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Oneout from within the shadow Then the veil of blackness shredded and an ie inside became clear

This time, Daniel was the rst one to coh the Announcer's screen, it was heaven to see hier 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 tri around his hips, the kind she'd seen in faood

Behind Daniel was the verdant edge of a thick, dense rain forest, lush green but bright with berries and white owers that Luce had never seen before He stood at the lip of a short but dra 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 theof the Announcer, and saw her for water in a yellow halter-top bikini Her long hair danced around her, oating on the water's surface like a deep black halo Daniel kept an eye on her but was also still glancing overhead Theshe already knehy

The sky was lling with Announcers, like a ock of enormous black crows, a cloud so thick they blocked the sun The long-ago Luce in the water noticed nothing, saw nothing But watching all those Announcers it and gather in the huesuddenly dizzy Announcer, had the Luce in the forest feeling suddenly dizzy

"You o Luce called up to Daniel "Pretty soon I' to freeze"

Daniel tore his eyes away fro down at her with a broken expression His lip was trehostly white "You won't freeze," he told her Were those tears Daniel iping away? He closed his eyes and shivered Then, arcing his hands over his head, he pushed o the rock and dove

Daniel surfaced a o Luce swam toward hiht and happy Luce watched it all play out with a mixture of sickness and satisfaction She wanted her foret, to feel that innocent, ecstatic closeness of being with the person she loved

But she knew, just as Daniel knew, as the swar to happen as soon as this Luce pressed her lips to his Daniel was right: She wasn't going to freeze She was going to co burst of ames

And Daniel would be left to irl had had a life, friends, and a family who loved her, ould be devastated when they lost her

Suddenly, Luce was enraged Furious with the curse that had been hanging over her and Daniel She had been innocent, powerless; she didn't understand a thing about as going to happen She still didn't understand why it happened, why she always had to die so quickly after

nding Daniel

Why it hadn't happened to her yet in this life

The Luce in the water was still alive Luce wouldn't--couldn't let her die

She grabbed at the Announcer, curling its edges in her sts It twisted and bent, contorting the swiht Inside its screen, the other shadoere descending The swi out of ti her sts at the Announcer-- rst one, then the other, raining blows upon the scene before her She struck out at it again and again, heaving and crying as she tried her best to stop as going to transpire

Then it happened: Her right st broke through and her arm sank in up to her elbow Instantly, she felt the shock of a te across her palm Gravity shifted Luce couldn't tell which as up or down She felt her sto to throw up

She could go through She could save her old self Tentatively, she stretched her left arm forward It, too, disappeared into the Announcer, like passing through a bright, clammy sheet of Jell-O that rippled and widened as if it could just let her through

"It wants me to," she said aloud "I can do this I can save her I can save htly and then thrust her body into the Announcer

There was sunlight, so bright she had to close her eyes, and a warmth so tropical a sheen of sweat iravity tilting and upending, like at the height of a pe In ahad hold of her left ankle And her right That so Luce very forcefully backward

"No!" Luce cried out, because she could see now, could see, far below, a burst of yellow in the water Too bright to be the halter top of her bathing suit Was long-ago Luce already burning up?

Then it all vanished

Luce was yanked roughly back into the cool, dim patch of redwood trees behind the Shoreline dorm Her skin felt cold and clammy and her balance was all screwed up and she fell at on her face in the dirt and redwood needles on the forest oor She rolled over and sao gures in front of her, but her vision was spinning so much she couldn't even tell who they were