Read Online As Black as Ebony by Salla Simukka - Free Book Online Page A

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.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13

Lumikki burrowed deeper under the covers. She never wanted to leave this warm nest where momentarily she could be far away from the evil world.
    The sleet could lash at the windows. The cold could try to creep through the chinks in the window frames. Under this blanket, she clung to her false sense of security.
    Björk was playing in Lumikki’s head despite the apartment being silent, singing about playing dead to make the hurting stop. Lumikki imagined an arm around her, warm breath on her neck, a body pressed against her back. She felt it. She felt the hand caressing her shoulder. She felt skin against her skin. She felt the lips that touched her lips and whose kiss made her own mouth open, made her open.
    Lumikki felt Blaze. As strongly as if he were really next to her. Lumikki finally understood that this was just the way it was. Blaze lived inside of her even if they were apart. Even if they would never see each other again. Blaze was the one whose hand Lumikki would feel squeezing her hand when she was afraid walking in the dark at night. Blaze was the one whose body heat would radiate into Lumikki when she was sitting in an armchair reading a book. Blaze was the one whose gentle touch would caress her to sleep when she was lying alone. Not Sampsa.
    Lumikki felt Sampsa when he was there. When Sampsa was against her. When Sampsa’s arms were around her waist and his lips were nuzzling her neck. Then Lumikki didn’t feel anything else or think of anyone else. They were just present for each other. But when Sampsa was gone, he was gone. Lumikki didn’t feel him next to her like she felt Blaze.
    Was that wrong?
    Could you live like that?
    Lumikki couldn’t help her feelings. She couldn’t deny them or wish them out of existence. She wasn’t going to be able to erase just by force of will the intimacy she felt with Blaze considering that more than a year of separation hadn’t done it. The feeling wasn’t wrong.
    She could decide what her actions would be. She could decide what choices she would make. She had chosen Sampsa. That was just how it was.
    Lumikki threw off her blanket and immediately felt the chill. The hard, cold floor brought her body back to reality one toe at a time. She had to venture into the outside world, to school and the hard, piercing gaze of the bright electric lights, which would scare her nightmares away and wipe her skin clean of his touch.
    Celestial brilliance, triumphal decree.
    Proclaiming the Advent for all to see.
    The starry sky burns clear and bright,
    Set the candles alight, the candles alight.
    The school staircase had been turned into a candle-lined corridor. All the other lights had been shut off. The living dance of the flickering candle flames made the school look like a fairytale castle or nineteenth-century