The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  And then: ashes. Emptiness. A piece of blue sky way up there. A piece of blue sky that slowly gives way to darkness. Black ink slowly bleeds out and covers everything until the only thing left is that voice.

  Forgive me.

  Anna-Karin opens her eyes and looks straight into Ida’s. She sees her own panic reflected back at her. She realises they have just had the same experience. Ida lets go of Anna-Karin’s hand and backs away from her.

  Anna-Karin looks around. Hundreds of pairs of eyes are staring at her. One of the extinguished candles from her crown is still rolling across the floor. Tommy Ekberg is still on his way over with the fire extinguisher.

  Here, in reality, no time has passed at all.

  37

  THE STARS GLISTEN in the black sky. The fir trees are weighed down with snow.

  Everything looks peaceful, like a scene from a Christmas poem, Minoo thinks. If it weren’t for the blue flame casting an eerie, flickering glow over their faces. If it weren’t for what Anna-Karin and Ida have just told them.

  Gustaf murdered Rebecka and therefore he must have murdered Elias. Gustaf is the evil they have to put a stop to.

  ‘But I don’t get it,’ Vanessa says. ‘How could you see all this?’

  Anna-Karin, who has been sitting on the floor trying to pick clumps of candle wax from her hair, looks up at the principal at the same time as Ida. They are waiting for an answer. The bully and the bullying victim have been sitting next to each other ever since they got here.

  ‘We often talk about past, present and future,’ the principal says, ‘but the notion of time as being linear, with a start and a finish, is false. The truth is that time is cyclical, a circle without beginning or end.’

  Minoo glances at the others, strangely thrilled to be back. Vanessa is listening with her mouth half open as the principal speaks.

  ‘Sensitive witches with metal as their element can pick up on events from other points along the time circle, events that, according to the normal human understanding of time, have either taken place or haven’t happened yet.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Ida glares at her. ‘How do I stop it happening again? There’s no way I want to have, like, another epileptic fit in front of the whole school.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do to stop it,’ the principal says, ‘but you can learn to recognise the signs so that you know when you’re about to have a vision. Try to find a calm, secluded place if your mouth starts to feel very dry, for example, or you get a powerful sense of unreality, dizziness or—’

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ Ida says, mostly to herself. ‘I’m not going to let it.’

  ‘Your visions seem to be empathetic,’ the principal says.

  Linnéa snorts and Minoo has to suppress a smile. She never imagined that ‘Ida’ and ‘empathetic’ would ever be used in the same sentence, at least not without ‘is not remotely’ appearing in between.

  ‘You see the visions through another person’s eyes and feel what she or he feels,’ the principal says, glaring reproachfully at Linnéa.

  ‘But how could I experience everything, too, if Ida was the one having the vision?’ Anna-Karin asks, plucking out a lump of wax. Several strands of hair come with it and she winces.

  ‘You’re connected together,’ the principal says.

  Minoo thinks she sounds like a lame self-help guru.

  ‘I don’t think it was Gustaf,’ Ida says suddenly.

  Everyone stares at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ the principal asks.

  ‘He wouldn’t murder anyone. Why would he do such a terrible thing?’

  ‘There could be all sorts of reasons—’ the principal begins.

  ‘You don’t know G as well as I do,’ Ida cuts in.

  ‘You’re not best friends just because you gave him a silly nickname,’ Vanessa says.

  ‘You seriously believe that G would kill Rebecka? His own girlfriend?’ Ida exclaims.

  ‘Men kill their girlfriends all the time,’ Linnéa says coldly.

  ‘I’m not so sure it was Gustaf either,’ says Anna-Karin. ‘It’s hard to explain. It was him. And yet it wasn’t.’

  For Ida and Anna-Karin to be in agreement about anything is so shocking to the others that they’re all silent for a long moment.

  ‘I think we should get rid of him straight away,’ Linnéa says. The blue flame lights her pale face, making her eyes glitter darkly.

  ‘What do you mean “get rid of him”?’ Minoo asks.

  Of course she knows, but she can’t believe Linnéa’s serious.

  ‘What do you think I mean? What else are we supposed to do? Two of us are already dead.’

  ‘You mean we should kill G?’ Ida cries out. ‘You’re out of your mind!’

  Minoo looks at the principal, but she’s simply watching them. It’s as if she wants to see what they make of this situation. As if it’s some kind of test.

  ‘We can’t kill Gustaf,’ Minoo says. ‘I don’t believe you’d even consider it.’

  Linnéa looks at Minoo harshly. ‘I suppose you and Rebecka weren’t such good friends after all.’

  Linnéa looks like a stranger. Her eyes are filled with hatred. And Minoo understands. She, too, has thought of revenge, fantasised about it, but now, when she sees the same feelings in Linnéa’s face, she realises how wrong it is to choose that path. How dangerous.

  ‘I mean, you don’t seem to care about punishing the person who did it,’ Linnéa continues.

  Anger flares in Minoo, like a rabid dog pulling at its leash, but she keeps it in check. ‘We can’t just murder him,’ she says.

  ‘He murdered Elias.’

  ‘I don’t think Elias would have wanted you to kill someone in revenge.’

  For a moment she thinks Linnéa is going to hurl herself at her. But Linnéa stays where she is. ‘First, you don’t know a fucking thing about Elias. Second, Gustaf isn’t “people”. He’s not even a human being. He’s a demon!’

  ‘He certainly isn’t.’

  Everyone turns to the principal. She’s staring into the blue flame. ‘At least, I’d say that’s highly unlikely. Demons seldom take on physical form in our world.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about your statistics. Now that we know who the murderer is, we can stop him,’ Linnéa says.

  ‘You are not doing anything,’ the principal answers harshly. ‘Keep away from Gustaf. The Council will deal with this.’

  ‘Because it’s done such a fucking great job so far?’ Linnéa shouts. Everyone stares at her. She stares back. ‘How the hell can you just accept this? She refuses to tell us how we can defend ourselves!’

  ‘I can’t let you take action,’ the principal says sternly. ‘The Council has expressly forbidden me—’

  ‘What exactly have they forbidden?’ Minoo asks. ‘That we defend ourselves? That we find out what we’re fighting against?’

  The principal meets her gaze. Minoo’s heart is pounding: she isn’t used to questioning authority, especially not the school’s principal.

  ‘You’re right,’ Adriana Lopez says finally. ‘I’ll tell you what we know about your enemies.’

  ‘Did you say “enemies”?’ Vanessa asks, ‘Plural?’

  ‘I’ll explain if you stop interrupting me,’ the principal says.

  Vanessa rolls her eyes.

  ‘As I said before, battles take place across dimensional boundaries,’ the principal begins. ‘That is what is about to take place here. The demons are trying to break into our world, and you are standing in the way.’

  ‘And what is a demon? Some kind of devil, or what?’ Vanessa says. ‘Someone who possesses people? Could Gustaf be possessed?’

  ‘Demons can influence people,’ the principal says, ‘but not against their will. They can, however, grant powers to those who agree to collaborate with them. Demons refer to it as “blessing” someone. Someone who has been blessed can do great damage. If Gustaf has been blessed, he’s very dangerous. He’s in direct
contact with demons. They’re his power source. You mustn’t go after him under any circumstances.’

  ‘So you think that whoever killed Rebecka and Elias is a normal human being, who works for the demons?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘That’s the Council’s theory,’ the principal says. ‘They’re working on your case night and day. But you have to help us. It’s more important than ever that you study the Book of Patterns.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ Vanessa says. ‘What’s a demon?’

  ‘Demons is the more correct term. They don’t see themselves as individuals but as parts of a greater whole. They’re a kind of borderline creature that lives between our world and the other. We don’t know where they come from. We don’t know very much about them at all.’

  ‘What do they want?’ Linnéa asks, and walks slowly towards the principal.

  ‘It’s all in the Book of Patterns,’ she says, and takes what seems to be an unconscious step back. ‘When the time is right, you’ll find out.’

  Linnéa stops so close to her that they’re almost touching. At that moment the principal looks away. Linnéa gasps. ‘You don’t know. You and the Council – you don’t know anything.’

  Briefly, the principal’s mask seems about to crack. But she quickly regains control of her features. ‘That’s not true,’ she says.

  ‘That’s why you keep going on about the Book of Patterns,’ Linnéa continues. ‘You barely know how to use it yourselves. And you’re hoping we’ll be able to do it.’

  ‘Your chances of being able to do it are much greater since you were born with your—’

  ‘Exactly,’ Linnéa interrupts. ‘We’re stronger than you are. You’re afraid of us.’

  ‘You’ve misunderstood everything,’ the principal says, clearly trying to sound authoritative.

  ‘No,’ Linnéa says calmly. ‘I’ve finally understood it.’ She smiles triumphantly.

  ‘The principal is not our enemy,’ Minoo says.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Linnéa says. ‘She wants us to stare at a book to find out what’s going to kill us. Well, I intend to stop it instead.’

  ‘You mean shoot first and ask questions later?’ Minoo says.

  ‘That’s right,’ Linnéa says. ‘And I’m not going to let myself be stopped by someone who shouldn’t even be here.’

  Those words hit Minoo like a hard blow to the stomach. She can’t look the others in the eye. She’s afraid of seeing either pity or agreement.

  ‘Stop that now,’ Vanessa says.

  ‘What the fuck’s your problem?’ Linnéa snaps.

  ‘Well, let me see,’ Vanessa says. ‘Perhaps I’m having a hard time forgetting what you said about killing Gustaf Åhlander. How are we going to do it? Stab him on the way home from football practice? Set fire to his house? Buy a gun from Jonte and shoot him?’

  ‘They saw it was him!’ Linnéa says, pointing at Anna-Karin and Ida.

  ‘Yet they weren’t convinced,’ Vanessa says, ‘so how can you be? You’re just so desperate for someone to blame. And I get it.’

  There’s a warmth in Vanessa’s voice that Minoo has never heard before. Linnéa looks at Vanessa and for a moment it seems that she’s going to cry. Instead she grabs her jacket and walks away. Vanessa calls after her as she breaks through the shimmering capsule surrounding the dance pavilion. Linnéa stops and turns.

  ‘We said we were going to stick together. We promised each other,’ says Vanessa.

  ‘That was when we thought it would make a difference,’ Linnéa says. ‘But it won’t. We’re all going to die anyway.’ She points at the principal. ‘And if you think she can protect you, you’re mistaken. She was a good liar as long as she believed her own lies. But now she can’t even lie to herself.’

  ‘But the Book of Patterns …’ Anna-Karin starts.

  ‘Any one of you know how to read it?’ Linnéa asks.

  No one answers.

  ‘Didn’t think so,’ Linnéa says.

  Minoo feels a moment’s shameful satisfaction: she’s not the only one who can’t decipher the mysterious symbols.

  ‘It takes practice,’ the principal insists.

  ‘Don’t ever talk to me again, okay?’ Linnéa says.

  To Minoo’s great surprise the principal shuts up.

  No one says anything until Linnéa has disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Well,’ Vanessa says, ‘does anyone have anything to add?’

  Minoo has never heard such a telling silence.

  ‘I don’t know what you guys are going to do, but I’m going to get drunk,’ Vanessa continues. ‘Happy fucking Lucia, everybody.’

  The others gather their things together and leave the pavilion in silence. Eventually Minoo and the principal are the only ones left. The blue fire is starting to dim. The light is just strong enough for Minoo to make out Adriana Lopez’s features. She’s looking straight at her gravely.

  ‘I hope you don’t believe what Linnéa said,’ she says.

  ‘Of course not,’ Minoo answers. She may not altogether trust the principal, but the thought of her knowing less than them is too terrifying to even consider.

  ‘Good,’ the principal says, and her face softens into a smile. ‘Minoo, you mustn’t listen to the other stuff Linnéa said either. I’m sorry about how I expressed myself last time. I may have made it sound as if you don’t belong here as much as the others. The Council and I are convinced that you have an important role to play. Your powers are simply more difficult to define.’

  ‘Okay,’ Minoo says. ‘Thanks. I mean …’ She falters.

  ‘Minoo,’ the principal says, ‘perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I see a lot of myself in you. You take this seriously. And you don’t sound off for the sake of it, but are bright enough to listen to those who know more than you do. Those are valuable qualities. The truth is, I sometimes wish you were the only Chosen One.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Minoo mumbles, dizzy with all the praise.

  ‘Would you like a lift home?’ the principal asks.

  ‘Thanks,’ Minoo says again.

  It’s only when they drive out of the forest and see the lights at the centre of Engelsfors that Minoo wonders how much of a compliment it is to hear you’re good at taking orders blindly.

  38

  WHEN MINOO WAS little, she always felt that December dragged on for ever in an endless wait for Christmas Eve, but now the days just fly by.

  This term Minoo has had a growing sense that she’s falling behind at school. Not enough to affect her grades – but as if it may begin to. Now she’s trying to catch up. She’s been hard at her books and stays awake to cram with the help of coffee, sweets and Coca-Cola. She’s started taking her Thermos mug to school so that she can excel during the first few lessons, rather than falling asleep with her cheek on the desk’s smooth cool plastic surface.

  They’re performing a Christmas show on the last day of school. Ida’s singing a solo – ‘Gläns över sjö och strand’ – and is doing it with such a schmaltzy, fake R&B wail that the audience ought to die of embarrassment, but she receives thunderous applause. She lights up like the sun while the biology teacher, Ove Post, dabs discreetly at the corner of his eye.

  The principal makes a short speech about how the coming new year will allow everyone to move on. Everyone understands that she’s talking about Elias and Rebecka, that they should try to put what happened behind them. Automatically Minoo tries to catch Linnéa’s eye, but she’s not there. Minoo realises she hasn’t seen her since Lucia night. Maybe she hasn’t been at school at all.

  Afterwards they gather in the classroom and Max hands out his reports. When he passes Minoo her envelope he flashes the same impersonal smile he always bestows on her now.

  The secret glance of mutual understanding they used to exchange has gone. Had it ever even been there? Maybe she’d imagined it.

  But he kissed me.

  She thinks about it for the millionth time – it’s like a mantra she�
�s repeated so often it’s starting to lose its meaning. In dark moments she wonders if the evening at Max’s house was just a figment of her imagination, a psychosis brought on by the pressures of getting good grades, supernatural death threats and far too many dreams of losing her virginity to her teacher …

  Minoo glances at Anna-Karin, who is sitting diagonally behind her and has just opened her envelope. ‘How’d it go?’ she can’t help asking.

  Anna-Karin hesitates for a moment. Straight As. In every subject. Even PE.

  How many did you deserve? Minoo wants to ask, but she bites her lip and smiles stiffly. ‘Congratulations,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks,’ Anna-Karin mumbles.

  Her heart pounding, Minoo opens her own envelope, but everything is as it should be. Only her PE grade falls short of Anna-Karin’s.

  Minoo is among the first to leave the classroom. She doesn’t even say ‘Merry Christmas’ to Max. She can’t handle another empty smile. When she steps out into the playground she sees her mother’s car parked by the gate and is struck by an intense longing for home. As soon as she gets there she’ll shut herself into her room, wrap Christmas presents and stuff herself with ginger biscuits …

  Gustaf is at the gates. He’s standing stock still, staring straight at her.

  Minoo looks for an escape route. Her mother beeps and Minoo waves. She has to pass Gustaf to get to the car.

  He mustn’t know that you know. Act like nothing’s happened, she tells herself. He’s just Gustaf. Good old Gustaf Åhlander.

  Who has made a pact with demons.

  Minoo forces herself to walk normally, quickly, but not too quickly, yet her heart is racing as if she had just run a marathon.

  Gustaf looks so ordinary in his black down jacket and white woollen hat. Somehow that makes her even more scared of him. This is the guy Rebecka had trusted more than anyone else in the whole world. The one who had thrown her off the school roof. This is exactly how he’d looked.

  ‘Hi,’ Gustaf says, and smiles as she walks past him. ‘Merry Christmas.’