Fire (5 page)

‘Come out with it, for fuck’s sake.’

Ida looks at him full on. Smiles.

‘You know, it’s just that when you’re sitting here in the sun, it’s obvious that you’ll go bald ever so early.’

Robin howls with laughter. Julia and Felicia giggle hysterically.

‘No way,’ Erik says and his eyes darken.

‘Oh, don’t fret. It will be years before it really shows. It’s just that in this light …’

Robin gives Erik’s scalp a hard rub.

‘Let’s see if it comes off,’ he says. Erik slaps his hand away and eyeballs Ida furiously.

She raises her eyebrows.

‘What’s wrong with you? You asked, after all. I’m just telling you the facts.’

In her beach bag, the mobile pings and, at that instant, a signal rings out from somewhere else on the beach. She notes that Vanessa is checking her phone.

A sinking feeling somewhere inside Ida. This isn’t a coincidence.

She pulls her mobile out. The display is streaked with white suncream from her fingers.

A text message from Minoo. She opens it and reads,
sensing that Vanessa, still on her towel, is watching her.

Ida deletes the text. Then stands, straightens her bikini and walks towards the water.

‘You going for a swim?’ Felicia calls out after her.

‘What do you think?’ Ida replies without stopping.

She navigates between the shouting kids and their overprotective parents, who are at least as noisy.

The water feels warm against her calves. She keeps going, then dives and swims until she finds one of the chilly currents running through the lake. She stays there. All the time, one sentence echoes through her body.

I don’t want to be part of this. I don’t want to be part of this. I don’t want to be part of this
.

But she knows that she will do as she has been told.

Like the others, she will turn up in the cemetery tonight. Not because she gives a damn about some old gravestone bearing Nicolaus’s name, but because she must keep her promise to the
Book of Patterns
.

Anna-Karin’s mother made supper. Deep-frozen meatballs heated in the microwave and tinned fruit salad with mayonnaise dressing. They eat in front of the TV set, as usual. Mum would have liked to do this even when they lived on the farm. It was Grandpa who insisted that they should sit together around the kitchen table.

Anna-Karin and her mum don’t speak to each other, not once. The telly is on about a millionaire who pretends to be poor. Later on, the millionaire reveals who he is and gives away loads of money to truly poor people who become so pleased and grateful, they are crying with happiness. The programme makes Anna-Karin feel a little nauseous. Or maybe it’s just that salady thing. Once again, she has eaten too much and it wasn’t even tasty.

‘Thanks for the supper,’ Anna-Karin says and gets up.

‘Sure,’ Mum says absently and lights a cigarette.

Her eyes stay fixed on the TV screen.

Anna-Karin goes to her room, turns on the computer. With Pepper purring in her lap, she starts chasing information about forest death but nothing fits with what she has seen. Instead she drifts away on the Internet, looking up veterinary schools in places far away from Engelsfors. But what matters is doing well enough this high-school year. And the next one. And hope the apocalypse doesn’t get in the way.

She looks at her watch. Time, she realises, to set out for Nicolaus’s place. She has told him that she wants a lift to the cemetery, but actually she wants to find out how he reacted to Linnéa’s find.

The telly is still on when Anna-Karin pads through the living room. Mum is lying on her side and snoring a little. Anna-Karin tiptoes over to the sofa, picks up the ashtray and takes it to the kitchen to soak the fag ends under the tap.

As Anna-Karin leaves their block, she takes a look at the house across the road, the shut-down library. They have been refurbishing it all summer. The large windows are covered in brown paper, but light is seeping out through the gaps.

Anna-Karin wonders who is going to set up shop there and is feeling sorry for the owners already. They’ll do well if they can hang on for a year.

She starts walking through the centre of town.

It is Monday night and not a soul is about, as usual. Here and there, the blue light of a TV lights up a window. The August moon is like a fat, bright yellow cheese. The outside air is still warm and Anna-Karin longs for the end of this seemingly endless summer.

She crosses Storvall Square and turns into Gnejsgatan, where she stops in front of the three-storey building covered in green-painted render.

The front door slides open after just a slight push. Anna-Karin walks up to the only door on the ground floor and presses the doorbell.

‘Good evening, Anna-Karin,’ Nicolaus says when he opens the door.

She hasn’t seen him for a week and since then, he has tanned a little. His ice-blue eyes seem to glitter more brightly
than usual. He is neatly dressed in trousers and shirt, but his grey-streaked hair is long and tousled.

He is quite good-looking.

If only Mum would fall for someone like him, Anna-Karin thinks.

‘Sorry … am I too early?’ she asks.

‘You’re always welcome here,’ Nicolaus says as he ushers her in.

When she enters the living room the first thing she notices is the fern. Apart from the old town map and the beautiful silver crucifix on the wall, Nicolaus’s flat is completely bare. No rugs, no curtains, nothing to cover up the worn coffee table and no books in the bookshelf. But a fern in a white plastic pot has been placed on the windowsill. It’s heartbreaking to think of Nicolaus going out to get something to brighten his lonely flat.

‘That’s a nice fern,’ she says.

Nicolaus’s face lights up.

‘Isn’t it? I felt something green was called for. You know, in the middle of this drought.’

Anna-Karin nearly says something about the dieback in the forest, but doesn’t. Nicolaus is surely under enough stress already.

‘You look preoccupied,’ he says.

‘Mostly because I wonder how you would respond. I mean, to this gravestone thing.’

Nicolaus’s smile seems slightly forced.

‘It has its morbid sides, I must admit.’

The doorbell rings and Nicolaus answers the door.

Minoo’s voice comes floating in from the stairwell.

‘Hi, Nicolaus.’

She looks surprised at finding Anna-Karin in the living room.

‘Are you, too …?’

Anna-Karin ends her sentence for her.

‘Here to cadge a lift? Yes, I am.’

They exchange a glance. The same reason has brought them here. Anna-Karin asks herself if Nicolaus realises.

Vanessa opens the windows wide even though she knows it’s pointless. Outside, the air is as warm and muggy as in Jonte’s living room. Not improved, of course, by Jonte, Lucky and Wille trying to break some record for being stoned.

But Wille has promised Vanessa that now she’s going back to school, he’ll lay off smoking most of the time and find himself a job. Vanessa has made up her mind to believe him.

Back on the sofa next to Wille, she relaxes. But she must set out for the cemetery soon. Mum thinks that she’s staying the night with Evelina, who naturally agreed straight away to provide an alibi because it would allow Vanessa to be with Wille. Meanwhile, Wille has been told that she has to stay at home. Tomorrow morning, at breakfast, she will have to tell Mum that she came home in the middle of the night because she and Evelina had fallen out about something. In fact, Vanessa is preparing to lie to her mother, her boyfriend and her best friend, all in the same evening. Since she became one of the Chosen Ones, she has had to lie more than ever before in her life. It’s getting hard to keep track of all the fibs.

‘Wow … it’s so fucking nice.’ Lucky is moaning with pleasure as he stuffs his face with lemon curd biscuits.

Crumbs spray from his lips in a fine shower. Lucky’s insatiable hunger after smoking weed reminds Vanessa of what it used to be like when the Chosen Ones had been practising magic and simply had to gobble food and sweets afterwards.

‘Nessa, have a beer at least,’ Wille says, enveloping her in a cloud of sweet smoke. ‘It makes me tense when you just sit around.’

‘Don’t be uptight,’ Lucky says and jabs her arm. ‘You’re missing out on having a good time. You should’ve come along to Götis last Saturday. Totally sick night.’

‘I can live with missing one night at Götis.’

‘Just as well. I mean, it’s not like you’ve much choice.’

He looks very full of himself because, for once, he has the upper hand. After the end of the school year, Vanessa and Evelina had managed to get banned from Götvändaren, the only hotel and hanging-out venue in town. A broken toilet and extensive water damage were part of the picture. The owners would definitely have charged them if they hadn’t been underage and shouldn’t have been admitted to the nightclub in the first place.

‘You should’ve seen Wille—’ Lucky goes on, but Jonte interrupts him.

‘Shut it.’

It silences Lucky instantly. He starts fiddling with a new joint.

‘Nessa …’ Wille says, putting his head to the side in an attempt to look cute and succeeding very nicely. ‘Why don’t you want to party with us?’

‘Because tonight, I turn into a superhero with a secret mission,’ she tells him gravely. ‘Sooo sorry.’

Wille just laughs, oblivious to any subtexts.

Vanessa catches Jonte watching her with his dark, intensive eyes. At times, she feels that he knows too much about what is going on. Or, at least, that he’s somehow more aware than he should be.

The ugly cuckoo clock starts calling the hour. Vanessa has to leave.

‘You’re so lovely,’ Wille says. ‘Out-of-this-world lovely. You know that, don’t you? The best fiancée a man could hope for. The best in the entire world. Too good for me.’

Vanessa looks at him. Maybe his unruly blonde hair needs a cut, but Vanessa fancies the way he looks. She kisses him before getting up from the sofa, a lingering kiss.

‘I’m off home now,’ she says and turns to Jonte. ‘OK if I borrow your bike?’

He nods, tugs at his cap. Jonte can’t refuse her anything. Vanessa knows too much about him. Things that he wants to stay secret and fears that she will give away to Wille. Like: Jonte has slept with Linnéa, Wille’s ex. And Linnéa pocketed Jonte’s handgun. And that was the gun found this winter in the dining area, next to Max.

Vanessa zooms along the road with soft air rushing past her bare legs. It feels good but is nowhere near enough to cool her. Most of all, she’d like to lie down in a deep freeze, hands crossed on her breast, like a vampire in a coffin.

The bike is just as useless as its owner. The handlebars are wonky and pull to the left, and the whole thing rattles alarmingly at the slightest hole in the road. Vanessa is positive she hears lots of little tinkling noises, as if she’s leaving a trail of lost bits like screws and nuts.

The white, rendered stone wall around the cemetery glows spookily in the strong moonlight. The others are already there, waiting by the gate.

They all look tense.

Vanessa, on the other hand, feels almost relieved. At last, something is happening. They will have something to worry about, other than when the demons will strike next.

The bike bumps on something and wobbles. Vanessa is nearly catapulted off before she manages to swing it round
and skid to a halt in front of the others. Fucking bike from hell! She kicks it as she jumps off. She feels a sharp pain in her big toe and swears some more under her breath.

Vanessa doesn’t even have to look at Linnéa to know that she’s grinning. She longs achingly for the old days when she would have shared the joke with her.

Linnéa has promised them that she no longer reads their thoughts. Explained that she only kept her power a secret because she didn’t want them to be scared of her. But nothing she can say will ever heal the wound. Vanessa now questions every good moment they have spent together. Did Linnéa read her mind all the time? Was that why she always seemed to know what to say? After the dining-area fight against Max the two of them had become so close. Or had their friendship started even earlier?

Vanessa often thinks of the Saturday night when she had turned up in Linnéa’s flat. They had been laughing together at everything sick and bizarre that had happened in their lives. She only realised how much that memory meant when it was ruined for her.

At first, she had been furious with Linnéa and that made ignoring her much easier. Later, it became harder and harder. Vanessa is amazed at how much she misses her. But as soon as she considers forgiving her, what Linnéa did comes back to her and the old anger erupts again.

It’s all so totally awful. To be without Linnéa is as impossible as to forgive her.

‘Now what? Are we supposed to stand around here all night?’ Ida asks.

Nicolaus looks stern.

‘You’re right, Miss Holmström. Let’s get this over and done with.’

They enter the cemetery. Their shoes make crunching
noises on the gravel. Vanessa is staring straight ahead when Linnéa comes alongside her.

‘Hi. How are you?’ Linnéa says.

‘Fine.’ Vanessa makes the short word sound dismissive.

If only Linnéa would stop looking at her like that. Vanessa repeats Melvin’s favourite tune as a mantra to prevent herself from accidental thoughts that Linnéa might listen in to.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky!

After a sidelong glance at Vanessa, Linnéa moves on to the front of the group. She waves to the others, a signal that they are to follow her into the old part of the cemetery.

A narrow path runs between crumbling blocks of stone and heavy cast-iron crosses. For several hundred years now, no one has known what the people buried here looked like while they were alive, or what kind of people they were. It is a strangely fascinating, dizzying thought.

‘Here it is,’ Linnéa says.

She stops at a gravestone that looks unimpressive compared with the grander memorials. She lights a torch and directs the beam at Nicolaus’s name.