The Circle (59 page)

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.

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.