Torment - Lauren Kate [81]
The darkness under the branches engulfed her in cold and the peaty smell of decomposing leaves. In the twilight, the Announcers crept forward, settling into the dimness all around her, camouflaging themselves again among the natural shadows. Some of them moved swiftly and stiffly, like soldiers; others had a nimble grace. Luce wondered whether their appearances reflected anything about the messages they contained.
So much about the Announcers still felt impenetrable. Tuning them in wasn’t intuitive, like fiddling with an old radio dial. What she’d heard yesterday—that one voice among the riot of voices—had come to her by accident.
The past might have been unfathomable to her before, but she could feel it pressing up against the dark surfaces, waiting to break into the light. She closed her eyes and cupped her hands together. There, in the darkness, her heart pounding, she willed them to come out. She called on those coldest, darkest things, asking them to deliver her past, to illuminate her and Daniel’s story. She called on them to solve the mystery of who he was and why he had chosen her.
Even if the truth broke her heart.
A rich, feminine laugh rang out in the forest. A laugh so clear and full, it felt as if it were surrounding Luce, bouncing off the branches in the trees. She tried to trace its origin, but there were so many shadows gathered—Luce didn’t know how to pinpoint the source. And then she felt her blood go cold.
The laughter was hers.
Or had once been hers, back when she was a child. Before Daniel, before Sword & Cross, before Trevor … before a life full of secrets and lies and so many unanswerable questions. Before she’d ever seen an angel. It was too innocent a laugh, too carefree to belong to her anymore.
A breath of wind swirled in the branches overhead, and a scattering of brown redwood needles broke off and showered to the ground. They pattered like raindrops as they joined a thousand predecessors on the mulchy forest floor. Among them was one large frond.
Thick and feathery, fully intact, it drifted slowly down somehow outside the power of gravity. It was black instead of brown. And instead of falling to the ground, it drifted lightly onto Luce’s outstretched palm.
Not a frond, but an Announcer. As she leaned down to examine it more closely, she heard the laughter again. Somewhere inside, another Luce was laughing.
Gently, Luce gave the Announcer’s prickly edges a pull. It was more pliant than she expected, but cold as ice and tacky against her fingers. It grew larger at the lightest touch. When it had grown to about a square foot, Luce released it from her grip and was pleased to watch it hover at eye level in front of her. She made a special effort to focus—on hearing, on tuning out the world around her.
Nothing at first, and then—
One more rising laugh sang out from within the shadow. Then the veil of blackness shredded and an image inside became clear.
This time, Daniel was the first one to come into view.
Even through the Announcer’s screen, it was heaven to see him. His hair was a couple of inches longer than he wore it now. And he was tan—his shoulders and the bridge of his nose were both a deep, golden brown. He wore trim navy swim trunks, snug around his hips, the kind she’d seen in family pictures from the seventies. He made them look so good.
Behind Daniel was the verdant edge of a thick, dense rain forest, lush green but bright with berries and white flowers that Luce had never seen before. He stood at the lip of a short but dramatic cliff, which looked down at a sparkling pool of water. But Daniel kept glancing up, toward the sky.
That laugh again. And then Luce’s own voice, broken apart by giggles. “Hurry up and get down here!”
Luce leaned forward, closer to the window of the Announcer, and saw her former self treading water in a yellow halter-top bikini. Her long hair danced around her, floating on the water’s surface like a deep black halo. Daniel kept an eye on her but was also still glancing overhead. The muscles on his chest were tensing up. Luce had a