“Why did they keep you here and not send you to another orphanage?”
“The experiments” was all Liliya said. “You’ll find out soon enough. We should sleep.” Before Liliya closed her eyes, she added, “Impress them and they’ll let you live.”
Nettie tried to sleep, but her mind couldn’t rest. She was already trying to feel her way into the future. She would have to give up her secrets, to expose her gift in order to stay alive.
She had already seen Dr. Evanoff many times in her visions. He would stand before her tomorrow, giving her sweets to gain her trust. Soon he would take a keen and singular interest in her.
***
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.
