As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy) Read Free Page B

gently brushed against her cheek and she jumped back, turning on the red safelight.
    A five-hundred-euro bill.
    Dozens of five-hundred-euro bills hanging in the darkroom to dry. Were they real? Lumikki touched the surface of the nearest one with her hand. The paper felt real, at least. She looked to make sure no photographs were developing in the processing trays and then turned on the normal light.
    She squinted at the banknotes against the light. The watermarks were there, as were the see-through numbers. The security threads and holograms seemed to be in place. If the bills weren’t genuine, they were extremely well-made forgeries.
    The liquid in the processing trays was orange-brown. Lumikki tested it with a finger. Water.
    Looking down at the darkroom floor, she saw that it was covered with reddish brown smudges. She stared in confusion at the corner of one fifty, which had the same russet tint. Then she knew what had disturbed her in the darkness.
    The stench of old, dry blood.

Lumikki stared out the classroom window at the sparkling, frosted trees and the old, small gravestones. But the white postcard landscape held no interest for her. Resting her eyes there was just easier than staring at the integral on the chalkboard since her mind wanted to work on something besides math.
    She had left the cash in the darkroom. She had walked out, closed the door, and come straight to class. She hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. One period to consider what to do.
    The easiest way to get along in life is to meddle as little as possible.
    That had been Lumikki’s motto for years. No meddling, no messes, no sticking her nose in other people’s business.If you were quiet and only spoke when you had something well-thought-out to say, you got to live in peace. Even now, she wanted simply to forget the whole business. Forget the banknotes washed clean of blood. Unfortunately, she knew that wasn’t an option. The bills were already stuck in her mind just as firmly as the smell that clung to them. She knew they wouldn’t leave her in peace until she did something to clear up the mystery.
    She should probably tell the principal. That way, Lumikki could make it someone else’s problem, put it out of her own thoughts. Maybe the money had something to do with some art project. But in that case, it couldn’t be real. But why would someone have gone to so much trouble making play money? The bills looked so real that the police would be sure to consider them forgeries, and forgery was a crime.
    Or maybe the bills were real.
    Lumikki couldn’t think of a single good reason why someone would have decided to clean that much money in the darkroom of the high school. And what’s more, leave it there behind an unlocked door. It was ridiculous. Her brain churned, trying to find a logical explanation, but without success. She closed her eyes and saw the bills hanging from the drying lines. Some critical, decisive detail that would reveal the answer seemed to be missing from the picture in her mind. And it wasn’t like she was some Sherlock Holmes who could take one look and then instantly reconstruct the convoluted chain of events that led up to tons of cash hanging in a school darkroom.
    Lumikki had to talk to the principal. She should go and get the money and take it to the principal. Or should she not touch it?
    The sun beat down on the branches of the trees, which responded with a defiant glitter so dazzling it was painful to look at. Even in the warm classroom, Lumikki could hear the shrieking of the cold outside. She shivered. The stagnant air in the room was mind-numbing, and her thoughts plodded forward as if wading through thick goo.
    Then she made a decision.
    Lumikki walked toward the darkroom, wanting to confirm what she had seen. The whole scene had been so absurd that maybe she had imagined it. Or misunderstood. What if only one of the banknotes was real and the rest were just Monopoly money?
    Never jump to