Fire (65 page)

Her fingertips prickle. She has gooseflesh all over.

‘What shit are you up to?’ Vanessa says.

Ida’s fingers tingle so much now it almost hurts.

She notes the little flashes that spark on the other side of the glass, level with her fingertips. She focuses on the red, blinking light, imagines it to be a monster’s eye that opens and shuts, opens and shuts. And the flashes are flying towards the white plastic box. The sizzling sound can be heard out on the landing. A slender coil of smoke rises from the scorched box.

The red light has stopped blinking.

Ida shakes her hands to stop the stinging sensation. The others look impressed.

‘Since when have you been able to do stuff like that?’ Anna-Karin says.

‘Since precisely now,’ Ida says.

Linnéa pulls off her thin top, puts her jacket back on and uses the top to cover her right hand holding the heavy stone. It would have been helpful if Vanessa could have picked the lock, but it is too complicated for her hairpin technique.

‘What are they doing in there?’ she asks and Anna-Karin closes her eyes.

‘Kerstin Stålnacke is there with the school choir. They’re getting ready.’

‘Perfect,’ Linnéa says.

With the choir yelling their positive campaign songs, the risk that anyone will hear the sound of the pane breaking
is next to nil. And she has scanned this place for unidentified thoughts, but picked up nothing unexpected. It’s now or never.

‘Move over,’ she says and the others back down a few steps. ‘Mind the splinters.’

Linnéa tenses her arm, shuts her eyes and turns her face away.

The glass cracks with a dull sound, muffled by the fabric. But a few shards fall to Linnéa’s feet, clatter loudly against the metal grid and carry on down to the ground.

Linnéa raises her arm again. This time the inner pane breaks. Glass is falling on the floor inside the door. They all hold their breath.

Up here, only a very faint reverberation of the choir singing can be heard. Still, there is no mistaking the ecstasy in the voices.

Linnéa puts the stone down. She winds the top more tightly around her hand and arm before gingerly sticking her hand through the hole. Twisting the inside handle, she opens the door and steps into the corridor. Stands still and listens. Registers the swarm of thoughts buzzing far down inside the building.

She looks along the corridor that leads to the toilets where Elias died. Where everything began.

Vanessa comes and stands close to her.

And suddenly Linnéa wonders if she dares. She would so very much like to kiss Vanessa the way loving couples kiss in films, just as stuff starts exploding and the action should be far too fast and panicky for tender feelings.

Usually, she despises these couples. But now she understands them. Because how is it possible to face danger without giving your beloved a kiss that might be the last? What could be more important?

Vanessa looks quizzically at her. Linnéa is suddenly aware that Anna-Karin and Ida are standing right behind them. The moment is lost.

‘Ready?’ Vanessa whispers. Linnéa nods.

She might be too much of a coward to show her feelings for Vanessa.

But she is definitely ready to put a stop to Positive Engelsfors.

Vanessa wishes her power was enough to pull them all with her into invisibility.

Instead she walks ahead, checking that the coast is clear before the others follow her. If one of the amulet wearers spots them, all the others will know in an instant.

And if they are seen, it’s all over.

The last notes of a song are ringing out, deep down in the innards of the school.

She hears Linnéa’s voice in her head.

Anna-Karin says that Helena and Krister are stepping up on the stage now. They are not wearing any necklaces. At least not as far as the fox can see.

Just how absurd have our lives become when we think this is a normal piece of conversation?
Vanessa thinks.

You mean, apart from the fact that the conversation is happening inside our heads?
Linnéa replies.

Vanessa can’t help smiling. She goes and leans over the railing to look down into the stairwell. No one in sight.

I’ll go down to the second floor and look around
, she thinks.

Fine
, Linnéa responds.
Take care.

Promise.

Vanessa starts walking downstairs. Over her shoulder, she sees Linnéa trying to place her feet as gently as possible.
Behind Linnéa, Ida’s blonde hair glows in the faint light from the windows.

Vanessa could scream, tap-dance, do cartwheels, whatever came to mind. But the others are defenceless. And the slightest sound echoes against the dark stone of the stairs.

She reaches the third floor and scans the long corridors which disappear into the dark and seem to go on and on for an eternity. Still no one lurking. At least, no one she can detect. She is just about to carry on downstairs when Linnéa’s thought stops her.

Wait!

Vanessa stops in mid-pace.

I hear them
, Linnéa thinks.
Two of them. Maybe three. Directly below us. We’d better take the spiral stairs instead.

I hear you
, Vanessa thinks.
But wait a second.

She walks into the corridor, moves in and out between the lockers with their Positive Engelsfors stickers. Bits of yellow paper bunting swish in the draught as she passes by.

She opens the door to the spiral staircase.

All clear?
Linnéa asks.

Yes. I’ll go down first, you follow.

She closes the door quietly and starts out downstairs.

The light from below is reflected on the walls but Vanessa casts no shadow.

Linnéa opens the door to the spiral staircase. Closes her eyes and sets out, with Ida and Anna-Karin close behind. To detect if anyone is nearby, she must try to orient herself in the humming haze of thoughts that fills the school.

Thank God for Alicja.

One thought that floats slightly above the rest.

After tonight, surely Helena and Krister will be pleased with me?

Linnéa instantly passes a thought on to Vanessa.

Someone is standing below.

I can see her
, Vanessa answers quickly.
It’s Kerstin Stålnacke. Come on down. She’s standing in the main lobby and can’t see you.

Linnéa sends her message on to Anna-Karin and Ida and the three of them descend to the ground floor as silently as they can.

They go into the corridor leading into the main entrance lobby.

Is she alone?
Linnéa thinks to Vanessa.

Yes
, Vanessa thinks.
She seems to be standing guard. I saw her take over from our gym teacher, Lollo.

A burst of applause from the gym. The echo finds its way through the corridor. Linnéa thinks she can distinguish Helena’s laughter.

‘They’re about to choose the young PE member,’ Anna-Karin whispers.

‘Is Kerstin going to hang around all night?’ Ida says quietly.

Linnéa looks towards the lobby. Somewhere in there, Kerstin Stålnacke stands alone. Before Linnéa shuts her eyes and dives into the cacophony of thoughts again, she tries to imagine the dance and music teacher. She gets a grip on Kerstin’s thoughts almost at once. It feels a little like holding on to a loose thread in a piece of material and then starting to pull.

Perhaps I ought to have chosen the nice tune from that nice film about the nice choir from Norrland instead. I think Helena would have enjoyed that very much. But golly, how I ramble on! Now I must focus on what went really well. I am a good choirmaster. I am musical, ambitious and imaginative, but above all I am enthusiastic and can enthuse and if there’s something these young people need it’s—

Something breaks Kerstin’s line of thought.

‘Alicja!’ she calls from somewhere far off. ‘You have no idea how proud you’ve made me tonight!’

A frail small voice says something Linnéa can’t make out.

‘No, no, thank
you
,’ Kerstin says. ‘You were outstanding!’

Ida tugs at Linnéa’s sleeve.

‘Is she alone with Alicja?’

Linnéa nods.

‘Great,’ Ida says.

She slips away down the corridor and Linnéa stares after her, almost panicking.

Where are you going
? she screams inside Ida’s head, but Ida blocks her at once.

Ida presses herself flat against the wall while she moves sideways along the corridor. Now she can hear Kerstin clearly.

‘You’re a star!’ she is saying, just as Ida with wildly hammering heart peeps around the corner to see into the lobby.

To mark the occasion, Kerstin is wearing a radiantly yellow poncho. Around her neck, with the chain entangled in a wooden African neckpiece, dangles the metal sign amulet. Alicja is chewing on a strand of her dark hair.

That baby has all the charisma of a wrung-out dishcloth, Ida thinks. And Kerstin is raving about
her
being a star?

Ida stays pressed against the wall. She is itching to make a move. Literally. Flashes spark along her hands.

‘You sing with such
true feeling
,’ Kerstin says.

Ida peeps out again. Stretches her hands out. Kerstin and Alicja have no time to react before Ida has thrown them right across the room. Both flop down on the floor in a faint.

Suddenly, Ida feels anxious.

Did she overdo it?

She takes one step into the lobby.

In passing, Vanessa’s invisible shoulder gives her a push. On purpose, obviously. Ida watches as an invisible hand removes the chains from around Kerstin and Alicja’s necks.

Anna-Karin and Linnéa join them now.

‘I’d better get them both to want to go home at once,’ Anna-Karin whispers and walks over to Kerstin and Alicja, who are twitching restlessly on the floor.

Linnéa looks crossly at Ida.

You shouldn’t have done that.

Ida shrugs.

So what? It solved a problem, didn’t it? There’s nobody to stand guard any more. Nothing to stop us from banging on straight ahead. Isn’t that what you usually go for?

Linnéa snorts.

Ida turns and looks at Anna-Karin, who is talking quietly to Alicja and Kerstin. They get up on shaky legs and obediently hobble along towards the main doors. Ida wonders if their brains will be totally burned out, having been controlled by two witches in succession. And, in between, being zapped by a third witch.

She looks towards the door leading to the gym. New applause is thundering down there. Ida can feel it through the floor.

Anna-Karin, Linnéa and Vanessa come to stand beside her. Anna-Karin’s eyes are shut.

‘The three top nominees are asked to come up on stage now,’ she whispers. ‘Erik, Kevin and Rickard.’

‘I hope Rickard doesn’t win,’ Vanessa murmurs. ‘Then we’ll never get at him.’

‘He won’t,’ Ida whispers. ‘Erik is Helena’s favourite.’

More thunderous applause from below.

‘We’ll fix this,’ Vanessa says.

‘Yes,’ Linnéa says. ‘Come to think of it, this is just like any other day in Engelsfors senior school. Only, people are a fraction more zombiefied than usual.’

It feels like coming home.

A power much greater than anything Minoo has ever known is filling her and now she is no longer afraid. Her hand rests lightly on Adriana’s forehead, where she senses the life force pulsating underneath the skull. Minoo could draw that force out of her, as she did to Max. But instead, she concentrates harder still and slides
inside
.

Adriana.

Minoo is with her, inside her, in her thoughts and emotions, everything that is Adriana’s self. Then Minoo observes the latest memory. She sees her own face as Adriana saw it. She is aware of Adriana’s fear, but also of her hope. She has come to believe that Minoo might save her.

Minoo lingers in that moment. She could have started to tug at that memory in order to pull out many remembered events, linked like pearls on a string. But she is suddenly aware that there are other ways.

She concentrates even harder. The first time she did this it felt like discovering a new sense. Now she realises that she has several senses she can use.

It is as if blinkers are coming off, as if walls are tumbling down. Memories are not linked into an anchor chain, steadily leading downwards, steadily deeper, through ever murkier waters. Memories are like a woven cloth. Thousands – no,
many hundreds of thousands – of threads pass in and out, running above and below each other, forming patterns, associating in every direction.

And they are not static, but changeable. Slowly slowly, the memories shift, join up, merge, subdivide, distort, alter. They grow, shrink, are moved out of the way and push themselves forward. Their dynamism is hypnotic to watch.

Out of this constant shape-changing, her task is to extract certain details, cut away years from Adriana’s life.

It ought to throw her into a state of complete panic, but doesn’t. If anything, she grows interested. It feels as if everything about Minoo that is anxious, small, weak,
human
, can no longer affect her. It is liberating not to be afraid any longer. She is in control.

Around her, memories are pulsating slowly. She chooses a strong one. Slides into it.

Burns
.

The pain is so extreme that she thinks she will die. She
wishes
herself dead.

And it fades, no, it is just that it hasn’t started yet, because now she has reached the moment before it will be done to her. Minoo sees Alexander’s face through Adriana’s eyes, sees him as Adriana does at the same time as she sees him as Minoo does. He is younger, but his face is recognisably as resolute, as stern. It doesn’t give away any emotion as he raises the branding iron with the sign for the fire element. It starts to glow as he holds it and moves it closer to Adriana’s bare skin.

Minoo lets go of that memory, disappears into the next one that insists on her concentrating.

A tall, imposing woman with an antique silver brooch on the lapel of her jacket. She looks like Adriana, and it is her mother. ‘I so wish I could have done more. I did try my best,’
she says sadly. Adriana doesn’t believe her. She hates her mother. She hates them all.