“But what would a sad child do, when burdened with sad thoughts? She might curl up in bed and squeeze it fiercely while she cries.” She smiles, though it’s fake—her muscles have forgotten how to handle a real grin. I can’t reconcile her with the radiant woman frozen in that photograph. “We have all done this, have we not?”
I shrug. I never had stuffed animals. I had a little brother who needed my love and care, and two parents whose words salved whatever wounds couldn’t be cleaned with soap and ointment. But Kruzenko and Rostov have taken that from me.
“Please, sit.” She beckons me to the couch. “I must warn you there are strong memories attached to this toy. Push too hard, and it will punish you. You must learn control if you don’t wish to be overwhelmed.”
“I can handle it.” I hold out my hand, but she drops the bear into my lap. One of its black glass eyes looks up at me, while the other gazes off into the middle distance somewhere past my shoulder. I can do this. I won’t let it overwhelm me like the desk in her office. I snatch the bear by his cylindrical arm.
skeletal girl screaming
there are gravestones in her hair, her blond hair, and fingernails
eyes watching from behind glass
wood between her teeth as she slices their souls away
I drop the bear like I’ve been scalded, and my knees jerk up under my chin. The guard chuckles until Kruzenko shoots him a nasty look.
“A pity, Yulia. You hear me, but you do not listen.” She nudges the bear toward me with her shoe. “Start delicately before you plunge in.”
I’m shaking with cast-off memories. This terror, this unfocused panic—I’ve sensed it before. The bed in our dormitory. “Anastasia,” I say. “What did you do to her?”
“Me? I can’t be blamed for what happened. But why not see for yourself?”
I lower my legs and pick up the bear between my thumb and index finger, gingerly, like the diseased, disgusting rag it is. Surface memories skitter off its fur and onto my skin—childhood tea parties and make-believe ballet recitals in a cramped communal home.
“Much better. See if you can press a little further while holding the deepest memories at bay.”
Whispers stir around my feet like fog as I wade into the frosty lake of thoughts. The fog thickens, and the water chills; memories fly past me, swarming now, on insect’s wings. Nasty thoughts, happy ones, thoughts that no one would dare to speak. Anastasia hears them all. They soak into her skin. She can’t get rid of them; she can’t shake them away. I try to dispel the fog and swat the insects, but more keep coming. They are full of secrets; she’s drowning in their pain and selfishness. A man—a boy?—tries to wipe them clean, but it’s a sponge trying to soak up the sea. An ocean of the other voices’ inner worlds, smothering, crushing, heavy. Her skin’s too tight with their secrets. She needs to slice it open, pour them out. I see it, and like her, I just long to forget …
“Easier when you show some restraint, isn’t it?” Kruzenko says.
I set the bear on the desk, far enough away from me that I can no longer see or hear its memories. “She was overwhelmed by all the thoughts she heard.”
Kruzenko nods. “Now go deeper.”
I take a deep breath and gather the bear into my arms. Anastasia’s memories hum through the air. I know how she feels when she’s going mad with the voices, when the psychic electricity turns her inside out. I see the razor glinting under dank bathroom lights. I don’t need to watch it slice her veins open. “I can’t.” I’m already bracing for Kruzenko’s slap.
But none comes. She collects the bear and places it back inside a desk drawer.
“You will have to accept all aspects of your power someday,” she says, leaning against the desk. “You can’t be afraid. You must strengthen your shield, too. You take emotions in without pushing them out. Do not try to be an empath—one who shares the feelings of others. You’ll torment yourself that way.”
I work one thumbnail beneath the other. I can’t watch that razor. I can’t listen to Anastasia’s head full of whispers or see the dark eyes that track her every move. “How did she get this way?” I ask. Surely our powers alone can’t do this to a person. Is this the exception, the abnormality? Or is madness the usual path—our inevitable fate?
“She thought she could cultivate her powers on her own, without our assistance. She hungered for more and more, when she wasn’t ready. This is the fate of all of those who do not learn control. She did not listen to our rules.” Kruzenko holds her hand out to usher me out the door. “She fought against our teachings, and it drove her mad.”
CHAPTER 11