Resonance (11 page)

I felt hot, despite the biting air and the pale sun, sweat collecting between my shoulder blades and at the backs of my knees and along my hairline. There was no shape to a cleaving. Shape implied order. This was a return to chaos, no matter how carefully he handled it or how meticulous our notes. We were supposed to fight entropy, not welcome it in with open arms.

This was murder, and we were all complicit.

Shaw took over the narration as the men formed a loose triangle around the break. “They'll approach from three directions, in order to maintain even tension on the strings.”

I opened my mouth, preparing to scream, but Eliot whispered, “You
can't
.”

His words brought me back to myself. I'd give away everything if I spoke up now. I'd save one world and reveal the Free Walkers. I pressed a fist against my mouth, and he squeezed my other hand tightly. I gripped back, pouring all my anguish into the gesture.

“Once the initial cuts are made, the First Chair handles the warp, the Second Chair handles the woof, and the Third Chair guides the unraveling strings out of the way, so they're not caught in the repair.”

The Cleavers reached into the break, divisis at the ready. My throat constricted, air wheezing in and out.

“Del?” Callie's voice sounded as if she were standing on the lawn of the pavilion, a hundred yards away. I turned, trying to place her, but my vision swam, and the stage tilted underfoot. “Del!”

I closed my eyes seconds before my knees buckled. I felt Eliot's arm come around my waist, and I listened.

Silence.

The silence of an indrawn breath, of anticipation, of the instant before the music begins.

And then the cleaving started.

The noise was raucous, a bow skidding wildly across the strings, splitting and squealing. I clapped my hands over my ears, buried my face in Eliot's shoulder.

“Is she okay?” Dad called. The concern in his voice was tempered by the strain of managing the strings. “Is it frequency poisoning?”

“She's sick,” Eliot said. “She's felt lousy all day. I'll take her back.”

“We stay together,” Shaw said, over the rising noise. “She'll have to hang on until we're done here. Give her some chocolate. The rest of you, quit staring and pay attention.”

“Don't look,” Eliot murmured, wrapping his arms around me.

But I needed to see. This is what my people had done, and I needed to bear witness. The Consort sent teams to cleave every day, all day, around the world. I'd focused so intently on the pain of Simon's disappearance, of making reparations, I'd let myself forget it was still happening. Every moment I held back, every time I waited or didn't speak up or fumbled a chance to find the Free Walkers, I was letting this happen.

If I couldn't stop it, I could at least pay attention. Someone should mourn these deaths, and today it would be me.

White noise filled the air, the hiss and crackle of a radio, and the colors of the park, already muted by winter, began to drain away. The team worked quickly, their fingers deft and sure, the divisis glinting and hovering like dragonflies. The bridge, a gentle swoop of silvery wood and brushed steel, writhed and sagged. The people atop it were oblivious to the movement, and their own colors—a bright orange coat, a teal-blue beret, a forest-­green parka—faded to gray.

I bit my tongue until I tasted blood.

Eliot squeezed my hand, but I didn't pull away. The world around us flickered and faded as I stood fast.

One by one, the people on the bridge disappeared, bursts of
colorless static around them like ghostly fireworks. The curves of the pavilion drooped above our heads.

“Head toward the exit pivot,” my father said. “It gets easier as you go—the tension in the lines becomes more manageable, and you get into a routine. Cut and loop and weave and move,” he chanted as we crossed the plaza surrounding the Bean, a jelly-­bean-shaped sculpture and the main attraction of Millennium Park. The skyline, already distorted in its mirrored surface, twisted in on itself like a Möbius strip—but when I looked up, it was the buildings themselves sinking into the ground, spreading like lava.

We crossed Michigan Avenue, pacing ourselves so that the team's movements, their careful steps and precise gestures, never ceased. We were like an amoeba, a shifting mass that left behind a smeared, ugly trail.

We reached the stairwell, and my dad jerked his head toward the pivot, his hands still in motion. “Once we've sealed the strings of the pivot, this world will finish unraveling on its own. Based on the strength of the signal and the stability of the Echo, it should take longer than usual for it to cleave—I'd estimate a week before it's gone.”

I straightened. A week. We might be able to come back and save this world in seven days, if I could find the Free Walkers.

“In a minute, I'll send you all back through, and wrap up here with my team. We'll rejoin you for the last few steps on the stable side of the pivot, to finish it off properly. We want to make sure that the cut site is reinforced against any sort of inversions or instability.”

“What if one of you had gotten sick?” Callie asked, with a
sidelong glance at me. “Do you really need three people?”

“In an emergency, a cleaving can be handled safely by one person,” Shaw said. “That's part of why the Consort expects you all to learn. If you Walk somewhere critically unstable, you need to be able to act, regardless of where you're apprenticed. But it's preferable to have a three-pronged team, plus a navigator and medic on the other side. Speaking of medics, Del, Callie, Eliot—I want you three through the pivot first. The rest of you follow at regular intervals. Go!”

Eliot didn't waste any time. Gripping my hand, he led me through the pivot, letting the air shift and part around us, humming the Key World frequency. The world sighed, settled, and welcomed us back.

“Sit,” Callie ordered, helping me down the stairs. “You are the whitest white girl I've ever seen right now. You look like a freaking vampire.”

She handed me a chocolate bar from her backpack, but I waved it away. Sugar could reverse frequency poisoning; I wanted to reverse time. I stood up, and she shoved me back down, hands on shoulders. Eliot paced and scowled, lips moving silently.

“You really aren't cut out for this, are you?” Callie asked.

I drew my hand across my mouth, battling back nausea. “Guess not.”

“She got sick,” Eliot called. “Frequency poisoning or food poisoning or the flu.”

Callie scoffed. “Bullshit. Come up with a better story than that, because Shaw's going to want to know what's going on
in about three minutes.” She shook her head. “What the hell is wrong with you two? We were
good
together. Then Del gets booted, then she comes back, then she's off the leaderboard, then you two aren't speaking, and then you have some sort of . . . what? Episode? Breakdown? Whatever the problem is, figure it out, because if I'm going to cleave with you, I need to be sure you're not going to get us all killed.”

She stood up and pointed a finger at me. “Playtime's over.”

I leaned my head against the cold metal handrail. “No kidding.”

Shaw ordered us back to CCM before my dad and his team were finished. Callie and Eliot stuck close, saying little for the entire return trip. But when we arrived in the lobby, no amount of evasion was going to save me. Lattimer approached us, his face a mask of concern.

“Shaw called in a request for an emergency medical evaluation.”

“Del wasn't feeling well,” Callie said. “He wanted her checked out, to make sure it wasn't serious.”

“I'm better now,” I protested. Showing weakness around Lattimer was like blood in the water.

“You don't look it,” Lattimer said.

“It's frequency poisoning,” Eliot said, and did his best impression of my mom. “I told you not to overdo it. She doesn't listen, sir.”

“It sounds as if a break is in order,” Lattimer said. “You'll sit out class tomorrow. I can use your assistance with other matters.”

“Other matters?” Callie asked, and Eliot glared at her.

“Nine o'clock, as before,” Lattimer said, ignoring both of them. “Make sure you've got a firm grip on your temper.”

•   •   •

As soon as the medic checked me over, force-feeding me cup after cup of sweet, inky tea, Shaw sent me home with Eliot, and stern instructions to rest.

“You're going to join them, aren't you?” Eliot said as we made our way through Union Station. I didn't need to ask who he meant.

We boarded the train, the memory of Ms. Powell making me check over my shoulder every few minutes. I didn't reply until we'd found our seats.

“I can't even find them.”

“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life hiding? Being hunted? You'll have to leave everything behind, or you'll have to lie, every day, for the rest of your life.”

“According to you, I am an excellent liar.”

“I'm an excellent juggler,” he said, “but you don't see me joining the circus.”

“I can't cleave.”

“Then don't be a Cleaver,” he said. “Be a navigator. Be a medic. Be a teacher.”

“I don't like little kids.”

“Be an ethicist. You want to change the Consort, that's the way to start.”

“By admitting I know something the Consort has been covering up for generations? I don't think that's the path to career longevity.”

“The only upside to working with Lattimer is that you've got your pick of apprenticeships. Choose one you can live with.”

“That's not a solution. Being a Walker means supporting the Consort, and the Consort wants us to cleave.” My voice broke on the last word.

“I get what this is doing to you. I do,” he said, pulling me into him. “But you have to play along, at least in public. Shaw's going to put it together. Callie's halfway there already.”

“She's my friend. She wouldn't—”

His words ruffled my hair. “Callie is as pigheaded as you are, and if she thinks you're going to hurt her chances, she will throw you under the bus. Any one of them would.”

“But not you.” I sat up. “You're on board?”

He sighed deeply.
“
The Free Walkers aren't my fight. But you, I'll help. I'll run the scores we took from Ms. Powell's office later tonight and see where they take us.”

Us.
I leaned my head against his shoulder and tried to ignore the prickling behind my eyelids. It's not only the demons who have the power to break you. It's the small, unexpected kindness, the flame that throws the darkness into relief.

CH
APTER EIGHTEEN

A
T MY REQUEST, ELIOT DROPPED
me at Simon's house, where Iggy romped about in greeting. He must have sensed my mood, because he settled almost immediately, pressing against my legs as I went in search of Amelia.

“I'm down here,” she called from the basement. “Laundry never ends. Even when it's just me.”

I made my way down the narrow stairs. Washing machine aside, the basement was clearly Simon's domain. Carpet remnants covered the floor, and in the middle of the room sat an ancient, ugly, comfortable-looking couch. The coffee table was nicked and scratched, and back issues of
Sports Illustrated
were scattered everywhere. A weight bench sat in one corner, the bar still loaded with iron plates; a drum set collected dust in another. I could picture Simon and his teammates here, watching ESPN and playing Nerf basketball. I could imagine him bringing a girl down here, and I quashed the jealousy that welled up—not of the phantom girl, but of the time they'd had together.

I turned my back on the couch and the ghosts. Along the opposite wall, Amelia was standing in front of a dryer full of towels, folding them carefully and setting them in a basket.

“Let me help,” I said, joining her. I'd smelled this fabric softener on Simon's skin so many times, and without thinking I pressed my face into a washcloth, inhaling deeply.

When I looked up, Amelia was watching me wistfully.

“I do the same thing,” she said. “Sometimes I go into his room, and it smells just like him. That boy smell, you know? I close my eyes, and he's standing next to me. I can't even wash the sheets, because I'm afraid I'll forget.”

“Me too,” I said, twisting the cloth in my hands.

She blinked rapidly and picked up the basket. “Any progress with the Free Walkers?”

I shook my head. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize. I'm sorry it didn't work out like you'd hoped.”

I took the laundry basket, over her protests, and followed her upstairs. “Do you want me to put on tea?”

“Please,” she said, and left to put away the towels. I filled the kettle, the surface as mirrorlike as the Bean had been today. When she returned, she arranged cups and saucers on a tray, and added a plate of shortbread. “The Free Walkers must seem exciting to you, and a better alternative than the Consort, but it's not an easy life. The longer you live with a deception, the more real it becomes.”

“Like Monty?” I carried the tray to the table in front of the couch.

“Your grandfather's a special case,” she said. “He was never as passionate about the Free Walkers as your grandmother. She believed in the cause, and he believed in her.”

“Why did the Free Walkers abandon him?”

“I cut ties with the Free Walkers after Gil was taken, so I don't know what happened. But I can tell you, they're not a sentimental group. They can't afford to be, considering who they're up against. Reaching out to Monty would have made them vulnerable.”

“And my grandmother would have been okay with that?”

“That part surprises me,” she admitted. “I can't imagine Rose not getting a message to him somehow, even if it was only to say she was safe.”

“Unless she couldn't.”

Amelia looked down at her cup again and said nothing.

But the Free Walkers had contacted me. They'd sent Ms. Powell after Simon; they thought I could be valuable.

“I think she left a message for me,” I said. “Not me, specifically. But someone. Monty, maybe.”

Amelia set her cup down with a clatter. “What kind of message?”

“A puzzle. When I solved it, I found a frequency.”

“Oh?”

“The frequency's not complete; I'm guessing Monty has the other part.”

She twisted her wedding band absently, lost in thought.

“Lattimer thinks the Free Walkers hid a weapon. Maybe the frequency tells where it's hidden.”

She frowned. “Gil always said the truth was the only weapon they needed.”

“Not according to Lattimer. They hid
something
in the Echoes, and I need to find it before the Consort does.”

“Stop looking,” she said sharply.

I must have looked shocked, but she touched her ring again and stared into her tea.

“The Free Walkers will get you killed, Del, just like they do everyone else. I am begging you—forget about this frequency and anything else having to do with them. Let their secrets stay hidden so you can stay alive.”