Fallen 2. Torment(47)

Luce hopped off the branch where she'd been standing and approached Shelby,

her cold, musty offering in her hands.

"Here," Shelby said. "I'll take half and you take half, just like we saw in class. Ew,

it's squishy. Okay ... loosen your grip, he's not going anywhere. Let him just kind of chill

and take shape."

It seemed like a long time passed before the shadow did anything at all. Luce felt

almost like she was playing with the old Ouija board she'd had as a kid. An inexplicable

energy on the tips of her fingers. The feeling of slight, continual movement before she

could see any difference in the Announcer's shape.

Then there was a whoosh: It was contracting, folding slowly in on its dark self.

Soon the whole thing had taken on the size and shape of a large box. It hovered just

above their fingertips.

"Do you see that?" Shelby gasped. Her voice was almost inaudible over the

whooshing sound of the shadow. "Look, there in the middle."

As had happened during class, a dark veil seemed to lift off the Announcer,

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revealing a shocking burst of color. Luce shielded her eyes, watching as the bright light

seemed to settle back inside the shadow screen, into a foggy out-of-focus image. Then,

finally, into distinct shapes in muted colors.

They were looking at a living room. The back of a blue plaid recliner with the

footrest kicked up and a badly fraying bottom corner. An old wood-paneled television

airing a rerun of Mork & Mindy with the volume off. A fat Jack Russell terrier curled on

a round patchwork rug.

Luce watched a swinging door push open from what looked like a kitchen. A

woman, older than Luce's grandmother had been when she died, walked through. She

was wearing a pink-and-white patterned dress, heavy white tennis shoes, and thick

glasses on a string around her neck. She was carrying a tray of cut fruit.

"Who are these people?" Luce wondered aloud.

When the old woman put down the tray on the coffee table, a liver-spotted hand

extended from around the chair and selected a chunk of banana.

Luce leaned in to see more clearly, and the focus of the image shifted with her.

Like a 3-D panorama. She hadn't even noticed the old man sitting in the recliner. He was

frail, with a few thin patches of white hair and age spots all over his forehead. His mouth

was moving, but Luce couldn't hear a thing. A row of framed pictures lined the mantel of

the fireplace.

The whooshing in Luce's ears got louder, so loud it made her wince. Without her

doing anything other than wonder about those pictures, the Announcer's image zoomed

in. It left Luce with a feeling of whiplash--and an extreme close-up of one framed

photograph.

A thin gold-plated frame around a smudged glass plate. Inside, the small

photograph had a fine scalloped border around a yellowing black-and-white image. Two

faces in the photograph: Hers and Daniel's.

Holding her breath, she studied her own face, which looked just a little younger

than it did now. Dark shoulder-length hair set in pincurls. A white blouse with a Peter

Pan collar. A wide A-line skirt brushing the middles of her calves. White-gloved hands,

holding Daniel's. He was looking directly at her, smiling.

The Announcer started vibrating, then quaking; then the image inside started to

flicker and fade away.

"No," Luce called, ready to lunge inside. Her shoulders connected with the edge

of the Announcer, but that was as far as she got. A brush of bitter cold pushed her back

and left her skin feeling damp. A hand clamped around her wrist.

"Don't get any wild ideas," Shelby warned.

Too late.

The screen went black and the Announcer dropped from their hands onto the

forest floor, shattering into pieces like broken black glass. Luce suppressed a whimper.

Her chest heaved. She felt like a part of her had died.

Lowering herself to all fours, she pressed her forehead to the ground and rolled

onto her side. It was colder, murkier than it had been when they'd started. The watch on

her wrist said it was after two o'clock, but it had been morning when they came into the

forest. Looking west, toward the edge of the woods, Luce could see the difference in the

light hitting the dorm. The Announcers swallowed time.

Shelby lay down next to her. "You okay?"

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"I'm so confused. Those people--" Luce cupped her forehead. "I have no idea who

they are."

Shelby cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable. "Don't you think, um, maybe

you used to know them? Like, a long time ago. Like, maybe they were your ..."

Luce waited for her to finish. "My what?"

"It really hasn't occurred to you that those were your parents from another life?

That this is what they look like now?"

Luce's jaw dropped open. "No. Wait--you mean, I've had totally different parents