The Key (78 page)

‘Just you wait,’ Liam says, sniffling loudly. ‘One day I’ll write a book about this town. I’ll show you all.’

The strong water magic actually
feels
like water. Water flowing strongly enough to tear up whole villages and burst through great dams. And drown everything.

‘Shit, I’m
so
hot.’ Michelle pouts and studies her face in the mirror in her powder compact. ‘If I were lesbian too, I’d definitely want to sleep with me.’

‘They don’t understand how quickly time passes,’ Patrick says. ‘They believe their youth is like a personal trait, something that belongs to them. Can’t get their heads around the fact that they’ll all wake up one day and it will be gone. Forever.’

Downstairs lobby!
Linnéa shouts inside Vanessa’s head.
Now!

‘I’ll expose everyone I hate,’ Liam says. ‘And I hate almost everyone.’

‘We must get out of here,’ Vanessa says to Evelina. She gets up and pulls her jacket on.

‘Yes, absolutely. Or I’ll blurt out that we’re witches,’ Evelina says, getting ready.

‘What are they talking about?’ Michelle says. She snaps her powder compact shut.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m trying not to think about it because then I’ll say it,’ Evelina says as they walk towards the door. ‘I’m trying not to think about the apocalypse. I am
not
thinking about the apocalypse. I am
not
thinking about the apocalypse.’

The babble of voices in the classroom is deafening.

‘They never ask me to hang out with them any more,’ Michelle says loudly behind them. ‘Shit, Nessa’s bum looks terrific in those jeans. Why does she always find the best jeans?’

‘Linnéa will meet us in the lobby,’ Vanessa says as soon as they are in the corridor. ‘Can’t you … sorry, but can you please hold your hand over your mouth?’

Evelina does as Vanessa suggested.

They walk quickly along the row of lockers. Two first years, a boy and a girl, are kissing each other in one of the sofa groups. And then they start laughing.

‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’ she says.

‘Why didn’t
you
say anything?’ he asks. ‘I’ve been crazy about you since confirmation camp. But you were going out with Mikko and Mikko is better-looking than me.’

‘I know,’ the girl says. ‘But I like you more than him anyway.’

They carry on snogging and Vanessa increases her pace. Evelina is mumbling furiously but pressing her hand to her lips so it’s at least impossible to hear what she is saying.

They meet a second-year guy who stares straight at Vanessa.

‘She is so fucking sexy,’ he says. ‘Lucky Jari who shagged her before she turned dyke. It sucks that I didn’t get a chance.’

‘Like you’d ever have one,’ Vanessa sneers.

‘Fuck, I’m sad now,’ he says. ‘I’ll never get to have sex.’

Tommy Ekberg stands in the corridor, together with the music teacher Kerstin Stålnacke and the biology teacher Ove Post.

‘I’m drunk,’ Ove says.

‘I’m gay,’ Tommy says.

Kerstin stares sadly at him.

‘I’m in love with you,’ she says, and bursts into tears.

Vanessa and Evelina carry on walking quickly through the school. It’s like a nightmare. Some people talk straight out into the air. Others are deeply engaged in utterly bizarre conversations that remind Vanessa of how Wille, Jonte and Lucky could ramble on after they had smoked themselves into near-unconsciousness.

‘… I guess he has to be right, I could learn to like it …’

‘… would love to go on a helicopter ride. It seems so bloody cool. How do helicopters even fly? I have to find out …

‘… why doesn’t she turn me on? She wants it. Why don’t I …’

‘… caviar, how could anyone face creamed smoked roe in the morning, it smells foul … and black pudding. Christ, black pudding is like eating scabs … and blue cheese, how can you willingly eat something that’s mouldy …’

Vanessa glances at Evelina, who seems to be in control. She has taken her hand away from her mouth so she can pull her jacket on.

Hurry up
, she hears Linnéa’s thought.
There are too many of them. Anna-Karin and I can’t handle it alone
.

Vanessa starts running and Evelina follows. They pass a group of second-year girls who are arguing noisily.

‘Cousins are even allowed to
marry
in this country!’ one of them screams. Someone pushes her hard and she bangs her head against the wall.

The lobby is full of pupils. More snogging. More fights. Vanessa catches sight of one boy insanely beating up another boy.

Anna-Karin and Linnéa are waiting for them just inside the doors.

‘Evelina, you go home to Rickard and tell him,’ Vanessa says. ‘And then go round to Linnéa’s.’

‘Will do,’ Evelina. ‘But we’ll fuck first.’

She slaps her hand over her mouth and leaves quickly.

Vanessa looks at Anna-Karin and Linnéa. They join hands. Anna-Karin’s control thoughts are so powerful they boom through their minds.

STOP FIGHTING! BE QUIET! EACH ONE OF YOU, TAKE YOUR JACKET AND GO HOME
.
TAKE IT EASY. GO TO THE HOSPITAL IF YOU THINK YOU NEED IT AND HELP OTHERS IF THEY NEED IT
.

Vanessa watches as people stop in their tracks. Some set out for the doors. She sees one boy with half his face dripping blood and bloodstains all over his light quilted jacket.

‘Shit,’ Linnéa says. ‘What would have happened today if we hadn’t been here? Just think about it.’

Vanessa doesn’t want to think about it. People would have ended up tearing each other apart.

She has never before been properly aware how many pupils there are. It takes a long time before everyone is through the front doors. Some are bleeding, others limping. Many are weeping, but no one seems seriously injured.

‘I wonder if they’ll remember what happened,’ Anna-Karin says.

I don’t know
, Linnéa thinks.
It’s impossible to tell. Just now, their minds only contain your control thoughts
.

The stream of pupils thins out. Lollo, the PE teacher, walks through the door with an intense expression on her face. Vanessa hardly recognises her with her hair loose and tousled.

All around them, the magic is ebbing away.

It seems to be over now
, Linnéa thinks.
Do you feel it, too?

‘Yes,’ Anna-Karin says.

Tommy Ekberg walks past them, munching a Kit Kat. Vanessa watches him as he wanders away and disappears. The school is silent. They wait for a while but nobody else turns up.

‘Seems they’ve all left,’ Linnéa says, letting go of Anna-Karin’s hand. ‘Unless there’s a dead body lying around somewhere.’

Vanessa shudders. She also lets go of Anna-Karin’s hand and listens hard to the silence. She has a feeling it’s not quite over.

‘Shit!’ Linnéa says. ‘That was just about the sickest—’

Vanessa picks up a vibration in the floor. She turns to the others. And then, the whole world starts shaking, as the magic of the earth element wells up from the ground.

‘Run!’ Anna-Karin screams.

The lamps in the ceiling are swinging on their chains. Vanessa leaps at the door, stumbles and falls down the steps. Someone pulls her upright. Anna-Karin. A dull rumble fills the world around them. Vanessa sees the steps crack in front of her feet as the three of them run down to the schoolyard. Ahead of them, the tarmac is bulging and the snow swirling in the air. The dead trees are falling, torn up, their roots exposed. The football goal collapses. Car alarms howl in the parking area.

They rush out through the gates, then stop and look back at their school. The mortar is crumbling. Bricks are coming off and crash to the ground. Suddenly, all the windows explode. Broken glass showers the yard.

And then, silence.

The crack in the schoolyard, which appeared on the night of the blood-red moon, has opened again. A black, jagged tear in the snow.

Earth. The last portent.

‘It looks as if there’s a war on,’ Anna-Karin says.

‘There is,’ Linnéa says.

Anna-Karin is walking along the gravelled road to the Sunny Side home for the elderly. She ought to be utterly exhausted, but keeps going on sheer adrenalin.

The apocalypse will be here soon. She must see Grandpa.

When the front doors open, she walks into a mad cacophony of ringing, beeping and howling. She pulls her cap off and takes the lift to Grandpa’s floor.

Here, the sounds are even stronger. The bulb in a wall light blows as she steps out into the corridor.

A birdlike little old lady is sitting in a wheelchair with her bony hands pressed against her ears, shaking her head and moaning
no, no, no
. Even her voice is like a bird’s, shrill and a little hoarse. A care assistant comes out from one of the rooms and runs towards her.

‘Now, now, Boel. It will be all right,’ he says. ‘Not to worry.’

He tries to sound calm but can’t hide how stressed he is. He looks up and catches sight of Anna-Karin.

‘Hello there and welcome to Armageddon,’ he says. ‘Every single telephone in the place is ringing. We are taking the receivers off the hook.’

Anna-Karin hurries along the corridor, goes into Grandpa’s room and shuts the door. The phone is ringing here too, a tinny shrieking that hurts your ears.

In the small sitting room, Grandpa sits in his wheelchair. He has fallen asleep with a crossword magazine open on the little table attached to his chair.

How can he sleep in this racket? Is he really asleep? His lower jaw hangs slackly. But then he snores and Anna-Karin breathes again.

She lifts the receiver of the grey, wall-mounted phone next to his bed and listens. All she can hear is hissing static that comes and goes in waves. Almost like breathing.

Then the noise stops. The signals from the other rooms die away.

She goes back to the sitting room. Grandpa snores once more, then opens his eyes and looks surprised.

‘My sweet girl,’ he mumbles and smiles at her. ‘Fancy you being here.’

‘How are you, Grandpa?’

‘Can’t complain, my dear. Is it cold again today?’

Anna-Karin nods and tries to smile.

‘It’s brass monkeys out there,’ she says, using an expression Grandpa was fond of. It reminds her of skiing trips, thermoses full of hot chocolate and sandwiches made with whey cheese.

‘Fetch me a glass of water, please,’ Grandpa says.

She goes out into the small kitchen and runs the tap for cold water while she listens to him busying himself with something in the sitting room. Grandpa has his own things here, his own china and glassware and cutlery. It just makes her realise how far this is from his proper home. It smelled of green soap, coffee, wood, fresh air and, when Grandpa had done the laundry, freshly ironed cotton. The Sunny Side smell is artificial and stale, with a tinge of urine. She remembers what her mum said one day after they had been visiting.

I’d rather die than end up in a home like this
.

At least she didn’t have to go through that, Anna-Karin thinks, and feels a pang of grief.

She goes back to the sitting room and puts the glass of water on the wheelchair table. Grandpa has an envelope in his hand.

‘I have a letter for you here,’ he says.

Anna-Karin sits down next to him.

‘I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure I’d get an answer,’ Grandpa continues. ‘But I’ve found Staffan. Your father.’

Anna-Karin notes the sloping handwriting on the envelope. Her name but her grandfather’s address. It says
SUECIA
on the last line.

So that is his handwriting. The man in the photographs, who came to Kärrgruvan one night and met Mum. He was good-looking and a great dancer.

If I had known how bad he was at everything else, I would’ve run as fast as my legs could carry me
, Mum used to say.

Grandpa fingers the envelope nervously.

‘I hope you don’t think that I’ve been interfering?’ he says.

Anna-Karin shakes her head as she takes the letter from him. Inside, a sheet of lined paper is covered in the same handwriting.

Hello Anna-Karin!

This letter has been very difficult to write. Taisto wrote to me and told me what had happened to Mia. It is very sad news and I am truly sorry. I hope you feel as well as you possibly can in these circumstances. I understand that you have many questions about me, and who I am. Perhaps you wonder most of all about why I disappeared. I regret to admit it, but I have no good answer to give you
.

Mia was a very kind person and she always stood by me. I had a difficult background and she made me believe that I could settle down with my family in the countryside and lead a simple, stable life. I liked your grandparents very much, too, and thought it would work. But that kind of life was not for me. I wish it had been. And I wished all the time that I could be a good father as well. It seems I simply haven’t got it in me. I haven’t had any role models, and that might have something to do with it
.

I live on Gran Canaria these days. The town is called Maspalomas. I work in a Swedish restaurant called Skansen
and live alone, sharing my home with a dog. I’m happy enough and enjoy the sun and the warmth. Living in a place where few people stay for long is, I think, perfect for someone like me
.

I come home to Sweden once or twice a year and stay with relatives in Västerås. It would give us a chance to meet. I hope you don’t expect too much. I will never become a proper father for you. But if you have questions I will answer them as best I can
.

Kind Regards, Staffan

Anna-Karin reads and rereads the letter. It doesn’t make her feel any closer to him. Rather the opposite.

She tries to imagine him on Gran Canaria but, as she has never been there, she can’t. Strange that he might be in that restaurant now, maybe chatting to a drunken tourist with a peeling, red nose. It’s easier to imagine the tourist than her father. Dad.

Anna-Karin folds the letter.

‘Would you like to talk about it?’ Grandpa asks.

‘Not just now,’ Anna-Karin replies. ‘But thank you for finding him.’