*
The next morning sunlight forced its way through the grime-covered windows. Nettie opened her eyes and met her fellow cellmates, all raggedy children with gazes that ranged from inquisitive to dull and apathetic. There were twelve of them. Liliya was the oldest, maybe sixteen or seventeen, and the youngest no older than five. Her tattered gown and shaved head made her look like a doll that had been stripped bare and forgotten.
The doors opened and a guard placed thirteen bowls inside, each with a piece of black bread, and thirteen cups of coffee. Liliya passed them out to the children who sat, surprisingly docile. Or perhaps they were just too weak to stand. Liliya handed Nettie her bowl.
“We get a boiled potato for dinner.”
Nettie ate the bread and drank the tarlike coffee. She wished for water, but at least it was liquid. An hour later the young officer opened the door. It was the same man who’d escorted her to the room last night. He seemed to steel himself to appear authoritative.
He motioned to Nettie. “You. The new one.”
Nettie stood to follow him, then looked back to Liliya for support.
“Impress them,” Liliya reminded her softly.
The officer led her down the hallway and up the stairs. “You’ll be meeting Dr. Evanoff today,” he told her, as if that somehow made her captivity more tolerable.
Nettie didn’t answer, but she knew this man from her visions too. His name was Lev.
Their footsteps echoed as he led them past a stretch of abandoned rooms, as if even God had turned his eye from this place. They stopped at an imposing door. Lev knocked twice, and a nurse in a crisp uniform stepped out.
“I brought the new one,” Lev said.
The nurse’s eyes raked Nettie up and down. “Good. That will be all,” she said in a clipped tone and moved aside for Nettie to enter. “Come, girl.”
Nettie fought to keep her panic from rising. Her grandmother always used to tell her that no matter what happened, no one could ever break her spirit. “Pity your enemy,” Kezia would say, “for hating him will bring only hatred in return.” She would put her hands on Nettie’s cheeks and look directly into her eyes. “And you know too much to hate.”
Nettie held on to her grandmother’s wisdom and carried it with her into the room.
The enormous space was once a gathering hall but had now been converted into a medical clinic. The nurse led her through a maze of partitions. Nettie spotted an operating table with surgical equipment to her left, and on the right, an unusual-looking dentist’s chair with limb restraints and an overhead light attached.
The last partition had been sectioned into an office. Bookshelves lined the entire back wall. A row of wooden filing cabinets took up one side, and the other had a small table.
“Welcome, Nadenka,” Dr. Evanoff said, calling her by her birth name. He stood up from the reading desk in the corner. He was wearing a doctor’s robe with stains all over it, and his wild black hair sat like a crow’s nest atop his thin frame. His eyes flared with excitement behind black-rimmed spectacles as he studied his newest ward.
“Turn around,” he instructed, motioning his finger like a puppeteer.
Nettie did as she was told.
The nurse sniffed. “I’ll get her a patient’s robe.”
Nettie looked down at her dress. It was the only thing left from her life before. Her mother had made it and she didn’t want to take it off, but she was too terrified to speak.
“Come. Sit.” Evanoff motioned to the chair near his desk.
Nettie passed by an open bowl of sweet pastilles and raspberry lollies perched on the corner of the table, and her mouth watered.
“Would you like one?” He held the bowl out.
She nodded and took one. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“Manners. Good.” He sat down across from her and waited while she sucked on the candy.
Nettie’s eyes kept straying toward his, but then she would catch herself and look away. She could sense the threat behind the doctor’s penetrating stare and soft-spoken voice.
“Do you know where you are?” he asked.
“An old monastery?”
He gave her a patronizing smile. “This is now part of a military research center, a very secret one. Do you know about secrets?” She nodded and he leaned forward, dropping his veneer of civility. “You are never to speak to anyone, not even the guards, about what goes on in here, or you will be punished.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Have you heard of psychic energy?” He started to pace, not expecting an answer. “It is the hidden force in the world, a force that the human mind can harness.” He stressed his next words, rapping his hand on his desk with each one. “Equal. In. Importance. To. Atomic. Energy.” He resumed his pacing. “With this force we can control the body and the mind, achieve telepathic or telekinetic power. See the past and the future.”
He pivoted to her. “Few people are born with the ability to access the source—and those who can are most capable in childhood. You are one of my children now, yes?” He picked up the candy bowl and offered her another.
Nettie nodded, knowing she could do nothing but acquiesce. She took a candy, feeling sick to her stomach.
“Mathematicians deal with space, physicists deal with atoms, and I study the connection between the two, the human psyche.”
He bent forward, as if to retrieve something, and what he pulled from his desk drawer made her entire body lurch. He had her grandmother’s cards.
“These cards are quite interesting. I’ve been told that you use them. Yes?”
Nettie nodded again, unable to speak.
“I’m fascinated with any system of divination that helps us transcend the mind. Tarot cards, the I Ching, runes … they are all codes and we are the code breakers.” He picked out a random card from the deck, The Emperor, and smiled. He obviously thought the card represented him. He showed it to Nettie to prove his point. He was the one in control.
“All symbols have power. They are the doorways that enable us to see beyond the illusion of time.” He looked through each card as he spoke. “Predicting the future is a wondrous thing. Nature has its irreversible processes—an egg cracks and it is broken—which makes time seem to point only in one direction, ahead. While in fact, outside the physical laws of gravity and thermodynamics, time does not move at all.”
Nettie forced herself to look away from the cards. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how much she wanted them.