Dissonance by Erica O’Rourke Page A

played us, but I doubted my parents would see it that way.
    If they found out.
    I’d need to be fast, not only to keep my mom from discovering I’d let Monty escape, but because his signature would only last a little while. I had to find him before the trail went cold.
    Grabbing my backpack—even on a quick trip, I wanted my tools nearby—I followed him through the rift.
    Monty had been tracing my grandmother’s path for so long, he was Walking between worlds at random, searching for a hint of the frequency that meant she’d been there. He’d never found one.
    I was luckier. I let the cacophony of the pivot swallow me up, searching for the smooth, crystalline pitch of the Key World. Only a few minutes had passed, and Monty hadn’t gone far—his signal was loud and clear, nestled in an Echo with a frequency close to ours.
    This Echo was old. Someone else had moved into this version of our house and rehabbed it, the empty kitchen gleaming and catalog worthy, with artful flower arrangements and perfectly staged clutter instead of the actual clutter that filled every surface of our house, despite my mom’s efforts. A neat line of monogrammed backpacks hung from hooks by the open back door.
    I dashed outside and heard the next pivot point, whirringlike crickets at dusk. When I crossed through, a giant spruce had replaced the crimson-leafed maple in my backyard. Nestled against the trunk was a bright yellow button, resonating at the Key World’s frequency.
    Monty’s breadcrumb.
    I got lost once, when I was five. My parents had been busy working, Addie was practicing piano, and I’d slipped outside on my own. I’d found an unfamiliar Echo of our backyard, with a full swing set—a slide and glider and monkey bars instead of the single rope swing my dad had made for Addie and me to share. I’d loved it, until I lost track of time. The pitch that had started out as intriguing transformed into overwhelming. I couldn’t find the pivot I’d come through, and I couldn’t hear any others.
    That’s when Monty appeared, button in hand. He’d scooped me up in his arms and called me his best, most clever girl. A glow spread through me at his words. Even back then, I’d grown tired of hearing how smart my sister was. He’d given me the button, ringing with the sound of the Key World frequency, and promised that as long as I left a trail of breadcrumbs, he would always find me, and together we would find the way home.
    These days I usually didn’t want to be found. But I left a trail of paper stars when I Walked anyway, both habit and reminder of the fun we’d had.
    When I stepped through the next portal, he was waiting for me, leaning against a mailbox shaped like a giant fish.
    â€œYou scared me!”
    â€œNothing to be scared of,” he said, pulling a shiny silverbutton from his pocket. “I wanted to stretch my legs.”
    â€œMom’s going to kill me,” I said. “We have to go back.”
    â€œIt’s a beautiful afternoon, Delancey. Walk with me.”
    He flipped the button to the ground and set off, singing under his breath. I could see the village water tower in the distance, the same view I’d grown up with, but we were standing in a development of Tudor-style townhomes, with steeply pitched roofs and wooden cutouts decorating the balconies, exactly where our once-stately Queen Anne should have been.
    You learn pretty quickly not to mourn the changes in a world. It wasn’t a Walker’s place to decide which Echoes were better, only to decide which ones were threats to the Key World. Sadly, chintzy housing was not considered dangerous.
    I chased after Monty, linking my arm with his.
    â€œGrandpa, the Consort wants to see me. Tonight.”
    â€œBah. There’s time enough.” He stopped short. “Feel that?”
    His mind might have been going, and his hearing was shot, but he retained