The Circle (Hammer)

by Elfgren, Sara B. ,Strandberg, Mats

  ‘I only need a few drops,’ Linnéa says.

  ‘Okay,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘Just so long as you leave afterwards.’ She holds out her left hand. It doesn’t hurt when Linnéa pushes the point of the needle into her index finger. But it does when she squeezes out a few drops of blood and lets them drip into the test tube. Anna-Karin has to look away. Linnéa squeezes harder, pressing out more drops.

  Eventually she wipes Anna-Karin’s finger. She throws the needle and the bloody Kleenex into a wastepaper basket, presses the bung into the test tube, and puts it into her bag with the lighter.

  ‘I know the accident must have been very difficult for you,’ she says, handing Anna-Karin a Band Aid, ‘but you really can’t just think about yourself.’

  ‘You don’t understand anything.’

  ‘You’re right. What do I know about having a hard time?’ Linnéa says, her voice dripping with irony. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  She disappears behind the bookshelves. Anna-Karin’s finger is throbbing gently as she puts on the Band Aid. She opens her physics book again and tries to read, but she can’t absorb a single line. She gives up and curses Linnéa. Now she has to find another hiding place.

  ‘Anna-Karin is really starting to piss me off,’ Vanessa says.

  Minoo is sitting at Nicolaus’s kitchen table. He and Cat have left them alone in the apartment. Minoo feels a little sorry for him, having to spend the whole evening at Sture & Co. waiting for them to finish. The Book of Patterns was very clear that only the Chosen Ones could be present during the ritual.

  Minoo is stirring a plastic bowl with a wooden spoon, watching as Anna-Karin’s blood dissolves into the gloop they’re going to use for the power symbol in the inner circle. She’s been mixing it for fifteen minutes and now she’s getting cramp in her arm.

  ‘Stir into a smooth paste,’ Ida read from the book, as if it were a cake recipe.

  In addition to Anna-Karin’s and Linnéa’s blood, the mixture consists of ectoplasm, earth from Elias and Rebecka’s graves, milk left to curdle in the moonlight, and spit from Minoo and Vanessa. Now all that’s missing is a dollop of Ida’s saliva.

  ‘First she spends the entire autumn acting like a diva at school and fucking things up for us,’ Vanessa continues, ‘and now she doesn’t want anything to do with us, and she’s fucking us up again. It’s not as if any of the rest of us volunteered for this.’

  ‘I know,’ Minoo says. ‘But I think things have been pretty hard for Anna-Karin with everything that’s happened. They’ll have to sell the farm, I heard.’

  The fire has attracted a lot of attention. Rumours are rife that Anna-Karin’s mother set fire to the barn to cash in on the insurance.

  ‘But why is she avoiding us?’ Vanessa asks. ‘All we’ve done is tried to support her.’

  Minoo has wondered the same thing. Anna-Karin has ignored all her attempts to get in touch. In the beginning she didn’t think it strange. Anna-Karin had to be in shock. But she’s become increasingly convinced that Anna-Karin is hiding something.

  ‘I think there’s something fishy about that accident,’ Linnéa says, as she enters the kitchen.

  ‘Why?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘I just feel like she’s hiding something.’ Linnéa goes up to the table and glances into the mixing bowl. ‘Ugh, gross,’ she says.

  ‘Looking forward to doing some finger-painting?’ Vanessa asks Linnéa.

  ‘One of you can take over now. My arm’s about to fall off,’ Minoo says.

  Linnéa takes the bowl and spoon out of Minoo’s hands and starts stirring. Minoo leans back in her chair and watches her.

  This is the first ritual they’ll perform, and since Anna-Karin refuses to take part, their chances of success have plummeted. Now it’s up to Linnéa.

  The front door opens and slams shut.

  ‘And here comes Ida,’ Linnéa says, not with hostility but far from enthusiastically.

  Ida has dark circles under her eyes and is sniffing. She’s got the flu that’s been going around at school and ought to be at home.

  Linnéa hands the bowl to her without a word. Ida coughs and spits into it. Linnéa grimaces and gives it another stir with the spoon.

  ‘Shit,’ she says.

  Minoo looks into the bowl. What had been a grainy gloop just a moment ago has turned into a smooth reddish-brown paste.

  ‘Well, we’d better get the show on the road,’ Linnéa says.

  The few pieces of furniture in Nicolaus’s living room are lined up against the walls. The blinds are drawn. All the lights are switched off. Ida has lit stocky white candles and placed them around the room, four in each corner. For some reason, the ritual cannot be performed either in daylight or with electric lighting.

  It looks like something out of a B movie in which the protagonists are about to engage in either a satanic mass or a sex orgy or both, Vanessa thinks.

  ‘Now remember,’ Ida says, ‘once the ritual has begun, no one is allowed to leave the room or cross the outer circle. If that happens the whole thing’s ruined. If you need to go to the bathroom, do it now. I’ve got to take a painkiller.’

  She disappears into the kitchen.

  Linnéa is standing in the middle of the room. She’s put her hair into a ponytail and pushed aside her long fringe. Vanessa can see that she’s afraid.

  The light from the flickering candles dances across the walls and their faces. The gravity of the moment starts to sink in.

  ‘Okay.’ Ida coughs as she comes back into the room. ‘Are you ready, Linnéa?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answers quietly.

  Vanessa unscrews the lid of the jar with the rest of the ectoplasm and hands it to Linnéa. She takes it, then grabs Vanessa’s hand. ‘If anything goes wrong …’ she mumbles.

  ‘It won’t,’ Vanessa answers. ‘You can do this. And we’ll be here all the time.’

  Linnéa nods and lets go.

  Minoo steps forward and places the mixing bowl with a small empty glass jar on the floor at Linnéa’s feet. If they succeed, the jar should be full of truth serum when the ritual is over. ‘Good luck,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Ida mumbles.

  Linnéa casts her a glance. ‘Thanks,’ she answers briefly. ‘Here goes.’

  Vanessa stands by the wall with Ida and Minoo. Fucking Anna-Karin. She should be here, too. She shouldn’t have let Linnéa do this on her own. For the two of them the burden – and the risk – would have been much less.

  ‘The circle that binds,’ Ida says.

  It has begun.

  Linnéa takes a long, deep breath. Then she dips the three middle fingers of her left hand into the jar of pure ectoplasm and sinks to her knees. Slowly she starts to draw the outer circle.

  Her fingers leave an unnaturally even trail of ectoplasm on the light parquet floor. It’s as if the meringue-like paste has a will of its own and adjusts itself correctly of its own accord. Vanessa knows that it’s impossible to draw a perfectly round circle just by touch, yet that’s exactly what Linnéa is doing.

  When the circle closes around Linnéa, Vanessa feels a tingling sensation run through her body. The silence in the room becomes more compact. All they can hear is Linnéa’s breathing. She stands up and wipes the sweat from her brow. She doesn’t see them any longer. She’s withdrawn into herself.

  ‘The circle that gives power,’ Ida says.

  Linnéa goes to the middle. She dips her hand into the ectoplasm again and starts drawing the inner circle in the same manner. Her white camisole is damp. Sweat is trickling down her neck, between her shoulder blades, and dripping from her hairline. The drops appear to evaporate as soon as they hit the floor.

  When the inner circle is closed, Vanessa feels the same tingling, but more intensely now. It vibrates through her whole skeleton to her teeth. Linnéa straightens and teeters.

  ‘The power sign,’ Ida whispers.

  Linnéa takes the mixing bowl, dips her hand into the r
eddish-brown paste and draws the symbols of the water and earth elements so that they form a single unit.

  Vanessa gets goose bumps all over her body. A low drone, almost beyond what is audible to the human ear, fills the room. Her eardrums are aching. And there’s something wrong with the shadows. There are more.

  Vanessa’s hands seek Minoo’s and Ida’s. Or is it their hands that seek out hers? She isn’t sure. But somehow she knows it’s helping Linnéa.

  Linnéa places the empty jar on the power symbol and presses her hand over the opening. Her rapid breathing can be heard above the drone. The muscles in her arm tense and her back arches, like a cat’s. The drone vibrates in Vanessa’s blood, rising and falling as the shadows pulse across the walls. Voices whisper ancient forgotten languages. The air tastes of salt. Linnéa’s chest heaves faster and faster and faster.

  Suddenly Linnéa pulls away her hand from the jar and collapses in a heap.

  The candle flames flicker and nearly go out. Once they’re burning steadily again, the strange shadows are gone. The low drone is gone, too, and the sounds from outside seep back into the room. Vanessa can hear the TV in the apartment above, a child running around. She lets go of the others’ hands.

  ‘Linnéa?’

  Linnéa doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move.

  ‘Is it over?’ Minoo asks.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Ida says.

  Vanessa tries to see if Linnéa’s breathing. It’s impossible to tell. She starts to panic.

  ‘Don’t break the circle!’ Ida shouts.

  But it’s too late. Vanessa is already beside Linnéa. She drops to her knees and bends forward, lays her face next to Linnéa’s. Relief washes over her when she sees Linnéa’s lips move, as if she’s trying to say something.

  ‘I’m here,’ Vanessa whispers, and takes Linnéa’s sticky hand.

  ‘Shit,’ she hears Ida say. ‘We’ve been at it for two hours.’

  ‘Did it work?’ Linnéa asks faintly.

  Vanessa looks at the glass jar Minoo lifts. There is an inch of turgid liquid at the bottom. It doesn’t look at all like Vanessa imagined a magic potion to be. On the other hand, she doesn’t know what she imagined. Something that glows in the dark, perhaps. Swirling wisps of smoke rising off it. Mysterious glitter. This looks as if someone dived into the muddy depths of Dammsjön Lake and brought back a water sample.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Minoo says.

  Linnéa is sitting at Nicolaus’s kitchen table, guzzling orange juice between mouthfuls of macaroni wolfed straight from the pot. She looks incredibly tired, but at least she’s no longer half-dead. Vanessa is relieved. The ritual is over and Linnéa is fine. Whether the potion works or not seems far less important.

  ‘I’m not going to do this,’ Ida says, and pops another painkiller. ‘I’m sick. And I’ve been taking paracetamol. I might get side effects.’

  ‘Come on,’ Linnéa says, through another spoonful of macaroni. ‘We have to test it before we can use it on Gustaf.’

  ‘Easy for you to say when you don’t have to—’

  ‘Excuse me, but don’t you think I’ve done enough for one night?’ Linnéa asks.

  Ida shuts up.

  Three small coffee cups full of juice stand on the table. Linnéa has poured a drop of the truth serum into one.

  ‘Let’s all drink them at the same time,’ Minoo says, looking terrified. ‘Linnéa, have you thought of a question? Nothing too personal.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Linnéa says, with a smile that makes Vanessa nervous.

  She doesn’t have any secrets. Or does she? What if she’s the one who gets the cup that will leave her mind wide open for Linnéa to rummage around in? What if Linnéa asks something that Vanessa doesn’t even know she wants to keep secret?

  Vanessa reaches for the middle cup, but Ida beats her to it. Vanessa takes the left one and Minoo takes the right.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m going along with this,’ Ida mutters.

  ‘Okay,’ Linnéa says. ‘One. Two. Drink!’

  Vanessa empties hers in one go and puts the cup back on the table. She runs her tongue round her mouth, checking for any weird aftertaste. Ida burps.

  ‘Minoo,’ Linnéa says, smiling widely. ‘What are you most afraid I’ll ask you right now?’

  Minoo smiles back. She looks relieved. ‘I’m not telling you,’ she says.

  Linnéa’s dark eyes bore into Vanessa’s. ‘And you, Vanessa? What are you most afraid that you’ll be forced to reveal?’

  ‘I’m not afraid of anything.’ It’s only when she hears herself lie with such conviction that she’s sure she’s made it.

  They all look at Ida. It’s the moment of truth. If it doesn’t work on Ida it doesn’t work at all.

  ‘And you, Ida?’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Ida says. ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me for the second time. I think it’s sooo unfair that I’m the one who ended up drinking the truth serum – Anna-Karin forced me to tell the truth that time at the fairground, and I really don’t want to tell you all that I’ve had, like this, enormous crush on G since year four.’

  She claps a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening in horror.

  ‘Looks like the serum works,’ Minoo says.

  ‘What did I say?’ Ida asks.

  ‘That explains a lot,’ Vanessa says, and starts laughing.

  ‘What? Tell me!’

  ‘The serum’s made you forget straight away. It’s better like that, don’t you think?’ Linnéa asks, with a grin.

  Ida gets up and wraps her cardigan tightly around her. She gives an exaggerated sniff, as if to remind them that she’s ill and that they should be nice to her. ‘Whatever I may have said, I can stand by it,’ she says. ‘And now I’m going home to bed.’

  ‘Get better soon,’ Minoo says.

  Ida snuffles again and twiddles her necklace. ‘If any of this gets out at school you’ll all be in big trouble,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Linnéa says. ‘We won’t let anyone know that you’ve actually got feelings.’

  When Anna-Karin steps into the hall she’s met by a barrage of laughter from the TV. She doesn’t have to look into the living room to know that her mother is lying on the sofa. Maybe she’s fallen asleep with a cigarette in her hand again, but Anna-Karin can’t be bothered to check.

  She goes into the kitchen, takes out a box of chocolate balls from the fridge and a bag of white buns from the bread box. She eats her chocolate-ball sandwiches standing up, washing them down with a glass of milk. But they don’t give her the nice dozy feeling they usually do. They just make her feel sick.

  She looks through at the window at Grandpa’s cabin. As if he might suddenly be sitting in his usual spot, beckoning her over.

  She wonders if he’s noticed that she hasn’t been to see him in hospital.

  Suddenly she feels something warm and soft pressing against her calf. She bends down and meets Pepper’s green gaze. ‘Hello, sweetie,’ she whispers. She sinks down on to the kitchen floor and lifts the cat up in her arms, massaging its soft fur.

  Pepper purrs. The people on the TV laugh.

  ‘At least you like me again,’ she murmurs.

  But despite Pepper’s best efforts she feels more alone than ever. Linnéa’s words chafe at her. She’s told herself that she withdrew for everyone else’s sake. She’s dangerous. She can cause injury. But is Linnéa right? Is she just being selfish and cowardly?

  48

  MINOO IS STARING at the numbers in front of her. A quadratic equation that ought to be a cinch. But she can’t get anything to add up.

  The lunch bell rings, setting off a cacophony of chairs scraping, books slamming, zips opening and closing. Minoo glances at Max, who gives her a little smile. He hides it behind his coffee mug. Her heart leaps. The secret understanding between them is back.

  She’ll soon turn seventeen. In a year she’ll be of age. An adult in the eyes of society. A year is nothin
g, he’d said. He’s prepared to wait.

  It’s almost unbearable to have to see him every day now that she knows he loves her, too. One fine day she won’t be able to stop herself running up to his desk and kissing him in front of everyone. It’s just as well he’s leaving by the summer.

  Minoo follows the flow of students out into the stairwell. She’s checked Gustaf’s schedule. They have lunch at the same time. Should she speak to him when she sees him in the cafeteria? Or should she wait until after school?

  She’s managed to avoid him ever since that afternoon by the viaduct. He’s tried to approach her a few times at school, but she’s always slipped away. Now she’s been racking her brains for what she should say to him, but she decides it’s impossible to plan a conversation. She’ll have to improvise.

  When she reaches the ground floor and turns down the corridor leading to the cafeteria, she spots Linnéa.

  She’s standing with her back to a row of lockers. Erik Forslund and Robin Zetterqvist are in front of her. When Linnéa tries to leave, Erik’s hand flies out and hits the locker next to her with a bang. She’s trapped.

  The other students pretend not to notice as they walk past. No one seems to remember any more Erik wetting himself in the playground or Robin begging for crumbs from Anna-Karin’s table. They’re back on top.

  Minoo adjusts her backpack and moves closer.

  ‘How much do you want, then?’ she hears Erik ask.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ Linnéa says, and tries to shove him aside.

  ‘Or maybe you’ve started doing it for free now.’

  Suddenly Minoo is afraid. Everyone else has disappeared into the cafeteria. She moves closer, tries to get her footsteps to sound resolute.

  ‘Answer me!’ Robin says.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Minoo shouts.

  The words echo in the deserted corridor. Erik turns and looks at Minoo in disdain.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,’ Robin says to Linnéa.

  ‘What – are you jealous?’ Linnéa says. ‘You know you’ll never get to see a pussy in real life.’ She smiles at him.