As Black as Ebony Read Free Page A

into your soul.
    You have blood on your hands, Lumikki. You know it. I know it.
    I see every move you make.
    You will hear from me again soon. But know this: If you tell anyone about my messages, one single person, there will soon be much more blood. Then no one will survive the opening night of your play.
    With love,
    Your admirer, your Shadow
    Lumikki gasped and she looked up from the letter. Something flickered at the edge of her field of vision. Something black.
    But when she looked toward it, she saw nothing but the long, dreary shadows of the trees.

Alla kvällar lät prinsessan smeka sig.
    Men den som smeker stillar blott sin egen hunger
    och hennes längtan var en skygg mimosa,
    en storögd saga inför verkligheten.
    Nya smekningar fyllde hennes hjärta med bitter sötma
    och hennes kropp med is, men hennes hjärta ville ännu mer.
    Prinsessan kände kroppar, men hon sökte hjärtan;
    hon hade aldrig sett ett annat hjärta än sitt eget.
    (Every evening, the princess allowed herself to be caressed.
    But the caresser only satisfied his own hunger,
    while her desire was a shy mimosa,
    a wide-eyed fairy tale in the face of reality.
    New caresses filled her heart with a bitter flush
    and her body with ice, but her heart wanted more.
    The princess knew bodies, but she sought hearts;
    she had never seen any heart but her own.)
    Lumikki read “The Princess” quietly to herself. The words calmed her. She had read her copy of Edith Södergran’s posthumously released collection The Land Which Is Not so many times she knew every poem practically by heart. The first words always brought back the rest of the lines. Familiar poems were like mantras. Their calming effect rested on the way the words flowed one after another in just the right order, without any surprises.
    Lumikki couldn’t go straight home after reading the letter. Was someone really following her every step? She’d tried to rationalize away the fear. In all likelihood, the letter was just a bad joke. Black humor. A cruel game. Someone somewhere was laughing right now thinking about how frightened she would be, but soon they’d jump out and reveal the truth. Gotcha!
    But what if the letter was real? What if she really did have a crazy stalker who was prepared to kill people? Lumikki couldn’t risk treating the letter too cavalierly. Her life experience had left her little doubt that people were capable of evil deeds. She’d endured years of brutal school bullying and then seen up close the ruthlessness of the international drug trade. Just that past summer in Prague, she had seen a charismatic leader use fear to manipulate his religious cult into attempting mass suicide.
    All her life was missing was a deranged stalker, Lumikki thought with a bitter snort.
    The sounds around her were pleasantly muffled. Calm footsteps, the rustling of pages, hushed conversations. Lumikki knew that if she went and sat by the base of one of the arches that made up the roof, she’d be able to make out every word being said at the base of the other side of the arch. Reima and Raila Pietilä had designed the Tampere City Library that way. However, Lumikki didn’t want to hear anyone else’s private conversations right now. She wanted to be wrapped in the protective familiarity of the library’s indistinct murmurs, surrounded by people but still alone so she could calm down and build up the courage to go home. The library was only a two-minute walk from the Alexander Church.
    Lumikki had always found the building’s undulating dome and avian plume of arches soothing inside and out. There was just enough walking space between the shelves, but if you wanted, you could hide in them. The library was full of round reading tables and secret nooks where no one ever bothered you.
    Lumikki wanted to text Sampsa and ask him to come over for the night after his family dinner. No matter how late that would be. But she had never done something like that before, so Sampsa might wonder. And