Free Shimmer: A Novel by John Passarella Page B

guys stop talking about me as if I weren’t here?”
    “I’m sorry, Fallon,” Ambrose said graciously. “Please forgive us for being… unusual.
In umbra ambulamus
.”
    “Run that by me again.”
    “It’s Latin,” Logan explained. “He said, ‘We walk in shadows.’”
    Ambrose deposited himself in the armchair beside Liana and beamed at Fallon. “
Ingenium ad magnitudinem habemus,
” he said, shaking his head in incredulity. “I say that a lot around here, but with you…”
    Fallon frowned again. “This stuff is confusing enough in my native tongue. Could you…?” She turned to Logan for help.
    “‘We have the capacity for greatness,’” Logan translated. “One of Ambrose’s short but sweet pep talks.”
    Ambrose pointed at Fallon. “With you, my dear, it is
not
, as Logan says, a pep talk. It is, rather, a prediction. I sense two things about you, Fallon Maguire. First, that you are unbound. Second, that you may be a… catalyst for our kind.”
    “What does that mean… exactly?” Fallon asked. Without realizing it, she had assumed a defensive posture, arms crossed, leaning back from the conversation. But she couldn’t decide if she was afraid to believe what the old man had to say, or more afraid not to believe him.
Maybe ignorance really is bliss,
she thought nervously. Battling her ambivalence, she placed her hands on her hips and hoped the not-so-subtle change in body language made her appear more self-assured… if she could somehow manage to stop nibbling at her lower lip for five consecutive seconds.
Note to self: forget career as professional poker player.
    Ambrose steepled his fingers. “Let me ask you a question.”
    “Sure,” Fallon said with a wry grin. “Why not?”
    “Do you believe something extraordinary has happened?”
    “Here?”
    “With your dream journal?”
    Fallon glanced at Logan, not for guidance or confirmation, but for assurance. Remembering the face she had drawn. The face she’d seen in one of her dreams. And now, looking at his face and making the mental side-by-side comparison. Slowly, she nodded. “Unusual.”
    “Fair enough,” Ambrose said. “Can you rule out coincidence?”
    “An impartial observer or—?”
    “You,” Ambrose said quickly, interrupting. “In your mind. There are no impartial observers here.”
    “No,” Fallon said. “Not coincidence. It’s more than that.”
    “Good,” Ambrose said. “That is the first step. You see, Walkers don’t believe in coincidence.”
    She flashed another look at Logan and smiled. “So I’ve heard.”
    “Fallon, before you can accept,” he said, “you must believe.”
    “What must I accept?”
    “Your potential, of course,” Ambrose said. “I would be lying if I told you I knew what that potential was. I sense that it is there, that it is vast, but not what shape it may take.”
    “You said I was unbound, and a catalyst,” Fallon reminded him. “That has to mean something.”
    “Hmm,” Ambrose said as he looked off into the distance.
    He’s hiding something,
Fallon realized.
But what? And why?
    Liana spoke softly. “Tell her, Ambrose. The child has a right to know.”
    “I’m not a child,” Fallon said defensively. She sighed.
So much for casual, self-assurance.
“Please. I mean, stop treating me like a child, okay? I want to know—I
need
to know what’s happening to me.”
    Logan stepped forward. “It’s because her—”
    Fallon grabbed his arm and glared a warning at him. “No, Logan. Don’t try to protect me. I’m not made of glass, okay?”
I’m not my mother.
“Just—let him speak.”
    Ambrose nodded. “Unbound is how we speak of one of our kind who has no… limitations.”
    “Somebody with potential.”
    “Yes,” Ambrose said. “In the truest sense of the world. Has Logan told you he is a douser?”
    Fallon nodded. “Yes. And that Barrett is hyperactive.”
    “He has hyperacuity and hyperaesthesia,” Ambrose corrected. “These are abilities that