The Key (42 page)

His emotions are so powerful that Linnéa has to force them out of her mind. What is left is a hollow space, like a deafening silence.

Nicolaus walks into the room, stops at one of the empty chairs and puts down his brown suitcase.

‘Where is Ida?’ is the first thing he says.

‘She is dead,’ Linnéa tells him.

Nicolaus’s face goes very pale. Linnéa thinks the shock serves him right. She is surprised at how angry she is with him. How angry she has been with him during all the time he has been away.

‘You’ve missed a lot by going off like that,’ she goes on. ‘Things happen when you’re absent for a year.’

‘Don’t,’ Minoo says. ‘We don’t even know why he left!’

‘True,’ Linnéa agrees. ‘He didn’t tell us. And didn’t let us know later on either.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Vanessa says. ‘Give him a chance to speak to us!’

It’s humiliating to be told off, but Linnéa knows that Vanessa is right.

She sits tight.

Anna-Karin stares at Nicolaus, as if he’ll disappear unless she keeps her eyes on him.

‘Are you back with us now?’ she asks.

‘Yeah,’ Vanessa says. ‘Are you in transit, or staying?’

‘I’m staying.’ Nicolaus slumps down on a chair. ‘Nothing could make me leave again.’

* * *

Minoo has imagined many times what it might be like when Nicolaus came back. Sometimes, she imagined him regretful or sad, or at least full of explanations.

In her dreams, she has sometimes been furious, sometimes forgiving, and at other times just relieved. But in all her fantasies, the reunion has led to emotional turmoil. Now, though, it just feels unreal. As if Nicolaus were a hallucination. The fact that his appearance is so different doesn’t make it any easier to believe that he is real.

‘What happened?’ she asks. ‘Why did you decide to disappear?’

‘When you left me that night, I dreamt about my daughter,’ Nicolaus says. ‘But it was no ordinary dream.’

‘We know what kind of dream you mean,’ Vanessa says.

‘She told me that the Council was coming to Engelsfors,’ Nicolaus goes on.

‘Which seemed a good reason for you to get out, right?’ Linnéa sounds harsh.

‘Matilda urged me not to stay. She said that if the Council caught me, I would become a danger to you.’

Minoo shudders at the thought of how true that is. If Nicolaus had been dragged into the trial against Anna-Karin, it would probably have ended with him being forced to reveal their secrets, or else being killed by the Council. Most likely both.

‘But why didn’t you tell us that in your letter?’ she asks. ‘You might even have warned us that the Council was coming.’

‘Matilda said I wasn’t to tell you why I left. She said that if you knew certain things too early, it could affect the future in an unfortunate way. Unfortunate for you – and for the rest of the world, too.’

Minoo notices that Linnéa sits up on the sofa. Thankfully, she keeps quiet, allowing Nicolaus to carry on talking.

‘But it wasn’t just because of the Council that I left,’ he says. ‘Matilda sent me on a mission.’

He pulls his hand through his hair; he has kept this old gesture, even though his hair is shorter now.

‘I have never come across any sources that describe how the Chosen One is to close the portal. That information has always been concealed and available only to the top echelon of the Council. But I had heard of three objects that were essential for the control of the portal. Matilda asked me to find them.’

He bends over his suitcase and opens it, pulling out a ball of bubble-wrap. Delicately, he starts undoing the tape holding the parcel together.

‘The Chosen One who closed the sixth portal was a young man who lived in Florence in the 1400s. By the time he had finished his task, an internal power battle had broken out within the Council. A break-out faction stole the objects and hid them in different places around the world.’

‘What’s the Council’s fucking problem, really?’ Vanessa says.

‘You might well ask,’ Nicolaus says. ‘Anyway, they planted clues so that only the conspirators would be able to find the objects. I followed the clues.’

He cautiously unwraps the plastic and places the object on the table.

It’s a skull. Its empty eye sockets stare at Minoo.

‘OK,’ Linnéa nods. ‘So this is one of the objects, right?’

‘It is. One might even say that it contains the other two,’ Nicolaus tells them.

Minoo picks the skull up. It is lighter than she had expected. She has never been scared by the skeletons that feature in films or books. They always seemed a bit ridiculous, because she could never see what a skeleton could actually
do
. But it is very different to hold a cranium in her hand and know that it was once part of a living man or woman. It is both fascinating and unnerving, as is the fact that her brain, which holds her thoughts, lies protected inside a skull just like this one.

‘Feel about inside the eye sockets,’ Nicolaus says.

‘What?’

‘Try it,’ he urges, and nods.

Minoo pokes inside the skull and tries not to think of the eyes that were once in the way of her probing fingers. She can feel the others watching her tensely.

Then she finds something. A rounded surface under her fingertips.

‘There’s something in here,’ she says. ‘It feels a little like a button.’

‘Try pressing on it,’ Nicolaus tells her.

Minoo presses and the button-like object comes loose. By shaking the skull gently, she dislodges a small cylinder of bone that falls out of the eye socket and lands in the palm of her hand. A thin join divides it in half.

‘Hand that to me, please,’ Nicolaus says.

He unscrews the two halves of the cylinder and turns them upside-down.

Glittering grains of jet-black sand trickle down and, as they fall onto the table top, they arrange themselves into a pattern. A pattern Minoo recognises. It’s an image of the silver cross.

‘How would the silver cross help us close the portal?’ Anna-Karin asks.

‘Unfortunately I do not know that yet,’ Nicolaus says. ‘But that isn’t all.’

‘Let me guess,’ Vanessa says. ‘There’s a fabulous prize in the other eye socket?’

Minoo finds the button immediately and presses it. Another bone cylinder pops out. She hands it to Nicolaus, who again lets the sand fall next to the image of the cross.

Minoo leans forward to see the image as it takes shape. She hardly dares to breathe for fear that she might blow away some of the grains of sand.

When she sees the image, she feels a sudden, inner flicker of anxiety.

A man with closed eyes is portrayed standing inside a circle with his arms stretched out. A vertical line runs right across the image and divides it down the middle. On one side of the line there is a city with strange buildings. On the other, only a spinning, threatening chaos.

The flickering anxiety grows into a shudder that runs through her whole body. There is something about that image.

‘What is that?’ Vanessa says.

‘I’m afraid I can’t work it out,’ Nicolaus frowns. ‘But I’ve got something to ask you. A few nights ago, I dreamt about Matilda again. She told me that I must return to Engelsfors. She said that the chairman of the Council is here and that I should go and see him. I must hand over the skull and the silver cross to him.’

Minoo puts the skull down on the table. She feels that Linnéa is observing her.

‘What is going on here?’ Nicolaus asks. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ Linnéa says.

‘As we were saying,’ Vanessa tells him, ‘quite a lot has happened since you disappeared.’

Minoo starts talking and then they take turns to explain. Nicolaus listens silently and intently. He only shakes his head in answer to Vanessa asking if he remembers Olivia from his time as the school caretaker.

He interrupts once. When Minoo tells him about Alexander. He asks her to repeat Alexander’s full name, as if to make sure that he heard it right. Then he just listens again. Looks absently at the skull.

‘So our only hope now is the Council,’ he says when they have finally stopped talking. ‘And that this new circle will succeed in closing the portal.’

‘That’s what the guardians have ordered us to do,’ Linnéa says. ‘For our own good, of course.’

Annoyance with her flares up inside Minoo. The guardians haven’t issued any
orders
. They are trying to be helpful.

‘We agreed that the new circle is the only way to go ahead,’ she says.

‘No, we didn’t,’ Linnéa replies. ‘As you said yourself, there might well be alternatives. And, look, here is one.’

‘I don’t trust Matilda,’ Nicolaus suddenly interjects.

They all stare at him.

‘What do you mean?’ Anna-Karin asks. ‘She is your daughter.’

‘She was my daughter. And I loved her. When she showed herself to me in a dream for the first time a year ago, I was overwhelmed with happiness. I would have done anything she asked of me. But in this latest dream, I saw signs … signs that I think I wilfully ignored the first time.’

‘Signs of what?’ Vanessa asks.

‘I can’t quite explain,’ Nicolaus says. ‘She is Matilda. And yet, she isn’t.’

Minoo doesn’t want to hear this. Doesn’t want any more doubt and uncertainty.

‘But Matilda has been caught between worlds for several hundred years,’ she says. ‘Surely it’s not so strange that she has grown different, at least to some extent?’

‘It’s only a feeling,’ Nicolaus continues. ‘But one I cannot rid myself of. After all, I am her father. I know every expression, every change of tone in her voice. Even so, I can’t put my finger on what it is that jars. But I’m certain there is something. That is why I cannot trust her, even though the thought that she should lie to me is almost unbearable. What you are telling me only confirms my worries. You are saying that the guardians communicate with you through Matilda and the
Book of Patterns
; that the guardians were demons in the beginning and that they also lied to you about it at first. So, how do we know that we can trust them now?’

‘My point precisely,’ Linnéa says, sounding satisfied.

Minoo looks at her and at Nicolaus. It is as if they have both betrayed her.

‘So, what should we do?’ Her voice is trembling with anger. ‘Should I leave the circle set up by the Council? Because Nicolaus has “a feeling” that something isn’t quite right? I’m not arguing that this is an ideal situation, but the guardians have in fact been right before!’

Her whole body is tense. She expects everyone to turn against her.

‘Bloody hell, this is about more than just feelings,’ Linnéa says.

‘You
want
the guardians to be dodgy in some way …’

‘You mean like the fact that they’ve been demons? And played games with our lives?’

‘Just because you can’t hack authority,’ Minoo ploughs on, refusing to let herself be interrupted.

‘And
you
desperately want someone to give you orders! Like this
Walter
character.’ Linnéa leans forward and fixes her eyes on Minoo. ‘If it’s true that the guardians have been talking to him, how come they haven’t told him about these objects?’

‘Of course they have!’

Linnéa smiles triumphantly.

‘So why didn’t he even mention them today at the manor house session? When he told you how to go about closing the portal? If he withheld info like that, how can you fucking believe anything he says?’

Minoo can easily think of reasons why Walter wouldn’t mention the objects today. They had hardly got to know each other – there must be loads of things he hasn’t told them yet. But saying this won’t have much effect on Linnéa and her eternal paranoia. Minoo isn’t even convinced that Linnéa is interested in learning the truth. All she wants is to win this discussion.

‘Linnéa is right about one thing.’ Nicolaus turns to Minoo. ‘You shouldn’t trust Walter Hjorth. You don’t become the head of the Council unless you’re skilled at duping people around you.’

‘If he’s unreliable, it doesn’t really matter anyway. Our goal is the same,’ Minoo says. ‘He, too, wants to stop the apocalypse.’

‘True,’ Nicolaus replies. ‘I don’t doubt it. And, for now, you must stay a member of the Council’s circle. As things stand, there is no alternative.’

‘The alternative would be that we go out to find more witches for our own circle,’ Linnéa says. ‘You’re a natural witch, Nicolaus, a wood witch. We only need another two, fire and metal.’

‘Our circle hasn’t a hope of closing the portal,’ Minoo says. ‘Even if we do recruit more witches.’

‘Yeah, according to the guardians!’ Linnéa tells her. ‘What is it you don’t get? They lie to us, remember!’

‘But why should they lie to us? If we did have a chance to close the portal, why not simply tell us?’

Linnéa shrugs.

‘Maybe they don’t want to close the portal! Who knows? Maybe they want to suck up to their old demonic cousins. Apologise and hand over our world as a sorry-we-let-you-down present!’

Minoo hates her a little. She feels fearful, too. Fearful, because if you looked at the world through Linnéa’s eyes, nothing and nobody could be trusted, and there would be no point in doing anything.

‘Listen, we must keep calm,’ Nicolaus says firmly.

Minoo looks gratefully at him. He isn’t completely on Linnéa’s side.

‘The guardians do want to close the portal,’ he continues. ‘I can assure you of that. And if they claim that the Council’s circle can do it, then that’s so. But, it doesn’t mean that we cannot.’

‘Why tell us that we can’t, in that case?’ Minoo asks. ‘Why make us believe that our efforts would fail?’

‘They may simply prefer the Council’s circle.’

‘Why would they?’

‘It could be that they have seen something that has persuaded them that the Council is the safest bet, at least compared to us,’ Nicolaus says. ‘They go for the best odds, in other words. Or it may be that the guardians find the Council easier to deal with than us.’

‘I don’t want to have anything to do with either the Council or the guardians,’ Linnéa says. ‘Let’s run our own circle.’

‘But where could we even begin to look for two natural witches?’ Anna-Karin asks. ‘They’re so rare.’