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with enough music, preferably Massive Attack, and go without any preconceptions, trying not to learn too much ahead of time about the artist or the exhibition theme. After paying the admission fee, she would enter the gallery staring at the floor, turn on her headphones, and close her eyes. She would empty her thoughts, filling her head with music. She would concentrate on breathing evenly and let her heart rate slow down. Once she had made the surrounding world disappear, she would open her eyes and fall into the first piece.
    Sometimes she completely lost her sense of time. Pictures, colors, moods, the feeling of movement on the canvasor paper or photograph, the sense of depth, the irregularity and texture of the surface would drag her deep into a world she didn’t completely recognize or understand, but which was still hers. Other Finns had their lakes and forests, but this was the landscape of Lumikki’s soul. Art spoke to her in a language that intermingled with music, forming pathways that led to darkness or light. The subjects weren’t important to her. What the pictures depicted or whether they depicted anything at all mattered even less. All that mattered was the feeling.
    Lumikki rarely left an exhibit without getting something from it. Sometimes that did happen, but usually the reason was some external factor like hunger or fatigue or stress. Or other people being disruptive and making so much noise her music couldn’t completely drown them out. Some shows were like tornadoes that she left gasping for air and trying to regain her balance. Some she felt as a heat in her chest for days afterward. Some reverberated in her head. The colors persisted on the retinas of her eyes, painting new shades on her dreams. She was never the same person after a show as she was before.
    Today wasn’t going to be an art day, though, because Lumikki had already been to see all the traveling exhibitions at the Tampere Museum of Art, the Sara Hildén Art Museum, and the TR1 Kunsthalle, and their permanent collections were old news. She usually tried to make it to a show early on, but not during the very first weeks. After the hard-core art groupies were out of the way and the wannabes were still at home on the couch.
    The sun made the frost flowers on the window glitter. Lumikki reconsidered the idea of going for a short jog before breakfast. She looked at the thermometer, which said it was thirteen degrees below zero. No thanks. Breathing hard would be too much for her lungs.
    Suddenly, her cell phone rang. Lumikki picked it up. She didn’t recognize the number.
    Don’t answer unfamiliar numbers. Not ever.
That had been her motto before, but not anymore. These days, she had to have the courage to answer those calls too, since she lived alone and handled all her own affairs.
    “Lumikki Andersson,” she said in a formal tone.
    “Hi, it’s Elisa.”
    Elisa? Why would Elisa be calling her?
    “Tuukka told me that you know,” the girl continued quickly.
    Lumikki sighed. She wasn’t going to have to convince Elisa that she wasn’t going to go looking to tell anyone too, was she?
    “I didn’t know who else to call. The boys don’t want to talk about what happened. I’m totally losing it. You have to come here. I can’t stand being alone. I’m afraid. Help me.”
    Elisa’s voice was high-pitched, frantic. She was clearly panicking.
    “Well, I don’t know—” Lumikki began, but she couldn’t get any further before Elisa broke down in sobs.
    Lumikki stared at the frost flowers. What if she just pressed the red “end” button? And then switched off thephone?
Don’t get involved. Don’t interfere. Only worry about your own business.
Why was sticking to her mottoes so difficult now? Maybe because Elisa was crying. Maybe because no one had ever asked for her help so directly before.
    “Okay, I’ll come over,” she heard herself say into the phone. So much for a day to herself.
    Elisa lived in Pyynikki, across the