As Black as Ebony by Salla Simukka

carry her weight. She fumbled around on the living room table for her phone. She had to call her mom and dad right now. It didn’t matter what time it was. It didn’t matter if they might already be sleeping. Liars. Deceivers. You couldn’t do things like this to someone you loved. Could you? How could they have concealed something this big from her all her life?
    Lumikki had to ask.
    Now.
    She had to know what had happened to Rosa. Just then, a series of text messages showed up. Lumikki knew immediately who they must be from.
    I see you. You’re standing with your phone in your hand. But don’t make that call. You don’t want the leading role on opening night played by blood spattered on the walls. Blood running across the stage. Enough blood to fill every seat. You don’t want your nice but stupid boyfriend falling down in the middle of his lines and staring at you with lifeless eyes. And you know canceling the show wouldn’t help anything. I would still find all of you and act out my script. You are beautiful right now. A person who has seen the truth is always beautiful.
    Lumikki rushed to turn off the living room lights even though she knew it wouldn’t help anything.
    Then she stood stock-still in the dark room and stared into the yard, trying to see something. Only blackness gazed back.
    Lumikki let the hand holding the phone fall and hang limply. She knew she couldn’t call.

Knowledge is beautiful and cruel, my dear Lumikki. With knowledge, you can do anything. Knowledge leads to action and belief and trust. It gives us true power.
    If you know the right people, you can always get more information and find exactly what you’re looking for. I know so much about you because I wanted to know. My thirst for knowledge was like a person who has never had a proper drink. I knew how to ask the right questions from the right people. I found ways to get everything everyone was trying to keep secret.
    Nothing is secret when you’re as thirsty for knowledge as I am.
    People are always ready to make an exception once you convince them they have a reason to share. Sometimes that takes money and sometimes other forms of payment. Usually, cash isn’t necessary though, because people want to tell what they know, even their most sensitive secrets. It’s in the blood.
    I’ve been patiently collecting information about you, piece by piece. I didn’t rush. I knew I had time, and when the time was right, you would be ready to accept what I found.
    Knowledge is power.
    Truth is beauty.
    I will make you more powerful and beautiful than anyone else.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14

Always walk in the light, Lumikki.
    Those were Lumikki’s grandmother’s final words to her. Pancreatic cancer had taken her Grammy five years before. Lumikki had visited Grammy in the hospital and leaned in close so Grammy could stroke Lumikki’s cheek with her dry, wrinkled hand. Grammy had been widowed at a young age and left to raise four children on her own. Lumikki had loved Grammy, this strong yet fragile woman, without question or reserve. Grammy had loved her too. Lumikki never doubted that for a second. Her father’s parents were more distant, though. They lived in Åland, and Lumikki didn’t see them much.
    But how could even Grammy have hidden from Lumikki that she had a sister? Lumikki felt as if she had been thrust into a strange, artificial reality where everyone was conspiring against her. Candid camera. A giant play.
    A reality TV show that was actually scripted but Lumikki was the only one who didn’t know.
    Always walk in the light.
    Her grandmother’s words came to Lumikki’s mind as she walked past the central square downtown on her way home from school. The patterns of the Christmas lights bathed the whole street in yellow and gold brilliance. The flower and snowflake shapes, strands of lights wrapped around tree trunks and branches, and the lights and window displays in the stores made you forget that, if the city ever suddenly