Dissonance: An Echo Trilogy Novella (Echo Trilogy, #2.5)

by Fairleigh, Lindsey

  I met Dr. Ramirez’s speculative eyes and shrugged. He smiled faintly and shook his head, his eyebrows quirked together as if to say, “Kids these days …”

  “Trust me,” I told him, “I don’t get it either.” As I spoke, my stomach rumbled quietly—apparently triggered by the sight of Nik’s food—and almost instantly, Dominic pushed his chair back and stood.

  “What can I get everyone to eat?” he asked, his accent elevating his polite demeanor to the next level.

  Remembering my rusty manners, I cleared my throat. “Dr. Ramirez, you remember Dominic l’Aragne from the Djeser-Djeseru excavation crew, don’t you? I’m sure your paths must’ve crossed at some point while we were holed up in Denny …”

  “Why yes, yes, I do remember seeing you around.” Dr. Ramirez stood and shook the younger-appearing man’s hand. “I knew you looked familiar, but I couldn’t place you. It’s great to see you again.”

  “And you as well, professor.” A smile softened his severe features, and he bowed his head minutely. “Now what can I get you for lunch?”

  Dr. Ramirez paused halfway in the act of sitting back down. “Oh, no, you don’t need to do—”

  “Please,” I said, placing my fingertips on his forearm. “It’s our treat … for everything you’ve done for me over the past few years.”

  He met my smile with an awkward one of his own and lowered himself down the rest of the way into his chair. “Well, alright, but only this once.” He gave Dominic his order, which I followed up with “the usual”—a turkey sandwich, a scone, and large decaf vanilla latte—and Kat requested, “PB & J—anything red—and a chocolate chip cookie. And some hot Cheetos. And a Coke—a Cherry Coke.”

  While Dominic was fetching lunch, Dr. Ramirez and I did the catching-up dance—how have you been and what’s new and the like—but finally I had to interrupt our conversation to look at Kat, who was literally bouncing in her seat. “What is up with you?”

  “How have you not told him yet?” she all but exploded.

  My eyes opened wide. “Told him what?” I asked, astonished. She couldn’t possibly have expected me to divulge the past eight months’ happenings—Nejeret matters, time travel, and all—to my former, very human graduate advisor.

  “About”—she glanced down at my middle—“you know …”

  “Oh! Right,” I said, smacking my forehead at my denseness. “I’m pregnant.” The words came out blasé, but the moment they were free, I blushed. Because to get pregnant, as everyone knows, you had to have sex. Which meant I’d basically just told Dr. Ramirez that I’d had sex. Which was just awkward.

  “Well, uh, congratulations …” He looked from me to Kat and back, clearly uncomfortable. Apparently he found it awkward, too. “I’m assuming?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Kat said. “It’s not one of those whoopsie things. I mean, it kind of is, but they’re stoked about it, anyway.”

  Dr. Ramirez’s responding grin was full and warm. “Congratulations. You two make a handsome couple,” he said, glancing to the line at the coffee bar, where Dominic was standing with a food-filled wire basket in his arms, next to pay.

  “Dom?” I said, surprised, and Kat snorted unabashedly. “Oh, no, we’re not—he’s not—he’s just my—” Half-brother I didn’t know about last year? Best friend? Bodyguard? Platonic soul mate? “Friend,” I said lamely, because he was so much more.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dr. Ramirez said. “I just assumed …” He shifted in his seat, shaking his head. “This is a bit embarrassing.”

  “It’s fine,” I told him. “Dom and I are really close friends, but I’m actually engaged to Marcus Bahur … the Djeser-Djeseru excavation director.” I chuckled to myself. “So, uh, thanks for recommending me for the position on the excavation …”

  Dr. Ramirez laughed out loud and, much to my amusement, actually slapped his knee. “Well, how about that! Never knew I had a future in matchmaking.” His smile was broad, warm, and catching. Kat and I were grinning along with him almost immediately.

  But as my eyes were once again drawn to the small wooden box, my smile wilted.

  Tick … tick … tick …

  “Ah, yes!” Dr. Ramirez pushed the box across the corner of the table to me. “This. I forgot about it in the excitement of everything.”

  I made small, interested noises, once again forcing myself to look away from the box despite my desire to do nothing but stare at it, especially now that it was close enough to me that I could almost make out a shadow of my reflection on its surface. Part of me expected it to open a yawning mouth and lunge at me in an attempt to bite my face off. Another part of me wanted to open it more than I’d ever wanted to open anything, because I was fairly certain opening the damn box would be the only way to make the sense of waiting—the silent ticking—finally stop.

  “So what’s in it, anyway?” Kat asked. Her words seemed to jog me out of a trance.

  I placed my fingertips on the edge of the box and slid it closer to me. “And what’s the story behind it?” I looked at Dr. Ramirez. “All you said in your email was that you had an artifact for me, something with me ‘written all over it.’”

  Dr. Ramirez nodded slowly. “Right, well …” He reached out and tapped the polished lid. “This little gem here actually came to me with a note inside, just two words written on it.”

  Both Kat and I leaned forward, waiting.

  Tick … tick … tick …

  Dr. Ramirez’s warm brown eyes met mine, his eyebrows raised. “Alexandra Larson.”

  Slowly, my stare dropped to the box, and I fought the urge to shiver. The expectant sensation was nearly overwhelming now, the silent ticking almost deafening.

  “Ohmigod, open it, Lex,” Kat said, squirming in her seat. She was gripping the edge of the table, her fingertips pressing against the surface so hard they were bleaching of color. “All this mystery … I seriously can’t handle it!”

  Neither could I.

  Tick … tick … tick …

  The lid creaked faintly as I opened it. The sense of waiting, of expectation, turned to full-on dread and, as I rested the lid on the tabletop, to near-outright revulsion. It was a struggle to keep my expression curious, interested, to fight the urge to slam the lid closed and throw the repulsive thing across the room while brushing off the sudden tidal wave of heebie-jeebies like so much raw sewage.

  Because I had absolutely no reason to feel that way about what was in the box. I would have no way to explain my totally bizarre reaction to it.

  And, possibly most disturbing of all, the ticking in my head hadn’t stopped when I’d opened the box. It had only grown louder, become truly audible.

  “What is it?” Kat asked, her voice filled with nothing but curiosity and maybe a hint of disappointment. “A compass?”

  I shook my head, leaning in to get a closer look despite my urge to fling the box away. “It’s a watch … a pocket watch.” Couldn’t she hear it ticking? It sounded so loud to me, overwhelming all the other sounds in the room as I stared at the device nestled snugly in a padded gray velvet depression.

  The watch was made of some dark metal that had been treated in a way that caused it to appear nearly black. I squinted, my mouth quirked to the side. Not nearly black—the thing was pitch-black, its dull metal surface not reflecting light but seeming to consume it. The sense of revulsion it instilled within me wasn’t based on how it looked—rather, the watch was a breathtakingly beautiful creation, its black filigree design undeniably delicate and feminine—but from something deeper. It was instinctive, a gut feeling.

  This pocket watch was wrong, or off. Its very existence clashed with my internal sense of balance. Of ma’at, I realized, pressing my palm against my abdomen as though I could somehow draw strength of will and clarity of mind from the two souls within, the living embodiment of universal balance.

  “What’s it look like on the inside?” Kat asked, reaching out to touch the watch’s black filigree cover.

  Breath catchin
g, I snapped the lid of the box shut and raised my head, meeting her eyes. I didn’t know what would’ve happened if she’d touched the watch, but I had the visceral sense that touching it would be a very, very bad thing.

  “Lex?” Her brows drew together, her eyes filled with worry. “Are you okay? You’re so pale …”

  “I—” I cleared my throat and licked my lips. “I’m feeling a little light-headed,” I said truthfully. “I think I just need to eat something.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Dr. Ramirez said gruffly. “Let’s let the mother-to-be eat before we get too sidetracked by our mysterious artifact here.”

  I looked at my old advisor, giving him a weak, grateful smile. His expression was wrought with concern, but his eyes weren’t troubled like Kat’s. I glanced two tables over.

  Or Nik’s.

  8

  Matter & Antimatter

  “It really was good to see you,” I told Dr. Ramirez while I hugged him goodbye, meaning the words with all my heart. Not only had it been nice to catch up, but I felt a huge relief having actually seen my former advisor in the flesh. Whatever was happening to him in the At, Dr. Ramirez was okay in the real, tangible world, and that was what truly mattered.

  He returned my sentiment and said his farewells and nice-to-meet-yous, and I remained standing as I watched him weave his way between occupied and vacant tables and walk out through the café’s wide entrance. Only when he was finally out of sight, having passed through the library’s glass doors, did I sit back down, stiff as a mummy. My relief at his well-being was eclipsed by the wrongness emanating from the graceful little box sitting in the middle of the table, surrounded by a moat of food wrappers, napkins, drink bottles, and coffee cups.

  “Are you going to fill me in on what’s bothering you, or must I guess?” Dominic asked from the opposite side of the table.

  I met his dark, worried eyes. “It’s that thing,” I said, pointing to the box. “It feels …” I shuddered. “Wrong. It just feels wrong, somehow … like a really disturbing sucking void of, I don’t know, wrongness.” I met Kat’s eyes. “Didn’t you feel it?”

  She quirked her mouth to the side and shook her head. “But it’s just a pocket watch.” Pushing her lunch trash to the corner of the table, she reached for the box.

  I grabbed hold of her wrist without thought, and she looked at me with widened eyes. “I don’t think you should touch it,” I told her, trying to smooth out the alarm tensing my features. “I don’t think anyone should touch it.”

  Nik slid into Dr. Ramirez’s abandoned chair and leaned his forearms on the table, getting a closer look at the harmless-looking box. “And why’s that?” He cocked his head to the side and pulled back a bit. “You sensed something when you opened it—that much was obvious. Is it made of At?”

  “No,” Kat said, voicing my slight head shake. “It’s black. It’s kinda pretty, though … in a weird way.”

  Frowning, I stared at the box. The watch was pretty, what with all that delicate filigree work and the striking black metal. But any attraction it held was far overshadowed by its repulsive wrongness.

  “What is it?” Dominic said, and I glanced up at him, only to follow his wary line of sight to Nik’s face. He was absolutely still, his expression blank and his gaze distant.

  In a blink, his irises flashed from pale blue to opalescent white, and his gaze locked on me. I saw an emotion I’d never seen in those eyes, set in either Nik’s or Nuin’s face: horror.

  Slowly, Re-Nik reached out and lifted the lid of the box. The ticking intensified once more, as did the wrongness pouring out of the watch in wave after repellant wave. He stared at the small, black soul-sore for several seconds, then sighed and gently lowered the lid. “Perhaps I should have anticipated this, but …” He shook his head, his eyes downcast. “I was unaware that any Nejeret alive had developed the ability to create such a thing.” He looked at me again, his gaze beseeching. “It shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Re,” I said, drawing out the entity-in-charge’s name. “You’re doing that thing where you only say really vague and cryptic things again …”

  “Oh my God, totally,” Kat exclaimed. “I’m glad it’s not just me.”

  “It’s not,” Dominic said, with a miniscule nod of agreement. “Please, Great Father, explain to us what it is you aren’t saying.”

  Re-Nik studied each of us in turn as he considered how to word his response. Finally, his opal eyes locked onto me, and Nik’s youthful features grew weary under the weight of Re’s thoughts. “Ma’at—universal balance—is not merely a concept, but a universal law of being woven through everything in existence across all dimensions, all planes … all universes. You, my Alexandra, are the embodiment of ma’at as you sit here today with the two driving forces of creation and destruction in this universe nestled safely in your womb, equal and opposite in power … balanced.”

  I instinctively laced my fingers together and pressed them against my abdomen. It was difficult to wrap my mind around the thought—no, the fact—that the children I was carrying were so terrifyingly important to, quite literally, everything.

  “But ma’at is visible in a much more mundane way—everywhere and in everything,” Re-Nik continued. “You are familiar with At, but less so with its counterpart: the in-between, the substance linking this moment to the next, interweaving threads of the At. There is no word for it in a human tongue, for none was ever needed, but it is the very glue holding time and space together.”

  Upon seeing what no doubt had to be a flabbergasted expression on my face, he leaned closer and said, “The fabric of the At alone could not sustain this.” He raised his hands slightly and cast a quick glance around the room. “It would be chaos, constant change and perpetual motion that has no meaning or form or purpose. Its balancing force provides stability, opposing the At in every way. And as such, At is drawn to it, anchored by it, and the two forces combine in perfect concert.” He breathed in and out slowly, studying each of our faces. “And with their marriage comes creation.”

  “Like matter and antimatter?” Kat asked quietly.

  Ever so slowly, like a trio of unoiled marionettes, Dominic, Re-Nik, and I looked at Kat.

  “You know … like how when an antimatter particle gets together with its matching matter twin and they, like, annihilate each other or whatever and release a bunch of energy and, um, stuff.” She looked at each of us, her cheeks reddening. “What? I got a five on the AP Physics test, okay? I know stuff.” Mumbling, she added, “Some stuff …”

  “Katarina is very astute in her comparison,” Re-Nik said with a conciliatory bow of his head. “In fact, I would say that the concepts of matter and antimatter are quite likely the closest modern science has yet to come to explaining ma’at.”

  I licked my lips and cleared my throat. “Okay … so this in-between antimatter stuff—is that what the watch is made of?”

  Re-Nik nodded.

  “And that’s why it feels so …” I shivered melodramatically.

  “Yes and no,” he said. “Much like solidified At can be imbued with certain properties, such as the Hathor statuette that pulled you back to ancient times, its counterpart can be anchored to an aspect of creation, like a specific object or person. It’s an aberration of ma’at, which is probably why it’s disturbing the twins so much, Alexandra, that you’re picking up on their discomfort.”

  “Hmm …” So my weird feeling all day really had been linked to the pregnancy, just not in the way I’d suspected. “So, what happens after this ‘anchoring’?” I asked, sucking in a breath and holding it while I waited for Re-Nik to respond. Because I was fairly certain he was implying that the watch made of this in-between, anti-At stuff was anchored to Dr. Ramirez, and I was terrified to find out what that meant for the kindly old professor.

  “Annihilation?” Kat said in a small voice.

  “For an object or a being without a ba, no,” Re-Nik said, glancing at Kat, but once again retraining his eyes o
n me. “Your Dr. Ramirez will be completely erased from the At, in time, but it will not affect him on this plane of existence. But—” He raised his eyebrows. “For a being with a ba—for any Nejeret—it is a different matter entirely. The link created by the individual’s ba between the physical body on this plane and their reflection in the At would mean that once their existence was erased from the At, the same would happen to their body, here.”

  I swallowed roughly. “But why would someone do that to Dr. Ramirez? Why go through all the trouble to anchor this thing to him just to erase him from the At?”

  “Ah, but that’s just it,” Re-Nik said, his voice soft, cautious … dangerous. “This watch wasn’t created with the specific purpose of binding to your Dr. Ramirez—the desire to bond with elements of At is a basic principle of its nature. Once given solid form, it will affect anyone who touches it until it is depleted. The watch was simply created and, I’m assuming, given to Dr. Ramirez with the intention of him passing it on to you, my Alexandra. It was sheer luck that he handled it, anchoring it to the reflection of himself in the At, and that you have such a close tie to an echo containing him. It was your first, and as such, you felt it deep in your ba the moment it was altered—or in this case, the moment the echo reappeared in the At. My point is, without that particular string of events, we wouldn’t have gone into this meeting on high alert, and the worst could have happened.” He stared at me intently. “Any of us could have touched the watch. You could have …”

  I blanched, then looked at Kat. Her face was so washed out I thought she might be seconds away from fainting. I reached for her hand under the table and gave her fingers a squeeze. “You didn’t touch it,” I said, aiming for reassuring but certain I’d fallen short. “You’re okay.”

  Kat nodded, looking like she was about to throw up.

  “So,” Dominic started, and we all looked at him. “I’m assuming this—this thing didn’t simply burst into existence on its own.”