The Key (84 page)

‘Yes, it is the outermost limit of our world,’ Minoo says. ‘A territory between our world and others.’

Linnéa scans the greyness. Is this where Elias is? Where he has been for two years? She tries to comfort herself with what Ida has said about how time passes more quickly when you’re dead.

‘Where is the portal?’ Anna-Karin asks.

Minoo points.

At first, Linnéa feels that this place lacks all perspective. But then, far away, she sees a black dot. The portal.

Vanessa shrieks when Nicolaus emerges out of the greyness in front of them.

He looks the same as he used to. It is impossible to imagine that he slit his throat with a dagger some moments ago. That he bled to death on the floor of the round cave. It is impossible to think of him as dead.

But it isn’t hard at all to be angry with him, Linnéa realises.

‘
Memento mori
,’ she says. ‘Now I understand what you meant by that. For how long have you known what being our guide would mean to you?’

Nicolaus pulls his fingers through his hair.

‘It was part of my original pact with the guardians,’ he says. ‘The one that was set up between them and me just after Matilda’s death.’

Linnéa is aware that he has sacrificed everything for their sake, for the sake of the world. That his entire long life, as well as his death, has been a sacrifice. Even so, she is still angry.

Anna-Karin’s eyes are full of tears. ‘You lied to us.’

‘Yes,’ Nicolaus says, looking pained. ‘I’ve lied even more than you know.’

Anna-Karin takes a step backwards, as if she has been hit.

No. Not him as well
.

Vanessa’s thought pierces Linnéa. She feels the same. Not another betrayal.

‘I’ve lived for hundreds of years, knowing that I caused my daughter’s death,’ Nicolaus says. ‘I couldn’t let her down once more.’

‘What do you mean?’ Linnéa asks. ‘You told us that you didn’t trust Matilda.’

‘That is what she told me to say to you,’ Nicolaus says. ‘I’ve been following her instructions ever since she appeared to me in a dream. The night when my memories returned.’

‘You owe us a fucking explanation,’ Linnéa says.

Nicolaus looks helplessly at Minoo. She radiates patience, perhaps boredom.

‘You had to be made to distrust Matilda and the guardians,’ she says. ‘You had to make all the choices you did so that you would end up just here, just at this time. So that you’re able to save the world.’

Linnéa remembers how, in the dream, Matilda had explained that the guardians were always trying to read different futures and determine what different choices might lead to. That they were always trying to foresee the effects of every little detail.

All the time, Linnéa had believed that she had resisted. Questioned. Followed the course she herself had set.

But she had been doing what the guardians had wanted.

All the time.

They had directed her and the other Chosen Ones through the
Book of Patterns
, through Matilda, through Nicolaus and through Minoo. And Linnéa had reacted throughout just as the guardians had calculated that she would. She had been utterly predictable.

‘I realise that this is difficult to accept,’ Minoo says. ‘But now we’re all here.’

She points.

It takes a moment before Linnéa understands what she is seeing. Who they are, the people who are running through the Borderland.

Rebecka is first. And, behind her, Ida and Elias.

Elias.

She can’t move. And then she can. She runs towards him and throws her arms around him, feels him holding her and pressing her close. She picks up a light in the corner of her eye, hears Ida scream something and then she feels someone give her a push in the back. But she doesn’t care.

Because everything is all right again.

She closes her eyes and breathes in his smell. All the memories she thought she might have lost wash over her again.

She has missed him so much she thought she would also die. But it is not until now that she really understands how great her loss has been. Now that he is with her again.

‘Linnéa,’ he says.

His voice. How could she even for a second believe that she had forgotten it? It is part of her. He is a part of her.

Linnéa looks into his blue eyes. He is crying. And she realises she is crying, too. The tears just flow. With him she was never afraid of crying.

‘How did you get here?’ he asks. ‘You’re not dead, are you?’

‘No,’ she says, and shakes her head. ‘I’ve missed you so much. And I never believed that you killed yourself.’

Elias strokes her hair. Such a familiar touch.

‘Ida told me,’ he says. ‘And she said that it was you who found me …’

He hugs her again and she clings to him, to his washed-out T-shirt, feels his shoulder blades through the material.

‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘You’re here now. I’m here.’

And, in that instant, she wonders what ‘here’ is.

Because they are no longer in the Borderland.

They are standing in a room with white-limed walls and a dark, stone-flagged floor. A gloomy light filters in through the small windows. Outside, it’s pouring with rain.

‘Where are we?’ she asks.

‘I have no idea,’ Elias says.

* * *

Minoo’s irritation is growing.

This isn’t going according to plan.

She looks at the spot where Elias, Linnéa and Ida stood before they disappeared. The area of light has already faded away. Black smoke is whirling around over there. The others can’t see it but may be aware of it as an invisible something, a whisper at most. It’s the guardians that inhabit the Borderland and have kept the souls of Ida, Elias and Rebecka under control.

Minoo sends the guardians away and watches as they flit through the zone. They have really become lax. And stupid as well. The idea was that they should bring Ida, Rebecka and Elias here, not frighten them away.

But now Ida has dragged Elias and Linnéa along to some other place. They could be absolutely anywhere. In
any time
. And the portal must be closed. Closed soon.

‘Where did they go?’ Vanessa says. She looks alarmed. ‘They just vanished!’

‘They will not be in any danger,’ Minoo says. ‘They will be back.’

They will be back because the Chosen Ones are always drawn to each other. Sooner or later, they will turn up. But it must not be too late.

Minoo watches while Rebecka hugs everyone in turn: Anna-Karin, Vanessa and Nicolaus. Now and then, Rebecka glances at Minoo.

This isn’t going according to plan.

But events in the Borderland have always been the hardest to read. The zone is very unstable. It has always been the weakest link in their plans.

Minoo looks back at the cave. The blue light over there is growing fainter all the time.

‘Minoo?’ Rebecka says.

Minoo looks at her. She hasn’t changed. She looks like the same Rebecka to whom they gave the task in Kärrgruvan.

You must lead them, Rebecka. They won’t like it, but they need you. It is your task to deepen the bond between you. But it is our secret. No one else must know that I have given you this charge. Do you understand?

That was what she had to believe. Until she had to die.

Minoo is taken by surprise when Rebecka puts her arms around her. She quickly reminds herself what you’re meant to do next. She hugs Rebecka because it’s quite unnecessary to worry her in any way.

‘Minoo, what’s the matter?’ Rebecka says as she pulls away.

‘It’s the magic of the guardians,’ Vanessa says behind her.

Rebecka looks baffled. She died long before the Chosen Ones were told anything about the guardians. She doesn’t know that they are the ones who have kept her here.

‘Come with me,’ Minoo says. ‘We have to go to the portal.’

‘But what about Linnéa and—’ Vanessa begins.

‘They will find us,’ Minoo says. ‘I promise.’

She starts walking towards the black dot.

‘Where is Matilda?’ Nicolaus asks as he follows her. ‘The guardians assured me that I would meet her one last time.’

‘You will,’ Minoo says.

To tell the truth, she isn’t sure. Not sure at all. Only a small discontinuity could be enough and then everything could go wrong. They have taken such huge risks. Staked everything on one card.

‘How are you?’ Nicolaus asks. He sounds concerned. ‘The magic of the guardians seems to affect you a great deal.’

‘Yes,’ Minoo says. ‘It makes me stronger.’

Vanessa and Anna-Karin walk a bit behind them. Minoo hears them both trying to explain to Rebecka what has happened since she died.

Suddenly, their voices are cut short. Vanessa’s and Anna-Karin’s energies disappear.

Minoo turns to look.

They are gone. Only Rebecka is left. And she seems stunned.

‘What happened?’ Minoo asks.

‘This freckled girl turned up out of nowhere,’ Rebecka says. ‘She … took them.’

Nicolaus looks baffled too and glances from Rebecka to Minoo.

‘Was that Matilda?’ he says. ‘But I don’t understand … why?’

Minoo doesn’t reply.

For the first time in a very long while she no longer feels in control. She hates it.

* * *

Linnéa goes to one of the windows and looks outside. Rain is running down the bulging panes of glass and makes the details of the outside world blur. She can just make out a dark forest.

‘How did we end up here?’ she asks.

‘Something was chasing us and—’

‘Chasing?’ Linnéa interrupts, immediately worrying about Vanessa.

‘I don’t know what it is but there is some kind of thing around in the Borderland,’ Elias says.

Linnéa shivers. But surely Minoo will protect the others?

‘I think Ida pushed us,’ Elias says. ‘She did it to me once before and we ended up outside the school … Where is she, by the way?’

They look around the room. There isn’t much in it. An open hearth. A table and, next to it, a simple wooden armchair. A door that is half open. The only sound is the rain.

Linnéa walks along to the chair. She can’t think why it should make her feel so ill at ease. She reaches out for it and shrieks when her hand passes straight through the back of the chair.

‘What the fuck was that?’ she asks Elias.

‘The same thing happens when I try to touch something,’ Elias says, pushing his hand through the table top to make the point. ‘But you’re alive, so maybe we are in another time? Ida said it could happen.’

Another time? Linnéa looks around. When could it be? She doesn’t see any wall sockets or light switches.

‘How do we get back to the Borderland?’ she asks. ‘We must close the portal.’

‘I don’t know. Last time, we just ended up there again,’ Elias says. ‘I think all we can do is wait. And if we’re in the past, maybe there’s no need to rush.’

He tries to smile. Linnéa knows she should worry more, but it’s hard to think about anything except that she is with Elias. She studies him, trying to take in every detail. He looks exactly as he did the day he died, and at the same time she thinks he looks younger. He is, in a way. He has stayed sixteen while she is two years older.

Two years.

How much does he know about what has happened?

‘Ida has told me everything,’ he says.

She had almost forgotten that he used to do that. Start to speak about what she had just been thinking about. And he didn’t need magic, either.

‘She told me about my parents,’ he continues.

A blast of strong wind hits the window; the rain is drumming hard against it.

‘It’s so fucked up,’ Elias says. ‘How could they believe that I wanted them to murder people? And that Mum would do that to you …’

He falls silent. Tugs at the sleeves of his top. Linnéa recalls what she had said to Helena and Krister in the gym.
How can you believe that he is the one who drives all this? Your son Elias? Elias, who took care never to hurt anyone? Who never even hit back?
They had looked as if they might begin to understand. Seconds later, Olivia killed them both.

‘Grief does strange things to people,’ Linnéa says.

‘Like, to Olivia?’

‘Yes,’ Linnéa nods. ‘And me, too. When I found out that it was Max who had killed you, I went to his place ready to shoot him.’

‘Ida told me,’ Elias says. ‘Fucking stupid thing to do.’

‘I know.’

‘I would’ve done exactly the same.’

‘I know,’ Linnéa says. ‘And you wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger, either.’

They are silent for a while. She thinks about the others in the Borderland. Wonders if they’re even there any more. How much time do they have?

‘Ida told me about what happened on Canal Bridge,’ Elias says finally. ‘And she said that Erik was caught.’

‘All three of them were convicted,’ Linnéa says. ‘Erik got five years. But, you know, the best thing was that Anna-Karin made him confess everything. Now everyone knows what he is really like.’

A huge smile breaks out on Elias’s face. His beautiful smile. She must smile back.

‘I wish I could have seen that!’ he laughs.

‘I wish you could have too,’ Linnéa says.

‘There’s so much I’ve missed. Like this thing with
Vanessa Dahl
.’

Linnéa’s smile dies away and she no longer meets his eyes. Just watches the raindrops run down the windowpanes.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think. Ida did say that you aren’t together any more.’

Linnéa wonders again how many scenes from her life have been witnessed by Ida. Was she even around that time, on the gravelled road?

‘What happened?’ Elias asks.

Linnéa shrugs.

‘I had to end it. For her sake. Look, you know what I’m like. A fucking mess.’

‘Aren’t you in love with her any more?’

‘Yes, I am.’ Linnéa studies the rain running down the window. ‘We are in love with each other. But sometimes it doesn’t work out. You have to accept it.’

‘Bullshit!’

She stares at him and is stunned to see how angry he is.

‘You love her and she loves you … and you simply chicken out?’

Linnéa is frustrated. She had thought he’d understand. He of all people.