As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) (6 page)

Once upon a time, there was a night that never ended. With its darkness, it devoured the sun, strangling all light and spreading its cold, black hands over the earth. The night glued the eyes of humanity shut eternally, making dreams deeper and stranger, making man and woman alike forget themselves and glide along arm in arm with imagined creatures, losing their own memories. On the walls of the buildings, the night painted its most terrifying pictures, from which all color had fled. On the faces of the sleeping populace, the night breathed cold, suffocating air, which invaded the lungs, turning them black inside.

Gasping, Lumikki opened her eyes. She was covered in sweat, and the weight of her quilt felt like it was choking her throat. She had to throw it off and sit up. Feet shoved into
slippers. Over to the window to look out across the park, a familiar scene that could soften the rock-hard anxiety of the nightmare until it was just an uneasy, hollow feeling. The moon illuminated the snowbanks, the playground swings and jungle gym, and the roofs of the buildings, wrapping them all in a silvery skin. The shadows stood in place like figures painted black on the snow.

Light shone from the windows of two different apartments. Someone else was awake this morning at 3:45 a.m. A perverse time to be awake, against human nature. Only the nightmare images of dreams were abroad at this hour, indistinguishable to the human eye from the other shadows. The bottom edge of the window was decorated in a lace of frost flowers. Instinctively, Lumikki touched the cold glass, even though she knew the ice crystals were on the other side. The warmth of her hand couldn’t melt them. Cold air breathed on her fingers through a chink in the window frame. Lumikki pulled her hand back and shivered.

There had been a time when she would wake up hoping the night would never end and the morning would never come. She’d dreamed of endless nights back then as well, but those had been hopeful dreams. Now they were nightmares. Many things had changed. Back then, Lumikki would wake up in the morning disappointed to have to get up and face another day that was unlikely to bring anything good. She knew there would be more evil on offer than a normal person could endure. But she did endure—she endured for years on end. Maybe she was as abnormal as they had claimed.

Now, though, Lumikki returned to her covers and warm bed. Exhaustion pressed her eyelids shut, and she didn’t have any more bad dreams all night. She didn’t dream any dreams at all, at least none that she remembered the next day.

Lumikki awoke again to the sun shining. It was already after ten. Her whole body felt oddly rested and refreshed. This must have been how people were supposed to feel in the morning, not like a zombie woken from the dead for the umpteenth time. She wasn’t usually one for skipping school, but this time it had probably been a good idea. She didn’t want to see Tuukka’s smug face again this soon.

Lumikki stretched her legs and arms out on the bed. What should she do today? Maybe go to the gym. Her aunt Kaisa had bought her a year membership at a fitness center for Christmas. Lumikki didn’t exactly feel at home surrounded by all the perky aerobics girls, but sweating always did her good, and she needed to build muscle. Tuukka had succeeded in surprising her and momentarily getting the upper hand. But if Lumikki could have trusted in her physical strength, breaking away and giving him a taste of his own cheek smashed against the cold rock wall would have been easy.

Do not seek power for revenge. Seek power in order to avoid situations that would make you want revenge.
That sounded noble. In reality, all it meant was that Lumikki never wanted to be at a disadvantage ever again.

She didn’t want to think about the previous day. She just wanted to think about today. Her day.

Her mom and her aunt went on and on sometimes about how important it was for women to take time to pamper themselves. “Pampering” being a synonym for shopping, chocolate, bubble baths, women’s magazines, and nail polish. Lumikki shuddered. For her, a day like that wouldn’t be pampering, it would be an awkward charade.

For her, a day of pampering meant comic books, black licorice, serious exercise, veggie curry, and above all, solitude. Her mom always wondered how she could get along so well alone. Didn’t she ever get bored? Lumikki didn’t bother saying that she was more likely to get bored being around other people, listening to their pointless small talk. Better off alone than in bad company. When she was alone, she could be completely herself. Free. No one demanding anything. No one talking when she wanted silence. No one touching her when she didn’t want to be touched.

Lumikki also enjoyed going to art shows. She would set aside several hours, load her phone with enough music, preferably Massive Attack, and go without any preconceptions, trying not to learn too much ahead of time about the artist or the exhibition theme. After paying the admission fee, she would enter the gallery staring at the floor, turn on her headphones, and close her eyes. She would empty her thoughts, filling her head with music. She would concentrate on breathing evenly and let her heart rate slow down. Once she had made the surrounding world disappear, she would open her eyes and fall into the first piece.

Sometimes she completely lost her sense of time. Pictures, colors, moods, the feeling of movement on the canvas
or paper or photograph, the sense of depth, the irregularity and texture of the surface would drag her deep into a world she didn’t completely recognize or understand, but which was still hers. Other Finns had their lakes and forests, but this was the landscape of Lumikki’s soul. Art spoke to her in a language that intermingled with music, forming pathways that led to darkness or light. The subjects weren’t important to her. What the pictures depicted or whether they depicted anything at all mattered even less. All that mattered was the feeling.

Lumikki rarely left an exhibit without getting something from it. Sometimes that did happen, but usually the reason was some external factor like hunger or fatigue or stress. Or other people being disruptive and making so much noise her music couldn’t completely drown them out. Some shows were like tornadoes that she left gasping for air and trying to regain her balance. Some she felt as a heat in her chest for days afterward. Some reverberated in her head. The colors persisted on the retinas of her eyes, painting new shades on her dreams. She was never the same person after a show as she was before.

Today wasn’t going to be an art day, though, because Lumikki had already been to see all the traveling exhibitions at the Tampere Museum of Art, the Sara Hildén Art Museum, and the TR1 Kunsthalle, and their permanent collections were old news. She usually tried to make it to a show early on, but not during the very first weeks. After the hard-core art groupies were out of the way and the wannabes were still at home on the couch.

The sun made the frost flowers on the window glitter. Lumikki reconsidered the idea of going for a short jog before breakfast. She looked at the thermometer, which said it was thirteen degrees below zero. No thanks. Breathing hard would be too much for her lungs.

Suddenly, her cell phone rang. Lumikki picked it up. She didn’t recognize the number.

Don’t answer unfamiliar numbers. Not ever.
That had been her motto before, but not anymore. These days, she had to have the courage to answer those calls too, since she lived alone and handled all her own affairs.

“Lumikki Andersson,” she said in a formal tone.

“Hi, it’s Elisa.”

Elisa? Why would Elisa be calling her?

“Tuukka told me that you know,” the girl continued quickly.

Lumikki sighed. She wasn’t going to have to convince Elisa that she wasn’t going to go looking to tell anyone too, was she?

“I didn’t know who else to call. The boys don’t want to talk about what happened. I’m totally losing it. You have to come here. I can’t stand being alone. I’m afraid. Help me.”

Elisa’s voice was high-pitched, frantic. She was clearly panicking.

“Well, I don’t know—” Lumikki began, but she couldn’t get any further before Elisa broke down in sobs.

Lumikki stared at the frost flowers. What if she just pressed the red “end” button? And then switched off the
phone?
Don’t get involved. Don’t interfere. Only worry about your own business.
Why was sticking to her mottoes so difficult now? Maybe because Elisa was crying. Maybe because no one had ever asked for her help so directly before.

“Okay, I’ll come over,” she heard herself say into the phone. So much for a day to herself.

Elisa lived in Pyynikki, across the river at the base of a large, elongated hill that looked out over the city of Tampere and its surrounding lakes. The most expensive neighborhood in the city. Lumikki felt completely out of place standing at the front gate in her shabby winter coat. A stone wall separated the large front yard from the street. At the back of the property rose the hill, which was famous for its forested walking paths. White and stately, the house itself was shockingly large. Lumikki had always imagined that at least two families must live in each of these buildings, but apparently that wasn’t true, at least in this case. There weren’t any names visible anywhere, as if the residents of these homes feared their mailboxes giving away too much about them.

One more peek at the text message. Yes, she had the right address.

Two bronze lions sat atop the stone gateposts. Each held a bronze ball protectively under its paw.
Beware of lions.

Lumikki pressed the buzzer. Within seconds, Elisa opened the front door and rushed down to the gate in some sort of pink fleece tracksuit. Lumikki might be wearing old, threadbare clothes from a thrift shop, but at least she didn’t look
like an escapee from a mental hospital. Elisa opened the gate and threw her arms around Lumikki before she could dodge out of the way.

“Thank you so much for coming! I wasn’t sure how you’d react since we don’t know each other that well,” Elisa blubbered.

She smelled of roses and affluence. Lumikki didn’t wear perfume herself, but she had trained her nose to identify different brands. She had actually become pretty good at it. There had been a time when identifying a person at a distance based only on their perfume had given her the decisive extra seconds she needed to escape.

“Joy by Jean Patoun,” she observed as she quickly extricated herself from the hug.

For her, the recent cultural innovation in Finland of hugging strangers was like a stubborn cold requiring a speedy remedy.

Elisa looked at Lumikki in astonishment.

“I didn’t know you were into perfume. I got this one last Christmas from my dad. They say it’s the world’s most expensive scent.”

“Yeah.”

Lumikki had absolutely no desire to get tangled up in some pointless conversation about perfume and Christmas presents. No small talk. She had come because Elisa had been panicked and crying. If she was just here to be some sort of lap dog, she could turn around and go back home right now. She could still make it to Body Combat class.

Elisa was bouncing around like an overstimulated pink bunny. She didn’t seem to have realized until now how tightly the temperature held them in its grip.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

Lumikki nodded.

The house was even more beautiful inside than out. High ceilings, bay windows, blond wood, pieces of furniture that clearly cost more than Lumikki paid in rent in a year, lots of winter sunshine spilling over the floors and other surfaces without revealing a single particle of dust. The maid Elisa had mentioned in the coffee shop the day before had done excellent work for her double pay.

“Downstairs is the sauna and pool area,” Elisa felt the need to report as Lumikki removed her black boots and coat, tossing her mittens, scarf, and stocking cap on the shelf above the coat hooks.

“I didn’t come here to swim,” she replied curtly.

Elisa was abashed.

“Of course not. Sorry. Do you want anything? Cappuccino, mochaccino, latte?”

“Just regular coffee. Black.”

“Okay. I’ll get it. You can go up and wait in my room.”

Lumikki started walking up the stairs. On the landing was a mirror where she glanced at this out-of-place girl. What the hell was she doing here? Agreeing to come had been a mistake. Despite herself, she was getting sucked deeper and deeper into a swamp that smelled worse by the minute.

Elisa’s room looked like something pink and black had exploded in it. The two colors dominated everything from the rugs to the walls, from the curtains to the laptop. Was this some sort of extended princess phase with a little punk rock sprinkled on top for street cred? The bedroom was twice the size of Lumikki’s studio apartment. There was also a door out to a small balcony.

Elisa seemed to have an endless array of jewelry and makeup. The bookshelf was full of horror movies and romantic comedies.

Lumikki looked for a flaw in the room. Every person’s room had a flaw, something that didn’t fit, that contradicted the impression they were trying to give.

There were two flaws in Elisa’s room.

On the lowest shelf of the bookcase was a row of books on astronomy. They had been shoved down there as if to keep them out of sight, but there were enough of them that they couldn’t just be left over from a single failed gift or there by chance. And now Lumikki remembered that Elisa had always excelled in math and physics.

The second flaw was a plump ball of yarn and knitting needles with the beginnings of a sweater or something on them. So Elisa didn’t want everything to be perfect and store bought.

Interesting. Or it would have been if Lumikki had felt any desire to get to know Elisa. Now she simply registered these irregularities and tucked them away in her mind.

“Coffee, black!” Elisa announced at the door and handed Lumikki a mug.

It was black. Elisa’s own cup was pink. This observation amused Lumikki momentarily. But the sociological fieldwork could end right there.

“Why did you ask me to come here?” she asked.

Elisa flopped down on her bed and sighed.

“I’m so afraid, and I don’t know what I should do.”