Erica O'Rourke - Dissonance

“Mom’s going to kill me,” I said. “We have to go back.”

“It’s a beautiful afternoon, Delancey. Walk with me.”

He flipped the button to the ground and set off, singing under his breath. I could see the village water tower in the distance, the same view I’d grown up with, but we were standing in a development of Tudor-style townhomes, with steeply pitched roofs and wooden cutouts decorating the balconies, exactly where our once-stately Queen Anne should have been.

You learn pretty quickly not to mourn the changes in a world. It wasn’t a Walker’s place to decide which Echoes were better, only to decide which ones were threats to the Key World. Sadly, chintzy housing was not considered dangerous.

I chased after Monty, linking my arm with his.

“Grandpa, the Consort wants to see me. Tonight.”

“Bah. There’s time enough.” He stopped short. “Feel that?”

His mind might have been going, and his hearing was shot, but he retained the touch. I stretched out my hand, quieted my mind, and felt the quiver of a pivot point I would have missed on my own.

Again and again, the ground changed under our feet—from sidewalk to dirt road to cement to blacktop to grass—a sign we were making big jumps between worlds. In every one, he dropped another button and smiled slyly, like a kid who’d gotten away with something. We were far from the Key World now, wandering among Echoes of Echoes.

I loved how vast the multiverse felt on these Walks, hungered for the possibilities. Someday I’d travel not only in the Echoes of the world I knew, but all over the globe. If I could find this much variety when we’d covered only a few miles, what would it be like to explore Echoes of Rome, or India, or Antarctica?

My steps slowed. How many Echoes had I destroyed with my cleaving? How many possibilities had I unraveled?

“You’ve cleaved worlds before, haven’t you?” I asked Monty. “Back when you were a First Chair?”

“When I was young and foolish.” His tone softened. “It bothers you, what happened.”

“I keep thinking about them.” About those people, rippling away, as if they’d never existed in the first place. “Did it bother you?”

He studied the cracked sidewalk and finally said, “Still does. As it should.”

“They’re just Echoes,” I said. “That’s what everyone says.”

“Not everyone.” He brightened, our conversation forgotten. “You choose the next one.”

“I choose we go home.” I checked my watch—Eliot would be at my place soon. If I intercepted him, we could head out before my mom realized we’d left. We could cross directly from here to the Key World, but we’d still need to get from downtown to our house.

“We used to have such fun,” he wheedled. His chin had taken on a stubborn set. “One more.”

“One, and then we go home.” I surveyed the grungy Echo we’d stopped in. Every third storefront was boarded up; graffiti scrawled across the plywood; the gutter was littered with food wrappers and cigarette butts and pulpy shreds of newspaper. At home we would have been standing directly outside a juice bar.

He grinned crookedly. “Are you hungry?”

We watched as a woman in Snoopy-print scrubs hesitated at the intersection, then decided to wait for the WALK sign. A pivot sprang up.

An instant later a Ford sedan blew through the light.

I shuddered. On the other side of the pivot, had her newly formed Echo made it across?

Either way, her choice had given us an opening. Monty hummed a target pitch and motioned to the rift. “Go on. Nimble fingers.”

Another childhood song from our Walks, as ingrained in my mind as the ABCs.

Nimble fingers, open mind,

Hum a tune both deft and kind;

Nimble fingers, open mind,

Help to seek what you would find.

I reached inside, the right frequency snagging my attention like a radio signal breaking through static. Keeping a firm hold on Monty’s sleeve, I eased into the next Echo. When we were safely on the other side, I took a deep breath, tasting sugar in the air. Across the street was a bakery with a pink-striped awning and a window full of sweets.

“Doughnuts!” He rubbed his hands together. “Don’t tell your mother. She’ll say I spoiled my dinner.”

“Trust me, I won’t say a word. How did you find this place?”

“I ramble,” he said distantly, tugging on my sleeve. “Don’t suppose you’d like to buy an old man a treat?”

I knew he’d had a reason for bringing me here. The frequency was off-key, but not grating. We could stop for a few minutes. I handed him a crumpled five, hoping it matched this world’s currency. “One doughnut. And be fast, okay? I need to get home.”

He patted my arm. “We’re right on schedule.”

I trailed after him as he crossed the street. This version of downtown was miles better than the one we’d left. The sidewalks were clean, the storefronts filled, even if they weren’t quite as upscale as home—a hardware store instead of an art gallery, a pawn shop instead of an antique store, a pharmacy instead of a yoga studio. The street was lined with cars, and plenty of people chatted on the sidewalk. Monty made sure to brush against one as he entered the store, so he was now fully visible. Outside the bakery, a dog was tied to the armrest of a bench. A chocolate Lab. With a red bandana.

“Iggy?” I whispered. Echoes often overlapped, but seeing Iggy so soon after watching him unravel was as jarring as any frequency I’d encountered.

His answering barks shook the windows, and he leaped up, straining at the leash.

I blinked. Some animals’ hearing was so sensitive, they could recognize Walkers before we made contact. Iggy was obviously one of them.

“Good boy,” I crooned, inching forward with my hand extended. “What are you doing here?”

As if in answer, the bakery door opened and Simon strolled out, white paper bag in hand. A different Simon, I reminded myself, taking in the layers of flannel and denim and leather, the messy hair, the battered work boots. Not a basketball in sight.

“Settle down,” he said, untying the leash. The dog bolted, seventy-odd pounds of enthusiastic fur crashing into me. I rubbed his silky ears, staring at my third Simon in two days, trying to recall Park World’s frequency. This one was less grating—and much more stable. My stomach unclenched at the knowledge this Simon was safe. I didn’t think I could handle seeing him unravel again.

He grabbed Iggy’s collar, his hand brushing mine. The strength of his signal sent me reeling, and he met my eyes, interest sparking in his own. “You’re making me look bad, Ig.”

Not much made Simon look bad. Even his legion of exes sighed and talked about his eyes or his hands or his laugh. He wasn’t the type to stick, they said, but it was fun while it lasted.

I was not interested in fun.

“Iggy won’t bite, I promise,” Simon said, misinterpreting my frozen silence. I looked at his hand, wrapped around the leash. Instead of the leather cuff or digital watch, he wore what looked like a silver railroad spike hammered into a circle around his wrist. But his hands looked the same, strong and capable and slightly calloused. “Don’t I know you?”

My nerves kicked up, a swarm of butterflies spreading from my stomach through my body, a hundred thousand wings beating in unison.

“Del,” I said, my voice scratchy. “School, maybe?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe I need to get my eyes checked.”

“Oh?” I asked, checking the bakery. Through the window, I could see Monty peering at the pastry cases.

Simon’s voice dropped, warm and inviting. “Something must be wrong if I haven’t noticed you.”

I turned back. “Really? That’s the best you can do?”