Dissonance (3 page)

Her green eyes took on a warning gleam. “Leave it alone, Del. Him too.”

I shrugged. “He's a break. I was getting a reading for my homework.”

“Some reading,” she replied.

“How long have you been spying on me?” I asked, trying to draw her attention away from Simon.

“Long enough to see you get the balloon down. There was nothing wrong with that kid. You should have left her alone.” She crossed her arms, her face taking on the pinched, fussy look that made her look older, and not in a good way. “We have rules for a reason, Del.”

I studied my nail polish, plum colored and starting to chip.

“She was miserable.”

“So? She's an Echo. It doesn't matter.”

It matters to me,
I wanted to say. But Addie was right. Echoes weren't real people, only copies of Originals, no matter how alive they seemed. Still, her response, practical and dismissive, nettled me.

“Whatever.” I glanced over at Simon, roughhousing with Iggy. The discord surrounding them scraped along my nerves, growing louder the longer I watched. “Why are you here?”

“Dad asked me to help you with your homework. I left you three different messages.”

“Didn't get them,” I said airily, pulling Simon's wallet out of my pocket. I held up the out-of-state license that claimed he was twenty-four. “This is a terrible ID. They'd totally bust him.”

“You picked his pocket? Did Monty teach you?”

“Who else?” She frowned as I continued. “Simon's Original is the star basketball player at my school. He'd never try to sneak into a bar. What's the harm in keeping this one out of jail too?”

“It's pointless,” she said, swiping at a wisp of strawberry blond hair that dared escape the neat twist at the nape of her neck. I never understood how she was able to get her hair to behave. Mine was a perpetual mess—reddish brown, unruly as tree bark, black at the ends like they'd been dipped in a pot of india ink. “He's not even real.”

Simon's palm on my bare leg had felt pretty damn real, but I kept that tidbit to myself.

I couldn't say why, exactly, I'd nicked his wallet. Because it was fun. Because I wanted to test myself. Because while this Simon flirted, the one back home barely noticed me. Because even if he was only an Echo, I'd hate for him to end up in juvie. Because Addie couldn't. A million reasons, but mostly . . . because I could.

I shook my head and slipped the wallet back into my pocket. “I hope he didn't pay a lot for this. It's awful.”

“Leave it here.” Her tone and temper were both growing short, but so were mine. “You know it's dangerous to bring it back.”

“It's not radioactive. It won't hurt anything.” According to the Consort, bringing Echo objects to the Key World was like introducing bubonic plague, but they'd never explained why. It made sense for big things, like pets. Clear violation of the rules to bring Iggy back, since the
real
Iggy was already frolicking about somewhere. But an object as small as Simon's wallet wouldn't affect my world, the same way a single grain of sand wouldn't hold back the tide.

Even so, it was easier to let Addie think she'd won, especially with a migraine brewing. I tossed the ID in the trash and the wallet on a nearby table, where he'd spot it on his way out. “Happy now?”

“Not really,” she said. “Let's get started on your homework. The first step is to locate the vibrato fractums.”

“Already did. Simon's one. Jogger's two.” I jerked a thumb toward the trail where a stout, balding man was running. “Minivan's three, but it pulled out while I was talking to Simon. Swing set makes four. Did I miss anything?”

I hadn't, but it was fun to make her admit it.

She scowled. “Since you've got it figured out, go get your readings.”

“I already checked Simon,” I said, and flashed my phone. I hadn't just picked his pocket—I'd recorded his frequency so I could determine exactly how bad the break was. “I can skip the others.”

“Three breaks, three readings,” she said firmly.

The thing about Walking is you're always playing catch-up.
It's not time travel. You can't go back and prevent a problem. Once a decision is made, a branch—the choice you didn't take, an alternate pathway, an alternate world—is created. Most of the time, it's no big deal. The alternate world, populated by Echoes, goes its own way. It creates Echoes of its own and never interferes with the Key World again.

Every once in a while, for reasons unknown, something goes wrong. There's a snag in the fabric of reality, a frequency that's grown too strong or too unstable. Left alone, it will spread, destabilizing the Key World and weakening the other branches of the multiverse. And that's where Walkers come in—crossing through pivots, cutting off one reality to preserve the rest. Cleaving.

Breaks are the first sign of a problem, but they aren't necessarily fatal. Like infections, some are more serious than others, so we have to determine which ones can be left under observation and which require cleaving. I didn't doubt this world would end up cleaved—it was sounding worse by the minute—but Addie would never let me bail early.

I'd heard the jogger's pitch warbling across the park, but the assignment required I get a direct reading to be sure. I started toward him as he came around the curve, checking his pulse, his face red and his shirt sweat-soaked. I shuddered.

I picked up the pace as he approached, his signature growing louder.
Get away clean,
Monty always said, and I hustled the last few steps, phone clutched in my hand.

Our paths intersected, my shoulder brushing against his
arm. He stumbled onto the grass, yelped, and swore.

“Oops,” I said, and kept going. He threw up his hands and continued running. The touch had been brief, but long enough to turn my screen cherry red. I headed back to Addie. “That was gross.”

She fixed me with an expectant look. “Well?”

“Yes, obviously.” I showed her my phone. “I didn't need a direct read to know he's a bad break.”

“
Augmented
break,” she corrected, tugging at the hem of her tweed blazer. “He's not good or bad; it's a question of how far his individual frequency has degraded.”

“Whatever. Can we go now? This place sounds awful, and I have plans.” A sharp ping, like a violin string breaking, split the air. The wobble in the frequency sped up.

“A date with Eliot is not a sufficient reason to blow off training.” She rubbed her temples as she spoke. “Check the swing set.”

“It's not a date,” I ground out. “It's
Eliot
.”

Everything is possible, for a Walker. The multiverse is infinite, like an ancient tree with branches in every direction, each branch sending out countless shoots, each shoot sprouting an endless number of worlds. Walk far enough, carefully enough, and you could find whatever world you wanted. But you would never find a world where Eliot Mitchell and I were a couple. It was hard to feel romantic about someone you'd gone through potty training with.

I stomped across the playground to the swings and gripped the chain with one hand.

Discord knifed through me, and I let go as if scalded.
Immediately the noise receded. I bent over, hands on knees, waiting for the nausea to pass before rejoining Addie.

“Done. Bet you they cleave this place by lunch tomorrow,” I said.

“The Consort's not going to cleave a world because a fifth-year Walker said so,” she scoffed. “On the other hand, if
I
said so . . . I bet they'd let me help.”

Naturally they'd listen to her over me. “
I
found it.”

“You stole a wallet and let an Echo get grabby. You will not be helping.” She set off toward the pivot we'd come through. If I squinted, I could see the roadside marker flickering in and out of view, a sign this world was rapidly destabilizing.

I chased after her. “That's not fair. I should at least get to try it.”

A thrill ran through me as I spoke, dark and compelling. My fingers twitched, sliding through the atmosphere, through time and space and perception until they touched the fabric of this world, the threads raucous and trembling. Like a key in a lock I hadn't known was there, the sensation called up something more instinctive than memory, a sudden yearning to fix the snarled, too-tight lines straining against my skin. I hummed a half-forgotten song, only to be cut off by Addie.

“You. Aren't.
Licensed.
” She took my arm, looking frazzled. “We go home. We tell Dad. We let the Consort handle it.”

“Why not save them the trouble?”

“Like you'd even know how.”

Over her shoulder I saw Simon lift a hand to wave at me. I
smiled back, then caught myself. Not real. The Original Simon wouldn't wave at me. He wouldn't notice me. He definitely wouldn't invite me out to hear a band or grab coffee or anything else. He wouldn't have made me feel this uncomfortable regret. Not real—but very dangerous.

“It's not hard,” I said, the heart of the world vibrating under my fingers, as reckless and chaotic as my own. “All you have to do is start.”

When interacting with Echoes, do not let emotions cloud your judgment or divert you from your duty.

—Chapter Three, “Echo Properties and Protocols,”

Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five

I
T SHOULDN'T BE
so easy to end a world.

When you think about it, unraveling the fabric of reality should require more effort than clipping your nails. As it turns out, all you need to do is find the right thread and yank.

Or hold on to the thread while your sister yanks you.

The strings slid away with such force I thought they'd slice my fingertips, the remaining fabric slack and gauzy. The ground at our feet warped like a Salvador Dalí painting, nearby trees going liquid and limp, the sky a smear of blue and white.

“What did you do?” Addie looked around wildly.

“It wasn't my fault! You grabbed me!” A line of silver shot from the playground to the pond, which turned gray and began to fade.

“You shouldn't have been messing around,” she snapped, pulling me toward solid ground.

“They were going to cleave it anyway,” I said. According
to the Consort, cleavings were complicated procedures that required tools, and training, and time.

I'd done it completely by accident.

My stomach churned as I watched the ducks bobbing along the increasingly dim surface. They flickered, turning grainy black-and-white like an old movie, and then a blob of static, and they were gone.

White noise, like listening to a seashell, filled the air.

Simon threw the Frisbee and Iggy leaped, the color leaching out of the bandana around his neck. My chest squeezed painfully at the sight. I'd expected something . . . cleaner. A quick winking out of existence, like stars at sunrise. “I didn't mean to.”

“Like that matters? We have to go.” She started toward the portal but stopped when she saw I wasn't moving.

One by one, the cars in the parking lot guttered like candle flames. Even the ones with people inside them. “I did this,” I said hollowly. “I should watch.”

Addie's voice was unexpectedly sympathetic, despite the note of panic creeping in. “Del, they're not alive. They were never alive, just Echoes.”

“They don't know that.”

“No, but we do. It's cleaving too fast,” she said. “It's supposed to start at the breaks and spread out from there. This is . . . random.”

She was right. The whole point of our training was to manage cleaving in an orderly way. Cleavers cut away the damaged branch, then rewove the strings, ensuring the healthy world
stayed strong. The Echo was left to unravel at its own pace, triggering a domino effect. The worlds that sprang from the cleaved Echo would unravel as the effects spread. It was like pruning a shrub: Cut the base of a branch, and all the twigs and leaves attached would fall away too. The effects would take time, but cleavings were irreversible.

The chaos before us shouldn't have happened for days, but already the wooded area beyond the paths had turned to a misty gray wall, the unraveling flowing across the field. The roaring in my ears increased with every Echo that disappeared. I turned, looking for the rift we'd come through.

“Addie?”

The grass around our pivot was silvery with hoarfrost.

“Come on!” She sprinted, graceful even when she was running for her life. I followed as best I could in my clunky boots and overloaded backpack. The asphalt was starting to soften and the curve ahead was fading. I could see where the edges of the world didn't quite align, and hear the Key World's frequency drifting through like a beacon.

Inches away from the pivot, the signpost for the park dissolved into a lumpy puddle. There was no way we'd reach it in time.

“Wait!” I caught the hem of her jacket. She ignored me, and I yanked harder. “We'll never make it through—we'll be caught in the cleaving.”

She whirled, eyes bright with fear. “We're caught unless we get out of here, you moron!”

“Look,” I said. The signpost disappeared. An instant later, the pivot was gone too, replaced with the same formless gray overtaking the park.

Addie made a sound like a drowning kitten and went limp. “We're stuck.”

The silver-coated ground crept toward us like fog. I tugged at her. “Back this way. The park.” For once, she didn't argue. “There has to be an emergency plan.”

“Yeah. Don't cleave a world while you're standing in the middle of it!”

We reached the playground, where the disintegration was already setting in. The benches bowed toward the ground, the moms and nannies oblivious. The kids climbed on the jungle gym, unconcerned by the bars warping beneath their hands.