Fire (21 page)

And it is so totally typical that the mediocre ones are trying to sit on the good ones, keep them down because the no-hopers can’t bear to be as useless as they are, Ida thinks. Like Kerstin, who can’t sing for toffee.

‘See!’ Kerstin says and points at her.

‘What?’

‘You feel something. Anger. You’re furious with me, Ida. I can see it in your eyes.’

‘I’m not angry at all. Just focusing. I’m trying to listen properly to what you’re telling me and take it on board.’

Kerstin marches up to Ida with the folds of her tent
fluttering. She grips Ida’s shoulders and looks deep into her eyes.

‘When you’re singing, don’t be afraid to show who you are. Let it out. What you feel, even if it’s ugly. Or seems dangerous. Dare to let it out. Your sensibility. Your vulnerability. Dare to show
yourself
to the rest of us, Ida.’

Ida is so shocked she can’t speak. As soon as Kerstin moves away, Ida walks across to Felicia and Julia. They whisper that Kerstin is a moron. It is exactly what Ida wants to hear, but it still doesn’t feel right.

‘Please, Alicja, your turn,’ Kerstin says and waves to a slender little first year whose dark hair is in desperate need of an intensive repair treatment.

The ceiling lights flash as the power is cut and comes on again.

A nagging thought pesters Ida.

Perhaps there’s something wrong with me. Perhaps that’s why G doesn’t love me
.

But she rejects the thought. She must believe in herself.

It’s not her something is wrong with, it’s Kerstin fucking Stålnacke.

Minoo takes her time before leaving the school library. She has a Swedish test to mug up for, and she doesn’t want to try to work in the middle of a row at home.

But she isn’t allowed much peace of mind in the library either. Some thoughts are pushy, insist that she pays attention, peck away like little woodpeckers. Viktor. The Council. Alexander. Adriana. Anna-Karin. Nicolaus. The demons. Matilda. The woodpeckers peck and peck, but her thinking doesn’t lead anywhere.

‘I’m sorry, I have to close now.’

Minoo looks up from her book. Johanna, the school
librarian, stands near the Drama section with an apologetic smile on her face. She is resting a pile of class copies of
Romeo and Juliet
on her pregnant belly.

‘Oh, I am sorry,’ Minoo says. ‘I’m going straight away.’

She shuts the book and shoves it into her bag, which is already crammed.

‘Have a nice weekend,’ Johanna says as she locks the door.

Minoo stands still. A girl’s voice echoes throughout the stairwell.

Ave Maria! Jungfrau mild, erhöre einer Jungfrau Flehen …

Minoo runs through her usual options and dismisses them one after the other. Café Monique has shut up shop. On a Friday night, everyone says that Olsson’s Hill is crawling with beer-swilling drunks and lots of people of her age as well. Minoo considers walking to the locks, but knows she won’t be able to relax because it is too close to the manor house and Viktor. She wishes it was possible to go home to Gustaf, but he has avoided her ever since that ‘discussion’ about Positive Engelsfors. And she’s too much of a coward to seek him out.

O Mutter, hör ein bittend Kind! Ave Maria!

The song ends, a short burst of applause and then the school falls completely silent.

There are no other alternatives. Minoo has to go home. With any luck, Mum and Dad will be so preoccupied with Aunt Bahar’s arrival tomorrow that they’ll forget about fighting each other. In any case, at least Minoo has her corner of the garden.

Like a dog in an exercise yard, she thinks.

Suddenly, a new voice breaks the silence. A woman is speaking loudly and excitedly, but the sound is interrupted when a door slams.

It takes only a second for Minoo to realise that she has heard the principal’s voice.

She hurries to the spiral staircase and then downstairs, trying to step quietly so that her footsteps won’t set up an echo. She opens the door to the office corridor.

‘You have no right to do this!’ Adriana exclaims behind the shut door of her office.

Another voice answers but is too low for Minoo to distinguish the words.

Minoo tiptoes over to Tommy Ekberg’s office. The deputy principal’s door is wide open. No one inside. But there is a connecting door to the principal’s office. And it is open, just. The gap is narrow. But that’s enough.

Minoo has never wished for Vanessa’s powers as much as now. She doesn’t really dare to spy. But to walk away without having tried to isn’t possible either.

She sneaks into Tommy Ekberg’s room. The desk is covered with piles of paper and opened folders. And, in the middle of the mess, a half-eaten chocolate bar.

Minoo takes the last few paces to the connecting door and crouches down to avoid being in someone’s line of vision. And peeps through the gap.

The principal is standing behind her desk. The venetian blinds are drawn and the only light is filtered through the shade of her table lamp, a glass mosaic of dragonflies.

On the other side of the desk, three people are facing her. Tommy Ekberg, Petter Backman the creative arts teacher, and a blonde woman in a suit and with shoulder-length hair.

‘This is utterly absurd,’ Adriana says. ‘Who is behind this?’

‘The decision was taken by the local authority,’ the suit-lady says.

‘The teaching staff have also expressed widespread disquiet,’ Petter Backman says. ‘As the union representative—’

‘This is completely out of order,’ Adriana says.

‘You and your trade union are of course free to take your case to an employment tribunal,’ the suit-lady says. ‘But at this moment in time, we must insist that you collect your personal belongings and leave this office. Tommy Ekberg takes over as acting principal, at least for the duration.’

‘Adriana, I truly regret …’ Tommy mumbles, stroking his bushy moustache.

‘I refuse to go,’ she says.

‘There are two options open to you,’ the suit-lady goes on. ‘Either you leave voluntarily. Or the police will remove you.’

‘
The police?
’

‘We need to establish the extent of your responsibility for the fatal incidents leading to the deaths of Elias Malmgren and Rebecka Mohlin. The first step will be an internal inquiry but if you prove uncooperative, we shall have to act accordingly. As I am sure you appreciate.’

Adriana looks as if she’s about to faint. She supports herself by pressing the palms of her hands against the desktop.

Petter Backman turns round and Minoo barely has time to slide behind the door before he comes along to shut it properly. She slips out of Tommy’s office without making a sound, hurries along the corridor and down the main staircase. She is so upset she can hardly breathe.

This is too awful. Too unfair.

And something is very, very wrong.

Anna-Karin is sitting on the old grey-blue kitchen sofa in Grandpa’s little day room at Sunny Side. He brought some of his own furniture, but it still doesn’t feel as if he really lives here.

Grandpa’s index finger nudges cautiously the fiery red marks on Anna-Karin’s left hand. The gashes where the fox
bit her have still not healed properly. At night, her hand pulsates, dully and painfully. It itches during the day. Off and on, as in this moment, an icy sensation runs through her arm. It’s like the spreading of frost. Anna-Karin has had a tetanus injection, but that chill frightens her. Words like ‘cold gangrene’ and ‘amputation’ haunt her.

‘You’d better dress it again with broadleaf plantain,’ Grandpa tells her. ‘But remember to wash the leaves first, really carefully, to get rid of soil bacteria. And if the plantain doesn’t work, ask your mother if she has any of my marigold ointment left.’

Anna-Karin hesitates for a moment.

She has told her grandpa a little about what happened last year, about her powers and how she used them. He seemed to have a shrewd idea anyway. But she has never spoken about the Chosen Ones. Or the Council. Or the apocalypse.

‘How do you know all these things?’ she asks.

‘My father taught me about plants.’

‘I didn’t mean just plants. You’ve always … known a whole lot of things. Like, how to use a dowsing rod. You saw the blood moon. And you have these premonitions. When all these things happened around me last year … well, you knew that magic exists.’

Grandpa folds his hands on his lap and bends forward a little.

‘Yes, some people would call it magic,’ he says. ‘I see it differently. It’s always been part of nature. My family never thought it was peculiar. It is bred into the bone.’

‘Have you heard of the Council?’ Anna-Karin whispers.

She nearly holds her breath. But Grandpa looks uncomprehending.

‘What council?’

‘Oh, never mind. Anyway, it was just something … it doesn’t matter,’ she says with her eyes fixed on the floor.

‘Tell me about the fox again.’

And she does. From the first time she saw it near the dead tree, then the second time on the day the thunderstorm came rolling in when the sky darkened and midday turned to dusk in just a few minutes.

‘I can’t understand why it acted like it did. I mean, the fox.’

‘Do you remember the fox family that had made its lair where the forest began?’ Grandpa asks.

Anna-Karin shivers, as if the chill from the sore hand has crept into the rest of her body. His story about the fox family is an old memory that has nothing to do with her.

‘Grandpa, this is me. Anna-Karin. I was a baby when the foxes lived there.’

‘I know that, child,’ Grandpa replies impatiently. ‘But it was surely decided back then. Foxes know a thing or two.’

She still isn’t quite sure who he thinks he’s talking to, her or Mum or even Grandma Gerda.

‘How do you mean, Grandpa?’

‘The forest knows,’ he says quietly.

His eyes have an inwards look. He has disappeared to the place where she can’t reach him. Anna-Karin gets up and hugs him gently.

‘I must be off now,’ she tells him. ‘But I’ll be back soon.’

She hopes that he, too, will come back. That he won’t stay wandering, or even lose himself for good.

Minoo wakes to voices coming from the garden. Two women are laughing and talking across each other.

Minoo promised to keep her mother company when she went to meet Bahar at the station. She dimly remembers mumbling that she was too sleepy when Mum came into her room to say it was time to go. A pang of guilty conscience makes her pull on her dressing gown and hurry down to the garden.

The two sisters are sitting in a hammock strung between two trees. They are swinging lightly and haven’t noticed Minoo yet. She stands still, watching them.

Bahar is the older by just one year and Mum has said that people thought they were twins when they were little. Now Mum suddenly looks older than her big sister. Seeing them side by side makes Minoo realise how tired and worn Mum looks, even when she is laughing.

‘Minoo!’ Bahar has caught sight of her. ‘
Nazaninam, chegad bozorgh shodi!
And so lovely to look at! You do resemble Darya and Shirin very much!’

Minoo goes along to hug her aunt. Takes the chance to hug her mother as well, and hold her half a second longer than usual. She looks up at Minoo as if she has noticed and been surprised.

‘Is this the time of day to get up,
batcheye chabaloo
?’
Bahar says. ‘This minute, we were ready to go inside for a cup of coffee. Are you a coffee drinker yet? Shirin started when she was thirteen. A bit too early if you ask me, but what can one do? She sends her love, by the way. And Darya, too. They wanted to come and see you but they’re so busy, always so very busy. Has Shirin told you that she has been offered a film role?’

Bahar chatters on while they walk to the kitchen. Mum pours the three mugs of coffee and exchanges a knowing smile with Minoo, as Bahar heaps more unstinting praise on her daughters.

Suddenly Minoo feels enormously happy that Bahar is here. Exactly what Mum needs. And Dad, too. He and Bahar have vigorous discussions which always cheer both of them up, even though they never agree about anything.

‘But what do you think, Minoo?’

Bahar is looking at her and seems to expect an answer. Minoo hasn’t a clue what the question is about.

‘What did you say, Auntie?’

‘I said that you also ought to go to a school like Shirin’s. Now up here, it can’t be much of an education you’re getting. And, as for friends …
Na, aslan fekresh nemikham bokonam!
Here, there’s no culture! You don’t even have a bookshop, right? It would be a wonderful thing for you to come to Stockholm.’

‘Bahar, that’s enough,’ Mum says.

Minoo looks at her, surprised. Rushing to the defence of Engelsfors isn’t her style. But then, Bahar’s reaction is even more baffling. She falls silent at once. Very un-Bahar.

Dad enters the kitchen. Bahar’s smile seems strained.

‘Hello, Erik,’ she says.

He greets her briskly and doesn’t return her smile as he pours the last drops from the coffee maker into his mug.

‘Good morning. Well, you must excuse me, I’ve got to work for a bit.’

‘I understand,’ Bahar replies and the strained smile stretches across her face again.

Mum says nothing. And she avoids Dad’s glance.

Minoo looks from one to the other to the next. Now, what’s going on?

When Dad wanders off to his study, the atmosphere lightens at once.

‘We were saying, what about a walk down to the locks before it gets too hot,’ Mum says.

Minoo watches Dad retreat. He closes the study door behind him.

‘Oh, my God, yes, isn’t it hot! Apparently, this beats the former national record,’ Bahar says. ‘They were even discussing it on Radio 1.’

Mum turns to Minoo.

‘Are you coming?’

‘I must have a shower. And I’ve got loads of homework.’

‘There, you see. Kids get some kind of an education here as well,’ Mum tells Bahar.

Minoo’s hair is still damp when she knocks on the door to her father’s study.

‘Yes, what is it?’ he says irritably.

‘May I come in?’

‘Of course, Minoo,’ he says in a gentler voice.