The Circle (Hammer) Read online

  Minoo is used to being the best at everything, and Anna-Karin can see she’s disappointed that she doesn’t have any amazing new powers. She thinks she can hide it, but Anna-Karin sees right through her. She’s an expert. You become a very keen observer when you’re always in the background.

  ‘Neither have I,’ says Linnéa.

  Everyone looks at Ida.

  Please don’t let her have any powers, Anna-Karin prays silently. If she does, there’s no justice at all in this world.

  ‘I’m going home,’ says Ida.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Rebecka says.

  ‘No! I don’t want anything to do with you, you fucking freaks!’

  ‘You haven’t had any strange dreams?’ Rebecka asks.

  Anna-Karin can’t understand why Rebecka is wasting time on Ida. Nobody wants her here.

  ‘So what if I have?’ Ida screams. Then her gaze hardens. ‘Rebecka, we can still be friends if you come with me now.’

  Rebecka doesn’t hesitate. ‘I’m staying,’ she says.

  ‘Just wait till I tell G about this,’ Ida says, and walks off.

  But she doesn’t get far.

  Ida looks like something from a cartoon, when she stops mid-step, as if she’s just walked into a wall. Rebecka can almost hear the boing you hear when Wile E. Coyote runs into a door that’s been drawn on a cliff face. She almost expects to see a cloud of little birds twittering around Ida’s head.

  Ida staggers and remains standing there, her back still turned to the others.

  ‘Ida?’ Rebecka says.

  Ida doesn’t answer. She just stands there, motionless.

  And then she’s not motionless.

  Her body is dragged back towards them, dangling limply a few centimetres off the ground as if by some unseen hand. Her toes brush against the ground as she moves through the air.

  Rebecka slides closer to Minoo. Vanessa looks frightened and Linnéa backs away. Anna-Karin sneaks up to Nicolaus.

  Standing together they form a loose circle, with Ida hovering in the middle.

  Her head is hanging down and her face is slack. Steam is coming from her half-open mouth, as if it is very cold where she’s hovering. Everything becomes still again. A strange shudder spreads through Rebecka’s body. Her skin is covered with goose bumps and the hair on her arms stands up. It’s as if the air itself is charged with electricity.

  Ida slowly lifts her head.

  No, Rebecka realises. Someone or something has raised Ida’s head.

  A string of white mucus oozes from the corner of Ida’s mouth and dribbles slowly down her chin, remains suspended there, then drips to the ground. Her mouth closes and she opens her eyes. Her pupils widen and stare vacantly in front of her, yet it feels as if her gaze pierces right into Rebecka, sees things inside her that not even she knows about.

  ‘Do not be afraid. You are in a protected place.’

  It’s Ida’s voice, yet not. It’s soft and warm.

  ‘The enemy cannot find you here. It is only here that you are safe. It is only here that you may meet together. You must hide your friendship from everyone else.’

  ‘At school, too?’ asks Anna-Karin.

  Ida’s face contorts into a grimace. ‘Especially at school. That is a place of evil.’

  ‘I could have told you that,’ Linnéa mumbles.

  Ida looks around. ‘The Circle is seven,’ she says. ‘One of you is missing.’ A lone tear runs down her cheek. ‘Then the battle has already begun.’

  ‘Who’s missing?’ Nicolaus asks.

  ‘Elias,’ Linnéa whispers.

  Ida nods. Nicolaus looks dismayed and Rebecka thinks she understands how he feels. A piece is missing. The puzzle will never be complete.

  ‘If evil prevails, the flames will engulf the world,’ says Ida. ‘You cannot afford to doubt. Evil is closer than you think. It is searching for you. You must train your powers, become stronger together. You need each other.’

  Rebecka thinks she hears whispers of agreement coming from the forest. Like the concurring voices of invisible creatures all around them. In the next moment Ida looks straight at Rebecka, and a voice fills her head, a warm, loving whisper.

  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?

  Rebecka can only nod. Ida looks at her gratefully, then turns to the others. ‘Trust each other. Trust Nicolaus. Soon he will remember more and be of help to you,’ she says.

  Ida gazes sadly at Nicolaus. His ice-blue eyes are glistening. ‘Trust no one,’ Ida continues. ‘Neither your parents, nor your brothers and sisters. Not your friends. Not even the love of your life. And remember, the Circle is the answer.’

  Ida sinks towards the ground. Minoo runs up to her. Rebecka and the others follow. They all gather around Ida.

  ‘Who are you?’ asks Minoo.

  ‘I am you. You are me. We are one. The Circle is the answer.’

  ‘What kind of evil are we to fight?’

  No answer. Ida’s eyelids flutter as the foreign presence leaves her body. Everything becomes still. A faint smell of smoke hangs in the air.

  ‘Is she … is she dead?’ Vanessa asks.

  Minoo cautiously lays her fingers against Ida’s neck. ‘No.’

  ‘So it’s possible,’ says Nicolaus. ‘You are the Chosen One. All of you.’

  Rebecka looks at the others. Six people with nothing in common have been brought together by something huge and incomprehensible. All of a sudden it feels completely natural that they should be here together. As if it had always been meant.

  Ida opens her eyes and stares at them.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Rebecka asks anxiously.

  ‘If you don’t let me go now, I’ll scream,’ says Ida.

  11

  THERE WASN’T ENOUGH room for them all in Nicolaus’s old mustard-yellow Fiat. Since Rebecka and Minoo were closest to home, they had offered to walk.

  Minoo glances at Rebecka out of the corner of her eye. Neither has said a word since they left Kärrgruvan. The silence is starting to become uncomfortable. Unless it’s Minoo’s imagination. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Tiny, almost imperceptible signals can become so easily amplified in her head.

  In school she’s never afraid to raise her hand because, there, she knows what she’s talking about. But now, alone with a pretty and popular girl like Rebecka, she is silent.

  It shouldn’t be so difficult to find something to talk about after everything that’s happened tonight. But the more she struggles to think of something to say, the more stuck she gets. Everything sounds so lame, so dull. How do they do it, all those people who babble on seemingly oblivious to the fact that most of what they say is meaningless?

  ‘I hope we don’t meet anyone we know,’ says Rebecka.

  Minoo nods, relieved that the silence has been broken. ‘Yeah. Good thing it isn’t the weekend. Not that there’s all that many people out then either, but the chance of us bumping into someone would be greater. It should be quiet now – it’s very early still, and most people are probably asleep. Unless someone’s out walking their dog …’

  Minoo feels like hitting herself. It’s so typical of her. At first she can’t get anything out because she analyses every word. Then she removes the filter and blurts out whatever comes into her head.

  ‘Yeah, I guess it would have to be that, then,’ Rebecka says with a smile.

  They’ve reached the national road.

  Minoo makes very sure that no lorries are coming before she crosses.

  ‘Did you know Elias?’ asks Rebecka.

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘No. But I feel as if I did …’ Rebecka stops and turns to Minoo. Her face is framed with loose coils of reddish-blonde hair. Her eyes shift between grey and blue. Her skin and features are so perfect that she almost looks Photoshopped. I
t’s impossible to stop staring.

  ‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ Rebecka continues, ‘but it wouldn’t have made any difference if we had all been best friends before this. We still wouldn’t have known each other like we’re going to get to know each other now. You know what I mean? That we belong together in a way that has nothing to do with who we were before tonight.’

  Minoo hesitates. She sort of understands what Rebecka’s getting at. Tonight has been strange to say the least. But Minoo has no mysterious new ability to make things move or people tell the truth. She doesn’t feel especially transformed.

  ‘I’m just babbling,’ says Rebecka, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  They start walking again.

  ‘I wonder what sort of power Elias had,’ Minoo says, when the silence starts to feel uncomfortable again.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t have one. Neither you, Linnéa nor Ida had noticed anything unusual, apart from your dreams.’

  ‘So you didn’t think there was anything special about Ida tonight?’ Minoo asks.

  As she hears her words, they sound petulant in a way she hadn’t intended. But Rebecka just giggles.

  ‘To be honest, I’m a bit jealous of you,’ says Minoo. ‘I’ve always wanted to have a superpower.’

  ‘Well, maybe yours is your brain,’ says Rebecka. ‘You’re so incredibly clever. Perhaps that’s why we need you.’

  ‘So you can make things fly through the air, and I can … think?’

  Rebecka laughs. It’s not a nasty laugh. Minoo has apparently been funny again without realising it. That’s promising: she never makes people laugh when she tries to.

  ‘I just mean that there have to be answers to our questions. And if anyone can find them, it’s you. We can’t wait for Nicolaus to remember things. We have to look for ourselves,’ Rebecka says. ‘Besides, maybe you and Linnéa have powers you don’t know about yet. Mine just came out of nowhere.’

  What Rebecka says is logical. Minoo may as well be patient. And if, in her familiar role as studius maximus, she can make a contribution, well …

  Then it hits her. It might not be the end of the world, but pretty close to it. Minoo stops mid-step.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Rebecka.

  ‘We’ve got a chemistry test tomorrow,’ says Minoo, ‘and I haven’t finished revising for it.’

  Linnéa lives in an eight-storey block near Storvall Park. It’s one of the many buildings in town in which half of the flats are empty and boarded up.

  The front entrance stinks of urine. Vanessa wrinkles her nose and Linnéa smiles wryly. ‘Welcome to the Engelsfors Hilton,’ she says.

  She opens the lift door and they step inside. It’s easily big enough for ten people and rattles loudly as it trundles slowly upwards. Vanessa catches sight of her face in the mirror. She looks like a horror-movie victim who’s been chased through a forest: leaves caught in her tousled hair and makeup streaked down her face.

  Suddenly she realises she has to speak to Wille, but it feels wrong to borrow Linnéa’s mobile to call him. She is starting to regret that she accepted Linnéa’s offer to swing by her house to borrow some clothes. But she can’t possibly go home wrapped in a blanket.

  Linnéa opens the lift door and they step out. Vanessa instantly notices the name on the letterbox: ‘L. Wallin’. ‘You’ve got your own apartment?’ she asks, as she follows her.

  ‘Yeah,’ Linnéa answers, unlocking the door, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She kicks off her shoes in the hall, continues into the living room and switches on a few little lamps on the floor. They’ve all got red and pink shades and bathe the room in a soft red glow.

  It’s a shabby two-room apartment with linoleum floors and white wallpaper with little blue flowers. You can hardly see the walls for all the paintings, posters and pages ripped from magazines. In the living room a big sofa is draped in a large piece of red fake velvet. Placed in front of it, a painted black wooden crate serves as a coffee-table. A big ceramic panther perches next to the sofa. Tiny cracks form a white net covering the black body.

  ‘Cool, huh?’ Linnéa says. ‘Can you believe someone threw it out?’

  ‘Threw it out?’

  ‘I get almost all my stuff off the street.’

  Vanessa takes a closer look at the pictures on the walls. There’s a series of creepy photographs of animals in clown outfits, and an oil painting that at first glance seems to depict an idyllic landscape until you notice the silhouette of a woman in a white dress hanging by her neck from a tree; standing nearby, two smiling figures, with pupil-less eyes, hold hands. Vanessa likes the pictures, but draws a blank on the band posters. Most are Asian, with names that she’s never heard of before.

  Linnéa’s mobile rings. She pulls it out of her pocket, looks at the screen and grimaces before she sets it aside.

  Vanessa’s gaze falls on a big black wooden cross on the wall. It’s covered with small bits of silvery metal.

  ‘Nice,’ she says, mostly just to make conversation.

  Linnéa comes and stands next to her and runs a finger over the cross. Her nails are painted with bright pink polish that is starting to wear away. ‘Elias gave it to me. It’s from Mexico. See these little symbols? They’re all the things that this cross is supposed to protect against. Here’s a broken leg, for example. Crying eyes … and a sick horse.’

  Vanessa laughs nervously and pretends to look, but the only thing she’s aware of is how close to her Linnéa is standing, so close that Vanessa can feel the warmth of her body through the blanket. Linnéa’s mobile rings again. ‘What the fuck,’ she hisses. She goes back to it and rejects the call.

  ‘Who keeps calling?’ Vanessa asks.

  ‘Just a guy who refuses to understand when to stop.’

  Vanessa sees a flash of something in Linnéa’s eyes. Something that looks like … pity? She feels queasy and has to look away. She’s suddenly realised who’s calling, but won’t humiliate herself by asking. ‘Oh, yeah?’ is all she says.

  ‘Go and see what you can find in my wardrobe,’ says Linnéa, pointing towards the bedroom door.

  The blinds are down and Vanessa fumbles along the wall till she finds the light switch. The bed is wide and unmade. But what catches Vanessa’s eye is the sewing-machine on the floor next to a workbench stacked with different fabrics and jars of thread and buttons.

  ‘You sew?’ she asks Linnéa, who’s just coming into the room.

  Linnéa gives a quick nod, and Vanessa sees it was a stupid question. What else would she do with a sewing-machine? What is it about Linnéa that makes her feel everything she says comes out wrong?

  ‘There’s a mirror inside the wardrobe door,’ says Linnéa, and hands her a packet of wipes.

  Vanessa opens the wardrobe. Everything in there looks like something from a Japanese horror version of Alice in Wonderland. No matter what she puts on she’ll look as if she’s on her way to a costume ball dressed as Linnéa.

  ‘Take whatever you want,’ Linnéa says, and walks out.

  The phone rings four times in the living room. Linnéa doesn’t answer it.

  The clothes hangers clatter as Vanessa flips through the outfits. Eventually she picks the most neutral one she can find: a black skirt, a white top and a knitted black sweater made of a fluffy yarn. She gets dressed, wipes off her makeup and removes the bits of forest from her hair. She looks almost half decent now .

  ‘I’ll give you back your clothes at school tomorrow. Today, I mean,’ Vanessa says, as she goes back into the living room, holding her blanket.

  Linnéa is lying crashed out on the sofa, her feet draped on one of the armrests.

  ‘I’m going to stay at home today. But it’s cool, we can do it another time,’ she says drowsily.

  Another time, Vanessa thinks. Yup. From now on we’ll be forced to spend time with each other.

  She and Linnéa, Minoo and Anna-Karin, Rebecka and Ida. If the salvation of the world depends on their ability to work
together, well, unfortunately things look pretty fucked. Sorry, billions of people living on earth, Ida Holmström is all that stands between you and destruction.

  ‘Christ, I hate her,’ Linnéa mumbles.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ida. If evil is coming after us, I hope it takes her first,’ says Linnéa. A little smile plays at the corners of her mouth. Vanessa catches herself grinning back. They look at each other for a moment.

  ‘It’s Wille who keeps calling you, isn’t it?’ Vanessa asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you … have you started seeing each other again?’

  Seconds pass. Linnéa sits up slowly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what does he want?’

  Linnéa drops her gaze.

  ‘Just tell me, okay?’ Vanessa asks, making her voice as hard and fierce as she can to hide her fear. Is Wille angry with her for running off? Is that why he’s calling Linnéa now? Is that what he usually does when they’ve had a tiff? If he’s still in love with Linnéa, I’ll die, she thinks.

  ‘He’s angry with me,’ Linnéa says.

  Vanessa stares at her. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. We fought all the time when we were together. Sometimes he gets it into his head that we’ve still got things to sort out. Like, why I said whatever it was that time a hundred years ago. Silly stuff.’

  It’s unlike Wille to get so caught up in the past. He doesn’t even spend much time thinking about the present.

  ‘We fought all the time. It can be addictive. You want to win once and for all.’

  Vanessa doesn’t know what to say. If Evelina or Michelle tries to lie to her she picks up on it instantly. But Linnéa makes her feel unsure of herself. And she won’t find out the truth from Wille. She can’t confront him with this information because no one can know that she and Linnéa are talking to each other.

  If only she could think clearly. She’s been awake for so long that her drunkenness has given way to a hangover.

  They head for the front door. Vanessa borrows an old pair of shoes, and ties them –it seems to take ages, with Linnéa’s eyes burning into the back of her neck.

  The latch on the front door sticks. Vanessa tugs at the doorknob, twisting it in different directions. Linnéa opens the door for her, and Vanessa practically flies down the stairs.