Chapter Twenty-One
Mia, Juliana’s new roommate, showed her around the girls’ dormitory area. The double doors at the end of the hall led to a “community room” with comfortable chairs, a radio, a record player, and sewing supplies. A side door there opened to their group bathroom.
They ate in a military-style mess hall, located down a long hall and up a flight of stairs. The little buildings up top, it turned out, were just doorways into different areas of a vast underground complex with many levels. The walls were rock or concrete, and the carpeting and cheery colors didn’t reach beyond the girls’ dormitory.
The diners fell into easily recognizable groups. The S.S. in their black uniforms took the largest table at the center. Scientists and doctors sat along one side of the room, while nurses and secretaries took the table near the front. Test subjects like Juliana and Mia sat at the back.
The food tonight was German, lots of sausages, cheese, and pickled vegetables, with dark beer to drink. Juliana and Mia shared a long table with the others from her hall. Alise sat at the head, excitedly introducing Juliana to everyone. She wasn’t shy about discussing their supernormal abilities, either.
The girls included Vilja, a Swedish girl with extremely pale skin and white-blond hair, who claimed to see “energy spirits,” which apparently included angels, demons, ghosts, gnomes, and fairies. A Polish girl named Roza, whose face was framed by a thick braid on each side, had what Alise called “far-sight,” the ability to see distant events as they happened. There was a small Slavic girl, Evelina, with very dark eyes and short black hair, who sat apart at the end of the table and didn’t even look up from her food when Alise introduced her.
“And what does she do?” Roza asked, pointing at Juliana.
“Her touch spreads the plague,” Alise said in a loud whisper, as if confiding a secret to the entire room. All the girls leaned back from Juliana.
Thanks so much, Alise, Juliana thought, but she nodded.
“It’s true,” Juliana said. “You’re perfectly safe as long as you don’t touch me.”
“I don’t think we will forget!” Roza said, looking disgusted.
The conversation was difficult, everyone trying to speak in a patois of German, which they’d been studying since they arrived, and English, and their own native languages. Juliana gathered that they’d each been recruited by agents of the Evolution Congress, which included scientists, businessmen, and politicians from all over the Western world. Evelina, the Slavic girl, did not speak at all, and Juliana wondered whether she was shy or was just having language difficulties.
Sebastian, Niklaus, and another boy approached their table, but Niklaus continued on without acknowledging them and sat at a table with the S.S. men. Sebastian sat by Juliana and hugged her. Alise cleared her throat and shook her head, as if affection shouldn’t be shown here.
The other boy smiled at the girls, and sat next to Vilja. The ghostly Swedish girl looked uncomfortable at his grin and shifted away from him.
“Who’s he?” Juliana whispered to Sebastian. “Your roommate?”
“Why would I need a roommate?” Sebastian asked. “There are only three guys on our hall, and Niklaus has the biggest room to himself because he’s the hallway fuehrer. That means he’s the guy in charge of watching us and enforcing the rules, I think.”
“I see you talking about me,” the boy told them, in accented but fluent English. “What are you saying?”
“She was just asking who you were,” Sebastian said. “Juliana, this is Willem. He’s from, uh...”
“Holland,” Willem said. He had short blond hair and blue eyes, and he gave off a nervous energy, fidgeting in his chair, his fingers restlessly tapping. He kept stealing glances at Vilja,who ignored him. “They must be growing desperate for subjects, if they’re looking as far away as America.”
“There don’t seem to be many of us here,” Juliana agreed.
“That’s because we’re only looking for the truly extraordinary,” Alise told them. “The supernormal. We’re selective.”
“There just aren’t many of us, are there?” Willem asked. “Supernatural gifts are rare.”
“What is yours?” Juliana asked him.
“I start fires.” Willem gave her a wicked grin.
“With your hands?” Juliana asked.
“With my hands?” He smirked. “Anyone can start a fire with their hands. I start them with my mind.” He touched the side of his head.
“Your power doesn’t involve touch?” Sebastian asked.