The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  Minoo is at a loss for words.

  ‘And Vanessa,’ the principal adds, ‘do you realise how much danger you’re putting yourself into by following Gustaf? The Council regards him as a particularly potent threat and has appointed …’

  She is interrupted by a low laugh. Minoo has never heard it before, and it takes her a moment to realise it’s coming from Linnéa. She’s laughing so much she can hardly breathe.

  Everyone stares at her.

  ‘Sorry …’ Linnéa whimpers. ‘But … it’s just so … fucking … tragic.’

  Adriana crosses her arms. ‘Perhaps you’d care to share your little joke with the rest of us.’

  Linnéa’s laughter peters out and her face hardens. ‘How long do you intend to carry on this charade?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Adriana says. ‘Now, you must tell me everything you’ve found out about Gustaf—’

  ‘No,’ Linnéa says, without releasing the principal from her gaze. ‘It’s time for you to tell us what you and the Council are actually doing. You pretend to be as powerful as gods, but all you can do is light little fires. The only way you can control us is by tricking us into believing we need you. But when it comes down to it, you don’t actually know anything. You can’t protect us, even if you want to.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ the principal says.

  ‘Have you forgotten about the circles we saw at her house?’ Minoo says impatiently to Linnéa. ‘They could teleport her from Stockholm to here – powerful magic.’

  But Linnéa ignores her. She’s focused on Adriana, like a laser beam. ‘You already have two lives on your conscience, but maybe you want us all to die. Perhaps that’s your purpose.’

  ‘No!’

  Her voice reminds Minoo of a bird’s shriek. The principal presses her lips together. Minoo can see that she’s trying to keep composed. But it’s too late. Her mask has cracked. She can no longer hide her fear.

  She takes a deep breath and lets out the world’s longest sigh. ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’

  ‘Start with the circles in your house,’ Linnéa suggests. ‘Explain to Minoo why they weren’t so impressive, after all.’

  Linnéa is looking triumphantly at the principal, but Minoo is terrified: she doesn’t want to hear what’s about to be said. If the principal and the Council aren’t as all-knowing and powerful as they’ve claimed, she’d prefer to live with the lie. The principal has been the only authority they’ve had – the only one with any answers. The notion that they might be completely alone, without any guidance, is simply too horrifying.

  ‘The circles …’ the principal starts, then pauses. ‘It took six months and five witches to perform the incantation. It was the equivalent of the world’s most expensive alarm system, the only difference being that when the circles have been used once the whole procedure has to be performed again. Linnéa is right. The fire magic you’ve seen me do is the only thing I can manage without difficulty. Anything else requires days, often weeks, of preparation and almost always the help of other witches.’

  She pauses again, as if to catch her breath. It looks as if every word she utters is painful, but out they come – one after the other.

  ‘Unlike you, I wasn’t born with powers. I grew up in a family of trained witches, raised in the belief that the Council always does the right thing.’ She pauses a third time. ‘I feel enormous guilt for what happened to Elias and Rebecka. We should have done more to prevent … We should have been more open with you from the start.’

  She falls silent and looks at the ground. The raven flaps through the air and lands on her shoulder. It tucks its head under one wing.

  ‘And the all-powerful Council?’ Linnéa asks, with a smile that borders on smug. She’s behaving like a sadistic interrogator, Minoo thinks.

  ‘They’re afraid of you,’ the principal says. ‘If they knew I was being so open with you now, I’d be punished. They want me to control you, get you to find the answers in the Book of Patterns that they can’t see, and use that knowledge to strengthen the Council.’

  ‘So the Council is as useless as you are?’ Linnéa asks.

  ‘You don’t have to kick her when she’s down,’ Minoo says. ‘You exposed her. That’s enough.’

  ‘I understand you’re disappointed, Minoo. No teacher to suck up to any more,’ Linnéa says.

  ‘It’s not true that the Council is powerless,’ the principal interrupts shrilly. ‘You mustn’t dismiss it. The Council is well organised and many across the world submit to its authority. Together they can perform powerful magic. They could take drastic action to bring you to heel.’ She glances at Anna-Karin.

  ‘Drastic action?’ Linnéa says scornfully. ‘I don’t think they’ve shown any stomach for that.’

  The principal hesitates. Then she unbuttons her long winter coat, revealing one of her typically well-tailored suits with a white blouse. She undoes the three top buttons.

  Minoo has to look away.

  The fire symbol is branded just below the principal’s left collarbone in a web-like patch of scorched skin.

  ‘I planned to leave the Council once,’ the principal says, with a mirthless smile. ‘There was a man. You may think this looks bad …’ She meets Linnéa’s gaze and holds it. ‘… but it’s nothing compared to what they did to him.’

  Linnéa’s face is tense and her mouth half open. She takes a few staggering steps backwards.

  The principal buttons her blouse and refastens her coat. ‘I suggest you all go home. School starts tomorrow. Ida can search in the book,’ she says. ‘But that’s all you should do.’

  She turns and looks at Minoo. For just half a second too long. There’s something knowing in her eyes. Something enigmatic that Minoo can’t interpret.

  ‘Absolutely nothing else,’ the principal says.

  ‘Ida!’ Minoo shouts. ‘Wait!’

  Ida stops but doesn’t turn.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to you,’ Minoo says, when she comes up.

  Ida looks at her reluctantly. Her eyes seem almost unnaturally blue against her white jacket and the snow. She’s as cute as a doll – an evil doll, but still …

  No, she mustn’t think like that. It’s time to turn the page.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Ida says. ‘You’ve been meeting in secret. At Nicolaus’s house. We’re safe at his place, because he’s got a magic silver cross on his wall. It said so in a letter in a safety deposit box that Cat showed you. Cat is Nicolaus’s familiar. Nicolaus is also a witch. His element is wood, but you didn’t know that.’

  Minoo stares at Ida as she tries frantically to think of an explanation. Who told her?

  ‘The book showed me,’ Ida says triumphantly. ‘It said you’ve been practising your magic without me.’ She wipes the tip of her nose. ‘You’re bullying me.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Really?’ Ida says. ‘So you didn’t say you thought the world would be a better place if I were dead?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Minoo says. ‘Very sorry. And it was wrong of us to keep our meetings secret from you. But I was going to tell you about it now.’

  ‘Because I’m the only one who can read the book. You need me.’

  ‘Yes. We need you.’ Her words catch in Minoo’s throat as she speaks them. ‘Are you going to help us? Without telling Adriana?’

  Ida snorts. Then she looks away. ‘The book says I have to help you. Otherwise it won’t show me any more.’

  The situation with the snitching book becomes more and more bizarre.

  ‘Can you look for something to help us find out the truth?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘I suppose so. But I’m doing it for G, not you.’

  44

  VANESSA WAKES UP because she’s cold. She’s wedged in the gap between the bed and the wall. Her head is full of nightmare images. The principal’s burn. Gustaf at Rebecka’s grave, digging up Rebecka’s coffin. Cat’s staring green eye.

  Vanessa t
urns over to look at her slumbering boyfriend. Wille has taken all the bedclothes again and wrapped himself up in them like a Wille tortilla. Only his hair is sticking out. Vanessa kicks him angrily, but he just snuffles and turns over.

  She glances at the Batman alarm clock, a relic from Wille’s childhood. She has to get up in five minutes anyway. She clambers over him and almost loses her balance as she slides out of bed.

  Wille’s room has always looked like an archaeological dig with layers of artefacts from different eras. Since Vanessa moved in it’s twice as bad. Neither of them can keep the place tidy and, for better or worse, Sirpa ignores everything that goes on, declaring it ‘their space’.

  Vanessa feels something soft and sticky under her foot. She’s stepped on a liver-sausage sandwich.

  Her anger explodes like a geyser. She picks up one of Wille’s slippers and throws it at the bed. It bounces off the headboard and lands on his face. The tortilla wakes up.

  ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ he says groggily.

  ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ Vanessa mimics. ‘I’ll tell you what the fuck my problem is. I’ve just trodden on the disgusting old sandwich you chucked on to your disgusting fucking floor!’

  Wille sits up, still wrapped in the blanket. ‘It’s not my bloody sandwich,’ he says.

  ‘I. Don’t. Eat. Liver sausage,’ Vanessa enunciates, as if Wille were old and deaf. ‘Just look at this place!’

  ‘You live here too.’

  ‘I’m at school all day! You don’t do anything! Can’t you at least clean it up?’

  ‘You’ve just had, like, the longest sodding Christmas break ever. You clean up your shit and I’ll clean up mine,’ he says, and pulls one of her bras from under his pillow. He flings it at her, and it lands at her feet.

  Vanessa wants to scream at him, but the thought of Sirpa in the next room stops her. Instead she grabs the bra and throws it back at Wille. It lands on his head with one cup hanging over his face.

  ‘Give me a fucking break,’ Wille whines, but he’s smiling.

  Vanessa picks up a car magazine from the floor and hurls it at him.

  ‘Stop it,’ Wille says, and is hit by a disgusting-looking sock. ‘That does it!’ he says. He jumps out of bed, grabs Vanessa and carries her back to the bed.

  ‘Let go! I’ve got liver sausage on my foot!’

  ‘I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to school!’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘I have! The holidays are over!’

  ‘The first day of the spring term is always sports day,’ says Wille, and lays her on the mattress.

  Vanessa smiles. She’d forgotten that. She grabs the bedclothes and wraps them around her. Sports day is a free day. Everyone knows that.

  ‘Then I’m going back to sleep,’ she says. ‘And you’re going to throw away that revolting sandwich. And wipe my heel,’ she adds, waving her foot.

  Wille leaves the room and Vanessa shuts her eyes. She falls asleep surprisingly quickly, waking up briefly as Wille wields a tissue on her foot, bowing ironically when he’s done.

  The pain is so sharp and so sudden that for a few seconds Minoo forgets how to breathe. She’s sure she’s broken her tail bone and the ice underneath her.

  She hears catcalls and mittened applause and tries to laugh – No problem, I’m fine. Doesn’t hurt a bit – even though the tears are stinging the corners of her eyes.

  She had chosen to spend the day on skates because Max is supervising the activities at Engelsfors sports field. Of course he’s barely looking in her direction.

  Minoo tries to stand up. The skates slip from under her so her legs splay in impossible directions. She puts her hands against the smoothly polished ice and tries again. This time she lands hard on her knees. Fresh pain shoots up her thighs.

  She hears someone come towards her across the ice. She looks up just as Max brakes perfectly, showering her with a thin mist of ice crystals. He holds out his hand and helps her up, but she almost falls over again and is in danger of pulling him down with her. Max wobbles. They support each other for a moment in what looks almost like an embrace. She gets the giddy feeling that he’s about to kiss her again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asks, and gently lets go of her.

  No, I’m bloody not, Minoo wants to say –actually, there’s a lot she’d like to say. Instead she says, ‘No. My right knee really hurts. I don’t think I can skate any more.’

  ‘Then go home and rest,’ Max says.

  He’s completely impersonal again. It’s painful for her to be so close to him and unable to touch him. She feels as if he’s ripped her heart out, thrown it on to the ice, set fire to it, stamped on it, stuffed it back into her chest, sewn it up, and started all over again.

  ‘I’ve handed in my notice. I’ll be leaving at the end of the spring term.’

  He doesn’t bat an eyelid when he says it. His gaze is fixed on Julia and Felicia, who are making failed attempts at pirouettes.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you,’ he continues, in a low voice. ‘Quite the opposite.’

  Finally he looks her in the eyes.

  ‘I like you far too much.’

  Then he skates off. A few quick strides and he’s gone. Minoo is left alone, looking after him and trying to understand what she has just heard. The pain has subsided. Instead she is filled with a new and dangerous sensation.

  Hope.

  Anna-Karin shuts her eyes and glides down the hill. She’s skied here a thousand times before and knows every curve. The rush of air hits her face. The snow is whispering beneath her skis. She feels light and free. She opens her eyes and blinks at the sun as she coasts into the next curve.

  Anna-Karin used to go cross-country skiing with Grandpa on these trails in winter, and it’s always been the obvious choice for her during school sports days. It’s the only sport she’s reasonably good at, and she loves shooting through the forest among the fir trees. She’s never had to worry about meeting any of her bullies on these tracks: cross-country skiing is not the sport of choice for the in-crowd.

  Anna-Karin relishes being alone. She has to steel herself for the new term and the difficult task she’s set herself.

  If only she didn’t have such a vivid image in her mind of the principal’s scarred skin.

  It’s nothing compared to what they did to him.

  What will the Council do to Anna-Karin?

  There’s a rest stop a short distance ahead. She sets her sights on the dark brown wooden roof, the solid table with its two long benches, and picks up speed.

  When she reaches it, she sticks her poles into a snowdrift, takes off her skis and stands them alongside. She opens her jacket to let in the cold air and tosses her backpack on to the table. She has just started to take out her packed lunch when she hears a skier swishing towards her.

  The figure catches sight of her, stops, looks around, then skis in closer. Anna-Karin sees her blonde hair and puts down her drink.

  It’s Ida.

  ‘What do you want?’ Anna-Karin asks, as she comes up.

  ‘Just to say hi.’

  Anna-Karin glances around automatically. Are Robin, Kevin and Erik hiding in the forest? Or any of the others that Ida has lamented her with over the years? Can they already be out to get her?

  ‘Now you’ve said it,’ says Anna-Karin. ‘So leave me alone.’

  ‘It’s a free country.’

  ‘What – are you still at primary school?’

  ‘I just want you to know one thing,’ Ida says, taking off her skis. She looks almost unnaturally healthy, as if she lives on vitamins, organic vegetables and outdoor activities in clean alpine air. ‘This term’s going to be different. You took away everything that was mine, and now I’m taking it back. You can’t stop me. You’re going to regret ruining my life.’

  So says Ida. The Ida who had made Anna-Karin’s life miserable for nine excruciating years.

  It’s
as if something bursts inside her, something she hasn’t been completely aware of. It’s like the thin membrane inside an eggshell, a protective layer that has somehow held together the roiling mass of angst, fear and rage. Now it breaks, and all the ugliness and venom pour out, spreading through her: a dark, seething sludge of pure hatred.

  ‘Everybody hates you, Ida,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘Don’t you know that?’

  ‘Thanks to you, yeah. But don’t go thinking—’

  ‘No,’ Anna-Karin carries on relentlessly. ‘Everybody has always hated you. They just pretended to like you because they were afraid of being your next victim. It makes no difference what you do to me. It won’t change what they think of you.’

  For a moment Ida looks as if she’s about to cry –the tears are just beneath the surface. ‘Nobody’s friends with you because they want to be either,’ she says.

  Anna-Karin moves a step closer and Ida backs away. ‘Maybe, but I never hurt anyone. You did, all the time. What I did is nothing compared to what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘You’re such a fucking freak!’

  ‘You ruined my entire life,’ Anna-Karin says. She walks forwards a few more steps. Ida’s heels are pressed against a snowdrift.

  ‘It wasn’t just me,’ Ida says defiantly.

  ‘No. But you were one of the ones who started it. I never understood why you picked on me. I used to lie awake at night trying to work out what was wrong with me so I could change. I discovered loads of things to hate about myself. I tried everything. But it was never enough. Not even when I gave up, when I did everything not to draw attention to myself.’

  Anna-Karin glimpses a momentary hesitation in her.

  ‘No, it wasn’t enough,’ Ida says slowly, as if she really wants Anna-Karin to hear every word. ‘You should have killed yourself.’

  The dark wave that has built inside Anna-Karin washes over her. She allows herself be swept along by it.

  She throws herself forward. She’s heavier than Ida and adrenalin makes her strong. Ida topples to the ground. Anna-Karin pins her shoulders to the snowdrift and straddles her waist. Ida struggles, twists and strains, but to no avail.