The dissonance, p.29
The Dissonance, page 29
Erin
The night before the field trip, Erin received special permission to sleep on the couch at Marsh House, provided that Professor Marsh vouched for 1) the presence of adult supervision, and 2) his grandson’s conduct. Peter and his grandfather had offered solemn vows to protect Erin’s virtue, but once Erin’s father dropped her off, the professor had retreated into his study and left Erin and Peter alone to order pizza and watch rented movies. First up was Warlock, then The Ninth Configuration, which was based on William Peter Blatty’s other, non-Exorcist novel. Both movies were pretty good, and best of all, Erin hadn’t seen them before. That was her key criterion for renting a movie these days—finding something she hadn’t already seen.
They ate their pizza in front of the TV in the den, and Erin felt terribly grown up. This could be regular life for her in another five years. Friday nights with junk food and movies and her sweetheart. The hard part, it seemed to Erin, would be to make sure she and Peter still liked one another in ten years. She couldn’t imagine ever tiring of steady, quiet, handsome Peter, but she imagined most couples felt that way in the early days. Hell, even her own parents had been in love once upon a time.
As they neared the end of The Ninth Configuration now, she ran a hand along Peter’s thigh. He took her hand in his without looking away from the screen. Another thing she liked about him: he wanted to watch the movie on a movie date. They’d get into the spicy stuff after.
Professor Marsh made one more appearance in the den, to say he was going to bed, and to extract another vow of celibacy from the teenagers. He reminded them of tomorrow’s early start, then left them alone.
The movie ended not long after, and in the blue light of the VCR’s standby screen, they skirted the edge of their vow, lips parted, tongues exploring, teeth nipping. It’d been a slow ramp up with Peter since last summer. Sweet Peter. Shy Peter. Quiet, smiling Peter. Peter, who seemed to desire and fear touch in equal measure. Peter, whom Erin had gradually coaxed into a comfortable place, one touch, one caress, one kiss at a time.
Tonight, Erin encouraged his hand up her shirt and over her bra, to show how she wanted to be touched. She wriggled the fingers of her other hand past the waistband of his shorts, and squeezed his erection. She tried to tease him with her fingers, but the tight confines of his boxers made grace a secondary concern, and she settled for pawing at him like an animal as he found and gently pinched her nipple.
It went on like this awhile longer, their breathing increasingly labored and hitched, but just when Erin thought Peter would give in and take the last plunge with her, he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing. Sorry,” he said. “It’s just enough for now. If that’s okay.”
She tried not to let her frustration show. She wiped her fingertips on the denim of his shorts and kissed him on both his warm cheeks and forehead. “There’s no rush,” she said.
They set up their separate beds for the evening. Erin on the couch, Peter on the floor. They lay beneath the ceiling fan and cooled down, letting the hormonal wave pass as they talked. Another thing Erin loved about Peter—the talking was as good as the kissing. He thought and felt deeply, and in the last year, he’d let her into his secret world.
Tonight, all either of them wanted to talk about was tomorrow’s field trip.
It felt like serendipity. Like destiny, no matter what Athena said. Last summer, right after their rescue of Morgan the undine, Professor Marsh had returned from his weekend trip with an old book about a place called “Deoth.” No one—not even the book’s authors—were sure about Deoth’s location. Was it on Earth? A parallel Earth? Or somewhere in the Milky Way? Or maybe out in Andromeda? According to the book, it was home to an ancient, vast source of energy, and could hold the answers to many of the secrets of the Dissonance.
When the coven told Marsh about Morgan, and about Athena’s Doorway, he’d gotten so excited he’d forgotten to be angry with them for going into the woods without permission. After watching Athena perform the command a few times, he’d determined that the doorway was essentially a wormhole through space—one which, theoretically, could bridge any distance, as long as you knew where you were going.
Athena and Marsh had spent the better part of the last year in his study, gathering every detail about Deoth they could. It wasn’t much, even with the entire book at their disposal, but they hoped that, tomorrow, their assembly of ephemeral detail would be sufficient to conjure a doorway to another world.
The coven was already packed for the trip. Marsh had bought a bunch of new camping gear and photography equipment. Athena and Erin had pitched this trip to their parents as a camping expedition on some fictional land Marsh owned in Oklahoma—out in the woods, where they wouldn’t have access to telephones for the better part of a week.
In reality, tomorrow morning they would walk into the Clegg woods together, and perform the doorway command there. Marsh had a theory about the woods: if the Many Worlds theory was true, then the woods might be a porous place, where things could pass through. It was the best explanation for the strange creatures wandering in them, as well as the entrance to the bizarre prison where Hal had found Morgan. Marsh hoped that performing the doorway command in a porous place would help their odds of success.
There were a lot of “ifs” surrounding this adventure, but that was what made it an adventure. They didn’t know how it would turn out.
“What do you think it will be like?” Erin said now. “Deoth, I mean.”
“Who knows?” Peter said. “The professor says there are a lot of references to sand, so at least part of it is either beaches or desert.”
“What if the air is poison gas or something? We could be walking to our deaths.”
“If anything goes wrong, the professor will call it off and bring us home.”
Erin lay awake for a long time. She sensed Peter beside her, their Dissonance flames linked, their emotions disrupting the house’s usual placid energy. When she slept, her dreams were sweet, for the last time in her life.
Athena
Despite her late-night misadventures, Athena woke early the next morning. When she went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, she peeked out the window over the sink to see if Hal was still parked at the curb. He was.
The cicadas were in fine voice when she stepped out of the house and crossed the lawn to where the car was parked at the curb. Hal was sprawled in the passenger seat, head at an awkward angle, skin shiny with dried sweat. Sunlight glinted off the bottle of Wild Turkey, abandoned, empty, on the driver’s seat.
She rapped on the window and Hal startled awake.
“Can I help you?” he said, rolling down the window.
“Why did you sleep with the windows up?” she said.
“I didn’t want bugs flying into my mouth,” he said.
“If a bug is desperate to get into your mouth, I don’t think your roof and windows will stop it.”
“Maybe not, but it might give them pause. And pause might be enough to save me from having a tummy full of spiders and moths.”
“Do you want some breakfast?” she said.
He pulled his seat into the upright position, rubbed his eyes, and ran a hand through his hair. “I could go for breakfast,” he said.
She led him inside and sat him at the kitchen table with a sleeve of Pop-Tarts, then finished getting ready. When she returned to the kitchen half an hour later, showered and dressed, she found Hal chatting and laughing with her mother. You’d never know he’d been hungover half an hour ago.
Athena grabbed a sleeve of Pop-Tarts for herself. This summer, she’d finally given up starving herself. She’d immediately gained back ten pounds, which had been tough, but she was tired of trying to look like a white girl. This was her natural shape, and besides, being hungry all the time made it hard to think straight. Once she’d realized hunger was making her stupid, she’d given it up as a lifestyle—though guilty, shameful thoughts still sometimes intruded when she indulged herself, or even simply ate normally.
Pop-Tarts in hand, she kissed her mother goodbye, and made Hal drive them to Marsh House in Lorna’s car. It reeked of booze and sweat inside, so they drove with the top down.
“Think Professor Marsh will be mad at you for staying out all night?” Athena said.
“I doubt he even noticed,” Hal said. “As long as the police aren’t bringing me home, he doesn’t care what I do.”
It was the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Lorna hadn’t been the most attentive or present parent, so maybe it didn’t bother Hal. At least in his new home, he had a friend sleeping down the hall, and Marsh had money to keep Hal in new clothes and school supplies for the rest of high school. He’d probably even pay to fix up Lorna’s car, if Hal asked. But as far as Athena knew, Hal hadn’t asked. He seemed to prefer his mother’s car as it was.
As the beat-up convertible pulled into the driveway of Marsh House, Peter and Erin sat on the front porch steps, their hips so close they could’ve been sewn together.
“Where were you last night?” Peter asked.
“I was at Athena’s,” Hal said.
“Oh?” Erin said.
“He slept in his car outside my house,” Athena said.
“That’s what I said,” Hal said.
“You have a bed here,” Erin said. “You don’t have to sleep in your car.”
“Yeah, but I like it,” Hal said.
They joined Professor Marsh in the backyard. He was dressed in “grandpa on safari” clothes, sitting in the driver’s seat of a green ATV, the bed packed with food and camping gear. He held a leather book open on the steering wheel before him.
“About time,” Marsh said, marking his place in the book. “I assume, late as you are, that you’re all prepared?”
The coven voiced their assent. They weren’t late, but it was better not to argue with the old man about anything.
“This is a colossal risk, for me and all of you,” he said. “I have educated guesses about what we’ll find on the other side, but that’s all they are. Genuine uncertainty and possible danger lie ahead. Assuming we make it safely to Deoth, there are rules I need you to follow. First: don’t go anywhere alone. Ever. If you have to answer nature’s call, you bring someone else. I don’t want to have to explain to your parents that I lost you on a fictional camping trip. Second, don’t touch anything. And most important”—he looked at Hal—“we are explorers, not warriors. We want to learn, not fight. Do you understand?”
“Hal no hit things with sword unless smart man say so,” Hal said.
“Good,” Marsh said. “Now let’s go discover the secrets of creation.”
Marsh slowly drove the ATV out of the backyard and into the woods, and the coven followed. As they did, Athena looked back at the house and something fluttered in her gut. She hadn’t been deep into the woods since their first adventure, back in 1996. Despite all the knowledge and power she had gained in the last three years, she wasn’t thrilled to return here. She faced forward, refusing to jump at stray sounds, or give away her discomfort, and worked to keep up with the group.
They went deeper into the forest than Athena had ever been. The heat was oppressive, the air thick. Soon, Athena was slick with sweat, and Hal was taking long pulls from his water bottle. She almost warned him—there was no promise of water on Deoth—but he was a big boy. He could waste his water if he wanted.
“Does anyone else feel like we’re going in circles?” Erin asked.
“We might be, geographically,” Marsh said. “I can’t prove it yet, but I think we share this forest with at least one other world—and the ratio of ownership changes, so you face a constantly shifting space. Part of what makes the woods dangerous.”
“Then how do you know where we’re going?” Athena asked.
Marsh opened his right hand. Something small and round glowed green in the center of his palm.
“What is it?” Hal asked.
“Some kind of Dissonant compass?” Athena guessed. “Instead of pointing north, it points toward the strongest source of Dissonant energy?”
“Very good,” Professor Marsh said.
They stopped in the middle of a small clearing, where Marsh turned a circle and waved his little compass around, then seemed to decide on something.
“This is likely the best spot we’ll find,” he said. “Can you feel it?”
Until now, Athena had been distracted by the heat and her own physical discomfort. But as she began to pay attention, the power in this place set her brain tingling, and caused the tiny hairs on her arms to stand on end.
She didn’t have to look at her friends to know they felt it, too. She sensed them around her as extensions of herself. She’d known the members of her coven shared a connection, but now, that truth manifested as a physical sensation. These weren’t her friends. They were the rest of her soul. That was why she only ever felt complete with these three people. It wasn’t sentimentality. Their connection was as real as gravity, or time.
“It’s powerful,” Erin said, in a cracked voice.
“Overwhelming,” Peter agreed.
Hal said nothing, but rather wiped at his cheek with the back of one hand.
“Focus.” Marsh’s voice cut through the gauzy perfection of the moment. Athena’s buzz retreated enough to put her back in a semi-recognizable reality. “Athena, this is your part.”
Athena removed two books from her backpack. The first was Athena’s Cookbook; the second a much older leather-bound volume with brittle yellow pages. This was the book Professor Marsh had brought back from his trip last summer, after they’d freed Morgan. It contained the accounts of Dissonants who claimed to walk between worlds. Who had been to a place called Deoth.
Athena placed the two books side by side on the forest floor and kneeled in front of them. She looked between the books as she worked her doorway command—a bigger, more complicated variation, because rather than opening a wormhole through earthly space, she was moving five people and their assorted belongings to a place none of them had ever been before. The air, which was already buzzing, seemed to take on physical dimensions and vibrate with haze.
The forest became a green and brown blur. The heat drained out of the morning, replaced with the harshest cold she’d ever experienced—colder than the chilliest snow day, or the worst walk-in freezer. And unlike those colds, which had both texture and flavor, this cold expressed itself as absence, lack, nothingness.
She resisted the urge to reach for her friends, to touch them and reassure herself they were there. She couldn’t stop now. If she did, she might strand them in this awful freezing absence. She concentrated on her knot of light and meaning. The Dissonance moved through her, and she gave it shape. She finished the last flourish of her command, then released her hold on it.
The cold took on a smell and taste. The world had turned more purple than black, and the dirt beneath her shoes had been replaced with gray sand.
“We’re here,” Marsh said.
Hal
The world around Hal sharpened. The black void turned gray, then resolved into sand dunes, stretching away in all directions. They’d arrived in a desert at night, and the switch from a damp heat to a dry cold was a startling one.
“We’re here,” Marsh said, a note of quiet wonder in his voice.
Hal took a deep breath and didn’t die. “Air seems okay.”
Erin cast Haley’s Dome over the group and some of the cold bled off.
Athena looked thunderstruck by what she’d accomplished.
“You okay?” Hal asked.
She stirred and licked her lips. “Water.”
Hal opened his canteen and handed it to her. She drank and seemed to come back. He felt a pang, watching her take so much of his remaining water, but banished the feeling as disloyal. If she needed it, he’d happily die of thirst.
“That was intense,” she said. “Not entirely pleasant.”
“Look around, though,” Hal said. “Look what you did.”
She took in the landscape. Professor Marsh was walking the circumference of the dome, penlight in his teeth as he took notes, and Peter and Erin held hands as they gazed at the stars above.
“It could almost be Earth,” Peter said.
“Or the planet in Stargate,” Erin said.
Hal looked up at what he assumed were alien constellations and made an involuntary sound: “Huh.”
“What?” Athena said.
He pointed up. “No moon.”
Athena looked, too. “How about that?”
Hal’s heart swelled with a feeling he didn’t have a name for, and it caused him to do something that surprised even himself: he took Athena’s hand, in an imitation of Peter and Erin. Athena started, then squeezed his hand in her own and then held on tight.
“Incredible,” Marsh said. He’d finished his notes and turned his eyes up as well. “And only the first of the things I think we’ll see here. But we have a long trek ahead of us, so we might as well start now. Move at night, sleep through the heat of the day.”
They wrapped scarves around their faces, stuck goggles to their eyes, tucked their hair into hats, and marched alongside Professor Marsh in the ATV as he guided them with his compass stone. Like Tolkien heroes, they walked. And walked. And walked. They crested dune after dune after dune. There wasn’t much to look at. No strange creatures poked their heads above the sand or moved across the horizon in herds. No alien architecture reached heavenward. The wind blew sand at them, but Erin’s shield kept most of it out. The continuous onslaught made a gritty sound against the barrier.
Marsh didn’t call a stop until the sky lightened and blotted out the stars. He called Erin to help him reinforce the protective barrier while the others set up tents facing the center of the camp. In that middle space, they gathered for a dinner of prepackaged foods—Pop-Tarts, bags of chips, MREs the professor had bought from a military surplus store. When they finished, they gathered the trash and turned their attention to Marsh, who drew in the sand with his fingertip as he spoke.
