Dissonance Read Free

attention. More ragged, less musical. Annoying. I looked around.
    A little girl, four or five, huddled at the base of a tree, sobbingin the unashamed, exceedingly wet way kids do—snot and tears and misery plastered down her front, her wails nearly as loud as the world’s pitch.
    Except for breaks, everything in an Echo, living or dead, should resonate at the same frequency. I moved closer, brushing a hand along the girl’s dimpled elbow, wondering if I’d missed something.
    I hadn’t. Her signal matched, which meant she was off-limits. Interacting with her would only make things worse, could actually create a break. Smarter to move along and leave her to her sobfest.
    The problem was, touching an Echo—even a stable one—caused them to notice you. The kid snuffled and clutched my sleeve, tipping back her tearstained face to look directly at me.
    Once one Echo sees you in their world, they all can. But nobody on the playground was paying attention to either of us. Not a single turned head or furrowed brow. It was easier for people to ignore her than listen to her, and I knew what that was like.
    I pried her fingers off my arm. “What’s wrong?”
    She scrubbed at her eyes. “I was playing and I saw the ducks and I wanted to show them my balloon. And I went on the grass to show the ducks my balloon and I fell and the string went up and now it’s gone and it was red. And red is my favorite color, but my red balloon is gone .” She spoke in one unbroken rush.
    â€œYour balloon is gone.”
    â€œAnd it was red ,” she wailed, a fresh flow of gunk cascading down her face. She pointed skyward. “See?”
    I did see—caught in the tree branches overhead was a bedraggled red balloon. “Can your mom buy you a new one?”
    â€œMommy went to work. I came with Shelby.”
    â€œShelby?” The little girl pointed to a bored-looking brunette Addie’s age, sucking down a smoothie and texting nonstop. “Nanny?”
    She nodded, chin quivering.
    A tiny tweak wouldn’t matter, considering how unstable this world was. It was like a symphony—a single wrong note in a perfect performance could ruin the whole thing. But if the song was already riddled with mistakes, one more wouldn’t make a difference.
    â€œNo problem.”
    Had I known I’d be climbing park benches in an attempt to rescue wayward balloons, I would have dressed differently that morning. Still, I dropped the backpack and climbed up, hoping a sudden breeze off the pond wouldn’t cause my skirt to pull a Marilyn Monroe.
    â€œAlmost there,” I said, wishing I were taller. Even atop a park bench in my motorcycle boots, I could not reach the ribbon. The kid eyed me dubiously. “Back of the bench should do it.”
    I put one foot on the back of the bench, wobbling in my heavy boots, the string dangling inches away.
    So much for a quick fix.
    â€œNeed a hand?” came a new voice.
    Startled, I lost my balance. Someone grabbed me, one hand on my leg, the other at my waist. I looked at the fingers curvingaround my thigh—a guy’s hand, wide and strong, slightly calloused, with a leather cuff around the wrist—as dissonance roared through me, twice as loud as before. My knees buckled.
    I knew him. A version of him anyway. I’d spent a lot of time studying those hands when I should have been focused on math or history or Bach. They belonged to Simon Lane. And Simon Lane, even back home, belonged to an entirely different world than I did.
    He guided me down until I was standing on the seat, balance restored, dignity shaky. He let go, but the noise remained. He was the break by the duck pond. I focused on his sweatshirt, the faded blue logo of Washington’s basketball team, and willed the discord away.
    He glanced at the kid. “Balloon got stuck?”
    Her lower lip trembled. “This girl isn’t big enough.”
    It was tempting