As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (24 page)

Violence, torture, and subjugation. Lumikki refused to think of what she experienced as “bullying” because that sounded like something minor, transitory, and simple. Just a little fun. Just a little kidding. Just a little shoving. Oh, she just fell on her own. It’s just an inside joke we have.

In the eighth grade, Lumikki secretly started running and lifting weights. She had decided to be in the best physical
condition she could so she could run away. That had worked a little better every time, but it hadn’t made the nightmare end.

Then, once. On a late, wintry afternoon when the sun had already disappeared below the horizon and the schoolyard was empty. Lumikki hid behind the compost bin until she was sure Vanessa and Anna-Sofia had left. She had endured the stench of banana peels and pea soup leftovers that filled the frozen air, radiating with the heat of the decomposition process. She waited until everything was silent. A blue dusk fell over the schoolyard. Peace.

Lumikki left her hiding place. She moved noiselessly. She melted into the gray shadows, little more than a breath of wind on the trampled snow. She heard the sounds of cars from blocks away. She heard dogs barking in a distant park. She heard snow sliding off the school roof. But she heard Vanessa and Anna-Sofia’s footsteps too late. Too late, she dashed off on legs newly filled with explosive power. It just wasn’t enough. The girls drove her into the back corner of the yard where high brick walls rose up. Running toward the wall, Lumikki pulled off her mittens and shoved them in her pockets. She grabbed the wall’s rough bricks with her fingers and tried to climb. Her feet couldn’t find any purchase. Her fingers froze in the cold air and wouldn’t hold on. She was trapped.

Lumikki turned, pressing her back against the brick wall and preparing to receive their blows. She had learned how to take a hit. She already knew how best to shield herself. She knew when to breathe in and when to breathe out, when to
tense her muscles and when to relax. She just hoped the beating wouldn’t last very long today. She was cold and needed to pee. She wanted to go home. She wanted to eat her dad’s slightly burned fish sticks and do her homework and not think anything.

Anna-Sofia and Vanessa approached. They didn’t say anything. Silence was worse than insults and threats, condensing into an anticipation that brought the taste of bile to Lumikki’s mouth. The girls crept toward her softly like wolves. Lumikki would have preferred to meet hungry, angry wolves than this pair whose hair shone in the dusk, their lips sparkling red. These were much more dangerous creatures, with ice in place of warm blood pumping through their hearts.

Slowly, Lumikki counted down from ten, waiting for the first breach of her physical borders. She didn’t know whether it would be a light shove on the shoulder, a swift kick in the stomach, or a glop of peppermint spit in her face.

Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .

Suddenly, Lumikki felt something hot and red growing inside. It was strange. It didn’t feel like it was coming from her. Anger. Rage. A blinding desire not to be afraid. The numbers disappeared, thought disappeared, time and place disappeared. Afterward, she could never say what had happened. A piece of her memory was missing. A gaping hole in the time line.

She was sitting on Anna-Sofia in the snow, punching her in the face with all her might. On her knuckles was something warm and dark. Dimly, she understood that it was blood from Anna-Sofia’s nose. She more sensed than felt that Vanessa was
trying to tear her off. Lumikki’s elbow made contact with Vanessa’s stomach, and the girl let go.

Lumikki didn’t know how long she had been pummeling Anna-Sofia. She was watching herself from somewhere far away. A girl with tears and snot running uncontrollably down her cheeks and jaw. Whose arms rose and fell less powerfully with every stroke. Was that really her? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Anna-Sofia whimpering and protecting her face, Vanessa holding her stomach and screaming for Lumikki to stop. Wasn’t that backward? Then suddenly, Lumikki burst back into her own body, feeling Anna-Sofia’s soft, submissive form under her, and the rage was gone.

She stood up. Her legs trembled. Her hands hung limp. The cold nipped at her fingers. She wiped her wet face. Anna-Sofia sat up hunched over, and Vanessa knelt next to her. They did not look Lumikki in the eye. Lumikki did not look them in the eye. No one said anything. Silence spoke louder than words.

With shaking, exhausted legs, Lumikki set off toward home. She was not afraid that the girls would follow her and try to get revenge. She was not afraid of anything. She did not feel anything. She did not think anything. Halfway home, she stopped on the side of the road and vomited. The pea soup looked surprisingly similar to how it had before being eaten.

At home, she slipped straight into the bathroom before her parents could see. The girl who looked back from the mirror was a stranger. On her cheeks were streaks of blood. In wonder, Lumikki raised her hands and touched them. The girl in the mirror did the same. The blood was not hers. It
was Anna-Sofia’s blood. Lumikki washed her face once, twice, three times, four times with water as hot as she could stand. She scrubbed her hands with soap until they stung.

After finally getting in bed that night, she drifted off immediately and slept long into the morning without dreaming. When a beep from her cell phone woke her up, she felt worse than she ever had before. Worse than the mornings after she’d been beaten black and blue.

Lumikki was sure things wouldn’t end there. Anna-Sofia and Vanessa would never let it go. She would be punished one way or another, officially or not. They would never give up on revenge.

One day passed, then two, three, a week, a month. Nothing happened. Anna-Sofia and Vanessa simply left her alone. Yes, she was still isolated from the rest of her class and no one spoke to her voluntarily, but there were no more beatings. Or names. Or text messages threatening to kill her.

Everything just stopped.

Gradually, Lumikki began to trust it. She breathed more easily. Spring came, bringing with it more light and fewer school days. As she listened to the others singing “Den blomstertid nu kommer,” the hymn they always sang at every graduation, Lumikki felt something heavy and black release its grip on her. With her ninth-grade diploma in hand, she walked out into the streaming sunlight, summer, and freedom.

The snow shone yellow. Then orange. Then a moment later, green. Lumikki saw the lights and heard a pop. Golden stars fell from the sky. Then enormous roses burst into life, their
petals opening, melting, and vanishing. A unicorn struggled toward the moon. The planets danced. Fireworks.

In honor of Polar Bear, probably.

It was probably almost twelve thirty.

Lumikki thought of the small tracker strapped to her thigh. She considered the instructions she had given Elisa in case she didn’t return from the party or report back by midnight.

She had to leave the party before the clock struck twelve.

But wasn’t that a different story? Cinderella?

The crackling continued. Lumikki floated on multicolored waves. She felt fine. Just tired.

“Every evening when the lamp turns out and real night arrives.”

Wasn’t that how the lullaby went?

Wasn’t that how the blue dream began?

Blue, blue, sparkling blue.

For a moment, Lumikki thought the fireworks were still going. Then she realized that she wasn’t hearing explosions anymore. A wailing started.

A white wall. A sterile smell. Bright lights.

Sickening, pulsating pain somewhere far away. Lumikki couldn’t think about it. The taste of antibiotics in her mouth.

Drip, drip, drip. Something was flowing into her. She was attached to something. She vaguely remembered that there were names for all these things surrounding her. She didn’t have the strength to think of them though.

Figures moving in front of the lights.

Familiar faces.

Mom. Dad.

Sounds from far away, behind glass, above the surface of the water, on the other side of a wall.

“The doctor said she’s turned a corner. Don’t cry, darling.
Älskling
. She’ll be all right. She’s a fighter.”

“I just can’t stop thinking. I don’t think I could survive if we lost her too.”

“We won’t. Hush. Hush.”

Too? Who had Mom and Dad lost? Lumikki wanted to ask, but she couldn’t form the words. Opening her mouth would have taken an overwhelming effort. She just wanted to sleep. She would have to remember to ask later. Sometime later. After she had slept for a hundred years.

But wasn’t that a different story? Sleeping Beauty?

Lumikki felt herself sinking into the bed, into its softness, slipping through the mattress as if through layers of cloud, and flying.

On the card was a black-and-white photograph of a muscular naked man holding a kitten in a strategic location. Lumikki didn’t even need to turn the card over to guess who it was from.

Hey, girl!

Everything’s okay here. Mom isn’t as nervous as before, and I’m sleeping through the night without waking up all the time, and I don’t even look behind myself all the time when I’m walking down the street now. It’s been good for me to have some free time away from everything. I’m applying for cosmetology school here. If I get in, I start in the fall. I’m pretty sure that’s going to be my thing.

Jenna

PS I’m already used to my new name. I don’t turn around anymore when someone shouts my old name on the street or anything.

PPS I haven’t been to see Dad. Maybe someday. I still can’t deal. I’m sure you understand. I can’t even write anything about it without starting to cry.

PPPS I knitted you some gloves. They’ll come in the mail later. Sorry it took a while. It’s too late for you to need them now, but you’ll have them next fall.

Lumikki smiled. She glanced out the window. Elisa, or, well, Jenna now, was right. It was already the end of June and bewilderingly hot. Everything was blooming and radiant.

It was good to hear she was doing well. Her dad had gone to jail, along with Boris Sokolov. They’d been prosecuted with unusual speed. The police department had been anxious to get it over with as fast as possible so they could start cleaning up their image. Both had received long sentences. Sokolov’s Estonian sidekick Linnart Kask had also been sent to prison. Elisa and her mother had moved to another part of the country and changed their names. That was probably smart under the circumstances. Elisa had sworn up and down to Child Protective Services that she was done with drugs. Lumikki believed her. Elisa and her mom would have to find a totally new way to live their lives and be a family. That wasn’t necessarily all bad.

Lumikki’s left hand gravitated to the short-cropped hair at the back of her neck. She still wasn’t used to such a short
hairdo, although it did feel liberating. Once blond roots had become obvious under her dyed black bob, she made the decision. A never-ending spiral of hair dying wasn’t appealing, and she hated the way the combination of fair skin and dark hair drew attention to her name. So, super short hair and her natural color it was. She also liked how simple the style was.

The truth was, it felt safer to see a completely different girl staring back from the mirror than the one who had attended Polar Bear’s party. Not that she was actually afraid of anyone from the party recognizing her on the street. People were surprisingly blind when visual images were removed from their original contexts. Since no one could imagine that a girl with no makeup, traipsing down the street in old combat boots and a green army jacket, could ever have been at a high-class party, the conclusion was obvious: she hadn’t been there. The human mind was just that simple. Stupid, really, but so lucky for her.

Over the past two months, Elisa/Jenna had sent Lumikki cards a few times before. Lumikki kept them under the false bottom of the top drawer of the dresser in her old room.

Yes, she was living at home again. In Riihimäki, that is, in the house where she grew up. After the events of the winter, the police had interrogated her first and then her parents had. She had told both only the bare minimum. Her parents had insisted that she move back home “at least for the time being.” Lumikki tolerated it even though her old room was so full of the past and felt so small. She commuted back to school in Tampere by train, even though that meant waking up at an inhuman hour.