Fire (42 page)

Cowardly shits, Minoo thinks.

She tries to work up some anger, but fails. Instead she hates them because they frighten her so badly. The calls make her feel as if someone is watching her, observing everything she does.

She switches off the ringtone. Listens out for sounds from
upstairs. Dad’s snoring is perfectly audible even here. She pulls her coat on and leaves quickly.

The fog is so thick she can hardly see the gate on the other side of the lawn.

Someone is waiting on the pavement. That’s precisely what they agreed. But Minoo can’t be sure that the dim shape really is Anna-Karin until they are only a few metres apart.

‘Hi,’ Minoo says quietly.

‘Hi,’ Anna-Karin says and pushes a tangled strand of hair behind her ear.

They start walking along the street. The fog wraps Minoo’s face like a cold, damp blanket.

‘How are things?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know. I just wish it would all be over soon.’

Minoo feels like saying that she’s sure everything will be all right, but they both know that she has no idea, one way or the other. And it isn’t empty phrases Anna-Karin needs just now.

They carry on walking in silence towards Kärrgruvan.

Now and then, Anna-Karin halts and closes her eyes. Her familiar is keeping watch down by the manor house. It will warn her if anyone leaves the house. But just in case, Anna-Karin gets in touch with it quite regularly.

‘It must be such a strange feeling,’ Minoo says at one point when Anna-Karin goes through this routine again. ‘You know, like, being a fox.’

They have just arrived at the start of the dirt road to the fairground. Minoo lights her torch. Dense strands of fog dance slowly in the cone of light.

‘I’ve got used to it,’ Anna-Karin says and opens her eyes. ‘He suddenly materialised from nowhere but now it feels as if he has been part of me always. Like the magic, if you see what I mean?’

Minoo nods but doesn’t comment.

Magic has never felt part of her. Rather, it is like being occupied by a foreign power. Perhaps it would be like a more natural extension of her self if she knew what it could be used for.

Ever since she found out that the guardians are supporting her powers, she has dared to experiment a little. But she still can’t make objects move, make herself invisible, read people’s thoughts or affect the way they act. Her one talent seems to be an ability to haul souls out of bodies with her bare hands. She still can’t see how this can be for good.

They walk on and finally the familiar shrubberies around Kärrgruvan emerge ghostlike out of the misty air.

The fog lifts as they enter through the gate.

Inside the fairground, the air is clear. High above them, the black night sky, scattered with stars, forms an arch without end.

A shimmering light flickers around the pavilion. Adriana’s blue fire burns in the centre of the dance floor. Minoo turns off the torch. They pass through the gleaming shell and feel the warmth of the fire.

The other Chosen Ones are seated. Adriana is the only one who is standing. Minoo hasn’t seen her since she came with Alexander to inspect Nicolaus’s flat. Illuminated by the blue flames, she looks almost ill, but her eyes glitter with nervous energy.

‘Join us and sit down,’ she says. ‘We are short of time.’

She tugs at a narrow leather strap around her neck. From it hangs a white piece of something that looks like bone. Red lines are growing slowly over its surface, branching like blood vessels across the white.

Minoo and Anna-Karin pull off their coats and sit down on the floor.

Minoo can’t resist having a quick look at Linnéa, who sits next to Vanessa. She can’t understand how she failed to see this for so long. Now that she knows, it is unmistakable. Linnéa keeps glancing at Vanessa all the time, as if she doesn’t want to miss one second of being with her.

I must talk to Linnéa, Minoo thinks.

But she can’t work out how to handle it.

‘I’ll tell you everything, from the beginning, to make you understand how the Council functions,’ Adriana says.

Minoo shudders once the words have fully sunk in. Adriana seems to have decided to reveal all there is to know. Chosen to be on their side, regardless.

‘I was born to join the uppermost class of the Council hierarchy,’ Adriana begins. ‘Both my parents were immensely powerful witches. Both were descendants of families which had belonged to the Council for generations. It was clear from the start that I would follow in their footsteps.’

Her smile is sad.

‘Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that I had no particular talent for magic. Neither my mother nor my father was a natural witch, but they were both very gifted and the gift for magic is often inherited. Given the history of my family, no one had expected me to be such a disappointment.’

Adriana’s legs begin to fold under her and she sinks down to sit on the floor, too. She supports herself with one hand flat on the floor.

‘Happily, they had one child already, Alexander, who more than met their expectations. My father worshipped him and ignored me completely. My mother tried to share her love more fairly between her children, but she felt ashamed of me. I knew that she couldn’t understand what they had done wrong to have a daughter like me. The Council despises weakness. Also, strength is measured in levels of magic talent and
the contributions individuals can make. I tried to compensate in different ways. Above all, to balance my lack of innate ability with perfect behaviour and devotion to my studies.’

Minoo notices Adriana’s quick glance in her direction. Once, Adriana had said that Minoo reminded her of herself as a young woman.

‘And then I met Simon,’ Adriana continues. ‘We were both nineteen. He and Alexander were friends. That was how we met. We soon fell in love. Deeply in love.’

She looks gravely at them. Her dark eyes shine in the light of the blue fire.

‘The Council exerts incredibly tight control over its membership. Everyone is a potential informant. That means one’s parents, siblings, children, friends, lovers. Everyone. But I trusted Simon. And he trusted me. For the first time in our lives we allowed ourselves to formulate in words a forbidden idea that we had both carried in our heads – that the Council was no better than a prison. Once we had taught each other to see, we could no longer shut our eyes to the truth. The Council de-humanised us. We decided to run away.’

‘Why did you have to run away? Couldn’t you simply … resign?’ Vanessa asks.

Adriana shakes her head.

‘Those of us who are born into Council membership have to choose on our eighteenth birthday if we want to join the Council formally or to leave for ever. And I mean,
for ever
. They sever all connections with dissenters. Extremely few have chosen that alternative. Even the doubters stay on. The Council is our family, our entire world. Both Simon and I had sworn an oath to stay faithful to the Council until death.’

Adriana turns her face towards the darkness that surrounds the dance floor, but she is looking at something else. She seems to search her mind for the right words.

‘We planned our escape for months. I was to meet Simon in a hotel in Copenhagen. When I arrived, the representatives of the Council were waiting for me. They had taken Simon already, before he left Stockholm.’

She shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath.

‘There was a court case. We couldn’t deny our crime, of course. Simon was sentenced to death and I would have been executed, too, if it hadn’t been for my mother’s intervention. She sacrificed so much to save me, but I could not be grateful. I wanted to die, I …’

She falls silent again.

‘They let me live, but saw to it that I would never forget my crime.’

She absently touches her left collarbone and Minoo feels a chill run down her spine as she thinks of the sign of fire, burned into skin that is hidden under her blouse.

‘They punished me in a ritual that physically bound me to the Council. I could not do anything other than obey their commands. And after a while, I wanted nothing else. I allowed myself to be brainwashed again. I suppose it was weak and cowardly. I was so badly broken, I saw no other way out … but I realise that you would find it hard to grasp.’

Minoo shakes her head. Everyone is silent. The blue fire makes the shadows flutter over their faces.

It almost feels as if Adriana is a member of the Circle.

‘I returned to the life that had been mine before I met Simon. To the books. As you know, by now most Council members find reading the
Book of Patterns
difficult. That’s true even of the natural witches. But we do have access to huge library collections of knowledge about the book and interpretations of what has been seen in it. The accumulated work of untold generations.’

Minoo wishes she could tell Adriana that they already know about these libraries and that they actually have spoken with Matilda. When Adriana opens up to them in this way, it feels awful to keep so many secrets from her. Secrets about themselves, about the previous Chosen One, about the guardians, Nicolaus and the history of the Council.

‘I was given the task of investigating how true various prophecies had been,’ Adriana says. ‘Vast numbers of prophecies are on record. They predict all sorts of things, from very minor to very important matters. A power shift in a country, a local magic phenomenon, the fate of a family. The Council studies the prophecies and attempts to use them to work out what the future will bring. Knowledge is power. And one thing you must understand is that, essentially, the Council is interested only in power.’

‘We’ve all got the message by now, I think,’ Linnéa says.

‘A few years ago, I went to the Norwegian headquarters of the Council. In Trondheim. I was looking for an eighteenth-century text that was said to contain prophecies about harvest failures. The Council libraries are astonishingly poorly organised, mainly because of internal power struggles over many centuries. Some manuscripts would be banned from time to time. It took me weeks to find what I had been looking for. I skimmed the book and happened to find a reference to “the Chosen One in Engelsfors” and certain events in this part of the world that took place around the end of the seventeenth century. It caught my interest. The myth of the Chosen One has fascinated me ever since I was little. And now it seemed I had found indications that the myth was in fact a true historical account.’

‘How do you mean? A
myth
?’ Minoo says.

True, Matilda had said that the Council seemed to have forgotten most circumstances of its origin and most of its
goals. But all the time, Adriana has spoken about the Chosen Ones as if she totally accepted them.

‘Yes, what’s that about being in a myth? Like, Santa Claus?’ Vanessa asks.

Adriana smiles sadly.

‘Council members regard the accounts of the Chosen One in ways similar to how many religions regard their ancient texts. As symbolic narratives or mythologised versions of historical events.’

Minoo tries to digest what Adriana has told them so far, but it’s hard to take on board that people see you as a kind of fairy-tale creature.

‘I became curious and started digging deeper in the Trondheim archives,’ Adriana says. ‘Traces of the idea turned up here and there, but as little more than cautious hints. And then, finally, I located a badly worn copy of a prophecy from the thirteenth century and found that I could begin to work with it and the other sources to piece together a more complete picture. Everything pointed to a large explosion of magic in Engelsfors and the area around it, sometime between 1650 and 1700. A witch with special powers had lived here. A girl, said to be the only one who could stop the demons. She was the Chosen One. It was unclear what happened to her, but the prophecy foretold that a new Chosen One would be awakened in order to stop the apocalypse. It would happen here in Engelsfors, under a blood-red moon. Having been interested in the myth before, I now became obsessed with it. Especially when my research demonstrated that the next blood-red moon would soon rise over Engelsfors.

‘Certain groups in the Council became very interested in my account, but others dismissed it as sheer superstition. The sceptics didn’t care to believe in any of it, invading demons or an impending apocalypse or specially “chosen” witches. But I
was permitted to make some preliminary measurements and soon showed that Engelsfors was an exceptionally magical place. Even the sceptics became interested then. They ordered me to come here and install myself as senior school principal, since my findings indicated that the Chosen One would be in your age group. And that’s how I found Elias.’

Her voice trembles and she has to pull herself together before she continues.

‘As soon as we realised that there were seven of you, not just one, the debate in the Council flared up again. From the beginning, you were exceptions to the rule, as it were.’

Adriana smiles faintly.

‘I had to fight to make them recognise you as the Chosen Ones and allow me to tell you about your situation. The analyses of hairs from your heads, which proved a never-before-observed magic potential, finally persuaded them. Although there were still those who didn’t believe that you were the Chosen Ones, the consensus was that you could be very useful.’

Her eyes move to each one of them in turn.

‘But you made me wake up. Especially you, Linnéa. And I would like to thank you.’

‘Umm, okay,’ Linnéa says uncertainly.

‘It was you who all the time pointed out that your lives were at risk from the inhuman bureaucracy of the Council,’ Adriana says. ‘It reminded me of everything that Simon and I had been talking about. And made me realise that if I wanted to honour his memory I had to act. Or rather,
not
act, when it became clear that you were going behind my back.’

Minoo remembers the notes she had taken last year. She suddenly sees them in a new light. So much is explained by now. So many question marks have been straightened out.

‘What do they think about us now?’ Anna-Karin asks. ‘Do they believe we are the Chosen Ones?’