Fire (35 page)

‘Why didn’t the first Chosen One bar all the seven doors?’ Minoo asks.

‘The Chosen One, whoever he or she is, is always strongly tied to his or her birthplace, just as you are to Engelsfors. It follows that he or she can close only the nearby portal. It is a hard task, you need guidance and support. That was why the guardians decided to set up the Council. Its mission was to help the Chosen One and preserve all knowledge about the task.’

‘I see. They were created to be there for us, but now they want us to exist for them,’ Linnéa says.

‘Yes.’

‘How long has this been going on for?’ Minoo says. ‘What I mean is, for how long have there been Chosen Ones?’

‘I don’t know. Thousands of years, perhaps longer still. The guardians’ notion of time is different from humans. All I know is what they have told me,’ Matilda replies. ‘But the previous Chosen Ones have managed to bar six doors.’

‘That’s to say, the Engelsfors door is the seventh? And last?’ Minoo asks.

‘Yes. Engelsfors is the last place where the demons can gain entrance to our world.’

Minoo checks the time. She must remember all the questions she wants Matilda to answer and get round to asking them before the hour is out.

‘Forgive me, but I don’t quite understand,’ she says. ‘You were the previous Chosen One and born near this portal. But you died before you could close it …’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Vanessa says. ‘How come we aren’t overrun with demons by now?’

‘The door can only be closed or opened at a certain time,’ Matilda says. ‘That time coincides with when the magic at the gap is at its strongest, when the veil separating the worlds is at its thinnest. That is when the door can be locked, and only then. Or else, opened wide. I died before that point in time.’

‘But the demons didn’t succeed in opening the portal?’ Linnéa says.

‘No, they didn’t succeed.’

‘Why not?’ Minoo asks.

‘I don’t know. But that earlier magic age was not as dominant as this current one. And opening or closing the door can only be done from this world. It means that the demons are utterly dependent on those they have managed to bless. The unlocked gap in the veil is not wide enough for them to get
in, but they can still reach out and seduce people who live nearby on our side. Once blessed with powers, these recruits can be used as demonic tools.’

Minoo is thinking about Max’s memories. How he lay awake at night, speculating about the terrible things he had committed himself to carry out. The demons had promised him that, in return, he would get Alice back. The girl he loved. The girl he had murdered.

‘Why don’t they simply bless a whole army of recruits?’ Linnéa says.

‘Until the portal opens, they haven’t enough power to do anything on a big scale. Besides, only a natural witch can endure living with the blessing of the demons. Natural witches are rare. There are more of them near the doors, but they are still rare.’

‘And you died. But the demons still couldn’t open the door,’ Minoo says.

‘That is so,’ Matilda replies. ‘Then the magic age ebbed out. The guardians had to wait for the next inflow of magic and the next Chosen One. My soul stayed and waited with them.’

‘And the demons, they had to wait as well,’ Vanessa says.

‘And the Council, too. They had time to forget even more of what they knew,’ Linnéa says.

‘And Nicolaus,’ Anna-Karin whispers.

‘Yes,’ Matilda replies. ‘We have all been waiting … for you.’

Minoo steels herself. This question is almost too frightening to ask, but she must know.

‘Max said that the demons have a plan for me. What did he mean?’

Matilda’s head turns to look directly at Minoo. For a brief moment, Ida’s eyes go black and glisten, like crude oil. Like a bird’s eyes. In the next moment, the blackness is gone.

It must have been my imagination, Minoo thinks.

‘I don’t know,’ Matilda says. ‘But they fear you.’

Linnéa laughs a little.

‘I’m sorry, but honestly, it’s so weird. Are the demons afraid of Minoo?’

Minoo wishes she could laugh, too.

‘Is that why they stopped persecuting us?’ Anna-Karin asks.

‘As I told you, the demons never give up. Instead they choose many different routes. It seems that they are trying to speed up the next inflow of magic. And it seems they are succeeding. We thought the final battle wouldn’t come for at least another ten years, but events are progressing far too fast by now. You must have seen the signs.’

‘The heat,’ Minoo says. ‘The dying forest. The erratic electricity. And the water …’

‘Yes,’ Matilda says. ‘The veil separating the worlds is becoming thinner and that affects your physical reality. Something in Engelsfors is very wrong.’

‘You don’t say …’ Vanessa mutters.

‘But isn’t it just as well that it is happening now?’ Linnéa says.

Everyone’s eyes fix on her.

‘It’s just that I don’t like the idea of waiting for the apocalypse,’ she shrugs. ‘We might as well get it over and done with. Shut that portal, once and for all. Or, at least, try to shut it.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Matilda says.

Minoo can’t hold back a flood of questions any longer.

‘But then, explain to us. Why were we seven and not just one? What happened to your powers? How do we go about closing the portal?
Can
we actually do it, now that there are only five of us?’

A shiver runs through Ida’s body. She shakes her head vigorously.

‘You are not ready.’

‘You, if anyone, ought surely to do everything to help us!’ Minoo says. ‘After all, you have been in the same situation as we are now and—’

Matilda interrupts her.

‘We have helped you, as much as we’ve been able to. And your situation is not comparable with mine. I was alone.’

Minoo is ashamed. She has thought of this herself. Also, Matilda has been waiting for them for centuries. All the time aware that the apocalypse is approaching.

‘Forgive me,’ Minoo says. ‘You are right.’

‘But what should we do now?’ Anna-Karin asks.

Matilda looks at them gravely.

‘We will try to help you about the current matter of the Council and its trial. You should collaborate as much as you can with the Council, but without giving each other away. Carry on pretending that you are following all its laws. Try to endure. Use your magic sparingly. In the circumstances, it is difficult to foresee how your powers will develop. Handle them carefully or you could be harmed. That is true of you, Minoo, in particular.’

Minoo feels ice cold again.

‘You don’t belong to any one element, Minoo,’ Matilda continues. ‘The guardians have blessed you. That is how you are able to see the magic of the demons. That is why you can use it against them and against their human servants.’

Minoo has frozen to the floor. She feels like a pillar of ice. She registers that the others are looking at her, but she doesn’t dare to meet their eyes. Why do Matilda’s words frighten her so much? She should feel relieved. Her own suspicion had been so much worse. That she herself was some kind of demon.

‘I understand how frightening it must be for you to learn
that your powers are so similar to those of the demons,’ Matilda says. ‘But it singles you out as someone who can defeat them. You have no reason to be fearful as long as you use your power responsibly, for good. And I know you will.’

And now Minoo realises what truly terrifies her.

How to know that you are good? How to be certain?

‘The midnight hour will soon be over and I shall have to leave you,’ Matilda says. ‘The demons cannot single-handedly speed up the arrival of the apocalypse. They must have blessed a recruit here in Engelsfors, someone they can use. We don’t know who it is. Do not trust anyone.’

‘That doesn’t sound at all familiar,’ Vanessa says ironically.

‘Helena,’ Linnéa says. ‘It has got to be her.’

‘But none of us has sensed any magic in her,’ Vanessa says and turns to Minoo. ‘Look, if Helena had been oozing demonic magic you would have noticed when she spoke at assembly – or wouldn’t you?’

Minoo says nothing. She knows nothing, not any more. Thankfully, Matilda answers instead.

‘Minoo can see demonic magic, but only when the Blessed One uses it. We don’t know if Helena is blessed. But the movement she leads can be dangerous all the same. You must not, under any circumstances, approach her organisation, or her, before we know more …’

Matilda falls silent and another shiver courses through Ida’s body. It worries Minoo.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘In the future, it will be difficult to communicate with you. The energies are out of kilter. I must leave you now.’

She shuts her eyes. Ectoplasm begins to dribble from a corner of Ida’s mouth.

‘I’m not trying to ruin the atmosphere or anything,
but someone ought to collect that stuff,’ Vanessa whispers. ‘Mona’s prices have gone up …’

‘Wait!’ Linnéa cries and tears herself free from the circle, leans forward and grabs hold of Ida’s arm. ‘Who or what are you, truly? A ghost?’

Ida’s eyes open again.

‘I am a soul caught between worlds,’ she says.

‘Are there any others with you?’

Matilda looks sad.

‘Elias is not with me. Nor is your mother, Linnéa. Nor Rebecka. Souls that pass on are no longer among us.’

Linnéa’s eyes shine with tears.

‘Where are they, then?’ she asks.

‘It is concealed, even to us,’ Matilda replies. ‘I myself do not know if another world is waiting, perhaps the heavenly world my father believed in. Or perhaps our consciousness will be extinguished for ever. I wish that I knew.’

Ida’s eyes close once more. Her body sinks towards the floor and once down, she collapses like a rag doll.

The smoky smell of a burning fire sweeps through the rooms and quickly disappears.

A magnificent September sky spans the tops of the trees. Violet shades into red that deepens at the horizon. The sun is setting, a peach-coloured globe glowing behind the roofs of the houses.

Linnéa is crossing Storvall Park. She moves slowly and her head feels woolly, as always when she has slept a whole day away.

Last night, after the others had left, she stayed up. She listened to music, chain-smoked her last cigarettes, wrote in her diary for hours. Wrote, because of her need to try to deal with the overwhelming sense of hopelessness that always pours into her when she’s alone, wrote in order to remind herself that oblivion solves nothing.

Though she longed for oblivion, more now than she had for a long time.

A call to Jonte would have been so simple.

Souls that can pass on are no longer among us.

It wasn’t until she heard those words that she realised how hopeful she had been.

But they are gone for ever.

She fell asleep at dawn. And now the sun is setting.

Linnéa stops on the pavement just opposite the Positive Engelsfors Centre. Fluorescent light streams out through the large windows.

She spots him at once. He is standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by people who just a few months ago would have avoided even looking at him. Now they’re all chatting and laughing together as they help each other scrub a wall that has been splattered with rust-red water.

Dad
.

He looks happy. Comfortable. He fits in well. He looks like the father she long since gave up dreaming that he would be.

All the way here, she has been speculating about what she should do. She thought, if only she saw him it would tell her if she ought to talk to him. To warn him about Helena. True, there is no proof that she is allied to the demons, but Linnéa needs no proof.

Now she has seen her father and knows what to do.

Nothing.

Perhaps this is his new addiction. Perhaps he has found something that makes him happy. Whatever it is, clearly nothing Linnéa can say would make him leave Positive Engelsfors.

She wants to walk away, but something makes her stop and turn around.

She sees Anna-Karin in a window in the house opposite the centre. Her face is difficult to distinguish as the pane reflects the sunset.

Linnéa raises her hand in greeting and Anna-Karin waves back to her.

Anna-Karin stays at the kitchen window until Linnéa is out of sight. When she has disappeared, Anna-Karin leans her forehead against the glass and shuts her eyes. Tries to let go of all thoughts about Matilda, the Council, the guardians, the apocalypse, the demons and Positive Engelsfors.

Then she suddenly loses herself completely.

A flashing light flits past her eyes. The pressure against her forehead disappears.

She sees again.

And now, the scents and smells of the forest fill all her senses. She runs fast across the forest floor, down between the lowest parts of the tree trunks. She takes long leaps and her body stretches with each pace.

She is not happy, because happiness is not a concept she knows about or needs. She is free. She is whole. She
is
.

‘What are you doing?’

Anna-Karin smells the kitchen odours again. Stale cigarette smoke and grease.

She opens her eyes and straightens up. Her forehead has left a sticky mark on the windowpane. Anna-Karin can see her mother reflected in the glass. She is standing in the kitchen doorway.

‘Nothing,’ Anna-Karin says and tries to calm her thumping heart, which still believes that she has been running in the forest. ‘Just looking.’

‘Goodness, people might think there’s something wrong with you,’ Mum says and puts her coffee mug in the sink before going back to the living room.

Soon afterwards, the sound of machine guns and swelling orchestral music.

Anna-Karin will tell the others about her familiar. Tomorrow. Tonight, it is her secret, like Pepper when he was a tiny kitten and she took him to school in her jacket pocket.

A secret friend, the only spark of light in the darkness that is closing in around her.

In the living room, a dance tune is playing at maximum volume.

Vanessa closes the door and lets Frasse off the leash. He
pads along to the kitchen to gobble whatever is in his food bowl.