“I want to be alone,” I growl.
Actually, what I want is to grab the supplies from my stash and scale the walls of this prison. But then I think of the American scrubber coming for us and remember those walls keep him out as surely as they keep us in.
“Come on, Yul, you’ll feel better if you talk about it. Right now your head sounds like an angry … storm cloud. Of anger.”
Distant piano music fills the silence between us as we stare at each other. Finally, I crack a grin.
“Okay,” Sergei says, “so I’m no Pushkin.”
“I’m sure Vitaly Davidov isn’t much of a poet, either.”
“Good, maybe I’ll join him in the Hockey Hall of Fame someday. Really, though—what’s wrong?” He takes his hands off my shoulders, but their warmth lingers.
“Nothing.” I crumple into the banister, which groans back at me. “Everything. I don’t know.”
Sergei starts back up the stairs. “I know just the place to cheer you up. Somewhere not on the official tour.”
That piques my interest. Do the guards know about it? I am Yulia the ration rat, after all. I’ll stash away every crumb of knowledge that I can.
He leads me deep into the house’s bones: an inner hallway somewhere within the second floor. He opens the door to a narrow linen closet, reeking of mothballs and dust. “The nobles who lived here in tsarist times built this passage,” he says, fiddling with the sidewall of the closet. “Supposedly, they hid here when the first wave of the communist forces swept through the city.” There’s a soft click and the wall pops back. A hidden panel. Sergei squeezes through—no mean feat, given his bulk—and I follow through with more ease.
“That’s a better history lesson than I’d expect from a hockey hooligan,” I say with a smirk.
He rolls his eyes before slipping deeper into the darkened passage. “I’m not all muscle, you know. Not that anyone believes it. Even my parents…” He trails off, tension rising in him like steam, and Tchaikovsky’s War of 1812 overture marches through the air. I feel a pang of embarrassment for my selfishness. I’m not the only one kept from my loved ones.
We fall into an uneasy silence as we feel our way down the dark corridor. I tug my sweater sleeves down around my hands to muffle the memories on the narrow walls; I’m not ready just yet to see the nobles’ fate at the hands of Lenin and his Bolshevik army. “Who else knows about this passage?” There’s a hope beating its wings inside me, but I don’t dare open its cage just yet.
He scowls. “Enough people. So don’t get any ideas.”
“The guards don’t follow us in here?”
“Nah, they know it’s a dead end. Here we are.” He stops abruptly in front of me, and in the dim light I crash into him, our arms tangling together as I try to push off. “Careful there.” He brushes a lock of dark hair from my face, my skin radiating heat where he touches me. I swallow hard and turn away.
“Great,” I say. “So it’s dark and smells like mold.” I can make out vague shapes lurking around us, but little else.
“So impatient!” With a sharp click, dull amber light floods the room.
Dozens of ornate frames lean against the far wall of the expansive chamber. Fringes of canvas dangle from their interiors where paintings have been cut out, and the wood frames are scarred where looters—or Lenin’s thugs—stripped away gold leaf, but even ungilded, the frames are beautiful. I stride across the room and run my hands along one carved with interlocking seashells. A vibrant painting springs into my mind of tsarist-era Moscow, the hills ablaze with autumn leaves. Beyond the frames, bits of furniture are shrouded like cartoon ghosts. Sergei peels back the cloth on a sofa like he’s unwrapping a mummy; green and gold brocade shimmers in the light.
“The old owners’ leftovers,” he says, before plopping onto the sofa, issuing tufts of dust into the air. He pats the spot beside him.
I saunter over and perch on the far end of the sofa. “I’m surprised there’s anything left.”
He shakes his head. “Just stuffy bourgeois junk. Hey,” he says, face lighting up with a grin. “I wonder if you can read this stuff. You know.” He runs his hand along the fabric. “Their memories.”
The blond woman flickers through my mind, chased around by her desperate thoughts. If it weren’t for my powers, Rostov wouldn’t be plotting right now to use her as bait. “I … Some other time.”
Sergei leans toward me, though he’s far from touching me. I’m grateful for that. I’ve met too many Russian boys who, like all us ration rats, long to take what’s not been given. I learned early how to fend them off with sharp words and flattened fists, but it didn’t keep the shame at bay when a black market trader offered a barter I wasn’t willing to make.