As Black as Ebony Page 6

  “If I’m not good enough for you, just say so. If I’m too incomplete, too imperfect.”

  Lumikki heard the hurt and sadness in Blaze’s voice, but she couldn’t comfort him. Not now.

  “This isn’t going to go this way,” was all she said.

  How could she explain to Blaze that everything felt so perfect when she was with him. Everything felt like nothing was missing. But she was with Sampsa now, and Sampsa was nice and sweet and dependable. Sampsa had never broken her heart.

  Lumikki knew that if she took one more step into the forest, if she swam two more strokes into the lake, if she let the starry sky descend and fill her soul, she would never get out. She would never want to get out. And she didn’t believe she could stand having that all taken away from her again. Blaze had done it once. Blaze had gone and taken the forest and the lake and the stars away. Lumikki couldn’t trust that Blaze wouldn’t do it again. Lumikki didn’t dare allow herself to be hurt again.

  “You can’t do this to me,” Blaze said. “I was only able to make it through all of this because of you. So we could be together again. And now you’re turning your back on me.”

  You turned your back on me, Lumikki thought. But this isn’t revenge. I’m not doing this to you. You’re doing this to yourself. I’m punishing myself more than you, denying myself happiness because I’m too afraid. I just can’t step into the dark and fall again. I would die. I would go crazy.

  But all she said was, “You went through all of that for yourself, which is how it should be. No one else can make you happy and complete but you.”

  Lumikki saw Blaze’s eyes well up. Their surface quivered, but he just managed to hold back enough to keep the tears from rolling down his cheeks. This suppressed pain hurt Lumikki more than it would have if Blaze had started to cry outright. She had to strain not to wrap her arms around him and hug him long, oh so long.

  “You are a cold creature, Lumikki. I thought I knew you.”

  Lumikki did not reply. She didn’t have the words. If Blaze chose to be bitter and hate her, that might make things easier for him. It would be easier for him to break free of her.

  When the door slammed shut after Blaze, Lumikki’s legs gave out. Collapsing on the entry floor, she sat and felt as the blackness crept from the shadows in the corners over her. It penetrated her ears and nostrils, wriggling down her throat into her lungs and stomach, filling them. Breathing was hard. She was running out of air.

  Finally, Lumikki stood up and walked to the kitchen. She needed some strong coffee now. Blacker than the blackness that had made its home in her. As Lumikki measured the coffee into the pot, she heard the mail slot bang.

  A familiar fear sank its carnivorous teeth into her neck.

  Probably just junk mail, Lumikki told herself.

  But instead, a white sheet of paper folded over once sat on the floor. Lumikki shoved open the door and rushed into the stairwell. No one. Not even running steps on the stairs. The elevator was still. Lumikki hesitated for a moment, but then went back inside. She wasn’t going to go chasing a shadow. The worst thing might be what would happen if she caught him.

  Lumikki didn’t want to open the letter, but she couldn’t not open it. All it said was:

  I love you more than anyone else. Always.

  Your touching makes me feel alive. Living feels worth it then.

  I’ve dreamed of you for so long. I’ve read all the newspaper stories about you. The ones they wrote last summer when you saved those people from the burning building. When I was reading them, I thought that you were a hero, but that the reporters didn’t know you. They wrote about you as if you were just a clever or brave girl. They didn’t see the fierceness in your eyes.

  I know you’re like me too. Part of you wanted to watch as the fire consumed that house and those people. You have the element of destruction inside of you. You hide it because our society doesn’t approve. But we children of destruction and ruin recognize our kin.

  I have dreamed about everything I would do to you if you would give yourself completely to me. All the ways I would touch you. Ways you’ve never even dreamed of. I know I could make you completely lose control. You would beg me to stop. You would beg me to go on.

  Your touch would arouse the beast in me.

  But we are both beasts of prey, my Lumikki. We are the ones they try to kill in the fairy tales. We do not die. We always exist in the dark places, behind trees, underground, in deep waters.

  The day will come when you are completely mine. That day is coming faster than you know.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13

  Lumikki burrowed deeper under the covers. She never wanted to leave this warm nest where momentarily she could be far away from the evil world.

  The sleet could lash at the windows. The cold could try to creep through the chinks in the window frames. Under this blanket, she clung to her false sense of security.

  Björk was playing in Lumikki’s head despite the apartment being silent, singing about playing dead to make the hurting stop. Lumikki imagined an arm around her, warm breath on her neck, a body pressed against her back. She felt it. She felt the hand caressing her shoulder. She felt skin against her skin. She felt the lips that touched her lips and whose kiss made her own mouth open, made her open.

  Lumikki felt Blaze. As strongly as if he were really next to her. Lumikki finally understood that this was just the way it was. Blaze lived inside of her even if they were apart. Even if they would never see each other again. Blaze was the one whose hand Lumikki would feel squeezing her hand when she was afraid walking in the dark at night. Blaze was the one whose body heat would radiate into Lumikki when she was sitting in an armchair reading a book. Blaze was the one whose gentle touch would caress her to sleep when she was lying alone. Not Sampsa.

  Lumikki felt Sampsa when he was there. When Sampsa was against her. When Sampsa’s arms were around her waist and his lips were nuzzling her neck. Then Lumikki didn’t feel anything else or think of anyone else. They were just present for each other. But when Sampsa was gone, he was gone. Lumikki didn’t feel him next to her like she felt Blaze.

  Was that wrong?

  Could you live like that?

  Lumikki couldn’t help her feelings. She couldn’t deny them or wish them out of existence. She wasn’t going to be able to erase just by force of will the intimacy she felt with Blaze considering that more than a year of separation hadn’t done it. The feeling wasn’t wrong.

  She could decide what her actions would be. She could decide what choices she would make. She had chosen Sampsa. That was just how it was.

  Lumikki threw off her blanket and immediately felt the chill. The hard, cold floor brought her body back to reality one toe at a time. She had to venture into the outside world, to school and the hard, piercing gaze of the bright electric lights, which would scare her nightmares away and wipe her skin clean of his touch.

  Celestial brilliance, triumphal decree.

  Proclaiming the Advent for all to see.

  The starry sky burns clear and bright,

  Set the candles alight, the candles alight.

  The school staircase had been turned into a candle-lined corridor. All the other lights had been shut off. The living dance of the flickering candle flames made the school look like a fairytale castle or nineteenth-century manor house. Lumikki hadn’t remembered that this morning was the beginning of the St. Lucia procession. Lately, the tradition had begun spreading from Swedish-speaking circles to Finnish ones as well.

  Lumikki always felt conflicted about St. Lucia’s Day. There was something warm and safe about it that felt good deep down inside, but there were also unpleasant memories. One year just before she started school, Lumikki had wanted to play Lucia at home. Her daycare in Riihimäki hadn’t adopted the Lucia tradition yet. Her mother had been delighted at the idea and promised to bake Lucia buns and make a white robe and crown of candles for Lumikki to wear. But her father just looked at Lumikki long and hard, his fa
ce overshadowed by a grayness that drained all expression away.

  “This family is not going to celebrate a woman who tore her own eyes out to stop a man from molesting her because of her beauty. Who was killed by a dagger stuck in her throat after burning her to death didn’t work.”

  Lumikki still remembered her father’s words. She remembered how her excitement had died. It was like being forced to swallow icicles whole. Her mother had been furious at her father for saying anything so gruesome to a child. But for Lumikki, it wasn’t her father’s words that had hurt. The worst thing had been the way he looked right through her as if she and her eagerness and her joy didn’t even exist in his eyes.

  Lumikki had never suggested celebrating St. Lucia’s Day again.

  Now she watched as a group of high school girls descended the stairs in long, white dresses, green paper garlands on their heads, tea lights in their hands. Tinka walked at their head. Her long, red hair was an angelic cloud of curls. As she passed Lumikki, she smiled sweetly and squinted a bit in greeting.

  When the procession moved on into the mirrored lobby, and their singing began to fade, Lumikki found the words repeating in her mind in Swedish.

  Stjärnor som leda oss, vägen att finna,

  bli dina klara bloss, fagra prästinna.

  Drömmar med vingesus, under oss sia,

  tänd dina vita ljus, Sankta Lucia.

  Finnish had always been Lumikki’s stronger language. She used her Swedish much less frequently. Mostly just with her dad and his relatives. Nevertheless, for her, Swedish was the language of poetry, a language of song that strummed nameless chords of emotion within her.

  Drömmar med vingesus.

  Vingesus. How could so much beauty fit in one single word? Wings. The rustling of wings. Or soughing, like the song of the wind. Roaring like rapids or the raging of fire. Lumikki heard the word in her ears in melodic tones, sung by the clear voice of a child. The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t her own.

  Suddenly before her, she saw the steps of an old wooden house with a little girl descending them singing “Sankta Lucia” in Swedish. Rosa. This had to be her lost sister Rosa. She remembered how beautiful Rosa had looked to her, somehow heavenly, and how she had thought that the next year she wanted to be with Rosa singing. Why didn’t she have any memory of the following year? Hadn’t the next year come?

  In her memory, Rosa tenderly smiled at Lumikki. As only an older sister could smile.

  The prince laced Lumikki’s corset ever tighter.

  Just a little more and you will be an obedient wife.

  Just a little more and you will learn to behave with more virtue and restraint. You aren’t living in the woods anymore. You are a queen. You must walk slowly and with grace. You must hold your tongue when I speak. You may not shout or laugh—that is not appropriate behavior. You have beautiful dresses and precious jewels and gilded chambers. I do not understand why you are not happy. Why can you not be satisfied?

  The prince’s words echoed in Lumikki’s ears. She felt it become harder to breathe. The corset squeezed her lungs shut. The edges of her vision began to quiver and darken.

  “Just a little tighter and maybe you’ll fall back into your eternal sleep and I can return you to your glass coffin. You were more beautiful to look at there. You were better and easier. I fell in love with the maiden in the glass box, not this unruly, impudent, misbehaving person who is all too normal and real,” the prince whispered into Lumikki’s ear.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Her oxygen was running out.

  Lumikki tried to gasp for breath. It didn’t work. She simply couldn’t get air into her lungs. The sensation of drowning. The sensation of passing out. Darkness spreading its wings before her eyes.

  Lumikki collapsed, her head thumping on the floor. As her eyes swept across the stage floor, she suddenly remembered where she had seen the chest the key would fit. It was in her parents’ bedroom, under the bed, wrapped in a cloth. She had seen it there years ago when she had been in their room getting a thermometer and it had fallen on the floor and rolled under the bed. Lumikki had wondered what the object wrapped in the dark felt could be. Peeking under the fabric, she had seen a wooden chest.

  For a fleeting moment, she had thought she remembered something from her childhood about treasures, but then her mom and dad came home and Lumikki bolted from the room like she’d been doing something out of bounds. And she had never asked about the chest. Of course not. She had understood that this secret was none of her business.

  But now it was. Because she had the key.

  That was Lumikki’s final thought before she lost consciousness.

  Droplets of water on her face. Like a summer rain. Opening her eyes, Lumikki saw Sampsa’s worried gaze.

  “I’m fine,” Lumikki managed to say.

  That was a lie, but in a different way than Sampsa would have understood. Lumikki lay on a soft surface, probably a blanket from the props closet, and her feet were elevated. Her corset had been removed. In addition to Sampsa, next to her also stood Aleksi and Tinka, who was holding a water bottle. Apparently, she had been the one sprinkling water on Lumikki’s face.

  “I said be careful with the corset,” Tinka snapped at Aleksi.

  “I didn’t even make it that tight,” Aleksi said in his defense.

  “It wasn’t because of that,” Lumikki said and crawled onto her feet. Her head threatened to go black again, but she refused to give the dizziness power over her. She had to convince the others that everything was okay because otherwise they weren’t going to let her leave.

  “I probably just didn’t eat enough today. And I was up late last night.”

  Sampsa and Tinka glanced at each other. Aleksi looked relieved. Tinka frowned and looked at Lumikki closely.

  “Okay. Stuff like that happens sometimes. And you seem better now,” she finally said.

  Lumikki hoped no one would notice her legs shaking. Sampsa rubbed her back with safe, calming strokes. Lumikki felt like leaning against him and letting him support her, but now was not the time for that.

  “Let’s wrap it up here for today,” Tinka said.

  “Maybe that’s a good idea,” Lumikki said. “Since the scene is supposed to end with me getting my laces undone and running off into the forest, we went a little off script.”

  She’d managed to make the others laugh. Good.

  “Dress rehearsal in two days then. And listen, everybody. This play is going to be fantastic! Thank you for all your hard work.”

  Tinka’s energy was enough to get everyone excited. Chattering voices filled the auditorium. Aleksi nudged Lumikki gently on the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lumikki replied.

  “And now I’m going to take you home and spoil you rotten,” Sampsa whispered in Lumikki’s ear.

  Lumikki carefully disengaged herself from his embrace.

  “That sounds fantastic, but I have to go see my parents tonight.”

  Lumikki tried to look Sampsa in the eye despite how difficult it was.

  “Does it have to be tonight?” Sampsa asked.

  “Well, we have this St. Lucia Day tradition in our family.” Lie number two. Or, in a way, it wasn’t.

  Even though her father had said they weren’t going to celebrate the holiday, one of his cousins had been organizing parties on St. Lucia Day in Turku for the past few years. Lumikki knew her dad and mom would be there today and wouldn’t come home until tomorrow morning. She would have all the time she wanted to inspect the contents of the chest.

  Sampsa looked disappointed. Enduring his disappointed and still slightly concerned gaze was hard for Lumikki. But she didn’t have any choice. She had to get some answers tonight or she was going to go insane.

  As their lips touched, she tried not to think that it was a Judas kiss.

  Being home without her parents knowing felt wrong. Her footsteps echoed strangely.

 
The wrong girl in the wrong house, the echoes whispered. A ghost girl who shouldn’t be sneaking around these rooms alone.

  Of course her mom and dad would have given permission if Lumikki had asked, but she hadn’t wanted them to know. She didn’t want the extra questions that would just lead to more lies. Lumikki didn’t want to be the kind of person who lied to her loved ones, but her stalker had forced her into it with his threats.

  Lumikki hoped when she finally uncovered the secret, this “Shadow” would leave her alone. What if the stalker was just obsessed with the fact that he knew something Lumikki didn’t and the most important thing was exposing the truth?

  Lumikki silenced her inner voice that tried to whisper that an all-consuming madness like his was unlikely to be satiated by something so simple.

  Her parents’ bedroom smelled like it always had. Lavender, fresh sheets, a slight hint of houseplant soil, her dad’s aftershave, and the old lace curtains that had been her grandmother’s. Lumikki lifted up one corner of the floor-length bedspread and peeked underneath. The blanket she remembered was there on the floor. Lumikki crawled under the bed. It was dusty. Apparently, her dad didn’t vacuum as manically now as he used to when Lumikki lived at home. Good for him.

  Lumikki lifted the blanket. Suddenly, her heart was pounding frighteningly fast. Her hands were strangely cold and clammy. But all she found under the blanket was a regular cardboard box. Not an ornate chest. A brown cardboard box full of erotic magazines.

  Lumikki pushed the box back into place and covered it. It contained secrets, but not the kind of secrets she was looking for. Her parents’ sex life was absolutely none of her business and she wished she had never made even this relatively innocent discovery.

  She crawled out from under the bed coughing and brushing the dust off the knees of her jeans. Disappointment. Emptiness. Could she have remembered wrong? Had she just imagined the whole thing about the chest? What if she had just been thinking so hard about having the key that she had invented the memory of the chest and its lock that the key fit in?