As Black as Ebony (7 page)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12

The black water dragged Lumikki ever farther down. She couldn’t have reached the surface even if she tried. But she didn’t want to try. Under the water was a forest. Different from any forest on land. The trunks and branches of the trees were in a constant, fluid swaying motion. They were flexible. They were soft, water plants.

Lumikki sank deeper and deeper. Now she could see something shining on the bottom. It was a small chest. It looked familiar. Lumikki realized that the brass key she had been given would fit the lock on the chest. They belonged together.

Lumikki tried to get to the chest, but suddenly, her feet became stuck in the black bottom muck. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her oxygen was running out. Lumikki knew that her lungs would soon fill with water and she would die.

“Fear.”

Hearing this word stated emphatically snapped Lumikki awake. She had just nodded off. It took her a few seconds to realize she was in psychology class and that the teacher’s voice had woken her up. Running to Milavida Palace the night before felt like a distant nightmare, but two concrete pieces of evidence remained. Insane exhaustion and the small brass key that was in her jeans pocket and kept tempting her hands to finger it over and over again.

The chest. She remembered the chest. But where had she seen it . . . ?

“Fear is one of the primary drivers of human behavior,” the teacher, Henrik Virta, continued. “Sometimes I wonder if we should even talk about courage. Perhaps there’s no such thing as courage. Only fear.”

“How do you justify that?” Tinka asked without raising her hand.

“We often hear that courage is the conquering of fear. As I see it, fear itself is what drives us to act and can make us do things we wouldn’t be able to otherwise. So, sometimes, fear looks like courage.”

Henrik’s voice was deep and pleasant. He had always been one of Lumikki’s favorite teachers because he knew how to say things in a way that made you think, but didn’t try too hard to be provocative.

“But doesn’t fear make you run and courage makes you stay and fight?” Aleksi asked.

“You can think of it that way. But you can also argue that fear gives us instructions about how best to act in any given situation. The fear of death is one of the strongest. And sometimes it makes us run away, but other times, it motivates us to fight,” Henrik said.

Lumikki was still tired and would have liked just to lay her head on her arms on her desk and sleep, sleep, sleep. Sitting next to her, Sampsa stroked Lumikki’s arm.

“Go home after class and take a nap. You look like the walking dead,” he whispered.

“Thanks,” Lumikki snorted.

That morning, Sampsa had remarked on how exhausted Lumikki looked. Lumikki had just said that she hadn’t been able to sleep very well. What else could she have said? Her stalker was very clear that she wasn’t allowed to breathe a word about him or his messages to anyone. Sampsa thought Lumikki should just stay home from school, but she didn’t feel like she could stand being alone right now. Rest sounded good right now, though. It sounded imperative.

After class ended, Henrik asked Lumikki to stay after. Sampsa had to hurry to his next class, so he just raised his hand to his ear signaling that he would call. Lumikki nodded in reply.

“I just wanted to check and make sure you’re planning to take the psychology college entrance exam in the spring,” Henrik said.

“I guess,” Lumikki replied.

“I wouldn’t ask, but you’re definitely the most talented student I’ve had in years. We aren’t really supposed to say things like that, but I wanted you to know.”

Henrik patted Lumikki lightly on the shoulder.

“Okay. Thanks,” Lumikki said, off balance.

She was relieved when Henrik turned back to his papers, indicating that their conversation was over. Lumikki needed sleep so bad it was painful.

The doorbell woke Lumikki from a dream about kissing Blaze. In her dream, she felt as the brass key slipped from her mouth into his.

Lumikki got out of bed still wrapped in the dream. She peered through the peephole.

Blaze. Of course. Lumikki wasn’t even surprised.

She opened the door even though she had promised herself she wasn’t going to let Blaze in anymore. The kiss from the dream still tingled on her lips. At first, Blaze didn’t say anything. Taking off his orange gloves, he lightly stroked Lumikki’s cheek with cool fingers.

“I had to come,” he said. “Ever since our last meeting, I’ve had this feeling you were afraid of something. I had to come make sure you’re alright. You know I would protect you from any of the evil in this world.”

His words pierced Lumikki like burning arrows. Something inside her cracked and crumbled.

Because someone could see her so clearly. Could sense the emotions she tried so hard to hide.

Lumikki grabbed Blaze by the neck and pulled him to her. She gazed into his eyes as long as she could. Plunging into the ice water. Jumping into the blue of the sky. Stepping into the hottest, blue-white, most incandescent part of the fire. Then she kissed Blaze and let her lips and mouth and tongue communicate all the longing and misery and desire and passion that had been tearing her apart since they broke up.

As soon as the kiss began, Lumikki knew.

This was their forest. This was their lake. This was their ink-black, clear sky full of points of light.

All these things surrounded them simultaneously. Nothing had disappeared. The light finding its tiny paths through the leaves of the trees. The calming dark. The rustling, the scratching, the cooing, the soughing of the wind, the lapping, the gently rocking waves, the cool currents and warm pockets of water, the feeling of weightlessness, the giddiness, the immensity, time and eternity, the air that flowed into your lungs freely, the pulse of the universe, their shared heart.

Lumikki didn’t remember when she had last felt something as hard and unpleasant as breaking away from that kiss. But she had to.

How could something that felt so right be so wrong?

“We can’t see each other. At least for a while. I’m with Sampsa now,” Lumikki managed to say.

She forced herself to take a step backward. The distance to Blaze felt painfully far. They should have been able to be right against each other. But they couldn’t.

“Do you love him?” Blaze asked.

He asked it in such a serious tone that Lumikki felt she owed him an honest answer.

“I’m not sure I know what love is,” she said.

“Why are you with him then? Why are you pushing me away? Is it because he’s a real boy?”

Exhaustion washed over Lumikki.

“Of course not. Don’t even joke about that.”

“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.