Erica O'Rourke - Dissonance

Why aren’t you in prison?

Who says I’m not?

For my grandfather, any world without Rose was a prison.

But Simon made worlds stronger. Once he was here, her breadcrumbs would have regained their strength, standing out like flares.

Monty must have thought he’d follow them right to her.

It was impossible. After so much time, it was practically impossible.

Nothing’s impossible, Delancey.

Especially if you were willing to risk the whole world.

I thought of Simon, his hair curling over his collar, eyes challenging me, hands drifting over my skin. I imagined him fading to gray, flickering with static. Simon, lost among the worlds.

My mother, shaking her head. “You and Monty are peas in a pod.”

She was more right than she’d realized.

I SHOVED A single button in my back pocket and followed Addie through the pivot, salt drying on my cheeks.

“Del!” Eliot raced toward us, Monty tottering behind him. “Are you okay?”

“Where’s Simon?” asked Monty, peering toward the pivot. “What did you do?”

“I cleaved it. Once it unravels, everything will be . . .” I swallowed down bile. “Finished.”

Addie wrapped her arms around me, but didn’t say anything.

“What do you mean, you cleaved it?” Monty said, face going gray. “The whole branch? With Simon in it?”

“What else could she have done?” Eliot turned to me, his voice kind and tentative. “The Consort has teams at the school, patching things back together.”

“Great.” My chest felt hollow, my limbs numb.

Monty sank down on a nearby bench, head in his hands.

“I’m calling Mom,” Addie said. I didn’t move.

“Lattimer’s on his way,” Eliot said, studying me as if I were an equation he couldn’t solve. “Tell me how to fix this, Del.”

“You can’t.”

“Lattimer doesn’t know about Simon,” Eliot said. “We told him you and Addie came here to tune inversions.”

“You lied to the Consort,” I said, barely interested. The numbness had spread through my whole body. “Why?”

“Because I have a theory to run by you.”

“Hold on.” I walked over to Monty. He looked as broken as I felt, a colorless lump in a worn cloth coat. Anger surged, breaking through my numbness, giving me momentum. I called to Eliot, “Can you grab me a Coke? I picked up more frequency poisoning.”

He glanced at Monty uneasily. “Back in a minute.”

I sat down next to my grandfather and said nothing. Pivots crowded around us, big and small, choice after choice overlapping, the air dense with possibility. All I had to do was pick one.

“I never thought you’d go through with it,” he said.

“Who says I did?” I pulled the button from my pocket and held it just out of his reach.

Monty stiffened.

“Eliot will be back soon, and Lattimer’s on his way,” I said, low and fast, urging him to believe me, not to question my story. “I cleaved the world partway. It’s still there. It’s not stable. It’s shifting, and it’s getting stronger, but I cut enough threads to stop the inversions. That’s why they think it’s gone.”

“Partway?” he said, the stirrings of hope clear in his voice. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Nothing’s impossible, right?” I pasted on the sly smile he used with me. “It should fool them for a few weeks. Long enough to track him and Grandma. We can do it, but we have to go now.”

“Now?” He blinked at me. “But . . .”

“Simon has to keep moving. The longer we wait, the harder he’ll be to find. Eliot’s coming,” I said, tugging at his sleeve.

His hand closed over mine, his eyes bright and sharp.

“Walk with me, Delancey.” The same words that had started off every Walk we’d taken since I was a child.

Eliot called out, but I waved him off as Monty and I strolled behind the Depot. He frowned, but instead of following us, he headed for Addie.

“There,” I said, gesturing to a tiny pivot hovering nearby. “I used another pivot to get out, like with the balloon.”

“That’s my girl.” Monty chuckled. “Always said you were my favorite.”

He stepped through the pivot and disappeared.

“You were mine,” I said to the shimmering air.

“It sounds different,” Monty said when I’d joined him. This world was nearly identical to ours, down to the cars in the parking lot. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours old—Monty should have caught on immediately. But desperation makes people believe in impossibilities. Desperation makes us foolish.

“That’s Simon,” I said. “He must be close.”

Monty hurried around to the front of the train station, more youthful than I’d seen him in years. Midway across the parking lot he stopped and peered around. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Dead sure.” I curled my fingers around the spindly threads of this Echo.

“I thought you said you’d cleaved it.” He turned. “Del?”

“I didn’t cleave anything,” I said. “Simon did. He made me show him the threads and he ripped them apart. And now he’s gone.”

Confusion clouded his features. “You said . . .”

“I lied .” My rage rose up, choking me. “I’ll assume you’re familiar with the concept. How long have you been planning this? Since I cleaved Park World? Since you heard Simon’s name? How long have you been using us?”

“You don’t understand,” he said, gaze locked on my shaking hand. “Rose is waiting for me.”

“How long?”

“After Gil was taken and Rose disappeared, the Consort came for me. A public trial would raise too many questions, but they had questions of their own. They took me into the Echoes and held me there till I was half-dead from frequency poisoning. Every day, for weeks. Told everyone we were searching for Rose, but they were making an example of me to any Free Walkers that heard the tale. Lattimer supervised it personally.”

“My God,” I breathed. Sympathy stirred, but my own loss crushed it.

“Finally they figured they’d made their point. But it was too late. I couldn’t hear Rose’s signal. That was the true torture, you know. They laughed as they watched me lose her.”

He dragged a hand over his face. “The Free Walkers had scattered. Amelia cut me off, thinking she’d protect Simon. There was nothing I could do. And then there was you, Del, bright as a button, bold as brass, my very best girl. You came home, and I knew you’d be my salvation.”

“Everything you taught me . . . all those tricks, all our Walks . . . were a scheme?”

“You were too good to waste on the Consort,” he said. “Only a few months younger than Gil’s son. Who better to watch over him?”

A flash of memory. “You picked Doughnut World. He went there every Thursday, and you threw me into his path. You called him to the office in Angry Dystopia World so I would find you both. You arranged our Walks so I’d run into him.”

It wasn’t the universe pushing us together; it was Monty.

“I figured if he saw you in Echoes, he’d trust you in this world. Despite the boots and attitude, Delancey, you’ve a soft heart. Once he asked you to help Amelia, everything fell into place, and then the inversions knocked it down again. I haven’t puzzled that one out quite yet.”

“You used me. You used both of us.”

“You would have done the same,” he wheedled. “You wanted to hide him away, even when you knew how dangerous he was. You would have damned the world to keep your love safe.”

“A Walker’s duty is to the Key World,” I said dully. “I couldn’t do it.”