“Prague—he’s bought a one-way ticket to Prague.”
But I keep going. I follow him back to the KGB station where he prepares for our training exercise. I see the KGB’s costumers dressing him up like a movie star, smoking their cigarettes, whispering under their breath about how stupid the whole program is. The mighty state swears there is no god, no superstition, no supernatural world, they murmur, this conceit of special powers is pure foolishness.
“Prague is correct. Well done, Yulia Andreevna.”
I open my eyes; find myself under the needle of Valentin’s gaze. “See what memories you can find on the documents,” he says, his voice thick. I narrow my eyes at him, trying to read his expression. What’s his game here?
Kruzenko lifts an eyebrow. “Yes, excellent idea, Valentin. Give it a try.”
I reach into the attaché case and yank the documents out. Big red Russian letters stamped on the front declare them SEKRET. The cover has been stamped three times, and each subsequent page twice—just in case I missed it before. I leaf through the pages. There’s text here, something about currency regulation, manufacturing output, Soviet economic supremacy, but every paragraph bears the noose of classification and, much smaller than the stamp, “for training purposes only.” I run my fingers across the ink, smudging it, so I can see what the paper sees.
A tiny gasp escapes me, completely unbidden, as the document overwhelms me with a sense of hate.
“Focus,” Kruzenko barks, but her voice comes from outside, from down the street, from a Sputnik satellite in space. “You don’t have to dig so deep.”
But I can’t control it. The memories are a hand reaching from the water, pulling me down. I’m screaming, I’m pulling away, but their dead eyes are locked onto mine and they won’t let go until I’m drowning with them.
Hatred. A man stands over the documents—gaunt to a degree that only Russian men can be, as though his whole face hangs on the two pegs of his cheekbones. His jawline is sharp as a scar, and his eyes are guarded deep within his skull. His lips, chapped and thin, curl back as he puts together this false little case of documents, this pathetic training exercise, this farcical project. What do little children know of spy games, of the real power of the mind? They are too undisciplined. They are too free. Obedient minds, not rebellious teens, are needed to run the program, the Soviet Union. I will make the necessary changes when I’m in charge, when Antonina breaks, when their minds belong to me—
Antonina. The memory falls into the background, leaving this one word in my trembling grasp.
“Well?” Major Kruzenko rests her hand on my shoulder, and cool gypsy music drifts between us. My mind snaps out of the false document, the false training exercise, the false little window into the KGB’s idea of perfectly controlling the populace through psychic spies. “What did you see?”
“It’s—it’s nothing. A secretary preparing the documents.” I shake her off and stand, staring right at Valentin.
Why did you want me to see this man? I ask him, though I don’t know if he can hear. Why does he want our minds for his own? Why does he need to break Antonina for his plans to succeed?
And because I can’t bear to let anyone else know, I swallow the next thought: Antonina is my mother’s name.
CHAPTER 8
MASHA THROWS OPEN THE DOOR to our dormitory and glowers at me. “Pick a bed,” she says. “Away from mine.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“I saw you eyeing the silverware at tea. You’re like all the other ration rats—always scouting for trinkets you can trade or hoard.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t want you near my things.”
I narrow my eyes. I’d pocketed a knife for prying open the door to Major Kruzenko’s office, in hopes I might find a clue as to where my family is being kept. Not that it’s any of Masha’s business—or the two spider-guards hovering in the doorway, watching our every move. The Babi Yar music, my chosen shield, bellows in my head to cover up my anger.
The girls’ dormitory was once two rooms—a sitting room and a bedroom, maybe, for a single countess—whose dividing wall was torn out long ago. Its extraction point stands bare, a gouge in the wall, exposing wooden bones. The walls may have once been painted pale green, but are now a dingy gray. Beyond the windows, I can see only treetops; the sound of the branches shushing in the wind fills the held-breath silence of the room.