Kursed (11 page)

“No. No, you didn't. Stokowski got away, didn't he?” Andrei asks. “And the American man, as well. Maybe we're still bound to Stalin's whims, but we managed to help one man—that's one victory. We have the opportunity now, Nina, don't you see? A chance to do even more.”

But all I can see are the compromises in my past, yawning like unmarked graves. “It will never be enough.”

Andrei twists toward me and cups my face in his hands. Our earlier kiss seems as intangible as smoke, but the way he's looking at me now makes me feel monstrous. I am monstrous. This gift, this curse, makes it all too easy to choose the path that's best for me, and damn everyone else. Why can't he see it? Why must he look at me with those soft lips and those inviting eyes and that exposed face that just begs to be hurt by me, like everyone else?

“I should have known, how my research would be used. I should have known precisely what Stalin would want with the power to read others' minds. That he'd use it to make people disappear—turn into nothingness. Erased from the ledgers.” I clutch my knees and gasp for air.
“I should have known.
Of all people, with a power like mine—I could have seen, if only I'd thought to look. But all I cared about was my advancement. My research. Myself.”

Andrei extends one arm to me. No fear in his expression, only a question. I nod, and he drapes his arm around my shoulders and pulls me toward him. It feels like a rope being tossed to me—woman overboard. “We all make mistakes. We are not superhuman. Only different.”

“Not everyone's mistakes get other people killed.”

Andrei laughs bitterly. “How is that entirely your fault? It's the nature of Russia, now. It's our world. We are all turned against each other, reporting on our neighbors and friends.”

“Then we have to change it, not just escape it.” I nestle deeper into his arm. “I thought yesterday we could leave it behind.”

He sighs. “I thought so, too. But this way is better. And if we can't change it, then at least we can leave knowing we tried.”

“How can there be more chances, though? The war is nearly won. And a new war is coming—it's true, what we said in the café. East against West. Russia and the Americans, stealing scientists from each other, secrets, worse. I've seen bits and pieces of it already.”

“But have you seen a chance for us to be more?” he asks.

In the future, I see once again the bridge Andrei and I stand on, over the Moskva River. We gaze at Novodevichy Monastery and at a row of new skyscrapers being built. The Soviet Union is on the rise, with Stalin at our helm. All the subversive elements have been swept away, thanks to Stalin, thanks to psychics and monsters like me.

But Andrei's hand is in mine, and buried in our skin is a promise, one that no cosmic scale can outweigh.

A promise to do better—whatever long and twisting path it takes.

Andrei smiles at me. “We must keep it secret. It may take far longer than we can guess. But we'll find a way.”

“To undo this curse that our powers give us to be weapons,” I say. “I'll use the future to look for new opportunities to stop men like Stalin, men like Rostov. For ways to undo this curse.”

“No,” Andrei says. “To make it into a weapon of our own.”

 

THE END

Text copyright © 2015 by Lindsay Smith

Published by Roaring Brook Press

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eISBN 9781626723092

eBook edition, March 2015