Erica O'Rourke - Dissonance

“Sure about what?” Simon asked, his patience clearly at an end.

“Your dad’s a Walker.” My certainty grew as I spoke.

Simon shook his head. “My dad left .”

“Same as my grandmother. When’s your birthday?”

“January third.”

I looked at Addie, who shrugged. “Grandma disappeared on the ninth.”

“Not quite,” Monty corrected. “I needed to muddy the trail a bit. Give her a few days’ head start.”

“I’m a Walker?” Simon said.

“Half Walker,” Addie said. “Half Original. That’s why your signal’s so strong.”

“And why you were able to Walk with me,” I said. “You can’t find the pivots—you didn’t get your dad’s hearing—but you can move through them.”

Simon tensed, and I couldn’t tell if it was to attack or run. “You can’t ask for help like a normal person? You have to manipulate people? She’s lying,” he said to his mom. “Isn’t she?”

Amelia’s mouth trembled, and she ran her hands over his shoulders, smoothing imaginary creases from his T-shirt.

“Mom?”

“We were so careful not to leave a trail,” she said. “Rose delivered you here at home. We never put your father’s name on any records. We weren’t even legally married.” She touched the gold band on her ring finger. “He hid us away as best he could, to keep us safe until the Consort was finished. When he didn’t come back, it seemed safer to keep hiding.”

“The Consort discourages Walker-Original relationships because they weaken the genetic line,” Addie said. “They monitor the kids closely.”

Monty snorted. “If you believe that poppycock, Addison, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Those children aren’t monitored; they’re taken—if they’re lucky. And the child of a Free Walker—Gil Bradley’s son, no less—would have been a special prize.”

“The Free Walkers?” Eliot said. “Don’t they want to destroy the Key World, or something?”

“Hardly,” Monty replied. “They want to save the Echoes. Inversions aren’t the only things that can be stabilized. You can tune entire Echoes, rather than cleave. Protect all those lives.”

“Echoes aren’t alive,” Addie said. “There’s nothing there to save.”

“Who taught you that? The Consort, because it serves their purposes. They’d rather sacrifice the Echoes for their own gain, so they lie and tell you cleaving’s the only way.”

Eliot spoke. “You’re saying the Consort has been systematically deceiving Walkers for . . . how long? Twenty years? That’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Monty said morosely. “This has gone on much longer than twenty years. Generation after generation, we’ve drifted further from the truth, until we’ve forgotten what we were meant for. The Consort’s taken advantage, and the Free Walkers are working to stop them. They’re not madmen, or anarchists, or whatever other stories you’ve been spoon-fed.”

“I don’t care about Echoes,” Simon said in a voice hard as granite. “Whatever war you people are fighting has nothing to do with us.”

“But it does,” Amelia said, taking his hands in hers. “Your father was one of the Consort’s top navigators, but he’d been secretly organizing a group of Free Walkers to move against them. If they’d found out he had a child, they would have used you—used both of us—as leverage.”

“He bailed to protect us? You believe that? Mom, I know these people. They don’t care about anything except themselves and their stupid Key World.”

“I thought you’d be quicker, son,” said Monty. “Your father didn’t leave. He was taken by the Consort three days after you were born.”

“You’re working with them,” Eliot said to Monty. “You’re a Free Walker.”

“I did my part, back in the day.” Monty settled himself on the couch. “Once Rose was gone, there wasn’t much point to it.”

Addie tore her gaze from Simon and Amelia. “You and Grandma? Both of you?”

“She and Gil worked together. When he was caught, we knew he’d be interrogated.” Monty grimaced, and Amelia pressed her hand to her mouth. “Chances were good they’d find out about Rose, so she ran.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Addie. “If Grandma was a traitor, we would know. The Consort would have told us.”

“She wasn’t a traitor,” Monty snapped, anger distorting his features. “She fought for the good. You’ve met Randolph Lattimer. He’d cut out his tongue before he admitted that some of their top people revolted.”

Addie’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

“If you and Rose were both involved, why aren’t you in prison?” Eliot’s tone was cool and logical.

“Who says I’m not?” Monty said softly.

“That’s why Lattimer wanted us to keep an eye on you,” Addie said. “And why security’s so tight. They think Free Walkers are behind the anomaly. He was hoping you’d lead them to the Free Walkers.”

“Lattimer’s a fool. If I knew how to find them, I would have by now. Would have found Rose, too.”

“Why didn’t Grandma get in contact once the coast was clear?” I asked.

Monty sagged. “She got lost. She must have been terrified, and she ran so far and so fast, she couldn’t find her way home.” He clutched my sleeve. “We can find her now, Del.”

I covered his hand with mine. I didn’t want to tell him we’d be chasing a ghost. Nobody could survive in Echoes that long.

“Where’s my dad?” Simon broke in. “You said the Consort took him. Where?”

After a beat, Monty said, “An oubliette, no doubt. One of our prisons.”

Eliot cleared his throat apologetically. “This doesn’t change the fact Simon is a threat to the Key World.”

“You’re looking at it wrong,” said Monty. “He’s not weakening the Key World; he’s strengthening the Echoes. The boy’s signal is so strong, he even triggers Baroque events.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Addie said. “There’s a flaw in his frequency making them unstable. If you start with ten bad Echoes, and you combine them, you end up with one really, really unstable Echo.”

“Easier to tune one world than ten,” Monty said. “We can use him. Take him into the worst of the Echoes, trigger a Baroque event, and tune the remaining branch. We do enough, and the problems with the Key World will disappear.”

“Hold on,” I said. “You want to take Simon into the Echoes?”

“Fastest way to do it,” he said. “And the Consort’s getting closer every day.”

“It’s a temporary fix,” Eliot warned. “The flaw in his frequency will keep causing problems. We need to know what’s causing it.”

“This buys us time to find out,” I replied.

Silence fell as we mulled it over. Amelia lowered herself into a chair, hands clasped in her lap.

Then Simon spoke, his voice razor edged. “Del? Kitchen?”

Amelia’s tea, steeping on the counter, had gone cold. A book of crossword puzzles lay next to it. The table was covered in Simon’s school papers, and I could picture the two of them joking around as he worked. Our arrival had stolen the moment from them, and I wondered if they would ever reclaim it.

“I had no idea about your dad, honestly,” I said, gripping the back of a chair. “It never even occurred to me.”

“My dad isn’t the problem.” He looked drained, face shadowed, and I wanted to put my arms around him. But tension crackled through him, like a downed power line, holding me at bay. “I keep thinking there’s something else. Some other bomb you’re going to drop.”

“I’ve told you everything I know. If there’s more, it’ll surprise us both.”

“It’s too much. My dad, and these problems with the Echoes, and . . . It’s too much.” He ran his hand over his head. “My dad. Jesus, Del. I can’t even think about him right now.”