“Deeper now.” A bubble with Kruzenko’s voice inside punctures as it hits me. “Deeper, into the past.” I swim on.
Mama, slumped in a chair, blood trailing down her nose. I thrash again and surface in the sight. She does not look afraid—she does not feel afraid, a fact I am certain of, though I can’t explain how. Zhenya sits beside her, making a high-pitched whine that I might have mistaken for a fan belt had I not heard him make this noise before. I don’t need my “power” to know this sound for the very essence of his fear.
“Give her this,” Mama says, and tears the necklace free. She is not bound to the chair—not in any way that I can see. “She won’t listen to you. She’ll have to hear that I’m alive—see it—through me.”
“I hope she listens, then, for your sake,” a man’s voice says, but when I try to look at him, I fall through a white fog. No more memories lie beyond it. The balcony reforms around me, blurry with the vision’s residue.
“A respectable first attempt,” Kruzenko says. I surface back into reality, but Mama’s expression, her blood clings to my skin. My music is gone. Shostakovich, I need Shostakovich, I don’t want Kruzenko in my head. I pull the melody around me like a towel, and scrub away the thoughts of Mama, of her tired acceptance.
Surely she has not already given up. Surely she is only waiting for the right opportunity to fight.
Kruzenko pockets the medallion before I can reach for it again, and ushers me through the doors. I keep a safe distance from her as she leads me toward class. I think Shostakovich is working, but I don’t want to take any chances.
I didn’t recognize where they’re keeping Mama, so finding that out will be my next goal. It’s good that she’s with Zhenya—good that he isn’t locked up alone. But why was she so resigned? As if she—wanted it this way.
No. Focus. If Kruzenko can reach through my musical shield with some effort, then eventually, I can reach through hers and learn where Mama’s being kept. I’ve already got a lead.
Because whenever Kruzenko carries that buzzing noise, her music shield stops.
CHAPTER 7
OUR “CLASSROOM” IS an old sitting room on the second floor of the mansion. The others huddle around a marble fireplace that spits smoke into the room, while the pet spiders lurk in the back—I count three, though they tend to blur into the shadowed alcoves. Sergei, the twins, and Valentin are there, listening to a massire old wooden radio, as well as a girl and boy I haven’t met, probably a few years younger than me, who sit practically on top of each other on the groaning floor. “Ivan and Larissa,” Sergei says to me, tilting his head toward them.
Vladimir Vysotsky’s melodramatic folk song ends, and the Soviet national anthem blares through the radio. “… morning news. Our most esteemed Comrade Yuri Gagarin, the first man ever in space, may soon beat the Americans to yet another space exploration milestone—”
“I see you all have been hard at work.” Major Kruzenko smiles as she clicks the radio off. “If we can complete our current exercise today, the colonel has some exciting news for you.”
Sergei slumps back, propped on his palms; only Misha and Masha look remotely enthused. Masha’s hand jets into the air. “Comrade Major? I’d be honored to conduct today’s exercise.”
“In a moment. We must get Yulia Andreevna properly acclimated.” Kruzenko scans us with shrewd falcon eyes, and I suspect this is how a mouse must feel as it scampers through open grass. “Though every psychic can be trained to read the unguarded thoughts of people around them, we each have our different strengths.” Her gaze settles on me before she addresses the others. “Yulia’s power works best when in contact with the person of her focus, or an object through which she can ‘see’ events.”
“Something like that.” I look away to the far side of the room. There are no windows in this part of the house; nothing to distract me. No paintings on the walls, and the floral wallpaper has faded to a mushy salmon hue.
“Larissa is best at seeing what may come to be. Predicting future events, weighing possible outcomes.” She looks at Larissa, who reddens under a tangle of dingy blond hair.
“Maria and Sergei are what the American CIA calls ‘remote viewers.’” She nods to the girl twin—Masha, or Maria—who sits up straighter. “Have you ever known a street so well that you can close your eyes and see it as vividly as if you were standing there? They can actually see such places—watch what is happening like it’s a television show.”
I have known such a street. An oak-shaded path beside our old home outside of Moscow, where Zhenya and I strolled every afternoon, even in blizzards and baking heat. In winter, we could hear deer crunching through the icy top layer of snow, just out of sight, and Zhenya would count their footsteps to guess how many there were.