As Black as Ebony Read Free

tied the laces of her combat boots.
    Her hands were still trembling slightly from the intensity of the scene.
    “See you tomorrow. I gotta run. I’m already late and my mom’s gonna kill me.”
    Sampsa kissed Lumikki’s forehead, threw his backpack over his shoulder, and left. The last couple of scenes had given him time to change out of his huntsman costume already. Every Friday night, his whole family got together for dinner, including Sampsa’s grandparents and an aunt who lived in Tampere. They had been doing it for years, so Sampsa didn’t feel like he could skip out. He’d invited Lumikki a couple of times, but so far she had declined. The thought of the way everyone would stare as they sized her up was unpleasant. Lumikki had promised to come for coffee on Sunday though, when only Sampsa’s parents and little sister would be home. That sounded like more than enough for her.
    The dark, deserted school lay in a drowsy silence as Lumikki and Tinka walked down the stairs to the mirrored front lobby. The halls looked strange empty, and their steps echoed. During the day, they were crammed with students and the decibel level exceeded industrial safety limits.
    Tinka was analyzing the problems with each scene of the play, but Lumikki couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. Had agreeing to act in the play been a mistake? She didn’t like how much she lost herself in her role and how the real world disappeared around her. She wasn’t pretending to be Snow White running through the forest. She was Snow White running through the forest, feeling and smelling blood on her hands. Snow White’s pulse was Lumikki’s pulse. Lumikki wasn’t used to that kind of loss of self-control, and it frightened her.
    Eventually, Tinka noticed Lumikki’s distance, and they donned their coats in silence. Around her neck, Lumikki wrapped the heavy, red wool scarf her former classmate Elisa had made for her and sent in the mail. They still kept in touch. Last winter, Lumikki never could have guessed Elisa would become a true friend.
    Outside, it was snowing large, fluffy flakes that melted the instant they touched the black ground. No hope yet that December would turn out white.
    “Some of the cast might be a little checked out still, but at least you aren’t. You’re killing it,” Tinka said as they walked through the schoolyard gates.
    Then she waved and headed in the opposite direction from Lumikki, who didn’t manage to get out anything sensible in reply. Mud squelched under Lumikki’s boots as she turned toward downtown. Farther along the path, she saw the school psychology teacher and one of the math teachers, who had apparently been working late too. This time of year, the teachers tended to work long hours grading tests and essays. Some of them preferred not to take their work home, staying at school late into the evening instead. In a way, it was nice seeing them outside of school, chatting and laughing together. Even so, Lumikki was happy to be far enough behind them not to be able to make out any of their words. She thought it was best to know as little as possible about her teachers’ private lives.
    The illuminated red brick tower of the Alexander Church rose into the sky, stately and familiar. It was so dark that the few old gravestones in the churchyard were invisible from the path. The large snowflakes looked like feathers against the black branches of the trees. Fallen from the wings of angels. Lumikki pushed her hands deeper into her coat pockets and walked faster.
    In her left pocket, she felt the rustle of something strange, something that didn’t belong there. Lumikki pulled it out. It was a white sheet of paper, folded four times. Lumikki opened it fold by fold to find a short letter typed on a computer. She stopped under a street lamp to read it.
    My Lumikki,
    Your prince doesn’t know you. Not in the play and not in real life. He only sees your outer shell. He only sees a part of you. I see deeper,