Resonance (14 page)

CH
APTER TWENTY-FOUR

W
E'RE NOT BREAKING MONTY OUT
of prison,” I said. “We'll find the frequency some other way.”

“There is no other way.” Not-Simon helped himself to a pop from the fridge and a cookie from the jar on the counter, as familiar in my home as Eliot.

“How did you know—” I pointed to the cookie.

“How do you think? We've gone into Echoes of your house more times than I can count, looking for Monty's frequency. It's not here.”

“Maybe you haven't figured out how to crack his code.”

“Nice try, Nancy Drew. It's not here. He memorized it, which means we have to spring him.”

“This isn't the Three Stooges,” I said. “We can't pry the window out and have him climb over. It's an oubliette, four stories below ground, surrounded by guards.”

“Good thing you know your way around,” he said.

“Why don't we focus on the other frequency?” Eliot said. “The one less likely to end in certain death.”

“Gil's?” Not-Simon frowned. “We've looked over his place too.”

“His house? Did he even have—oh God. You went through
Amelia's
place?” I said, outraged. “You could have led the Consort right to her.”

“We haven't, though. She's fine.” But he looked away, his swagger gone.

I sank into my chair. “What am I going to tell her?”

“Better think fast,” Simon said. “The prodigal son returns? Phone's going to be ringing off the hook.”

“I should be the one to tell her,” I said, and pushed up from the table. “We can go now.”

“Heartwarming reunions later,” Simon said. “We need to—”

The sound of someone rattling the back door interrupted him.

“Hide!” I whispered, but Simon merely took another swig of pop and smiled.

“I'm done hiding,” he said. “Why do you think I came back?”

The door swung open, and Addie breezed in. “Del, you could have opened—” she called, and then caught sight of the ghost sitting at the kitchen table.

•   •   •

Addie took Simon's resurrection about as well as I could have hoped.

Which is to say, she didn't punch anyone.

So, better than me.

Instead, she stood in her coat and hat at the kitchen counter while I brought her up to speed. Her icy calm was belied by the fact she was white-knuckling her purse strap the entire time I spoke.

When I finally ran out of explanations, she took a deep breath, set down her purse, and hung up her coat, eyes on Simon the entire time.

Then, very deliberately, she turned to me. “You people have gone completely off the rails. Del, you are not breaking Monty out of prison. It cannot be done, and even if it could be done, it shouldn't be done, because he will go right back to looking for Grandma, which means he'll wreck the Key World.
Again.
And while I would like to think that we are capable of outsmarting a dementia-riddled septuagenarian, our track record is spotty at best. Not to mention the fact, if the Consort catches us, they will kill us, and even if they don't catch us, they will hunt us across Echoes for the rest of our days. Maybe you got the gene for living life on the run, but I did not, and I have no desire to spend the next sixty years figuring out how to avoid frequency poisoning and a painful, drawn-out death.”

She ended an octave higher than usual, breathless and scarlet with panic.

Simon studied her, then turned to me. “Smaller crew is better anyway.”

“You don't have a crew!” Addie shrieked. “You have my sister, who you are taking advantage of. How do we know you'll even take her to Simon? The
real
Simon.”

“I am the real Simon,” he snapped. “And a hell of a better choice than letting her bumble around on her own. I don't have time to argue with you. We need those frequencies before the Tacet starts.”

“Eighteen days? You're going to do this in eighteen days?”

“Eighteen days, eighteen years. It doesn't matter,” Eliot said. “Breaking out of an oubliette is impossible. ”

“I want to know how this happened,” Addie said. “Who swapped you two? What possible purpose could it serve to move kids around the multiverse like they were interchangeable? Who messes with reality like that?”

“Your grandmother,” Simon said coldly. “And my dad.”

“Rose?” I said. “Rose swapped you?”

He ran his hand through his hair, baffled. “Do you guys really not know any of this?”

“Who would have told us?” Addie asked. “Monty?”

Simon rolled his shoulders, working out kinks. “About seventeen years ago, the Free Walkers were reaching critical mass. They were starting to look like they could be a real threat to the Consort, converting high-level Walkers to their way of thinking. My dad had met my—Amelia—during the Washington Station train crash a couple years prior, and they'd fallen in love. She got pregnant, and they thought—” He shook his head at their foolishness. “They thought they were going to get a happy ending.

“Right after I was born, the Consort figured out he was a Free Walker. A sympathizer tipped him off, gave him a head start, so he ran. Dropped off the radar. But the Consort wasn't giving up. They went scorched-earth on every Echo he might be in—they cleaved anywhere he'd visited, any Echo he'd run a navigation report on.

“He'd befriended a lot of Amelia's Echoes, and he went out to check on one of them, see how she and the baby were doing.”

“Her Echoes were pregnant?” Eliot shook his head. “He's like the world's biggest deadbeat dad.”

“Amelia knew what she was getting into,” Simon shot back. “The Consort almost caught up with him in that Echo. He'd visited before, and it was just . . . luck, or the opposite of luck, that they arrived while he was there. They cleaved it, but there was no time for him to cauterize it. He had to leave her behind.”

“She couldn't Walk,” I said, sick at heart. “But the baby was a hybrid.”

“She begged him to take the baby, and he did. How could he say no?” He scrubbed a hand over his face, fatigue turning his skin dull. “The Consort was going to find him again. He knew the clock was ticking, and he knew they'd find Amelia and me eventually, no matter how well he'd hidden us. But if they did, all the Free Walkers' research into hybrids would be for nothing.”

“What kind of research?” Eliot said sharply.

Simon ignored the interruption. “Rose knew the Consort would come after her soon enough, so the two of them came up with a plan. She took me into the Echoes, and rather than let Amelia suffer, they left your Simon in my place. Then Gil let himself be caught.”

Silence took over as his words sank in.

“Seems like a sucky plan,” I said.

“Once they had Gil, they stopped looking,” Addie said softly. “He redirected their attention.”

“What if it hadn't worked?” I asked. “They would have killed my Simon as easily as you.”

He jerked a shoulder. “Which would have been sad, but not
fatal to the cause. If my Echoes die,
I
carry on. If I die, every one of my Echoes unravels. Hiding me was the only way to save us.”

The logic behind it was irrefutable, but also unsettling. For all their talk of Echoes being real, the Free Walkers seemed willing to count their lives as less valuable.

“No offense,” I said, “But what's so special about hybrids?”

“Everything,” he said. “We boost the signal of a world. We can Walk and tune and cauterize, as long as we're paired up with a full-blooded Walker. And unlike your kind . . . there's plenty of us. We have Echoes. Lots and lots of Echoes.”

“You solved the population crisis,” Eliot said. “If hybrids were allowed to cauterize, you could take a three-man cleaving team and split them.”

“One Walker, two hybrids,” Addie mused. “Triple the effectiveness. Assuming you could convince them to join up.”

“I'm very convincing,” Simon said with a leer.

Addie rolled her eyes.

Simon shrugged. “Echoes won't cleave. They'd be killing versions of themselves.”

“So the Consort can't admit Echoes are real, because it would mean an end to cleaving, and they can't ask Echoes to cleave. And they won't give up cleaving, because the Key World needs the energy transfer,” Eliot said, in the methodical, “piece it all together” way he used when helping me with my homework.

“Powell got that far with you, huh? Good.”

“But that doesn't explain why they sent you back now. Or why they took so long.”

“After the first Tacet, we were in a shambles. We couldn't have organized a bake sale, much less a rebellion. The Consort thought we were finished, and we let them think so while we rebuilt. The harder they came down on people, the more sympathetic we looked. You spend years crushing the little guy, and people start to think you're a bully. You might have noticed that despite the fact the Consort calls us terrorists, we haven't done anything yet.”

“Yet,” Addie said.

His smile chilled my blood. “Yet.”

“Well, do it without my sister.” She turned to me. “Del, I don't know if I believe him, but even if I did, they're as ruthless as the Consort. They stole a child. They left Monty behind to be tortured. This guy probably has Stockholm syndrome.”

“Addie's right,” Eliot said. “I don't trust them.”

I looked at Not-Simon. Original Simon, but not
my
Simon.

His gaze was flat and uncompromising. “Never said they were nice. But they stand on the side of the good. Where do you stand?”

With Simon
. All I said was, “How do we get Monty out?”

Not-Simon's shoulders eased, and I realized he'd been more worried about convincing us than he'd let on. “I've got some ideas. First, let's go meet my mom.”

C
HAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

D
O YOU THINK SHE'LL KNOW?”
Simon asked as we stood in front of Amelia's house.

“I did.” I wrapped my arms around myself, partly from cold and partly from nerves. “She's known you a lot longer.”

“Not me,” he said, simultaneously withering and wistful.

“She'll know,” I said. “Maybe we should skip this. It won't make her feel any better, not once she knows you're . . . you.”

“What if it makes me feel better?” he asked.

“You have feelings? I hadn't noticed.”

“Nobody asked me if I wanted to be taken, you know. Nobody asked if I wanted to grow up on the run, or spend years trying to fix worlds I don't belong in.”

I blinked. “They saved your life.”

“Yeah, and for what?” he asked, and stalked toward the house.

His response caught me off guard, and I raced after him, calling, “Go around the back!”

Before he could knock on the door, I caught his hand, the sensation alien and familiar at the same time. I let go and slid between him and the screen, careful not to touch him again.

“You can't barge in there,” I said as Iggy began to bark. “Let me talk to her first.”

For a moment I was sure he would push me aside. But he stepped back into the shadows, shoulders hunched, and made a shooing motion.

I cracked the door open just enough to let myself in, but Iggy threw himself against me, protesting loudly. “Give me a minute, boy.” I pulled a treat out of my coat pocket.

“Del,” said Amelia, poking her head in the kitchen. “What's wrong?”

“Something came up,” I said.

“Something bad?”

“Something . . . unexpected.” I motioned to the living room couch. “We should sit.”

Her eyebrows arched. “The only time people want me to sit is when they're about to give me bad news.”

Did this qualify as good or bad? “It's about Simon.”

She crossed the room and sat, hands folded tightly in her lap.

“I told you the Free Walkers approached me,” I said. “But not why. I didn't want to get your hopes up. They gave me proof that Simon survived the cleaving.”

She raised a hand to her mouth, took several trembling breaths.

“He's alive, Amelia.”

“Is he—”

“Safe?” She nodded. “I think so. They think Simon's . . . important.”

“Useful,” she said flatly.

“Probably. They wouldn't help him if he wasn't.”

“Can he come home?”

I covered her hands with mine. “Not yet. They've got some plan to stop the Consort, and they won't bring him back until they've seen it through.”

Her expression, hope and longing and grief woven together like a braid, didn't change. “Have you seen him?”

I looked down. “Not exactly.”

“Something's changed,” Amelia said. “That's why you're telling me now.”

Iggy agreed. He sprang up and hurtled through the house, crashing into the back door, baying wildly.

I twisted to look at him, and saw Simon's profile silhouetted in the window, pacing back and forth.

I took in Amelia's too-quick breaths and her pale, set face. She didn't need to know every last detail. Later, when she'd recovered, I could tell her about the frequencies. Not-Simon was enough of a shock for one night.

I finally said, “The school was asking questions about Simon. They were looking more closely at his transfer, wondering if there's something off.”

“They've been calling,” she admitted. “I was hoping it would blow over.”

“Amelia, he disappeared and nobody's heard from him. His teammates, his coaches, his friends . . . people are suspicious. They want proof he's okay, and the Free Walkers sent it.”

“I don't understand.”

The words felt unreal in my mouth, but I said them anyway, furious at the Free Walkers for putting me in this position. “They sent another Simon. He's not ours, but he's here, and he wants to see you.”

Iggy's body thudded against the door, again and again.

“Another Simon?” She covered her face with her hands.

“You can say no,” I told her. “If it's too much, if you're not up to it, I can take him somewhere else. I'll understand.”

“He won't,” she said, dropping her hands to her lap. “My son.”

My head snapped up. Had she known about the swap? No. Her grief was too deep, too all-encompassing to be faked.

She wiped away the tears and squared her shoulders. “He's outside? Sending Iggy into fits?”

“He has that effect on people,” I said. “He's not like our Simon. He's angry. At everyone.” He's broken, I wanted to say, but didn't. “His life has been . . . not easy.”

“Sometimes the only way to survive something terrible is to pretend that you already have,” Amelia said. “Let him in, Del.”

“Are you sure?”

She stood up with an effort, tried to smile. “I'm ready.”

I caught Iggy by the collar. “Settle down, you nut. He's not who you think.”

Opening the door, I poked my head outside. “Where'd you go?”

“Here,” he said, stepping into the porch light. Iggy went rigid at my side. “Did you tell her?”

“Some of it. She knows you're not him. Don't tell her about the switch, please. It's too much for her.”

“I'm an asshole, not an idiot.” His voice was harsh as the night air.

I stepped back, hauling on Iggy's collar, and Simon entered.

“Hey, dog,” he said. Iggy nosed his hand, sighed, and sat back on his haunches. “He's not biting my hand off, at least.”

“Iggy's nicer than I am. Come on.”

I led him across the family room. Once I'd felt like a stranger here, unsettled by the easy affection between Simon and Amelia, so different from the tension that ran like an electrical current through my own house. Now Amelia had brought me into that warmth, and the need to protect it—and her—was overwhelming.

Amelia was standing where I'd left her, arms wrapped around herself, eyes bright with unshed tears, her skin so pale I could see the tracery of veins along her temples. Her jade-green sweater dwarfed her tiny frame, making Simon seem even bigger. It was like watching a panther and a dove face off, and I wasn't entirely sure this Simon wouldn't pounce.

“Simon,” she murmured.

He jerked back, his shoulders broad and tense beneath the heavy canvas jacket he wore. He looked over at me, eyes wild as the sea.

“I don't know what to call you,” he blurted. “Mom? Mother? Amelia? Mrs. Lane? Mrs. Bradley?”

“We can rule out Mrs. Bradley,” she said. “Your father and I never married, not officially.”

“But you have a wedding band.”

“Yes. He gave me this. And you.” She twisted the slim gold ring. “Mom, if you want. Amelia's fine, if you're more comfortable.”

He nodded, but didn't say which one he preferred.

She stood stock-still, drinking in the sight of him, and he stared back, unabashed and disbelieving.

“Come and sit,” she said, gesturing to the couch. Joy broke across her face like a sunrise, tears caught on her lashes. With halting steps, he joined her.

“Tell me about you,” she said. “I want to know who you are.”

“Simon Lane,” he replied.

She reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair away from his face. “There are a million Simon Lanes. I want to know who
you
are.”

“I'm the one . . .” He trailed off and exchanged glances with me. “I'm just me.”

“How long have you been with the Free Walkers?”

“Ever since I can remember.” He chose his words with the same care Walkers did, weighing the possibilities of each one, measuring out meaning.

“That must have been a difficult way to grow up. Uncertain.”

He lifted a shoulder. “I never knew any different.”

Lie. He knew exactly what he'd missed out on; he'd compared his life to Simon's and found he'd drawn the short straw. But he spared Amelia, and my anger deflated slightly.

“You should have,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.

“It wasn't so bad,” he said. “I got to see the multiverse. How many people like me can say that?”

“There's nobody like you,” she said. “Isn't that the point of all this? Every life matters.”

He studied her for a long moment. “I suppose so.”

She took his hand in hers. “Have you seen him?”

There was no need to clarify “him.” Other Simon shook his head. “Not yet. But they won't let anything happen to him.”

The look that passed between them was so fraught—tender and awkward and longing—that I backed into the hallway, wanting to give them privacy.

Iggy padded after me, whining softly. I examined the lineup of Simon's school pictures, watching him grow from a round-faced kindergartener to the lean, driven boy I knew. So easy to picture his arms coming around me, his fingers tangling in my hair, sinking back against the broad planes of his chest. Safe, with Simon. Happy, with Simon. Without him, nothing of the sort.

“I should get home,” I said, returning to the living room. “My parents will be home soon, and I need to keep up appearances.”

Simon stood to leave, but Amelia kept hold of his hand. “Where will you go?”

He looked at me, and I said carefully, “Simon needs to re-­enroll in school. I'm sure the administration will want to follow up, and it would look better if you were living here when they came calling.”

Amelia closed her eyes for the briefest of seconds, long enough that she missed the hurt that flashed in his eyes.

“I can figure out something else,” he said in a low voice. “It won't be more than a week or two.”

She frowned and looked at me. I shrugged.

“Stay here, ” she insisted. “I want as much time with you as I can grab.”

•   •   •

Other Simon insisted on walking me to the end of the driveway.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Can't I be gentlemanly?”

“You don't know how to be gentlemanly. And you don't like me enough to bother. Are you going to ask her about the map frequency?”

“Soon.”

“You said we didn't have a lot of time.”

“Don't rush me,” he snapped. “I deserve a few days. This was my home.”

I brushed my hand over the rough canvas of his sleeve. “Thanks for not telling her.”

He stared at the frozen grass. “She thinks I'm an Echo.”

“She thinks you're the child of her Echoes,” I said. “Which makes you her child, in a way.”

“I
am
her child. They were tight, weren't they?” He glanced back at the house, naked longing on his face.

“I don't think they had anyone else. Not really.” Secrets have a way of hiding their keepers. Amelia knew the truth about the Walkers, and it put her in a different world from Originals, even as they occupied the same space.

“Do you think I should tell her?”

“Why? To make yourself feel better?”

“You don't think she deserves to know?”

“Amelia
deserves
to grow old with her son, but she's not going to get that. The least we can do, in the time she has left, is not tell her that her real son was kidnapped and the kid she spent her life raising belonged to someone else.”

“No,” he said, steel in his voice. “The least we can do is take down the Consort.”

Something he said earlier came back to me. “You're not in this to save the Echoes, are you?”

“Sure I am. I'm not going to get sappy about it, but they're killing off entire worlds. How do you not try to save them?”

“You believe the Free Walkers the way I believed my parents. It's how you were raised.” He didn't know anything but fighting and surviving. “But you don't just hate the Consort because of cleavings, or how they treat Echoes. It's personal. It's payback—revenge for everything they took from you.”

He faltered for a split second before going on the attack. “You talk a good game, but the truth is, you're doing this to save your boyfriend. Do you ever think about what this fight could cost you?”

A chill that had nothing to do with the weather worked its way over my skin. “Every day.”

“It's not only your family. Your sister, or Eliot, or whatever life you've got planned out for yourself. It could cost you Amelia. If we lose, you'll spend your life running. Amelia will die alone because you wanted to hook up with your Simon.”

I stared up at the sky, imagined a life as desolate and lonely and transient as a comet, all ice and dust and flare, consuming itself. I imagined a life without Simon, and it seemed equally cold. So I gave the only response I could.

“I love him.”

He snorted. “That's the
stupidest
reason. You won't last five minutes with us if you're going to go around quoting pop songs and greeting cards.”

“Don't interrupt me,” I snapped. “I love him. I don't care if he's an Echo. He's a whole person, and the multiverse is filled with people who love Echoes, and if I think Simon's worth saving, they all are. There's nothing stupid about loving someone.”

“It makes you weak,” he said.

“Bullshit. Look at Monty—what he endured, how carefully he planned, the sacrifices he made. Granted, he's insane, but he sure as hell isn't weak. And what about Amelia? She's lost everything. Most people would have shut down by now, but she's welcomed us both in without a hint of bitterness. Imagine how hard tonight was for her, but she did it. It's not hatred or revenge powering them—it's love, and it gives them the strength to do impossible, terrifying things.”

I dragged in a lungful of cold air, let it shock my system, and said what I'd been too afraid of saying until now. “Now it's my turn.”