The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  She is filled with him. Impressions, thoughts and feelings, everything that he’s experienced. Everything that is him flows through Minoo, as if picked up by a hitherto unknown sense.

  Memories.

  Max drags Linnéa from his car across the playground. Her hands and feet are tightly bound, but she tries to resist.

  He opens the door to his house to find an unknown girl with a long black fringe standing outside. She pulls out a gun and tells him he’s going to die for what he did to Elias. But he sees in her hesitation that she won’t shoot. She’s no killer. And he knows that she’s a Chosen One. That she’ll help him find the others. What a gift.

  He wakes, as if out of a dream, and sees Minoo in front of him in the classroom. They whisper to him that he has exposed himself. They’re angry but he’s afraid. Afraid she’ll misunderstand, that she won’t realise he’ll never harm her again, that they belong to each other.

  The barn is burning and the cows are bellowing in panic. He runs away with Their strident voices in his head. They threaten to renege on their promise. They won’t let Minoo live after all.

  Minoo asks if he can wait for her. He can wait for ever.

  He’s in the classroom looking at Anna-Karin: she’s changed so much during the term. He knows how such things happen. Why didn’t he pick up on it sooner?

  Minoo is so beautiful when he sees her by the viaduct. He knows he shouldn’t but he kisses her anyway. He’s made a new pact with Them: they’ll let her live.

  The awful moment in the bath when he defied Them for the first time.

  The first kiss.

  Suddenly she’s outside his house and he wonders if he’s dreaming when he sees her.

  He discovers that Minoo is the one he must kill.

  He rips Rebecka’s soul out of her body as he begs her forgiveness.

  She falls.

  Rebecka turns and sees his face, sees him as Gustaf.

  Rebecka at the City Mall.

  He tries out Elias’s power for the first time. Sees himself transformed into Gustaf in the mirror, the one Rebecka trusts, who can get close to her if need be.

  He sees Rebecka jogging along, knows that she’s his next victim. They whisper to him that she’s stronger than the first. That he has to prepare himself carefully.

  The prophecy was wrong, the voices say. The Chosen Ones are seven. Six left.

  He stands outside Minoo’s window, wishing she hadn’t been the one to find Elias. He wonders how she is and wishes he could comfort her.

  He watches as the trolley with Elias’s body is rolled out of the school and feels relieved. It’s over.

  Through the closed toilet door he hears the mirror shatter.

  He enters the classroom and sees Minoo for the first time. Alice is alive again.

  *

  Minoo becomes aware of yet another weight deep inside Max. Like an anchor that clears the bottom and is slowly being drawn up to the surface.

  His soul.

  The memories come faster and faster.

  He hangs up the poster of Persephone that is so much like Alice it’s painful to look at. A pleasurable self-torture.

  So many nights he lies awake and thinks of the awful things he’s committed himself to carrying out. He reminds himself that it’s worth it. Alice is worth it.

  From the first moment he hates Engelsfors. The town is like the one where he grew up.

  The years of teaching, women who come and go, friends he secretly detests. Those who think that the world is only what you see with the naked eye.

  They have promised he’ll have Alice back. A fresh start.

  The years of guilt.

  And everything slows down again.

  The funeral is like a fog. No one had known she was so unhappy.

  The call from the police in the morning. They had found her body on the cliffs below the house.

  The party’s in full swing, the music blaring. He’s shaking with adrenalin. The ‘friend’ he’s selected is there. ‘If anyone asks, I’ve been with you all evening,’ Max says, because he’s suddenly noticed something new about himself. Still, he’s surprised when he sees his friend’s eyes glaze. Max is giddy with his first taste of magic. Getting others to obey.

  He wants her to die. Better that no one has her if he can’t. If only she would just kill herself. He wishes it with all his heart. And that is when she gets up and climbs on to the windowsill. He know he’s making her do it. They look at each other, shocked. It’s just a moment. And she submits to his wish and lets herself fall.

  The windows stand wide open to let in the warm summer air and she perches on the sill, her forehead on her knees. She says, ‘Please, Max, go away.’ He tries to convince her that he loves her, that they belong together. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I never want to see you again,’ she says.

  Alice, whom he loves so much, who showed him the painting of Persephone. Together they laugh at how alike Alice and Persephone are.

  Alice, the very first time he sees her. He knows she’s going to make him happy.

  Max’s soul will soon surface. Minoo becomes aware of a scream growing louder and louder, filling her head. It’s Max screaming in pain. She is inflicting that pain.

  She can sense the darkness of his childhood and knows that if she doesn’t let go now, she’ll be doing the same to Max as he did to Rebecka and Elias. She’s going to rip out his soul, take everything from him.

  Let go.

  And Minoo gently lets go, feels how the weight sinks back into the depths. The scream fades out. Everything falls silent.

  Minoo opens her eyes.

  The black smoke is gone.

  She kneels on the floor. Max’s forehead is red where her hand lay. His eyes are closed. His chest is moving slowly.

  It’s over.

  V

  58

  THE JUNE AIR is refreshing after the rain, as if someone has thrown the windows wide and aired the world. The ground is still slippery and muddy in places and it’s heavy-going, as Anna-Karin pushes Grandpa’s wheelchair across the farmyard towards the main house. Nicolaus offers to take over, but she refuses: she’s got to do this herself.

  Grandpa is staring silently ahead. Anna-Karin is unsure that he recognises her but doesn’t want to ask. His lucid moments come more often now, and she knows he finds it demeaning to be fussed over.

  He’s recovering. But her mother refuses to acknowledge it. When Anna-Karin suggested they take him to see the farm one last time, she simply said there was no point. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It would only upset him, assuming he understands where he is.’

  Nicolaus helps her get the wheelchair up the front steps. ‘I’ll wait out here,’ he says. ‘Take as much time as you need.’

  Anna-Karin looks at him gratefully and unlocks the front door. Luckily it’s wide enough for the wheelchair.

  They enter the empty hall. Continue into the kitchen. The living room. The front room, which they stopped using after Grandma died.

  Nothing hides the blemishes. Wallpaper has come unstuck, paint flakes along the skirting boards, and there are brownish-yellow spots on the ceiling above where her mother used to sit and smoke.

  Somehow the rooms look smaller when they’re empty. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

  They had once been full of life but now they’re empty. That’s the difference, Anna-Karin thinks. Before it was a home. Now it’s just a house.

  Grandpa still hasn’t said a word, but he reaches back and pats Anna-Karin’s hand when they leave the house. Nicolaus helps her down the steps. She’s afraid they’ll accidentally tip the wheelchair so Grandpa falls out and hurts himself. She doesn’t want to imagine what her mother would say if anything happened. She has no idea they’re here – doesn’t even know that Anna-Karin still has a key.

  Anna-Karin aims at Grandpa’s cabin and pushes the wheelchair ahead of her. She follows his gaze towards the new building going up where the barn had stood. Jari’s father, who bought the f
arm, has decided to raise pigs.

  ‘It doesn’t look the same,’ Grandpa says.

  ‘No,’ Anna-Karin agrees. ‘It doesn’t.’

  It doesn’t smell of coffee in Grandpa’s cabin. When Anna-Karin pushes the wheelchair into the empty kitchen, she wonders if she’s done the right thing in bringing him here. The kitchen, the little bedroom and the shabby bathroom are so dreary and desolate. Anna-Karin looks at Grandpa. He seems thoughtful. She pushes him up to the window where he used to sit.

  She squats next to him and looks out. They gaze up towards the big house, at the meadows where there are no longer any cows grazing. The early summer twilight glows above the treetops.

  It’s beautiful here, Anna-Karin thinks. She understands why Grandma and Grandpa chose this particular farm, on this particular spot, when Engelsfors was a town full of promise.

  ‘Anna-Karin,’ Grandpa says.

  She meets his clear gaze.

  ‘Staffan wasn’t a bad man,’ he continues. ‘Your father. He was afraid, but he wasn’t bad.’

  Anna-Karin is mute. It’s hard for her to get the words out when she asks, ‘Then why did he disappear?’

  ‘I don’t know. That was between your mother and him. But he loved you, Anna-Karin. He did. In his way.’

  ‘Not enough,’ she mumbles, and warm tears are running down her cheeks.

  Grandpa wipes them away. ‘He was wrong to go, but I don’t think he had a lot of love in him to start with. Mia was drawn to those boys. The ones who didn’t have much to give. But whatever love he had, he gave to you. The little he had to give was yours, Anna-Karin. I’m not saying it was enough, but I want you to know that.’

  Anna-Karin takes Grandpa’s hand. His skin is softer than it’s ever been. As if it’s thinned.

  ‘I’ve worked all my life,’ Grandpa continues. ‘I worked, ate and slept, then started again from the beginning. But lately I’ve been thinking. I haven’t been fair to you, Anna-Karin.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Don’t say that, Grandpa—’

  ‘I’m old and I can say what I like. And I’m telling you I did wrong. I closed my eyes to how things were for you. When those young thugs at school were picking on you, Mia always told me to stay out of it, that she’d been bullied, too, and she’d survived. She said I’d only make things worse if I got involved. But I should have anyway.’

  He squeezes Anna-Karin’s hand, and she feels he’s got some of his strength back. A strength that she can see in his eyes, too, when he looks at her.

  ‘Can you forgive me, Anna-Karin?’

  ‘I’m the one who should be apologising. The fire was my fault.’

  ‘Answer my question. Otherwise I’ll never have any peace.’

  Anna-Karin takes a snivelling breath and nods.

  ‘You were just trying to get back some of what others had taken from you throughout your life,’ he said. ‘You went too far, but that was my fault, too. I should have been honest with you. I should have told you that you must cherish your gift, not abuse it.’

  Anna-Karin isn’t even surprised. ‘You’ve known all along, haven’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Only as much as my own mind could grasp, and that’s not much,’ Grandpa answers. ‘Now I want to go out into the fresh air.’

  They make for the front garden. Nicolaus is sitting in the car, waving to them, as they walk past.

  Anna-Karin pushes Grandpa along the dirt track running between the fields. He slips back into a haze again, but continues talking, alternating between Swedish and Finnish.

  Sometimes he calls her Gerda, sometimes Mia, sometimes Anna-Karin. He tells her about the family of foxes that lived in a burrow by the edge of the forest. He warns her against false prophets. He tells her about the Norwegian refugees the farm’s previous owner had taken in during World War II. He describes the late nights when he used to play cards with Anna-Karin’s parents, while Grandma Gerda baked flatbread and sang along to old records. Anna-Karin wonders if they were the same songs her mother was singing in the autumn.

  Eventually he falls silent. Anna-Karin turns the wheelchair and pushes it towards the car. Grandpa is going back to the care home at Solbacken. It’s only temporary, her mother says, while she and Anna-Karin settle into a rented apartment in the centre of town.

  But Anna-Karin knows. There’s a room in the apartment that Grandpa could have, but her mother hasn’t put any of his things in it. She’s decided to leave him at Solbacken.

  59

  THE FULL MOON is like a white shadow in the light morning sky. Minoo is following the little stream. Her feet and bare legs are damp from wading through the tall, rain-drenched grass.

  Two black feathers float past in the water. Then she catches a whiff of smoke.

  Minoo.

  She looks up. Rebecka is standing on the other side of the stream. She looks so much like the real Rebecka that it hurts.

  Her face has colour again. Her eyes are alive.

  ‘I know you’re not Rebecka. Why can’t you appear as yourself?’ Minoo asks.

  Do you know who I am?

  ‘You’re the one who speaks through Ida. The one I’ve dreamed about. The witch from the past.’

  Rebecka doesn’t answer. Suddenly Minoo is unsure whether she’s dreaming or awake. ‘What do you want?’ she asks.

  I’m worried about you, Minoo. You can’t bear this alone.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  You know what I mean.

  Minoo looks at Rebecka, who is shimmering against the dark background of the forest.

  You must tell them.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  Yes.

  ‘Are you sure? Nothing more than that? Like which element I am? And why my power is to take people’s souls? Am I like Max? Is that why the demons have a plan for me? And why haven’t they done anything now they know we’re the Chosen Ones?’

  You need the others’ help.

  ‘Go to hell,’ Minoo says, and wakes up.

  Minoo had forgotten to close the curtains last night, and now sunlight is streaming into the room. Out in the garden the birds are twittering deafeningly. There’s something almost desperate about their warbling song: ‘Here I am! Here I am!’

  It’s the first time for at least three months that she can remember a dream. She doesn’t usually remember even the nightmares, but she wakes up feeling stiff and sore as if she’d fought a battle in her sleep.

  She opens the wardrobe and catches sight of the sky-blue cotton dress she wore when she moved up from year nine. She glares at it contemptuously. Now it seems pathetic that she drove all the way into Borlänge with her mother to buy a dress she wore only for a few hours. And she had thought those hours were so important.

  She pulls the dress over her head and combs her hair with her fingers.

  Her mother and father have gone to work. A bouquet of lily-of-the-valley stands in a vase on the kitchen table, with an envelope leaning against it. Minoo opens it and pulls out a card with a picture of a summer meadow. Have a great summer! Big hugs and kisses, from Mum and Dad is written on the back. The envelope also contains a gift voucher for an online bookshop.

  Minoo holds the card, tracing her mother’s elegant handwriting with her index finger.

  She’s happy that her parents aren’t here. It’s so hard to pretend everything’s normal. She doesn’t know how she’s going to handle a long summer break.

  It’s as if a thick pane of glass separates her from the rest of the world. Nothing taking place on the other side affects her. She’s mute inside. Sometimes it scares her, the numb feeling, but it’s still better than what she was feeling before: desperation, fear, sorrow.

  She leaves the envelope on the kitchen table, looks at her watch and realises she should have left fifteen minutes ago. She picks up her bag and a worn pair of summer shoes. She has no intention of hurrying.

  ‘Where is she?’ Adriana Lopez asks.

  Vanessa, Linnéa, Ida and Anna-Karin are sitting
on the stage of the dance pavilion in their end-of-term outfits. In Anna-Karin’s case it’s not so much an end-of-term outfit as an outfit she’s wearing for the end-of-term – jeans and her old tracksuit jacket.

  Ida, on the other hand, is wearing a white dress and is sitting on her hands so she won’t get it dirty.

  Linnéa is sitting cross-legged next to Vanessa, biting her nails. Today they’re pink. She’s wearing a dress she finished making yesterday, it’s black and white checks with lots of black bows and a tulle skirt. She has fastened a huge bow to Vanessa’s pink dress, just below the neckline. Yesterday it had seemed a fun idea. Now Vanessa wonders if she looks gift-wrapped.

  The principal paces back and forth across the stage. A few of the buttons on her blouse are undone. Vanessa tries to stop herself staring at the burned skin beneath.

  ‘She’s coming,’ Ida says. ‘I can feel her now.’

  A few minutes later Minoo appears. She’s wearing a light blue dress that Vanessa recognises from the last day of year nine. Her hair is standing out like a black cloud around her head. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says, in the toneless voice she always uses these days.

  The principal nods. ‘Sit down,’ she says impatiently.

  Minoo climbs on to the stage and sits next to Vanessa.

  ‘I realise you’re all eager to get off to the end-of-term celebration, but I have to speak to you first. I’ve got some good news,’ the principal says. ‘The Council has decided to let you begin training in defensive magic this autumn. We’ll start in August.’

  If it weren’t so pathetic, Vanessa would have burst out laughing. Only now, a year after Elias’s death, does the Council think they should learn how to protect themselves.

  Since April the principal had ‘put the training sessions temporarily on ice’. Even she must have started to lose interest when they never managed to find anything in the Book of Patterns. Towards the end, they didn’t even have to lie to her any more. Ever since they had defeated Max, the book has been a big wall of silence. No more rituals, exercises or incomprehensible pieces of advice have appeared to them. The grumpy old hag is grumpier than ever.