The Key (15 page)

She gets up and disappears, holding her phone.

Linnéa closes her eyes, listens to Vanessa in the sitting room, hears her mumbling voice as she talks to her mother. She tries to steel herself for the moment when Vanessa will end the call, start dressing, and then say she must go now.

She doesn’t want Vanessa to leave. She doesn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. She knows herself too well; she’ll start twisting and turning all the beautiful, fantastic things that have happened. Try to spot something wrong and ugly. Her brain will be back on old, familiar tracks. She will become convinced that if something seems too good to be true, it’s because it is.

She listens as the footsteps come closer. The bed moves under Vanessa’s weight as she lies down.

‘I told Mum I’m sleeping here.’ She crawls close to Linnéa again.

‘I love you,’ Linnéa tells her.

She is amazed at how easy it is to say now. And how easy it is to go to sleep when Vanessa lies next to her.

* * *

‘I love you too,’ Vanessa whispers and feels that she has never meant anything so much in her whole life.

She listens to Linnéa’s rhythmic breathing until she, too, falls asleep.

* * *

Minoo’s eyes are fixed on the page in
The Golden Compass
. She has reached one of her favourite passages in the book, but still she seems to read the same sentence over and over again. She must be tired.

She puts the book away and turns the bedside light off. She hopes she won’t be haunted by nightmares tonight. And then she goes to sleep.

* * *

Anna-Karin wakes when Peppar strolls across the bed and then curls up on her stomach.

For a moment, she thinks this is her old room in the flat. The flat that never quite felt like home.

But it could become a home if she moved there with Grandpa.

Anna-Karin knows that’s unrealistic, but it is a fantasy she allows herself late at night.

‘I’d look after both of you,’ she mumbles, burrowing the tips of her fingers in Peppar’s fur. He starts to purr.

She falls asleep again.

* * *

The darkness that envelops Minoo is unvarying, like black velvet. It offers nothing for the gaze to fix on. Her eyes hurt.

She holds out her hands to test the space in front of her. Nothing there. She takes one cautious step, then another. Under her bare feet, the surface is soft and cool. Grassy.

Two flames flare up, making the ground glow orange. The flickering light confuses and dazzles her, and makes the shadows dance over the stones and roots.

Further ahead, another couple of small fires are lit, and then another couple and another. She understands now that the flares mark the edges of a path. A path that she has to follow.

A light breeze gently touches her face. She looks at herself and realises that she is wearing pyjamas, the same ones that she wore the night of the blood-red moon. She had thrown them away as soon as she’d got back home, because she didn’t want either of her parents to find them and start wondering about all the dirt and the torn hems on the trousers.

More flames spring up, and now she sees the dance pavilion in Kärrgruvan. It is surrounded by a meadow, not the usual gravel. Minoo looks up at the familiar pointy outline of the roof, the railing, the raised stage.

I’m not here, she thinks. This is a dream.

But as she climbs the steps to the dance floor, she feels the wooden boards under her feet, as unmistakably as she had felt the grass earlier.

Suddenly, Matilda is there, standing in the middle of the floor. She is dressed in her white smock and her reddish-blonde hair is swept forward across one shoulder. A rook is perched on her other shoulder. It opens its beak and utters a croaking noise.

Now Minoo sees the others.

Anna-Karin sits on the floor, curled up. Her nightdress is torn and dirty and her bare feet are covered in mud.

Linnéa and Vanessa stand together, hand in hand. Linnéa is wearing her black hoodie and jeans; Vanessa is wrapped in a blanket but Minoo catches a glimpse of her leopard-print underwear.

It is like being thrown right back into the past. To the night when it all began.

But Rebecka and Ida were here, too, Minoo thinks. And Nicolaus, Matilda’s father.

She glances over her shoulder. The flames are gone. The pavilion seems suspended in endless darkness.

‘This is no ordinary dream, is it?’ Vanessa asks.

‘No,’ Matilda replies, her voice clear and distinct in the silence. ‘This is no ordinary dream.’

Vanessa observes Matilda’s pale, freckled face. She looks so young and, in a way, she is. She will always be fifteen years old. Caught between worlds, she belongs neither among the living nor the dead. She doesn’t know what awaits her if she crosses over into the realm of the dead; doesn’t even know if it exists.

Vanessa pulls the blanket tighter around her. Looks at the others, who all look so real. Can this be a dream they are all experiencing together? Her scalp prickles as she tries to grasp the idea.

‘What are we here for?’ Minoo asks. ‘Has something happened?’

Matilda doesn’t reply, just looks at them all in turn.

When her gaze lingers on her, Vanessa feels the same tingling sensation that she used to feel before Ida became possessed. The smell of burning wood tickles her nose.

‘First of all, I have to ask you all to promise me something,’ Matilda says. ‘You will not leave this pavilion before I have finished telling my tale. Do you promise me that?’

‘Yes, I promise,’ Minoo says, and Anna-Karin nods without speaking.

‘Of course,’ Vanessa agrees.

‘Why do you want us to promise that?’ Linnéa asks.

‘I have to make sure that you hear and understand all that I have to tell you, instead of … just lashing out.’

‘Obviously you don’t have good news for us,’ Linnéa says.

‘Please, I beg you, just hear me out,’ Matilda pleads. She sounds even younger than she looks.

Vanessa looks at her and thinks of everything Matilda has been through. They belong together. Which was exactly what Matilda said, here in Kärrgruvan during the night of the blood-red moon, when she spoke through the medium of Ida.

I am you. You are me. We are one
.

‘We must trust her,’ Vanessa tells Linnéa.

‘OK, whatever,’ she replies with a glance at Vanessa. ‘I promise not to leave. But that’s not to say I like the vibes.’

The rook flaps its wings and the tips of its black feathers nudge Matilda’s face when it flies away.

Vanessa’s eyes follow it as it vanishes into the compact darkness. She wonders what is out there. If there is anything at all. That thought alone is enough to give her vertigo.

‘This will be difficult for us,’ Matilda says. ‘But … I haven’t told you everything.’

* * *

Minoo understands why Matilda made them promise not to walk away. As far as she’s concerned, all she wants is to make herself wake up and get out of this dream. She is afraid of what they are going to hear.

‘Are you saying that you’ve been lying to us?’ Linnéa asks.

Matilda hesitates. ‘It’s not that simple. Please, let me explain before you judge me.’

Minoo looks pleadingly at Linnéa. Everyone is scared, but they must be patient.

‘This world has always contained magic,’ Matilda continues. ‘Six elements. Earth. Fire. Air. Water. Metal. Wood.’

As she names each element, she draws its sign in the air. Each one appears, one after the other.

‘Witches have always existed. In the beginning, they used magic to meet basic needs. They found ways to make fires, locate sources of water and edible plants, and build shelters against the wind. And to track animals for hunting, deflect lightning during thunderstorms and so on. All skills that helped the tribe to survive.’

‘When was all this going on?’ Vanessa says. ‘Back with the Flintstones?’

The mystified look in Matilda’s ice-blue eyes makes her look even more like Nicolaus.

‘I do not know of whom you’re speaking. But it was a very long time ago. Before the demons entered our world.’

Entered?
Minoo can’t quite believe her ears.

‘Hey, what do you mean by “entered”?’ Linnéa asks.

‘Yes,’ Minoo says. ‘Earlier, you said that the demons
tried to
enter, but that the guardians and humans stopped them. And then, at some point in time, the seven portals appeared—’

‘I simplified the truth.’ Matilda looks apologetic. ‘You were not ready.’

‘You’ve no right whatsoever to decide when we’re ready!’ Linnéa says.

‘Let her finish,’ Minoo says.

Matilda glances gratefully at her.

‘You see, the demons tore open seven gaps in the boundary layer and entered through the gaps. What they found seemed chaotic and primitive to them, a world that needed demonic reorganisation. They brought with them their own magic, powerful enough to civilise the most advanced of the Earth’s species, the humans. And human beings did change. Settled down and started building communities.’

Minoo thinks back to the history lessons about the Neolithic revolution, when human development took the same great leap forward in every corner of Earth. When people invented farming, kept herds of tamed animals and organised themselves into separate communities.

Is
this
the explanation?

‘But with the settlements came warfare, oppression, epidemics,’ Matilda continues. ‘As humans became more sophisticated, the chaos grew worse in many ways. The demons decided to leave our world alone and come back later to examine the outcome of their experiment. But they didn’t all leave. Some stayed behind. As supervisors, one might say … they came to call themselves “the guardians”.’

Minoo is feeling sick. In a second or two, she might vomit.

Max’s words resound in her head.

Nothing is as you think
.

Linnéa is as still as a statue. Minoo expects her to have one of her outbursts any minute. She actually wants her to do so. But nothing happens.

Anna-Karin gets up from her place on the floor. ‘Are guardians and demons the same beings?’ she asks.

‘They
were
the same,’ Matilda replies. ‘In the beginning, when the first wave of demons came here. But something happened to the demons left behind in our world, something quite unexpected. They changed.’

‘Did they now? Surely that’s impossible?’ Vanessa says acidly. ‘Aren’t the demons supposed to be unchanging and perfect?’

‘Well, yes, that is how they see themselves,’ Matilda replies. ‘But it’s not true. When the demons arrived here, the balance of magic shifted so that some places became more magical than others. The levels of magic also ebbed and flowed periodically. Everything changed. And so did the demons that stayed behind. They began to feel part of our world and, with that, to want to protect it from their old kin.’

Minoo thinks she hears whispers rising from the compact darkness that surrounds the pavilion. The voices seem to back what Matilda is saying, as if to reassure the Chosen Ones.

‘The guardians managed to strengthen the portals so that they could only be opened and closed from inside our world. To seal them completely proved impossible for them, because it required our world’s own magic, so they needed a special witch. Someone who could control all six elements and was born during an epoch of high magic, near one of the portals. He or she is the Chosen One. And the guardians formed the Council to help and support the Chosen One.’

‘Of course, the very wonderful Council,’ Vanessa sneers.

‘The guardians shouldn’t be blamed for the corruption of the Council. It has been going on for thousands of years. As the guardians have grown weaker, communicating with humans has become more difficult—’

‘Why didn’t you tell us the truth from the start?’ Linnéa interrupts. Her voice sounds frosty.

‘It might be hard for you to understand …’ Matilda begins.

‘Hard for you to explain away, you mean,’ Linnéa says.

Matilda ignores her.

‘The future is in constant motion, you know that. It is affected by all the choices people make, and by natural events. The guardians are always trying to read the future, trying to interpret the effects of different choices, see where all the different routes will lead.’

She looks at Minoo as she continues to talk.

‘When I was the Chosen One, the guardians told me that I had no hope of closing the portal and that there was a huge risk that the demons would get in. The guardians asked me to relinquish my powers and allow the next Chosen One to try.’

Minoo knew already that Matilda had given up her powers, but she had always wondered why. Now it’s clear. The guardians had told her to let her successors take over.

‘And then the Council had you executed,’ Linnéa says. ‘Apparently, the guardians weren’t on the ball enough to warn you?’

Matilda looks grief-stricken and Minoo wishes Linnéa would go easy on the sarcasm just for once.

‘Random events can always disturb the course of the future. The guardians cannot predict everything – for instance, that there would be seven Chosen Ones this time, instead of only one.’

She gazes at them.

‘Throughout, the guardians have aimed to guide you so that the future would become as favourable as possible. They tried to supply you with the right information at the right time. And sometimes you had to find out what you needed to know on your own.’

So this is why Matilda and the guardians have been so cryptic at times; this is why they have provided clues for the Chosen Ones rather than straight answers. Because, if the Chosen Ones were able to figure out certain answers for themselves, this would have a better effect on the future.

‘The guardians have done everything to protect you. But sometimes it just hasn’t been possible to avoid tragedies. They have been too deeply rooted in the ongoing events. Or it could be that other choices could have led to even more catastrophic situations.’

Minoo tries to understand the true meaning of what she hears.

Did the guardians foresee that Elias, Rebecka and Ida would die? Did they see these deaths and just let them happen?