“I look about as natural as a pet poodle with a bow on its head. It’s humiliating.”
Lumikki put the pictures away. But the images stayed with her, and that was why Blaze was also Laura with those wide smiles and pigtails.
By the same token, Blaze was also Lauri, the legal name he’d have once the physical transition was complete. For Lumikki, all three could be one and the same person without any contradiction. Laura, Lauri, Blaze. For her, there wasn’t anything difficult or problematic about it. For Blaze himself, though, it wasn’t so easy.
“Since I was a kid, I always felt like there was something wrong with me. That I had the wrong name and the wrong clothes and that I looked all wrong. That I acted all wrong. Or that people looked at me and assumed something, but then I didn’t actually feel like I was what they assumed at all.”
“You shouldn’t have to worry about what other people think.”
“News flash, Lumikki: The world happens to be full of other people. And we all have to get along with them somehow. Work. Hobbies. Life. And not everyone is as open-minded as you. I would think you’d know that by now. You of all people.”
Blaze looked past Lumikki. Lumikki saw from the tension in his jaw that he was gritting his teeth. Bringing up her school bullying was a little uncalled-for. And besides, that was never about open-mindedness or tolerance. Nothing Lumikki could have been or done or said ever would have been right in the minds of her tormentors. Being selected as their victim had been pure, cruel chance. The violence had simply been violence. They had wanted to hurt her and break her spirit, and that was that.
Blaze and Lumikki’s conversations grew into arguments, and their arguments grew into fights.
The fights always fell into the same trap.
Blaze thought Lumikki didn’t understand or was being too cavalier about what he was dealing with. Lumikki promised over and over to support Blaze no matter what happened, but Blaze thought she could never understand the pain and agony and emptiness he felt.
“For you, your body has always just been your own. You haven’t ever had to think about it,” Blaze argued.
Lumikki admitted that might be true. But why would that stop her from standing by his side?
“I’m probably going to be pretty pissy company during the next stages of the transition. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to stand myself. What I do know is that I can’t be responsible for anyone else’s happiness. It’s better if I’m alone. Otherwise, I’ll just end up hurting you for no reason.”
Lumikki soon realized her objections were futile. Blaze had made his decision. He had made his choice, and that choice didn’t include Lumikki.
Lumikki rolled over onto her stomach on the hostel bed and punched her pillow, which had long since lost its shape. Dark thoughts were burrowing out of the corners of her mind again where Lumikki thought she had swept them away for good.
Where was Blaze right now? Who was he with? Did he already have a new girlfriend who could lie with him on the dock of their cabin, protected from the eyes of prying neighbors? Was he stealing to her side and placing his soft yet strong hand lightly on her stomach, watching as first she’d smile with her eyes closed and then gradually bite her lower lip as her breath quickened—even though Blaze was still doing nothing more than resting his hand on her smooth skin.
Was someone else making Blaze laugh right now? After lighting in his icy eyes that fire that was like joy condensed into light? The thought was too much for Lumikki to bear. It tore her up inside and left a bad taste in her mouth. She knew how irrational her feelings were, but she couldn’t help it.
That was what Lumikki hated the most. That she was possessive of a person who had chosen to exile her from his life. She was blindingly jealous even though she didn’t know if Blaze even had someone in his life or not. Maybe the uncertainty was the worst thing. If she’d known, she could have been angry or bitter or even sad, but now all she could do was toss and turn in bed and hit her pillow and wonder if maybe, just maybe . . .
Lumikki could always imagine the worst. She could imagine the most beautiful girl in the world with the best-reasoned opinions and the funniest stories and the most elegant manners. Who could make Blaze so giddy with joy and desire and love that he wouldn’t even remember being with Lumikki.
Lumikki knew she was torturing herself for nothing. In the morning, everything black would look gray, colorless, trivial, and embarrassing again. She would wonder why she’d spent her time obsessing over something so stupid. She would decide never again to be jealous of someone who wasn’t even in her life anymore.
But Lumikki also knew that, sometime soon, the nights would come again when nothing could hold back the dark thoughts, and they would wash over her, drown her.
The last time they saw each other was at a city park overlooking the lake. The wind was blowing, foreshadowing the approaching autumn as it tugged at the leaves of the trees. Some were already yellow. On the peninsula below, where the amusement park stood, whitecaps slapped the shore.
It’s a windy summer we’re having.
Birk’s words from Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter sparkled in Lumikki’s mind. But it wasn’t a windy summer. Summer was nearly past. It was ending. The wind also grabbed Blaze’s hair, whipping it around. Lumikki knew with painful clarity that she could no longer extend her hand and smooth that hair. The right to touch was denied her now. A distance had grown between them that was colder than the rock on which they sat and wider than the lake spread out before them. Lumikki couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t bridge the distance. She couldn’t replace it with the warmth that still burned within her. Blaze had shut her out. He wouldn’t even meet Lumikki’s gaze anymore.
They exchanged a few words that last afternoon, but Lumikki remembered the silence best. It wasn’t their old kind of silence—a good, peaceful silence in which they could both be safe. This kind of silence was hollow, chilling, squeezing the air from your lungs. It screamed, demanding words to fill the emptiness, but neither of them had those words.
They had used them up. Eaten them. The promises they had never actually spoken, but which had bound them together, had been broken.
Suddenly, Blaze extended his hand and took Lumikki’s. Involuntarily, Lumikki flinched as his touch sent millions of jolts of electricity running from her hand along her arm to every part of her body. Especially her pelvis. Damn it. Why did Blaze have to have such power over her? Lumikki automatically closed her eyes, hoping Blaze would do what he used to. That he would lift her hand and turn her inner wrist toward him, pressing his lips to her skin gently but insistently. Nothing made Lumikki go crazy quite as quickly as that did.
Blaze didn’t kiss her, though. Lumikki felt something metallic in her palm. She felt as Blaze closed her fingers around the object and released his grip. Lumikki opened her eyes, lifting her hand and looking at the object. It was a silver brooch with a perfect dragon coiled on it.
“It’s for you. Because everyone should have their own personal dragon,” Blaze said quietly.
Tears welled in Lumikki’s eyes. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t have said anything, even to thank him.
She still had the brooch, but she could never bring herself to look at it. Even so, she remembered its every detail, its weight in her hand, how the cool metal of the delicate scales warmed against her skin.
Her own personal dragon.
But what was she supposed to do with a dragon if the fire was missing from her life?
SATURDAY, JUNE 18
There is no such thing as a benign cult. That was the conclusion Jiři Hašek had come to after months of research. He’d spent many sleepless nights reading studies, reports, personal accounts, biographies, and online message boards. In some way or another, they were all dark and disturbing, every last one of them. Even the ones that advocated for nothing but love and flowers and fluffy bunnies and peace on earth. Or pretended to. Somewhere in the background, there was always something off. Greed, se
xual abuse, drugs, dangerous rituals, or at the very least, strange dietary practices and bad hygiene.
Jiři had studied the signs of a dangerous sect or cult, which included black-and-white thinking, an authoritarian structure, and social isolation. Rare was the sect that held together without a powerful, charismatic leader and rigid views on what was good and what was evil, what was right and what was wrong. It was precisely the assurance that their sect’s truth was the only truth that kept people in them and made them believe that a better future was reserved for them and them alone. Sometimes in the afterlife, sometimes on another planet. They were the chosen ones. The elect. The ones who would be saved from perdition.
Heaven’s Gate was one of the main groups Jiři had researched for background. Founded in the early 1970s by Marshall Applewhite, this American cult combined Christianity and a belief in UFOs. The cult members called each other “brother” and “sister,” and lived together in a large mansion they rented in California, which they refereed to as their “monastery.” Cult members were permitted virtually no contact with outsiders. Applewhite had himself castrated, and five other members of the sect followed his example. Members of the group believed that aliens from outer space would bring them peace and offer them a home on another planet.
Not that there was anything wrong with that. People could believe whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted to their own bodies. The story took a tragic turn, though, when Applewhite convinced the others that a spaceship was hiding in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet and that souls of the cult members could catch a ride on it. Over a three-day period in March, 1997, and under Applewhite’s direction, nearly forty members of Heaven’s Gate committed suicide.
Unfortunately, Heaven’s Gate was far from unique. Jonestown, the Branch Davidians, the Order of the Solar Temple . . . The names sounded gentle, some even beautiful, but all of their stories ended with tragedy and death. Then there were the cults that weren’t satisfied with killing their own members and had to look for victims outside. In 1995, a group called Aum Shinrikyo planned and carried out a gas attack in the Tokyo subway, killing twelve people and injuring thousands.
The more information Jiři gathered about these religious sects, the more they repulsed him. If he could play some small part in thwarting the plans of just one of them, he could feel like his work had meant something.
Jiři looked at the man sitting in front of him and wondered when he had lost his faith and decided to break the code of silence. The man’s appearance brought to mind an emaciated dog who had been beaten every day of its life. He was frail, his narrow shoulders looking even narrower due to his slouch. His dark eyes constantly scanned the other tables and customers in the café, and Jiři had a hard time keeping the man’s attention for more than a few seconds. He looked like he was about fifty, though he was probably only in his forties. Had there been a time when this man really believed that he was one of God’s elect? There had to have been. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have stayed in the cult all these years.
The man revealed very little about himself. Not his name, of course, but Jiři hadn’t expected that. Jiři had received a tip from his boss that the man might possibly be coaxed into doing an anonymous video interview. His boss hadn’t divulged where the connection to the man had come from, and Jiři hadn’t asked. He’d learned it was better not to ask too many questions. If someone offered up a key informant for your big exposé on a silver platter, you didn’t go second-guessing it. Grab whatever opportunities come along. That had been a guiding principle in Jiři’s life.
“So no one will be able to recognize me?” the man asked for the umpteenth time.
Jiři held in his exasperated sigh and explained patiently, “That’s the whole idea of an anonymous interview. You’ll have your back to the camera, and we can even blur your silhouette or dress you in a large hoodie or something to make identification even more difficult. And your voice will be changed completely.”
At the corner table in the dimly lit café, the man nervously clasped his hands as if in prayer and then pulled them apart again, rubbing the back of one hand with a thumb and then picking at his cuticles. Jiři noticed how dry the man’s skin was. The cult might have rules about using cosmetic products like hand cream.
“There are twenty of us in all. We live a little ways outside the city,” the man said in muted tones.
“Where exactly?” Jiři asked.
The man shook his head violently.
“I can’t tell you that.”
Maybe not yet, Jiři thought, but he intended to get this man to trust him so completely that he would voluntarily divulge the exact location of the house. Right now, it was best not to press. Jiři moved on to something else.
“How long have you been involved?”
“From the beginning. About twenty years. At first, there were just a few of us, but over the years, we’ve found new family members.”
“How do you support yourselves? Do you work?”
“Some of us do. Everything we earn is shared and gets used for the common good of the family. No one gets any more than anyone else. When we join the family, we give everything we own to the family.”
“So it’s a little like communism?” Jiři asked, trying to lighten the mood.
The man looked at him long and hard. Any attempt at levity was clearly doomed.
“Our life is very austere. We don’t need much. Worldly things are all vanity in the end.”
There was a strange mixture of melancholy and pride in his voice. As if he knew he’d spent his best years living in inhumane conditions, but still felt he had been doing right.
Jiři didn’t want to rush the man, but he needed something more concrete. So far, he hadn’t heard anything particularly alarming, nothing that would indicate he had the makings of the story of the decade on his hands. People had every right to live in communes and spend all their time praying to God. That wasn’t a scoop. “Hey, everybody, look: we’ve got a bunch of weirdoes living here,” wasn’t the basis for a real story. People did like gawking at weirdos, but the most you could get out of that was a human interest piece, not a big exposé.
“Do you have children there too?” Jiři finally asked. “What kind of punishment is used if members of the religion are disobedient?”
“We don’t use the word ‘religion,’ ” the man replied quickly. “We’re a family.”
“Okay, let’s say ‘family’ then. What we call it doesn’t matter,” Jiři said.
“Yes, it does,” the man argued. “Because we really are a family. The White Family.”
Jiři wrote the words down in his notebook. The name might have some significance. But what mattered even more right now was that, by writing something down, he was demonstrating that he valued what the man was saying. It was all about trust.
“Does your family have any enemies? And I don’t just mean spiritual enemies. I mean physical enemies here on earth,” Jiři tried.
There had to be some reason he had been assigned to investigate this cult. Somewhere, there had to be a dark secret he could uncover.
The man glanced around, then leaned in and lowered his voice.
“Actually, here on earth we—” the man began.
Just then, someone walked past their table. The man jumped as if a balloon had just popped next to his ear. Jiři glanced at the passerby. Just a girl on her way to the restroom. Short brown hair and a tank top. Not someone he would glance at twice under normal circumstances. And she looked like a tourist, so she probably wouldn’t even have understood a single word even if she did overhear something.
Still, the atmosphere of trust had been shattered. The man’s eyes were full of a fear that Jiři wasn’t going to be able to drive away. He knew the man wasn’t going to say anything more today. He’d learned to recognize the panic that made interviewees retreat into their shells.
“Do we have an agreement now that you’ll come for the video interview?” Jiři asked. “Tomorrow?”
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The man didn’t reply immediately. He hesitated.
Shit. Jiři tried not to let his impatience show. If he applied too much pressure, he might lose everything. The man would bolt and never come back, leaving Jiři with no story at all.
“Twelve o’clock, same place. From here, we’ll move to the studio, where no one but me will see the filming.”
Jiři kept his voice matter-of-fact. He tried to sound reassuring. He wasn’t asking or suggesting, he was just stating what would happen. He saw how his words and voice calmed the man. The man nodded. Slowly, but still, he nodded. Jiři extended his hand. The man looked at it for a long time, but then he took it. Jiři had to suppress his impulse to flinch at the touch of the man’s rough, dry skin. They shook firmly, sealing their agreement.
The man left first, as agreed. Jiři waited five minutes before following. When Jiři stepped out into the hot, bright sunshine, he felt as if he was in another world. He felt like doing a victory dance right there in the street, surrounded by all the cheerful people in their summer clothes. He had his interview. And Jiři was certain that this man had something real to tell.
The woman dabbed the sweat from her brow with a tissue. The oppressive heat had been portending thunder for days now. The tabloid headlines screamed about a historic heat wave and drought, although in reality, the weather wasn’t especially out of the ordinary. Things were just slow on the news front. Usually it bothered her when things were too quiet, but not this time. A long silence would make the scream that broke it that much louder.
The woman looked at the cloudless blue sky. She had just received a phone call asking for confirmation of her instructions. The woman had assured the caller that he had understood correctly. They had plenty of information for now. The source was no longer necessary.
A hero story required danger and death.
The woman looked at the ornate chess board she kept on her table, despite not actually playing the game. She stroked the head of a pawn with a finger and then knocked it over with a gentle push. Keeping the game moving in the right direction often required sacrificing pawns.
As White as Snow (The Snow White Trilogy Book 2) Page 5