Dissonance (27 page)

I thought back to Addie's lesson, mimicking the way her fingers had curled and plucked at the air until she could find the bad strings. They were easier to find this time, a whole cluster of erratic, unpleasant threads. My movements were small and cautious, tempered by fear. What if I made it worse? What if I cleaved this place? What if someone found out?

But there was nothing to do now except try.
Nimble fingers, open mind, hum a tune both deft and kind.
As I worked, my movements grew more sure, my voice stronger. Finally, I felt the correct frequency take hold, the world stabilizing around me. I let go of the threads by degrees, my fingers stiff.

The poster hung on the wall, and the only thing wobbly about it was the handwriting. I'd done it. I'd stabilized an inversion, completely on my own.

An inversion connected to Simon.

I stopped by the office, dropping off a star while I swiped a hall pass, and took a deep breath before returning to the Key World. The poster had reverted to normal, but it had taken more time than I expected. I slid into my seat nearly twenty minutes late. Ms. Powell shook her head and gave me the Disappointed Look. Happily, I'd developed an immunity to the Disappointed Look sometime around the third grade.

“Pass, Del?”

I handed over the one I'd swiped in the Echo. It was identical to ours, right down to the official time stamp. Powell ran her fingers over the surface and inspected it—and then me—closely. I lifted my chin. The pass was foolproof. The only thing wrong was its pitch.

“Glad you could join us,” she said at last, and went back to her lecture on fugues.

“Where did you go?” murmured Eliot.

“Inversion in the commons,” I whispered. “It's fixed now.”

He dropped his pencil midspin, whispering, “Do you
know how dangerous that is? You should have brought me with you!”

“No way. If I get caught, I'm not taking you down with me.”

We listened to the rest of the lecture in silence. “Your composition projects are due the week after Thanksgiving, so be sure you're making good progress,” Powell concluded.

Simon turned to me. “Want to meet tomorrow?”

“Don't you have practice? And games?”

He considered this. “No game on Thursday. I'll come by after practice.”

Bree shifted, clearly listening in.

“Can't wait,” I said, as the bell rang.

I thought we'd continue the conversation, but Bree managed to intercept him—and he didn't try to avoid her. Meanwhile, Eliot was strangely quiet as he walked me to lit.

“What's wrong?” When he didn't answer, I hip-checked him. “Spill. More problems?”

“Why did you fix that inversion? You should have notified the Consort instead of going it alone.”

“This was faster.”

“Bullshit. Key World inversions are a huge deal. Even you know that. You want to be responsible for another Roanoke? You aren't in enough trouble?”

The disappearance of the Roanoke settlement had mystified historians for more than four hundred years. An entire town had vanished into thin air, leaving behind an inexplicably empty settlement. Nobody knew what happened.

Except for the Walkers. The lost colony of Roanoke hadn't vanished. It had inverted, but the Consort of the 1800s—spread thin in a vast country with no efficient means of communication—hadn't noticed until it was too late. What had begun as a small inversion had grown to take over the entire island, swapping places with an Echo where Europeans had never found North America, and the area was populated by the Croatan tribe. When the inversion had finally taken root, the Originals had been swept away, leaving behind a few pieces of their settlement—fence posts, a ring, the fort—that had slipped through the strings.

Not our proudest moment. Even today, Walkers patrolled the area, shoring up the weakness left behind, trying to prevent another inversion of that magnitude.

“You're overreacting,” I said. “It was tiny. I fixed it. Addie showed me how the other day.”

“Well, gee. If Addie showed you one time, I'm sure you're totally qualified. Nothing to worry about.”

I swallowed. This was Eliot. I could trust him. “Remember how I tried to isolate a break at that basketball game, and Addie had to tune it?”

“Hard to forget,” he said.

“The inversion came from that Echo.”

His face went blank, and I knew he was calculating odds in his head. “That's not a coincidence.”

“I think it was my fault. I couldn't let the Consort find out, or they'd blame me.” And cleave the world, with Simon in it.

He blew out a breath. “You can't do that again. No more
Walking on your own, Del. Between inversions and the increased breaks . . . it's too dangerous.”

“That's why I have your map, boy genius. I'll be fine.”

“No. From here on out, I'm going with,” he said, gripping the straps of his backpack.

I thought about the things that Eliot did not like: Breaking rules. Walking to unmapped branches. Simon Lane. All of which he'd see in abundance if he came with me. “You don't have to. If they catch us . . .”

“I'd be in the same situation as you,” he finished with a half smile. “I can think of worse fates.”

I sighed. “This is very unlike you.”

“Or maybe it isn't, and you never noticed.”

The thought settled uncomfortably in the pit of my stomach. For the first time in ages I studied him. He wasn't bad-looking, actually. He had the narrow, lean build of a swimmer, but you could hardly tell under the baggy cargo pants and too-big oxford he wore unbuttoned over a T-shirt. The tight curls of his hair were starting to poke out in odd directions, in need of a trim. Behind the thick black-framed glasses, his eyes were warm, and his smile was wide and sweet, a dimple peeking out on one side. If he put the slightest effort into it, he could have girls falling all over him.

It was a strange notion: Eliot as heartthrob. He didn't realize it. He probably wouldn't do anything about it even if he did.

“You're impossible,” I said, untwisting his collar. “Do you even look in the mirror before you leave the house?”

He covered my hand with his. “Del. No more Walking without me. Promise.”

I smoothed his shirt and drew my hand away. Then I nodded, and he smiled. “I'm not giving up on Park World, either. You'll get reinstated, and we'll live happily ever after.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. When I looked away, Simon was watching us across the hallway, eyebrows raised.

B
Y THE TIME
Simon arrived at my house to work on our project Thursday night, I was worn-out and cranky from the week's sessions with Addie. I'd avoided his Echoes, afraid of triggering a break or an inversion or Addie's suspicions. But the sight of his tall frame hunched over the piano made me forget about the anxiety that had driven me over the last few days.

“You really are terrible.” I laughed, resting the violin on my knee.

“Told you. We should have done something with drums.”

“And I told you, you can't do counterpoint with percussion. Unless you've decided to take up the marimba.”

“Um, no. Strictly a drum-set kind of guy.”

“Why did you stop playing?”

“One of the high school coaches saw me play basketball in seventh grade. Told me if I got serious, I could probably win a scholarship. It wasn't like we had a lot of money lying around, so I got serious, and the other stuff fell away. Between practice and conditioning and camps and tournaments . . . I had to make a choice.”

The range of his Echoes made more sense. Each one had
followed a path he'd turned away from. Each one had taken up a life he'd left behind. He'd followed his path with the same single-mindedness I had. “Do you miss it?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Sometimes. I wasn't terrible.”

He would have been a good drummer. He had an innate understanding of rhythm. It was melody that tripped him up. Hands that were agile and precise on the basketball court fumbled constantly on the keys, mangling signatures and chords. He didn't need the metronome—his timing was perfect—but his playing was a disaster.

“Congratulations,” I said. “You are officially the worst piano player I've ever heard.”

“I could whistle.” He pursed his lips, making a noise like a deeply angry seagull.

“What
was
that?”

“Our song.” He looked hurt. “You couldn't tell?”

“We'll figure something out,” I said. His Echo had whistled well enough to call Iggy the other night, but he'd had years of practice.

“I don't understand why we have to play it. It's music
theory
, right? That's the opposite of performance. This is not what I signed on for, you know. Before Powell took over, this class was an easy A. It's like a bait and switch.”

“You're mad because you're used to getting what you want. Everything comes easy to you, doesn't it?”

“Not everything,” he grumbled. “You know what else isn't fair?”

Idly I played a few notes. “That you're partnered with a virtuoso? I admit, it's very yin-yang of Powell.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of how you keep cutting class. Nobody ever busts you.”

My fingering slipped. “What do you mean?”

“I know you're at school. I see you in music, which makes sense, because it's the only class you pay attention in. But you've managed to sneak out of history how many times in the last week?”

“Keep your voice down,” I hissed. Addie and my father were both out, and Monty was napping, but my mom was only down the hallway, locked in her office. Despite the soundproof door, I was afraid her motherly instincts would kick in, and she'd overhear us.

He whispered, “Yesterday, I saw you take off before second period. You and Lee didn't get back until the end of lunch.”

“Eliot,” I said. “You know his name. Use it.”

“Sorry. You and
Eliot
have been ditching all week. What's your secret?”

“No secret,” I said, but his skeptical look told me he wasn't buying it. We'd decided to check the other branches I'd worked on, taking readings for Eliot to analyze. “It's different for you. You're king of the mountain. People are always watching. But they don't look twice when I walk in. Easy to slip out again when no one notices you.”

“I notice you,” he protested.

Wanting to believe something doesn't make it true, the same way wanting someone doesn't make them yours.

“Really? Did you know my name before this project? I've known you since grade school. We've had classes together for three years in a row, but you had no idea who I was until Powell paired us up.”

“Were you waiting for a formal introduction?” he said irritably. “It's not like you make it easy. You walk in every day with a scowl on your face, you only talk to Eliot, and half the time, you're cutting class. You're busting your ass to convince everyone you don't give a damn. Want to know what I think?”

I flushed. “No.”

“I think you do care, and it scares you. So you try to scare them off instead.”

“This is a music assignment, not a psych class. We're done.” Had I wanted him to notice me? I was an idiot. I laid my violin in its case and snapped the latches shut. The skin between my thumb and index finger caught in the brass fitting, and I swore.

“You're scared,” he repeated. “I get it.”

“You really don't,” I said, stung by the accusation and unsettled by the truth behind it. I rubbed at the welt on my thumb, blinking rapidly.

Walkers were encouraged to stay as separate from Originals as possible. We dedicated our lives to something they couldn't comprehend. And if I couldn't be a part of the Originals' world, if I was meant for something else, it was easier to tell myself I never wanted it in the first place.

I'd believed it too, until Simon came along.

“Let me see your hand,” he said, crossing the room. The air
felt charged, vibrating with possibility. It happened sometimes, right before a pivot formed, as if the fabric of the world recognized what was coming.

Must be nice.

“You're as bad as I am,” I said.

He turned my hand palm up, examining where the latch had caught my skin. “People
like
me, if you haven't noticed. No offense.”

“People adore you. Talk about busting your ass—you're on a mission to charm every person who comes within a five-foot radius. You keep back anything that might make them pity you. That might scare them away.” I shook my head. “Isn't it exhausting?”

“Not as exhausting as being relentlessly cranky.” He was edging toward cranky now, judging from his grip on my hand.

“It's more than wanting to be popular, isn't it? You need everybody to think you're great, because if they didn't . . . what? What might happen?”

He stared at me, as unhappy as his Doughnut-World Echo the other night.
I believe you're awesome at leaving
. The answer slipped out before I could stop it. “You think they'll leave.”

“People leave,” he said, a sudden bleakness in his expression. “They leave all the time.”

“And you're knocking yourself out so they'll stay.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “You don't know that.”

“I've watched you for three years,” I said. “I'm pretty confident.”

“Three years?” He raised his eyebrows. “Long time to watch someone.”

“I wasn't . . .”

“Watching me?”

Damn it. My cheeks went hot as he lifted my hand to his mouth. My voice was so soft I could barely hear myself say, “Let go.”

“I don't think so.” The light in his eyes, intent and amused, made me edgy.