnie?” he asked.

Did he think I was her, the way Monty sometimes mistook my mom for my grandmother? “She's in her office. She's debriefing Clark and the other guy.”

“Franklin.”

I nodded. His knowing their names was a good sign. “Do you want me to get Mom?”

He grimaced. “Cool down.”

“It'll be quite a while before she cools down,” said Monty, handing my dad a square of chocolate.

“What went wrong?” I asked.

“Everything,” he said.

“But—”

Eliot closed his hand over my shoulder. “Later. Let him rest.”

“Did you see Rose?” Monty asked again.

Dad's eyes drifted shut as he mumbled, “Too far gone.”

I didn't know if he was referring to my grandmother or himself.

“You're back now,” I whispered as he fell asleep.

•  •  •

“This is why you can't Walk alone,” Eliot said as we sat on the porch swing that night. “Now do you believe me?”

I curled up, head against his chest. “I've never seen my dad so sick.”

“The doctor said he'd recover. It'll take time, that's all.”

After Clark and Franklin had left, my mom had summoned a Walker doctor, who'd said what we both expected and feared. My dad could Walk, once he'd recovered. But his resistance was lower. He'd have to be more careful, limit his exposure.

Frequency poisoning built up slowly. Usually, the damage didn't present itself until Walkers were Monty's age, the effects cumulative. But a massive dose, like the one my dad had received today, was harder to come back from. He'd lost years of future Walks in one afternoon.