As White as Snow (16 page)

Maybe with a sister in tow,
Lumikki added silently. Then her dad would get to rethink what fell into the category of “nothing to tell.”

Lumikki had often thought that her family actually just acted out roles. Mom played the mom, Dad played the dad, and Lumikki played the daughter. They all acted as if they were moving around a set, as if they were always on camera. At first, she thought all families were like that, but sometime around her tenth birthday, she started watching other families and what they did at the store or the park or a big family
gathering. They acted different than hers. They fought and they laughed. They were present. They were real. In Lumikki’s family, they didn’t say what they thought, they said what they thought was in the script.

That made for a strange atmosphere at home and rendered any real conversation almost impossible. In theory, her businessman father and library-information-specialist mother played their roles perfectly. But they still always seemed to be speaking words someone else had written. They weren’t whole and living. They were silhouettes. Lumikki didn’t know how she could ever reach the real people behind the shadows.

Through the green, trilobed leaves, Lumikki noticed that the headstone opposite her bench had a name starting with “F.” Lumikki decided to check this one last grave. Just this one.

Standing up, Lumikki walked to the headstone and started pulling the tenacious plant away from the letters. “Franz.” Franz Havel. And another name. “Maria Havlová.” Lumikki’s heart started pounding. The dates matched.

“Well, call if anything happens,” her father said.

“Okay, I will. Bye!”

Lumikki knew she’d ended the call like a petulant teenager, but right now she needed to focus on the stone in front of her. There was a third name. Lumikki’s hands trembled as she tore at the ivy.

“Klaus Havel. Born 1940. Died 1952.”

Lumikki stared at the numbers for a few seconds before her aching brain agreed to tell her what was strange about the years.

Klaus Havel had died when he was twelve. It was very, very unlikely that he was Adam Havel’s father. Not impossible, but the improbability was so great that Lumikki would have been willing to bet anything Adam had lied to Lenka. Lumikki pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the stone. She would show it to Lenka. Maybe then she would believe that “the family” and especially their “father” weren’t as innocent as she believed.

As Lumikki put her phone back in her pocket, her nostrils picked up a smell that threatened to trigger the migraine she’d been fearing. The acrid stench of sweat and aftershave. The same one she’d smelled the previous night.

Lumikki didn’t waste an instant looking around. She just exploded into a run. And not a split second too soon. Pounding footfalls followed her.

The gravel of the cemetery path crunched under her shoes as Lumikki scrambled forward with her pursuer hot on her heels.

At least protect me,
she pleaded in her mind to the resigned guardian angel statues that gazed on at her flight with empty eyes.
Spread your wings and raise up a storm to subdue my enemies.

The hot mass of air didn’t budge.

Her pursuer was fast. He was probably much better rested and hydrated than Lumikki, who only had a few hours of sleep behind her, not to mention her grueling walk to the cemetery. Sweat broke out on her skin even though she’d have thought she had already sweated herself dry.

Lumikki rushed past the cemetery gates. Down the street was a metro station. Making a quick decision, she dashed toward it and down the stairs. Going underground with a killer on her heels wasn’t the most inviting plan, but she guessed there might be guards there and her pursuer probably wouldn’t do anything to her on a crowded metro platform. Heavy footfalls on the stairs told her he wasn’t giving up, though.

The train was just pulling up to the platform. Lumikki was one of the first to rush in. Her pursuer had to dodge the people exiting, but that didn’t slow him down much. Lumikki continued her flight inside the metro train, moving into the next car. She glanced back as the man shoved people aside and resumed bearing down on her.

Just then, a train arrived at the platform going the other direction. Its doors slid open and a wave of people changed to the train Lumikki and her pursuer were in. There were dozens of people between them now, and Lumikki watched as the man angrily pushed past them. Apparently, he didn’t care that he had an audience. His expression suggested he was ready to kill Lumikki with his bare hands even with all the other passengers watching.

Lumikki tried to stay as calm as possible. She counted the seconds. She had to make her move at the very last instant.

The man approached. The doors closed. The doors of the train on the opposite tracks were still open. When Lumikki saw them start to close too, she quickly pressed the “Open” button and rushed out. Sprinting across the platform, she
swung her backpack off her back and held it in the air, turning sideways and just squeaking through the crack of the closing train doors.

The first train pulled away. The second train pulled away. Lumikki caught one last glimpse of the man who had been chasing her, red faced and pounding his fists against the window, but in vain. The train accelerated in the opposite direction, as did Lumikki.

Collapsing on a bench, Lumikki wiped the worst of the sweat from her brow with a shaking hand. A boy of about ten sat next to her, staring with undisguised admiration. The boy had a can of Fanta in his hand, which he extended to Lumikki, raising his eyebrows. Lumikki understood it as an offering. She was about to decline, but then changed her mind.

Warm, slightly flat orange soda had never tasted so good.

“Did you decide to run a marathon in this heat or something? You look beat.”

Lumikki thought about how in a single day she had discovered a sister, been imprisoned by a cult, left her sister at the mercy of that cult, wandered a cemetery and discovered that Adam was lying, and now escaped a man who had obviously been sent to kill her—again. Banter wasn’t in the cards.

When Lumikki’s expression didn’t crack, Jiři quickly wiped the smile off his own face.

“What happened?” he asked in concern.

“Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you,” Lumikki replied.

They had arranged to meet at Jiři’s apartment at five o’clock. Lumikki had arrived five minutes early, and when no one answered Jiři’s door buzzer, she waited outside, looking around constantly.

Before that, Lumikki had ridden around the city on various modes of transit until she was completely sure she had shaken her pursuer. Then she went to a store, bought a liter and a half of water, and drank practically the whole bottle. Her dehydration headache eased and the taste of the rag finally disappeared.

Now Lumikki wanted a shower and a change of clothes. She wanted to rinse her skin clean of everything that had happened during the day, even if she couldn’t get any of it out of her mind.

Jiři quickly opened the door and they climbed the stairs in silence. Lumikki didn’t want to announce what she had been through to the echoing stairwell, and Jiři didn’t push. He knew this was serious. When they arrived at Jiři’s floor, Lumikki noticed it first:

“Did you accidentally leave the door open when you left this morning?” she asked.

Jiři strode over to the open door.

“Absolutely not.”

The apartment was complete chaos. Furniture was upended, the contents of all of the cupboards were spread around the floor, all of the drawers were open, the books had been pulled off the shelves, and binders and papers littered the top of the piles. However, the thin HDTV was still in its place, as were Jiři’s desktop computer and SLR camera. In other words, this wasn’t the work of burglars, because those were the first things they would take.

Jiři let out a string of curses in Czech.

“Is anything missing?” Lumikki asked as she started collecting her own things.

All she had left in the apartment were clothes and her toiletry bag. The whole day, she had carried around her battered Jo Nesbø novel and her wallet, which had her passport in it. Carrying the paperback had been pointless, since quiet moments to sit down and read seemed to be few and far between on this trip. Lumikki’s clothes were all there. The only strange thing was that her bras had been cut open. Did the intruder think she was hiding state secrets in the thin cups?

“There’s no way to tell what could be missing in all this mess,” Jiři grunted in reply. “They were probably looking for something specific. What, I don’t know.”

He tossed a duffel bag on the floor, into which he haphazardly shoved clothes, binders, and papers.

“It isn’t safe for us to stay here,” Jiři explained when he saw Lumikki’s inquisitive expression. “Whoever was here could break in again at any time.”

“Where should we go?” Lumikki asked. She had already packed up her few belongings.

“A place where they have guards at night.”

Lumikki stood concealed behind a tree and waited. She had already been waiting for two hours, but she could wait longer if she had to. She took a drink from her water bottle. Fortunately, it was shady under the trees. When Lumikki had run away from this house earlier in the day, she hadn’t dreamed she would be back.

The black iron fence looked like prison bars. A prison. Was that what this cult was for Lenka? Lumikki couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that way. Lenka wasn’t free to go where she pleased when she pleased, she wasn’t free to study or work or associate with other people. She couldn’t do what she wanted. And if she had been lured into the White Family through a bogus genealogy, the prison seemed that much more sinister to Lumikki.

She had told Jiři about her find in the cemetery as they were hurrying toward the Super8 building, where Jiři thought they should spend the next couple of nights.

“According to my information, Adam Havel was born in 1950. There is no way Klaus Havel could be his father if he was only ten years old,” Jiři had said. “This is exactly the kind of inconsistency their family tree is full of. But the more important piece of information is that Adam is their leader. I’ve tried to get information about who’s in charge from everyone I’ve interviewed, but so far, no one dared reveal his name. I knew Adam Havel was a member, but I didn’t know his position. I’ll have to take a closer look at his background.”

“And I need to get a message to Lenka.”

“You seem to care a lot about her.”

Lumikki had contented herself with a nod. Yes, she cared about Lenka. She had a sister now, and she had no intention of giving her up.

That’s why she left Jiři digging into Adam Havel’s past at Super8 and traveled back to this awful house, deciding to wait until Lenka showed up in the yard.

So far, only the middle-aged woman had been outside. She had watered the white roses with a large, badly rusted watering can. Lumikki had retreated farther into the shadows. The woman had raised her head and seemed to be listening, but then she went back to the task at hand.

Lumikki’s feet started to go numb from standing in place so long. She shifted weight from one leg to the other and stretched them carefully. Lenka would have to come out at some point. Lumikki fervently hoped so, at least.

Finally, the back door opened and Lumikki saw that familiar crown of braids. Lenka. She looked sad, somehow even more beaten down. Lumikki let out a low whistle. Lenka looked in her direction and made eye contact. Lumikki quickly lifted a finger to her lips. They couldn’t take the risk of the other residents of the house seeing her. Lenka looked around hesitantly and then walked closer to the iron fence. She made a slight motion with her head toward the house and then shook her head almost imperceptibly. Lumikki understood from the sign that Lenka couldn’t go beyond the yard.

Fortunately, Lumikki was prepared. She flashed a piece of paper to Lenka, then crumpled it up and tossed it over the fence. It landed just a couple feet from Lenka.

Just then, the back door opened and a young man came out. Lenka swiftly sidestepped and discreetly set one foot on the paper without looking down. The man yelled something at Lenka. Lenka answered. The man’s tone turned impatient, but Lenka just shrugged. The man sighed, made one more sharp comment, and then went back inside. Quickly
crouching, Lenka picked up the paper and hid it in her pocket. Then she cast a last glance at Lumikki and went inside.

Lumikki released the air from her lungs. She had been holding her breath without realizing it.

The message she had written said that she wanted to meet Lenka the next day at twelve o’clock at the same place they first talked. Lumikki trusted that Lenka could come up with some way to slip out by then.

Lumikki’s feet felt strangely heavy as she set off back to the city center. Sweat ran down her back in rivulets. When she licked her lips, the taste of salt was strong and biting.

The long summer day was finally winding down and the sky had turned dark blue. The lights of the city reflected off the large glass windows of the Super8 building. From the ninth floor, Lumikki could see the whole city, all the way to the castle, lit up beautifully like it was every night. Lumikki fought to keep her eyes open. She was so tired she was afraid she might fall asleep sitting up.