Free Sekret by Lindsay Smith Page A

vane.” Will consult with Rostov on re-education options to correct attitude.
    YULIA: works best with objects that have no emotional attachment. Still too easily overwhelmed with emotionally charged memories. I see no problem in keeping her in that state—if she cannot control the emotions entering her, then she remains easier to subdue.
    Easier to subdue? I start to crumple the paper, then stop myself. So much for controlling my emotions. I shove the framed picture and the notes back in the desk drawer and slam it shut.
    There has to be more here. Some clue, something that will lead me to Mama and Zhenya, some hint that’ll allow me to escape. I run my fingers along the walls, the desk, searching for hidden compartments and begging for memories to jump out at me. Nothing. There’s nothing. Like a criminal wiping away his fingerprints, Rostov must have scrubbed it clean, just like he did to Mama’s necklace, destroying the memories beyond anything he’d want me to see.
    I sink my palms into the desktop. I have to break past the barrier. I have to know where they are! White light prickles against my skin like the pins and needles at the onset of numbness, but I keep pushing. “Where are they?” I sob. “Where is my family?”
    The static wave bursts through me, knocking me back into the chair. My hands ache as if from a flash burn. His echo stings like an atom bomb under the wood grain. Embarrassment scalds my cheeks as the room around me slowly rights itself, the white flare of hatred receding. There’s nothing here for me.
    I lean against the door, watching the other side through the wood. I’m still not good at this—I can catch only a murky glimpse of what lies on the other side—but it’s enough for me to tell when one of the guards strolls by. The door opens silently and I slip out.
    I follow the strains of Valentin’s piano playing back to the ballroom. There’s a melody in my head, three notes buoying me from utter despair at making no progress in Kruzenko’s office. The notes that Zhenya whistled in my dream. I need to hear them again.
    I hover beside the piano bench. Each note ebbs away a bit of my anger, erodes my barrier just a little more. Valentin glances up, his eyes holding mine for a few bars while the notes flutter on, then he tapers the melody into a graceful set of closing chords.
    I study the black and white bars, then plink out the three-note melody in the high register of keys. Artlessly, I admit, but I manage to summon up an ancient music lesson to hit the right ones. The notes are the heart of one of Zhenya’s convoluted, unending symphonies that sprawl across multiple folios of sheet music. I can almost see him whistling the tune, but the image distorts in my mind when I look at it straight on. After all, it was just my dream, not a real memory that I can cling to.
    Valentin flexes his fingers over the lower register, hesitating for a moment, then plays a shimmery, chorded version of the three notes. His chin tilts toward me in a tiny, questioning lift.
    I plink out the notes again. Each one drains a little bit more of my frustration away, leaving a blissful emptiness behind. Space for me to breathe.
    Valentin improvises with the three notes, turning them into a phrase, then variations on that phrase, hands dancing along the keys. He drums them out along the lower register, then reaches around me to twinkle in the high octaves with a red-cheeked smile. He pulls his hands back together and, diminuendo, the notes trip over each other, rising and falling, punctuated by a sharp chord here and there, growing and growing until I can almost hear the brass section exploding behind us in a Rachmaninov-style riot of luxurious noise.
    Finally he reins it in, taming the chaos of Zhenya-inspired noise until it’s just a fragile, dimming light, and it subsides into the final chords that are so perfect that I can’t imagine anything happening in that moment except this ending, even though I