Free The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen Page B

allowed to touch the famous author. What does it matter if she doesn’t remember our name a moment later? Perhaps some part of us will remain in her mind. Perhaps we’ll find a piece of ourselves in her next book, and perhaps, through her, receive a piece of immortality in return!
    EXCERPT FROM ESKO HARTAVALA’S ARTICLE
    “THE LAURA WHITE INCIDENT”,                     
    FINLAND ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY
, JUNE 2005   
    Martti Winter saw the new member of the Society slip through the crowd and stop at the foot of the stairs. Everyone else stood motionless. The room was thick with veneration. You could hardly breathe.
    All children devoured the Creatureville books. Adults read them, too. There was a new Creatureville cartoon that was shown on television all over the world. Laura White’s creation had long fed the spiritual soil of Rabbit Back and her books and merchandise had spread around the globe.
    There she stood.
    Everyone knew she had a serious migraine. It was said that there had been times when such attacks had nearly killed her. Everyone was relieved to see the hostess of the evening there at the top of the stairs.
    Laura White was the only woman dressed in white. It was one of the unwritten rules, as was the ban on bringing anymythological figurines into her house. Any ladies who had mistakenly come in white had been informed of this rule and had their slip of etiquette corrected with a colourful shawl or other accessory.
    Laura White’s dress left her slender arms and legs bare. She smiled, but it was clear that she still had a headache. The pain dimmed her eyes and doubled her over slightly.
    She wasn’t going to let it spoil the evening. Her audience sighed with relief.
    She touched her forehead with her fingertips, nodded and started her descent.

    Like many others, Winter thought afterwards of those five steps that Laura White took before she fell.
    The first two steps had meaning, naturalness. Her left hand slid along the dark, lacquered banister. Her head was slightly tilted, her face shone with intelligent irony.
    She smiled at the people. She noticed the new literary talent she had discovered at the foot of the stairs. Ella Milana had at this point risen to the first step and Winter wondered if the girl would be able to wait at the bottom or if she would break into a run up the stairs like an eager child.
    Laura White’s right eye closed for a moment, as if she were winking. Then it opened and her head jerked in a way that showed a sudden pain.
    She quickly touched her hair and lowered her hand back to the banister, achieving a sedate expression again.
    The third step was unsteady, as if she couldn’t see her way down. She tried to smile broader than before, but panic burst through her smile.
    With her fourth step, Laura White collapsed.
    She stretched both hands out in front of her.
    She was like a sleep walker in a farcical pantomime. She blinked her eyes, opened them wide, and dropped into the emptiness above her audience’s heads.
    As Laura White’s foot took that last step, the thing happened that everyone later tried so hard to understand, to explain, to analyse.
    Suddenly the whole house is full of wind and snow.
    Right before our eyes, a snowstorm bursts in from the upstairs room behind Laura White, howls down the stairs, and covers everything we can see in the blink of an eye.
    One of the upstairs windows must have blown open and a sudden storm must have come up and made its way into the house.
    Some claim that a sort of whirlwind of snow burst through the front door of the house.
    In later police interviews some rather dubious claims are made, but people tend to say all kinds of things when they’re tired, and they often repudiate their testimony later.
    All agree, however, that at half past nine in the evening, just as Laura White is coming down the stairs, there is a sudden snow flurry in the house. It lasts at least thirty seconds, at most three or four minutes. When it