Fallen 2. Torment(54)

"What is this?" Luce asked. Her knowledge of Plato started and ended with the

fact that he palled around with Socrates.

"Proof of why your name for the Announcers is actually quite smart." Steven

pointed at the illustration. "Imagine that these men spend their lives seeing only the

shadows on this wall. They come to understand the world and what happens in it from

these shadows, without ever seeing what casts the shadows. They don't even understand

that what they are seeing are shadows."

She looked just beyond Steven's finger to the second group of men. "So they can

never turn around, never see the people and things creating the shadows?"

"Exactly. And because they can't see what is actually casting the shadows, they

assume that what they can see--these shadows on the wall--are reality. They have no idea

that the shadows are mere representations and distortions of something much truer and

more real." He paused. "Do you understand why I'm telling you this?"

Luce shook her head. "You want me to stop messing with the Announcers?"

Steven closed the book with a snap, then crossed to the other side of the room.

She felt as if she'd disappointed him somehow.

"Because I don't believe you will stop ... messing with the Announcers, even if I

do ask you to. But I do want you to understand what you're dealing with the next time

you summon one. The Announcers are shadows of past events. They can be helpful, but

they also contain some very distracting, sometimes dangerous distortions. There's a lot to

learn. A clean, safe summoning technique; then, of course, once you have honed your

talents, the Announcer's noise can be screened out and its message be heard clearly

through--"

"You mean that whooshing noise? There's a way to hear through that?"

"Never mind. Not yet." Steven turned and sank his hands into his pockets. "What

were you and Shelby after today?"

Luce felt flushed and uncomfortable. This meeting was not going at all as she'd

expected. She'd thought maybe detention, some trash pickup.

"We were trying to learn more about my family," she finally managed to get out.

Thankfully, Steven seemed to have no idea she had seen Cam earlier. "Or my families, I

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guess I should say."

"That's all?"

"Am I in trouble?"

"You weren't doing anything else?"

"What else would I be doing?"

It shot through her mind that Steven might think she was reaching out to Daniel,

trying to send him a message or something. As if she'd even know how to do that.

"Summon one now," Steven said, opening the window. It was past dusk and

Luce's stomach told her that most of the other students would be sitting down to dinner.

"I--I don't know if I can."

Steven's eyes looked warmer than they had earlier, excited almost. "When we

summon Announcers, we're making a sort of wish. Not a wish for anything material, but

a wish to better understand the world, our role in it, and what's to become of us."

Immediately, Luce thought of Daniel, what she wanted most for their relationship.

She didn't feel she had much of a role in what was to become of them--and she wanted

one. Was that why she'd been able to summon the Announcers before she'd even known

how?

Nervously, she centered herself in her chair. She closed her eyes. She imagined a

shadow detaching itself from the long darkness that stretched from the tree trunks

outside, imagined it rolling away and rising, filling the space of the open window. Then

floating closer to her.

She smelled the soft mildewy scent first, almost like black olives, then opened her

eyes at the brush of coolness on her cheek. The temperature in the room had dropped a

few degrees. Steven rubbed his hands together in the suddenly damp, drafty office.

"Yes, there you go," he murmured.

The Announcer was drifting in the air of his office, thin and transparent, no bigger

than a silk scarf. It glided straight toward Luce, then wrapped a fuzzy tendril of

nothingness around a blown-glass paperweight on the desk. Luce gasped. Steven was

smiling when he stepped toward her, guiding it upright until it became a blank black

screen.

Then it was in her hands, and she began to pull. The careful motion felt like trying

to stretch out a piecrust without breaking it, something Luce had watched her mother do

at least a hundred times. The darkness swirled into muted grays; then the faintest blackand-white image came into view.

A dark bedroom with a single bed. Luce--a former Luce, clearly--lying on her

side, staring out the open window. She must have been sixteen years old. The door

behind the bed opened, and a face, lit up by the hallway light, appeared in it. The mother.