The Key (61 page)

‘Wow, you’re really tempting me,’ Evelina says.

They smile at each other and Evelina puts her arm around Vanessa. As they watch together, red streaks begin to mingle with the green, and then deepen to violet.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ Evelina says. ‘How can a portent for the end of the world be so beautiful?’

The car bounces gently and gravel crunches under the tyres as Viktor drives across the yard in front of the manor house. Illuminated by outdoor lights, the building is ghostly white against the dark night sky. Viktor parks and turns the engine off.

Minoo thinks she smells snow when she steps out into the cold air.

She follows Viktor inside and, after hanging up her coat in the reception cloakroom, they walk the same route that Viktor took when he first led the way to Clara’s room.

The corridor looks spooky in the moonlight. Minoo knows by now that everyone in the circle, except Walter, has a room along this hallway.

Viktor escorts her to the room at the far end, the one with the red clover-patterned wallpaper. She is pleased that she has been put here. At least it feels familiar.

She switches on the bedside light and puts her rucksack next to the big double bed.

‘Recognise it?’ Viktor asks.

‘I wasn’t that far gone.’

‘You were when I carried you in here.’

Minoo feels herself blush. She had never thought about how she transferred from Clara’s room to this one.

‘Just kidding,’ Viktor grins. ‘I couldn’t carry you alone. I had to ask Adriana to help me.’

‘That makes me feel so much better,’ Minoo says as she imagines them heaving and dragging her floppy body. But she has to smile at him.

‘Right,’ Viktor says. ‘Sleep well. Breakfast will be laid out in the dining room by four in the morning.’

Minoo sighs. She has almost managed to forget that she’ll have to get out of bed after only a few hours. She changes, brushes her teeth and washes her face, then crawls into bed. She sets the alarm for quarter to four and then tries to send Gustaf a text, but there’s no signal. She puts the phone down and turns the light off.

The bed is wonderfully soft but she still can’t sleep. She feels as though she is carrying the weight of the whole world on her shoulders. Probably because she is.

Moonlight pours in through the flimsy curtains and the trees cast spidery shadows on the walls. Minoo tries to think about Gustaf. If only he was lying next to her. If only they had time for each other.

There’s a light knock on the door. Minoo sits up. Another knock.

The floor is cold under her bare feet when she goes to open the door, wrapped in her long cardigan.

‘Hello,’ Sigrid whispers. ‘Can we come in?’

She tiptoes into the room without waiting for an answer. She is wrapped in a dressing gown of bone-coloured silk. She is wearing her glasses and carrying a bottle of something alcoholic. Clara follows her. She has pulled a big knitted sweater over the top of her nightdress.

Clara smiles quickly at Minoo, her first smile in three weeks.

‘Hi,’ she whispers.

‘Hi,’ Minoo says, and then feels even more confused when Nejla follows the other two.

‘Hey,’ Nejla says as she marches into the room. She is wearing soft leisure pants and a T-shirt with a picture of a figure wearing an ice-hockey facemask and waving a machete.

Minoo closes the door. Sigrid and Clara have already settled down on her bed. Now she sees that Sigrid has also brought a stack of plastic glasses.

‘Come here.’ Sigrid pats the bed.

Minoo sits down with her legs crossed under her, trying to hide her big feet and the fact that she hasn’t shaved her legs for ages.

‘Here, one for you,’ Sigrid says, handing Minoo an empty glass.

Minoo takes it and glances at the bottle.

‘I’d rather not,’ she says.

Nejla sits down next to her. ‘Yeah you do!’ she grins.

Sigrid pulls a small silver bottle from the pocket of her dressing gown and empties a cloudy liquid into the alcohol. She shakes it while the others sit in total silence. There is something solemn about the whole procedure.

‘Beginners first,’ Sigrid says, and pours a slug into Minoo’s glass.

Minoo hasn’t got the energy to protest. All she has to do is not drink it.

Sigrid pours everyone else a couple of fingers of the mixture and puts the bottle on the bedside table.

‘Okay then. Minoo, are you ready?’

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t really feel like it,’ Minoo says.

She doesn’t even like any ordinary alcoholic drinks. And the fluid in Sigrid’s little bottle looked far too much like the truth serum.

‘It isn’t dangerous,’ Clara says.

‘Just whisky with a twist,’ Sigrid says.

‘What’s in the twist?’ Minoo says.

Nejla snorts with laughter.

‘You don’t want to know,’ she says. ‘I was with some of the guys once when they held a ritual and made this stuff and … fucking hell. I could hardly drink.’

Minoo wishes she hadn’t asked. She remembers the dried eyeballs that Adriana kept a jar of in her office. And all the spit, blood and nails the Chosen Ones have used in their rituals.

‘So it’s magical?’ Minoo says.

‘Oh yes,’ Sigrid says. ‘No question about that.’

‘It makes you relax.’ Clara’s eyes are shining.

‘Best of all, you don’t get a hangover,’ Nejla says.

‘But, you see, the magic only works if everyone drinks,’ Sigrid says.

Minoo wonders if that’s true, or if it is old-fashioned peer pressure disguised as magic rules.

‘Are you with us?’ Sigrid asks. ‘Bottoms up!’

Minoo takes a deep breath. They are all going to drink the same amount of the same cocktail. It can’t contain truth serum. The others wouldn’t expose themselves to that. And if what Clara says is true, that it really does relax you – well, that’s just what Minoo needs.

‘Why not?’ she says.

‘Great!’ Sigrid says. ‘Welcome, Minoo! And cheers!’

They all join in and Minoo drains her glass with the others.

The drink burns her palate, her throat and all the way up into her nose. Minoo picks up a faint taste of vomit. Should it taste like that, or is she about to throw up?

But then the taste fades away.

Everything
fades away.

What had been burning moments ago turns into pleasant warmth that spreads from her stomach into the rest of her body. She can feel tense muscles relaxing. Her shoulders droop. She can take a deep breath. And another. She feels so calm. Calm and content, simmering with a quiet kind of euphoria. A feeling that things will be sorted and that all will be well in the end. Absolutely everything. Having the drink was the right thing to do.

Minoo looks around.

Clara’s long, ash-blonde hair falls over her shoulders. Her eyes are closed and her lips curled in an indulgent smile. She looks almost supernaturally lovely in the moonlight. It must be so special and important for her to be with friends of her own age after having spent all these years alone and isolated. No wonder she seems a little stand-offish at times. Minoo’s heart goes out to her. She ought to become a much better friend to her. They are friends, aren’t they? It feels like it.

She gazes at Sigrid, who is leaning back against the headboard, and studies the movement of the trees’ shadows in the ceiling. Her face, surrounded by blonde curls, is wonderfully pretty. Minoo gets a kick out of just gazing at her. Sigrid looks just as happy as Minoo feels. And she thinks that she really likes Sigrid and has done since the first time they met. How stupid to feel threatened by her style and the elegance of her movements. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, she should ask Sigrid for advice about how to be more like her. Maybe she can finally learn to understand clothes and how to dress? And maybe Sigrid could show her how to paint her nails without ending up looking like a four-year-old has done them.

And then, Nejla. Nejla, who always behaves as if she didn’t give a damn about anything. But she does, of course. Nejla loves her boyfriend, loves music and loves magic. Come to think of it, of all the members of the Council’s circle, Nejla is probably the one who is most passionate about magic. And she doesn’t care one bit about what people think about her. And that is beautiful.
Nejla
is beautiful.

Sigrid laughs.

‘Not bad, eh?’

‘Not bad at all,’ Minoo says.

She realises that she has a foolish grin all over her face and, also, that she simply can’t be bothered worrying about it. Sigrid tops up all the glasses.

‘We’ve hardly had a chance to get to know you, Minoo,’ Sigrid says. ‘You don’t live here, of course. And you practise alone with Walter all the time—’

‘Are you jealous?’ Nejla interrupts, and giggles.

‘Come off it,’ Sigrid replies. ‘All I’m saying is that this is our opportunity to get to know Minoo better. Let’s go a round or two of “I never”.’

‘What’s that?’ Clara asks.

Minoo is grateful that Clara asked first. She has every reason not to know about group games, after all.

‘Somebody claims never to have done something,’ Nejla says. ‘Like “I’ve never nicked anything”. And if you have, you must drink.’

‘So everyone who has nicked something must drink then?’ Minoo asks.

‘That’s right,’ Sigrid says.

Minoo feels elated, which is not what she expected. The mere thought of games like this one used to scare her. Now she’s excited.

‘I’ll start,’ Sigrid says. ‘I never envied anybody else’s powers.’

Minoo raises the glass and drinks. This time she doesn’t notice any off-putting taste. The mouthful goes down easily and warms pleasantly. A sidelong glance at the others tells her that they are also drinking.

‘Oh my God, Minoo, who have
you
envied?’ Sigrid asks her.

‘Like … everyone, I guess?’ she laughs. ‘At first I thought I had no power at all. And then, when I discovered it, it scared me.’

‘That’s fucked up,’ Nejla says.

Minoo giggles. It
feels
fucked up.

‘I suspect we were all thinking of you when we drank in this round,’ Sigrid says. ‘I mean, when you listen to Walter … all those things he tells us that you can do …’

‘It would be fun to watch you doing some of that,’ Nejla says. ‘I’ve already seen witches levitate objects and all that shit. But you’ve never shown off any of your specials.’

This is a challenge, and Minoo can’t resist it.

‘I could enter into your memories and then describe something I’ve seen.’

‘What? You mean like,
right now
?’

‘Sure,’ Minoo says. ‘Why not?’

Nejla grins broadly. ‘Why not? Go for it!’

Sigrid tops the glasses up again and Minoo has a preparatory sip. Then she releases the black smoke and puts her hand against Nejla’s forehead.

The sense of quiet euphoria doesn’t disappear, it is just dampened down.

Minoo slips into Nejla’s memories easily and follows the weave. She avoids memories that seem heavy and painful, searching for one that feels brighter yet strong.

The music is deafening and it sucks. Nejla can’t think why she went to this shit party at all, with this lame crowd. They think it’s so exciting to pile into this old barn a few kilometres away from the school and be eaten alive by midges while they get pissed and high and listen to this shite music, thinking they’re being cool and rebellious.

‘Hey,’ a voice says. She turns and sees a guy standing there, dressed in black from head to toe. Nejla has seen him around in school. He’s new.

‘You’re Nejla, right?’ he says. ‘I’m Marcus.’

‘So?’ she says and drinks some more beer.

‘They’re heavy.’ He is pointing at her Bathory T-shirt.

‘Sure,’ she says, convinced he’s lying and has never heard of them. ‘What’s your favourite album?’ she asks.

‘
Blood Fire Death
,’ he tells her. ‘The runner-up is
Under the Sign of the Black Mark
.’ Nejla is gobsmacked. She would have said exactly the same. Actually, he is quite hot. So she kisses him.

Minoo pulls the smoke in, looks at Nejla and smiles.

‘Your boyfriend, is his name Marcus?’

‘Yes.’ Nejla lifts one eyebrow. ‘Not too hard to find out, though.’

‘The first time you met him was at a party in an old barn a couple of kilometres away from your school. You thought it was a dull party, but then Marcus came up to you and told you how much he liked Bathory. You thought he was lying at first and tested him. It turned out you have the same favourite album and the same second-best choice. The top one is
Blood Fire Death
and the next best
Under the Sign of the Black Mark
.’

Nejla’s eyes widen. ‘Bloody hell, that’s cool,’ she says.

‘You will
not
do that to me,’ Sigrid tells Minoo.

Clara says nothing, just smiles a little at Minoo.

‘But let’s go on, I’ve got a good one,’ Nejla says. ‘I never … had sex with someone who is in the house now.’

Sigrid is the only one who drinks.

‘Who with?’ Nejla asks. ‘Walter?’

‘Stop it!’ Sigrid goes as red as a beetroot. ‘With Viktor, of course.’

‘I’m not listening.’ Clara presses her hands to her ears and starts humming to herself.

‘It was years ago.
Once
,’ Sigrid says, holding up one finger. Then she turns to Minoo with a smile. ‘I thought we had Viktor in common?’

‘No,’ Minoo says. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Seriously? Viktor is such a total slut,’ Sigrid says. ‘Surely at least one of the Chosen Ones has slept with him?’

Clara is humming loudly now. Minoo shakes her head.

‘Come off it!’ Sigrid says. ‘Snogged?’

‘None of us fancied him,’ Minoo says.

Nejla laughs. ‘Seems like Viktor’s not the right type for Engelsfors.’

‘Actually, a lot of girls at school were interested in him at first,’ Minoo says. ‘But he kept himself to himself, so in the end everybody decided that he had to be gay.’

Sigrid laughs out loud.

‘That sounds like Felix’s dream. Though he doesn’t want Viktor to be
homo
sexual.
Felix
sexual would be more like it. My personal take on Viktor is that he’s simply not capable of deciding to go for one person or one thing. Too greedy.’