The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  The Chosen Ones have met up regularly at Nicolaus’s place to continue their old magic practice. Minoo has taken part only passively, and the others haven’t objected.

  They know nothing of her power. Nicolaus’s theory is that when she defeated Max she somehow reflected Max’s magic back at him. No one knows what’s inside Minoo, what she can actually do. And although no one says so, they’re afraid of her.

  ‘So, the Council thinks we’re ready to learn a little self-defence?’ Linnéa says.

  ‘The situation demands it,’ the principal answers. ‘Things may have been calm since Christmas but whoever attacked Minoo may still be lurking close by, biding his time.’

  The only thing the principal knows about Max is what everyone else knows: nothing. They were careful in choosing which clues to leave for the police.

  It was Nicke who had found Max lying unconscious in the cafeteria. There was also an unregistered gun with his fingerprints on it. The newspapers speculated whether the incident might have had anything to do with the suicide pact, but their interest soon faded. The story wasn’t as exciting when it featured a maths teacher in a coma instead of a bloody corpse.

  ‘It may seem that everything’s over,’ the principal continues, ‘but it’s only just begun. What you’ve experienced so far is nothing compared to what’s coming.’ She pauses. ‘I know you have great powers. You’ve matured over the course of this year and have achieved a great deal.’

  If she only knew, Vanessa thinks to herself.

  ‘I look forward to continuing to work with you in the autumn. Now you’d better go if you’re going to get there in time for the fun,’ the principal says. Then she smiles warmly, surprising Vanessa. ‘Have a great summer, girls. You really deserve a break.’

  60

  ANNA-KARIN IS SITTING at the back looking out across the packed auditorium. Ida, Julia and Felicia are in the choir onstage. They’re beaming.

  Jari isn’t here. He left with the other seniors a few days ago and most have stayed at home today. Anna-Karin still feels ashamed when she sees him, and she probably will for the rest of her life.

  Erik, Kevin and Robin are sitting in a row in the middle. They’ve spread themselves out and talk loudly to each other, ignoring Ove Post’s attempts to silence them. Erik waves to Ida, tries to make her lose her concentration. Anna-Karin has heard rumours that they’ve started dating. She shudders when she thinks of what their children would be like.

  She remembers Grandpa’s words: 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.

  Her mother has almost never talked about her childhood. Had she been bullied at school, too? Is that why she is as she is? Had she been an Anna-Karin once upon a time? Had they tortured her until something broke that couldn’t be fixed?

  Mia was drawn to those boys. The ones who didn’t have much to give.

  Maybe she’d thought she didn’t deserve better.

  Anna-Karin wonders how broken she is. If she’ll ever be free of her hatred. And if she doesn’t succeed, will she end up like her mother?

  Because the hatred is still inside her. It bubbles up sometimes, threatening to overwhelm her. Then it’s hard to stop herself using magic. But she’s resisted. Not for the Council’s sake or the investigation, whatever’s happening with that. No, she’s resisted for the sake of the others.

  She’s doing it for Vanessa, who’s passing a soda bottle between herself, Michelle and Evelina. Anna-Karin can smell the alcohol all the way over here.

  She’s doing it for Linnéa, who’s sitting with the alternative crowd, leaning against the shoulder of a blue-haired girl and occasionally glancing at Vanessa.

  She’s doing it for Minoo, who was sitting alone until Gustaf Åhlander sat next to her. Anna-Karin has tried to speak to her. She knows, of course, how it feels to be afraid of your powers, afraid of what you can do, but Minoo refuses to open up to her. She’s shut out the whole world.

  She’s even doing it for Ida. Ida, who’s been in love with Gustaf since year four. Ida, who loves the horse Troja. Those are two subtle traces of a more human Ida, and that’s what Anna-Karin has to hold on to.

  Just as siblings don’t choose each other, the Chosen Ones haven’t either. And, like siblings, they have to learn to live with each other.

  Evelina and Michelle are yelling drunkenly in Vanessa’s ears, one on either side of her, like great big Evelina-and Michelle-shaped earphones.

  ‘Come with us!’ they bray.

  ‘But I don’t need to pee.’ Vanessa laughs.

  ‘Just come anyway! It’s us tonight!’ Evelina says, and swigs from the bottle of cider.

  Vanessa laughs again. ‘I’ll wait here,’ she says, and shoves them towards the bushes further down Olsson’s Hill.

  She straddles Wille. Mehmet, Lucky, Jonte and a few others are there, too. Music is playing from a portable loudspeaker. She kisses Wille and he kisses her back, and all she needs to know about them is in that kiss. Everything’s going to work out.

  ‘Check out the old hag,’ Lucky says.

  Vanessa reluctantly pulls away from Wille’s lips and looks up.

  Mona Moonbeam is standing on the path smoking a cigarette. Today she’s wearing a brown suede jacket with tassels. Her feet are stuffed into a pair of boots. They’ve even got spurs on them.

  And Mona Moonbeam is looking straight at Vanessa. A hint of a smile playing on her lips. It feels like a challenge. Vanessa stands up on unsteady heels and adjusts the bow at her neckline.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Wille says.

  She giggles when her head spins.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she says. She walks up to Mona and stops a little too close to her. Mona takes a step back. ‘Can I have a cigarette?’ Vanessa asks.

  Mona lights one for her and hands it over. They look at each other as they both take a drag. Mona’s cigarettes are strong. They taste like old socks.

  ‘Did you want something?’ Vanessa asks.

  She hears Evelina and Michelle burst into a fit of laughter in the bushes.

  ‘Haven’t seen you for a while,’ Mona says.

  ‘Maybe we don’t need your stuff any more.’

  ‘You will. You haven’t even started to understand how powerful your enemies are.’

  But she doesn’t frighten Vanessa who, on this particular day, has decided not to give a shit about any of that stuff, or about responsibility, the apocalypse, Nicke or any other evil in the world. It’s the summer holidays now.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say anything about how I’m going to die, too?’ Vanessa asks. It annoys her to discover that she’s slurring her words. It ruins the effect. ‘Maybe you should go back to fortune-teller school because, as you can see, I’m pretty fucking alive, aren’t I?’ she adds.

  Mona chuckles. ‘I may not have told the whole truth about that symbol,’ she says.

  ‘Is that so? Why doesn’t it surprise me that you reinterpret your fortunes when they don’t come true?’

  ‘nGéadal really does stand for death,’ Mona says. ‘But death can also symbolise transformation, change. Leaving oneself behind and starting afresh. Being reborn, so to speak. Your whole life getting turned upside down to the point that you have to re-evaluate everything.’

  Mona leans close, her lips beside Vanessa’s ear. The smell of cigarettes and incense makes her feel vaguely nauseous. ‘In your case nGéadal lay very close to muin. Love.’ Mona leans back and blows a cloud of smoke into Vanessa’s face.

  ‘Have a nice summer,’ she says, and saunters away.

  Vanessa is left standing in the cloud of smoke.

  ‘What the fuck was that about?’ Wille shouts.

  Vanessa watches Mona go. She almost feels sober. She drops Mona’s cigarette and stamps on it.

  The canal is glittering in the sunlight. The church is on the other side. The cemetery. She knows what she has to do.

  �
��Nessa!’ Michelle shouts from the bushes.

  But Vanessa is already on her way.

  Minoo walks across the cemetery. The envelope with her report is folded twice in her hand. Top marks in everything except PE, as always. But she doesn’t feel the usual sense of relief. It’s more like the memory of relief.

  When everyone had hugged each other and said goodbye for the summer, she had slipped out of the classroom. Then she walked to the stream that she had dreamed about last night. Even though she knew it was impossible, she hoped Rebecka would be waiting there for her.

  She wasn’t.

  Ever since Minoo had felt Rebecka’s soul, she’s clung to a childish hope that her friend would return from where she is now …

  When Rebecka’s grave comes into view, Minoo sees that someone is already standing there. No, not at Rebecka’s grave. At Elias’s.

  It’s Linnéa.

  Minoo deliberates whether to stay or go. But then Linnéa turns around and sees her. ‘Hi,’ she shouts.

  ‘Hi,’ Minoo answers, and goes up to her.

  Linnéa is holding a big bouquet of red roses. The plastic wrapping is still on it. ‘I stole them,’ Linnéa says. ‘It’s a bit of a tradition. Elias used to steal flowers for me. Once he came with a whole flower box from Monique’s.’

  Minoo smiles. It feels as though she hasn’t done so for a long time. Like she’s forgotten how.

  Linnéa sits on the ground between Elias and Rebecka.

  ‘The principal knows,’ she says. ‘She knows it was Max and she knows that we were the ones who put him where he is. She also knows we were practising at Nicolaus’s place.’

  It takes Minoo a moment to absorb what Linnéa has just said. It’s typical of her to blurt out some earth-shattering revelation without warning.

  Minoo is just about to dispute it when she realises that what Linnéa has said explains everything.

  That strange look the principal had given Minoo in the fair ground last winter. Now she understands that it was a look of encouragement. The principal had been forced to pass on the Council’s orders. That was why she had told them not to go after Gustaf. But all the time she had known what they were doing and had left them to it. She had bought their subterfuges, their lies. She must have realised they were practising on their own. And when Max had ended up in a coma, it couldn’t have been hard to work out the rest.

  ‘When did you realise that?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘I’ve known for a while.’ Linnéa pokes at a tuft of grass with her shoe. ‘I’m so glad you came here. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something, but I haven’t known how to say it … What happened in the cafeteria. You can’t keep it pent up inside you. It’ll kill you. You’re already dying from it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Minoo mumbles.

  ‘You loved Max. He was a murderer. But you loved him. That’s not something you get over just like that.’

  ‘As soon as I found out it was him—’

  ‘I know. But you had all those feelings for him before. And it must have been devastating to find out what he’d done. I’d have hated myself if I’d discovered I had a crush on Elias’s killer.’

  ‘I’m over it,’ Minoo says.

  ‘Okay. Fair enough,’ Linnéa says. ‘But you aren’t over the black smoke.’

  Minoo stares at her. Linnéa knows things Minoo hasn’t told anyone.

  ‘I can understand it scared the shit out of you,’ Linnéa says, ‘but it won’t get any better if you keep quiet about it. Maybe together we can find out why Max’s and your magic looked the same and why no one else could see it.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Minoo asks. She has the feeling she ought to know. That she should have put two and two together ages ago.

  ‘Do you remember Vanessa said she could hear my voice in her head that night? That was something new. I didn’t even know I was doing it. But …’ She hesitates. Her hands sort of wrestle with each other. ‘It started last summer.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Minoo, in as neutral a tone as she can muster.

  ‘At first I didn’t understand what it was. I mean, it was so … impossible. In the beginning it just happened now and then. I sort of picked up things.’

  She can’t say it, Minoo realises. She wants me to expose her.

  And at that moment she realises how it all adds up. All at once, a thousand odd moments are explained.

  ‘You can read minds,’ Minoo says. ‘That’s your power. You’ve been able to do it all along.’

  At first it looks as though Linnéa is going to deny it, take back everything. But then she slumps down and nods. ‘The first time we met, it was pretty new,’ she says. ‘Just before we found Elias. I knew you’d come into the toilets because you usually hid there during breaks. It just popped into my head.’

  Minoo doesn’t know what to say. She thinks about all the things she’s thought about Linnéa since then, and all the things she’s thought when Linnéa’s been around. And then she thinks that Linnéa may be reading her thoughts at this very moment. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ she asks.

  ‘You’re one to talk! I kept quiet because I knew everyone would react the way you are now. I don’t need to read your mind to see that you’re terrified about what I’ve heard you think.’

  Linnéa seems to be on the verge of tears.

  ‘You don’t understand what it was like in the beginning,’ she continues. ‘Sometimes it was as if everyone I met just started screaming into my head. That was why I wrote in my diary that you gave me a headache. You think so much. But Anna-Karin was the worst. Her endless thoughts controlling others were like fucking primal screams right into my ear.’ Linnéa looks at her pleadingly. ‘But I’ve learned to control it now. For the most part. It’s only occasionally that I hear things. And I’m becoming better and better at switching off.’

  ‘But you were the one who really went for the principal about not telling the truth. And you were sitting there the whole time and—’

  ‘That was the whole point! I was trying to tell you that the principal knew a lot less than she claimed.’

  ‘But we could have used you right from the start! Maybe we could have found Max a lot sooner!’

  ‘I tried,’ Linnéa said. ‘I tried to listen to everyone who was a suspect. I listened to Gustaf and every time he thought about Rebecka he felt so guilty. I really thought it was him. I never checked up on Max because I barely knew who he was until you told us.’

  ‘Does anyone else know?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘Yes. The principal.’

  Minoo has no surprise left in her. ‘How?’ she asks.

  ‘I read her thoughts when she showed us her scars. She thought about the man she loved and what the Council had done to him. I was shocked. And she saw that I reacted. That was when she realised it. Or she already knew. Mind-reading is common among witches. According to the book anyway.’

  Minoo is quiet for a long moment. She ought to be angry with Linnéa. But Linnéa’s right. She herself is harbouring a big secret. A secret she’s not sure whether she’s ready to share with the others.

  But I’ll have to one day, she realises. Linnéa is right about that.

  ‘Do you hate me?’ Linnéa asks.

  ‘No,’ Minoo answers. ‘But you have to tell the others.’

  Linnéa nods and sighs heavily.

  ‘I won’t say anything,’ Minoo says. ‘But you can’t wait too long.’

  ‘Neither can you,’ Linnéa says, and catches sight of something.

  She gets up slowly. Minoo turns.

  Vanessa is walking towards them in her tight pink dress. One of her heels gets stuck in the grass and she stumbles. They hear her swear.

  Linnéa touches Minoo’s arm and points. Anna-Karin is lumbering along with her hands in her jacket pockets, her long hair swinging around her face.

  Tears flare in Minoo’s eyes. She looks around the cemetery and, sure enough, Ida appears from the opposite direction. She’s pushing her bicycl
e between the gravestones.

  Minoo becomes completely calm.

  Everyone gathers around Elias and Rebecka’s graves. They look at each other but no one says a word. No one needs to explain why they’re here.

  They are the Circle. They’ve fought together for their lives. And they’ll do it again.

  Linnéa takes the bouquet of roses and divides it into two. One she lays on Elias’s grave. The other on Rebecka’s.

  Minoo thinks about Rebecka’s and Elias’s souls. About how alive they felt in the moment she set them free.

  ‘Do you think they’re here now?’ Anna-Karin asks.

  Minoo shakes her head. She can’t explain why, but suddenly she’s certain. ‘No,’ she answers. ‘They’re where they should be.’

  She takes Linnéa’s hand and adds, ‘And so are we.’

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to our wonderful publisher Marie Augustsson, who felt the magic right from the start and never doubted us – or at least did a good job of hiding it. Thanks also to our editor Sofia Hahr who brought in a fresh pair of eyes when we had stared ourselves blind. Cartwheeling pompom girls, balloons and cakes to Eva Ehrnström, Karin Rowland and the whole incredible team at Rabén & Sjögren/Norstedts, who have given our baby the best possible chances of making it out in the big wide world.

  Thanks also to Lena, Maria, Lotta and Peter at Grand Agency. You have guided us and always made us feel chosen.

  Thanks to Kim W. Andersson who managed to boil down our vague wishes into three cover illustrations that turned out more beautiful than we ever could have imagined.

  Thanks to Pär Åhlander who managed to find a format that summed up everything we wanted to convey and didn’t give up until he had achieved perfection.

  Thanks to Catharina Wrååk, who read the first chapter at a very early stage and gave us good advice that saved us a whole lot of extra work.