The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  Elias was suffering. I released him from pain. I’m doing you a favour, Rebecka.

  Please, she begs. Please, I don’t want to die. I’ve got four little brothers and sisters. My parents … Gustaf … Minoo … Panic makes it hard for her to formulate her thoughts.

  They’ll get over it. Better to disappear now and remain perfect for ever in their memories.

  Rebecka’s feet step over the threshold. The roof is laid with glittering black tar paper that crackles under her feet as she walks towards the edge.

  You won’t have to suffer any more.

  The voice inside her head is seductive now. It sounds like the only voice in the whole world that really cares about her, and she has to force herself not to listen to it.

  But I want to suffer! she shouts inside herself. I want to live! I want to live!

  Her feet stop just one step from the edge. She can see the playground down below, the dead trees and the black tarmac that has been used to fill in the long crack. From up here it looks like a scar. She sees the road where the bus has just driven past, a few students running for the stop. If one of them could just look up …

  Please, she begs. Please, let me live.

  Suddenly she feels the presence hesitate in her body. Her legs are no longer rigid. If she tries a little harder she can turn away from the edge. If she concentrates …

  Rebecka clenches her fists. She’s regaining control.

  No. I have to do it.

  The voice is there again. The hesitation is gone. She feels it trying to regain control of her. She feels the pressure of the intruding will. But this time she has two advantages. She has hope, because she’s seen a weakness in the enemy, and she’s ready.

  She pushes back. Her head is in excruciating pain, as if her brain is expanding to bursting point. Tension builds inside her skull. She puts her hands to her head, as if to stop it exploding. Yet another line of blood trickles from her nose.

  The intruding presence is buckling and Rebecka is teetering on the edge of the roof. Her stomach clutches when she looks down to the playground far below.

  She backs away from the edge and crumples to the roof. She doesn’t have the strength to stand up, much less walk down.

  Rebecka fumbles in her bag for her mobile. At first she thinks of calling Gustaf, but she’ll never be able to explain what she’s doing up there. She has to call Minoo.

  She hears footsteps coming up the stairs and turns. The sun blinds her and she has to shade her eyes with her hand to see who’s standing in the doorway.

  Rebecka smiles uncertainly. ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘How did you know I was up here?’

  18

  A COLD WIND is blowing across Storvall Square. Minoo is thinking about Rebecka’s words, scribbled on her notebook: Someone was following me yesterday.

  She shoves her hands into her pockets and hunches her shoulders. She hurries towards the light yellow house on the other side of the square. Engelsfors Herald shines across the façade in big neon lettering.

  Ever since Minoo started school, she has been dropped by her father’s office at least once a week. Usually he barely has time to say hello, but it’s still nice to sit at the table in the coffee room, do her homework, browse through the magazines and feel the energy of the editorial desk.

  Minoo turns before she opens the front door. There’s not a single person on the square.

  Nope, not a single person.

  One of the town’s three banks stands next to the Engelsfors Herald. The building is one of the most impressive in town: a heavy nineteenth-century construction with marble columns at either side of the entrance. A mangy cat is lying on the steps leading up to the entrance. It is staring straight at Minoo with its one green eye. It climbs awkwardly to its feet – not cat-like in the least – and walks up the steps. Then it walks back down, up and then down, before it returns to its original spot and lets out a single miaow.

  When Minoo enters the lobby, she is met by the smell of coffee from the news desk. Her father often says that if the Engelsfors Herald were ever to close down, the town’s consumption of coffee would be halved. That’s probably true. Sometimes Minoo wonders if her mother and father could survive on coffee alone, like cars and petrol.

  Cissi and her father are standing and gesticulating at each other inside his office. It’s obvious that they’re in the middle of an argument. Cissi’s big blue eyes are wide and her short ash blonde hair is sticking up more than usual, like a hedgehog’s quills. Minoo can’t see her father’s face, but his neck is bright red. He’s furious.

  Cissi is a recurring topic of conversation at the dinner table. On the one hand, she’s quick and expresses herself well. On the other, she’s far too prone to sensationalism and lazy fact-checking. Her article about Elias’s suicide wasn’t the first that Minoo’s father had had to pull.

  Minoo stands outside the office. She can hear their voices, muffled by the glass, and can just make out what they’re saying.

  ‘You’re out to sabotage me!’ Cissi says. ‘I have a unique opportunity to be first on the scene. The paramedics called it in just two minutes ago.’

  ‘You can do whatever you like, but I won’t print a word of it.’

  Her father is incensed. Minoo doesn’t think she’s ever heard him so angry before.

  ‘This concerns the entire community,’ Cissi says.

  ‘It concerns no one but the girl’s family!’

  Minoo sees how Cissi changes her tactic.

  ‘I can understand how difficult it is for you to look at this objectively,’ she says, in a softer tone. ‘You’ve got a daughter the same age—’

  She breaks off when she catches sight of Minoo.

  Her father turns. ‘Minoo …’

  Something has happened. Something awful. She can see it in their faces. Her father moves to the door and opens it. ‘Come in,’ he says.

  Cissi looks at her with an expression that is intended to convey pity and compassion, but her greedy curiosity shines through. Minoo’s father lays a hand on her shoulder. He casts a pointed glance at Cissi, who leaves the office.

  ‘There’s been an accident …’ he begins, then looks around furtively.

  It’s hot in the office, Minoo thinks. Hot and stuffy. Cissi’s perfume hangs in the air.

  ‘Your friend Rebecka … has died.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  Instantly Minoo wants to reassure him. It’s just a misunderstanding. Someone has died, and that’s terrible, but it’s not Rebecka. She’d said goodbye to her friend just before she went to her meeting with the principal. ‘It can’t be her,’ she says, and smiles to prove that there’s nothing to worry about, that he’s wrong.

  ‘I know it’s difficult to take in—’

  ‘No. It really can’t be her. It’s impossible. We saw each other just a few moments ago.’

  ‘It’s only just happened,’ her father says.

  Minoo’s smile is making her jaw ache.

  ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this,’ her father says. ‘I thought …’

  Minoo shakes her head. ‘It can’t be her.’

  ‘It seems she … was depressed. As if she’d made up her mind that she didn’t want to go on living.’

  Minoo remembers what Linnéa said that day in the playground: He didn’t kill himself. She hadn’t believed her. She had thought Linnéa just couldn’t accept the truth. ‘What happened?’

  Her father hesitates.

  ‘I’ll find out anyway,’ Minoo adds.

  ‘She jumped. From the school roof. I’m so dreadfully sorry.’ Her father grabs hold of her shoulders and looks into her eyes.

  And Minoo knows it’s true.

  ‘Sweet child.’ Her father hugs her hard and long. At first all she can do is stand there motionless, but then she clings to him. She’s suddenly so close to breaking down and telling him everything. About Elias. About Rebecka. About the Chosen Ones. About how they’re all going to die, one b
y one.

  But what could her father do about it? What could anyone do? Nobody can help them. Except, perhaps, one person.

  She feels a switch flip inside her, and all her emotions are turned off. She has to act, solve the problem, warn the others. ‘Is there a computer I can use?’

  Her father gives her an odd look. ‘This has to be kept secret until her family has been informed,’ he says. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’

  She nods and he takes her to a work station. She does a quick search for a home address, memorises it, then erases the history from the browser.

  ‘I have to go to the Ladies.’ She feels her father’s eyes on her back as she heads for the toilets.

  As soon as she’s out of sight, she opens and closes the door without going inside and continues along the corridor towards the emergency exit. She emerges on to the street through a side entrance.

  Minoo casts a quick glance towards the windows but can’t see her father. He’ll worry once he realises she’s disappeared, but that can’t be helped.

  She starts to run.

  She crosses Storvall Square and turns down Gnejsgatan. Her heart is pounding. She runs faster and almost passes number seven, a three-storey building with a green stucco façade. The door swings open at a gentle shove.

  It says ‘Elingius’ beside the only door on the ground floor.

  She rings the bell and hears shuffling footsteps inside. The security chain is unfastened. The door opens and Nicolaus appears in a black bathrobe. He’s so pale that his skin seems almost transparent and his ice-blue eyes seem to have faded a little. He looks like a nocturnal animal that has never seen daylight.

  ‘I have to talk to you,’ Minoo says, and walks in without waiting for an answer.

  The apartment is simply furnished. It has only been fitted out with the bare essentials. No carpets, no curtains. The living-room walls are light brown; a beautiful silver cross hangs beside an old framed map of Engelsfors, just like the one in Minoo’s bathroom.

  ‘Minoo?’ Nicolaus says in surprise.

  She turns to meet his questioning look. ‘Rebecka is dead,’ she says. She has no time to dress it up.

  Nicolaus is rooted to the spot. He blinks once. Minoo is about to explode with impatience. She has to make Nicolaus understand at once so they can decide what has to be done. ‘They’re saying she committed suicide,’ she says, ‘but, of course, we know that wasn’t the case.’

  Nicolaus sinks down on to a spindle-back chair. ‘Another one,’ he says.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘The fault is mine,’ Nicolaus mumbles. ‘I should have protected her.’

  Minoo is about to fall apart. The only way she can hold herself together is to keep moving forward. She can’t think about what has happened to Rebecka, no matter what. ‘You know as little as we do about whatever is hunting us down,’ she says, and forces herself to sound calm. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘I’ve failed’

  ‘Stop it!’ Minoo shouts. ‘I came here because I need your help.’

  ‘How can I help when I don’t—’

  ‘I know,’ Minoo cuts in. ‘You don’t know who you are. But who does when it comes down to it?’

  Nicolaus stares at her.

  ‘You can’t run away from this,’ she says. ‘None of us can.’

  He blinks again suddenly, as if he has just woken from a deep sleep. ‘You’re right. I’ve allowed myself to be consumed by self-pity. I’ve allowed my heart to become filled with black bile—’

  ‘Precisely,’ Minoo says quickly, to shut him up. ‘We have to gather the others together and draw up a strategy. But I can’t do it alone. I need you. We need you.’

  19

  ‘HELLO?’ ANNA-KARIN STEPS into the hall. She can hear a faint humming coming from the kitchen. Her mother is singing some golden oldie about catchy melodies and rockin’ rhythms.

  Anna-Karin’s cheeks flush, but Julia and Felicia smile as ingratiatingly as ever.

  ‘What a beautiful place you’ve got here,’ says Julia.

  ‘It’s soooo cool that you live in the countryside,’ Felicia adds. ‘And I love your cows. They’ve got, like, such intelligent eyes. As if they knew all sorts of things.’

  Anna-Karin has thought the same thing so many times, but when Felicia says it, it sounds moronic.

  Not once since she’s been at school has Anna-Karin ever brought a friend home. Even though she knows she’s in full control of the situation, her heart is pounding and when her mother steps out of the kitchen, her heart thuds even harder.

  ‘Hello, girls! Is this Julia and Felicia?’

  Julia and Felicia greet Anna-Karin’s mother, smiling and sucking up to her.

  ‘I’ve baked cinnamon buns,’ her mother says. ‘Come into the kitchen.’

  They sit around the table and her mother puts out a plate of buns straight from the oven, with a jug of blackcurrant squash. ‘I’ll leave you girls to it,’ her mother chirps. ‘The cows need feeding, too.’

  When she leaves the kitchen the singing picks up again.

  ‘Help yourselves,’ says Anna-Karin, and slides the buns towards Julia and Felicia.

  They each take one and bite into it obediently.

  ‘You know, I think Jari’s in love with you, Anna-Karin,’ Julia says, when the front door slams behind her mother.

  Anna-Karin smiles. ‘I think so, too,’ she says, and they giggle with their mouths full of half-chewed bun.

  Until today she hadn’t dared to use her power on Jari. She’d watched him for so many years from such a great distance. After the last lesson, though, she had mustered the courage when he happened to walk past her locker. ‘Jari, I left my bag in the art room. Could you get it for me?’ she asked.

  Julia and Felicia were standing a few metres away. They giggled far too loudly.

  For an awful moment Anna-Karin thought he would respond with a scornful smirk, that her power would have no effect on him. But then he smiled as everyone smiles at her, these days, cheerfully and sort of surprised that she wanted to speak to him. ‘Of course,’ he answered. Three minutes later he was back with Anna-Karin’s bag. His forehead was a little sweaty.

  ‘But I’m not sure,’ she says now. ‘We barely know each other.’

  ‘It’s obvious he’s interested,’ Julia insists.

  ‘Soooo obvious,’ Felicia joins in.

  Anna-Karin is starting to understand how it works. She enjoys hearing her friends promise things they can’t possibly know anything about. No, of course he likes you. It’s obvious he wants you. Everything’s going to be fine.

  They hear a cough from the kitchen door.

  ‘Hello, girls.’

  Anna-Karin hadn’t noticed Grandpa coming into the house. Now he’s standing there, smiling warmly.

  ‘Hi,’ Felicia and Julia say, with one voice.

  ‘This is Julia and Felicia,’ Anna-Karin says.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Grandpa says, and glances at Anna-Karin before he heads out again.

  There was a question mark in his eyes. He’s wondering what’s going on with Anna-Karin – and with her mother. She’s been getting looks like that for the past few weeks.

  ‘Was that your grandfather?’ Julia asks.

  Anna-Karin nods distractedly and recalls that Grandpa noticed the moon was red. Perhaps he knows.

  ‘He’s soooo cute. I wanted to go up and hug him,’ Julia continues.

  ‘Me too,’ Felicia agrees, and wolfs the last of her second cinnamon bun, swallowing it so eagerly that it makes a disgusting sound deep in her throat.

  They fall silent.

  Julia and Felicia look about nervously. When a text message dings on Anna-Karin’s mobile, it’s a welcome distraction. She picks up her phone. It’s from Minoo. At first she doesn’t understand it. It’s as if it were written in another language. She stares at the words. Then she says, ‘You’ve got to go,’ to Julia and Felicia. ‘Now.’

&nbs
p; Everyone is assembled for the first time since the night it all began. Even Ida has come. She’s leaning against the curved railing that surrounds the dance floor twirling her silver necklace around her fingers. She’s wearing beige jodhpurs, a dark green knitted jumper and black boots. A riding helmet is sticking out of the bag sitting next to her on the floor. Minoo had no idea Ida was into horses. It strikes her how little she knows about Ida’s life.

  There are just five Chosen Ones left. Rebecka’s absence is so marked that she seems more present than ever. Minoo can tell that the others feel the same. It’s as if an actor has suddenly vanished in the middle of a performance: the rest of the ensemble is still there, not knowing what to do.

  Minoo turns her head and sees the mangy cat saunter on to the dance floor. It sits by the steps and starts licking one of its paws. The green eye seems to be watching them.

  ‘Shoo,’ Nicolaus barks, but the cat doesn’t budge.

  ‘Leave it alone,’ says Anna-Karin. ‘It’s not doing any harm.’

  The cat returns the favour by hissing at her.

  Minoo meets Nicolaus’s gaze. He nods once. She turns to the others. ‘So, whoever killed Elias has now killed Rebecka.’

  ‘How do you know she didn’t kill herself?’ Ida asks. ‘It’s possible, you know. She was totally anorexic – everyone knew it.’

  Anger bubbles inside Minoo. ‘Shut up,’ she says slowly.

  Ida’s eyes open wide. A few tears trickle down her cheeks. ‘I refuse to believe this shit!’ she shouts. ‘I don’t want to die! I don’t want to be here with you!’ Her voice cuts through the clear autumn air.

  ‘So what’s it to be?’ Linnéa asks coldly. ‘You’ll have to choose.’

  A wave of gratitude sweeps through Minoo: at least Linnéa understands.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Ida snaps.

  ‘We can be sure of only one thing,’ Minoo says. She pauses for effect and looks at the others one by one. They have to understand, and they have to understand now. ‘If we don’t stick together we’ll die.’