The Key (37 page)

Julia, Hanna A and Hanna H are standing in the City Mall. At first, Ida thinks they are staring at her. But of course they aren’t. When Ida turns the other way, Linnéa is there.

‘And you’re a liar and everybody knows it!’ Julia says. ‘You haven’t got any proof. None.’

‘I haven’t lied,’ Linnéa says. ‘And your boyfriend would hardly be banged up in a police cell unless there was proof.’

Julia’s boyfriend? It must be Erik. Arrested? Erik locked up!

For the first time since she died in Gustaf’s arms, Ida feels happy again. And she so wants to find out what they got Erik for. She wishes she could have seen his face when the cops took him away.

‘He says he’s innocent and that’s good enough for me,’ Julia tells her. ‘I’m not going to let my boyfriend down just because you’re delusional.’

‘You must think Robin is delusional too, then?’ Linnéa says. ‘And Kevin as well?’

‘All three of them spent the whole night in the PE centre,’ Julia says.

‘Then why should Robin and Kevin say they didn’t?’

‘They have always been jealous of Erik! It’s typical of weak people that they try to drag the strong ones down to their level. Just to try to make themselves feel better!’

This makes Ida ashamed. She used to go around saying stuff like that. Julia is quoting her.

‘And you might as well know something else,’ Julia carries on. ‘My Dad is a lawyer and he says that Erik will never be convicted!’

‘Precisely,’ Hanna A agrees.

‘If your father was any good as a lawyer, he wouldn’t have a practice in Engelsfors,’ Linnéa responds.

Ida can’t help laughing. She sees a shadow fall over Julia’s face. A sense of insecurity that no real leader would show.

‘But then, you couldn’t ever lead anyone,’ Ida says. ‘Maybe Felicia could, but not you.’

Julia takes a step closer to Linnéa. And spits in her face.

‘Very classy!’ Ida says.

She notices that the two Hannas seem to think the same thing. They glance quickly at each other. It’s only a matter of time before they get completely fed up with Julia. They’re already questioning her authority over them, Ida sees that clearly. But, for now, they follow Julia as she stalks off towards the exit.

Linnéa stays. Her eyes are closed. There’s a concentrated wrinkle between her eyebrows.

A few drops of water hit the tiled floor. The next moment, the sprinkler system in the ceiling starts spraying water in all directions.

Julia and the Hannas scream and run to the exit door. Ida observes Linnéa, who stays calmly in place, letting the water pour over her face and wash her make-up away. Then she sighs a little. The water cuts out at once. Just a few last drops fall into the puddles on the floor of the City Mall. Ida is completely dry.

A bell rings. Vanessa runs out from the Crystal Cave.

‘What’s going on?’ she asks.

Linnéa smiles a little and pushes her wet fringe off her forehead.

‘
You
made it happen?’ Vanessa asks.

‘Yep,’ Linnéa says. ‘Now, watch this.’

She closes her eyes again. The wrinkle between her eyebrows returns. And Ida can see clouds of steam rising from Linnéa’s hair, clothes, skin.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Vanessa hisses, looking nervously around her.

‘What are you worrying about?’ Linnéa asks her. ‘The Council? Minoo is about to start working for them.’

‘What?’ Ida exclaims. ‘Minoo working for the Council? Has everyone gone completely mad?’

Vanessa stares at Linnéa and Ida wonders if they are sending thoughts between each other. Looks like it, because Vanessa leaves abruptly and walks back into the shop. Linnéa looks at her disappearing back; she looks as if she wants to call out to her, but she doesn’t. Her boots splash on the wet floor as she walks towards the exit.

The grey sweeps around Ida like a veil.

She is on the path along the canal. Minoo is standing next to her, watching the manor house. A tall white fence has been put up along the back of the big house. Ida wonders what it is hiding. Minoo looks as if she is wondering, too.

‘What’s this I hear about you going to work for the Council?’ Ida asks.

The next veil of mist drifts past.

She stands on the dance floor in the pavilion. It’s raining and the roof is leaking. Vanessa, Linnéa and Minoo are sitting on the edge of the stage. Linnéa holds the silver cross.

‘We ought to find out more about it,’ she says. ‘Find out if it has any other uses.’

‘Like what?’ Minoo asks.

‘We could try out a few rituals or something,’ Linnéa suggests.

‘We can’t just try things at random,’ Minoo says. ‘It might be dangerous.’

Linnéa sniffs. Footsteps on the gravel are coming closer. Anna-Karin steps into the pavilion; she is carrying a pile of roof tiles.

‘Do you think these will work?’ she asks. She puts them down on the floor.

‘Don’t ask me,’ Linnéa says.

Anna-Karin picks up one of the tiles with both hands. The others watch her but are obviously thinking about other things. They don’t even react when Anna-Karin breaks the tile in her hands. And it strikes Ida how lonely they all look, even though the four of them are together.

As the mist sweeps past again, Ida hears Linnéa laugh.

‘Do you remember?’ Vanessa says.

‘Of course I do.’ Linnéa laughs again.

Ida smells the incense. Now she is in Linnéa’s sitting room. It is dark outside and there are lit candles on the table by the sofa. Vanessa and Linnéa are half lying on the sofa, each leaning against an armrest. Their legs are intertwined.

Linnéa holds a china figurine in her hand. A fat angel playing a harp. The angel has a pointy nose and oddly swollen cheeks and is shiny all over with fake mother-of-pearl. It’s so screamingly tasteless that Ida feels she could break out in hives just looking at it.

Are they
terminally
out of their minds?

‘Happy birthday!’ Vanessa says.

‘Thank you.’ Linnéa places the china angel on the table.

Vanessa looks at Linnéa with eyes full of love. No one has ever looked at Ida like that. Especially not G.

Vanessa wriggles closer to Linnéa, leans over her and gives her a kiss.

And Linnéa pulls Vanessa towards her until Vanessa is on top. They are kissing, slowly. Gently. Their lips caress each other. Where have Linnéa’s hands actually gone to?

No way does Ida want to see them have sex. She turns away, hoping for a drift of grey mist, but sees only Linnéa’s kitchen. Behind her back, the sound of their kissing is growing more intense. Ida hurries into the kitchen and sits down on the floor with her hands over her ears. Waits.

‘Please,’ she whispers. ‘Please.’

The mist finally returns and she gets up.

She can’t stop thinking of the way Vanessa looked at Linnéa.

The mist dissolves again.

White walls. White light. A white, limed wooden floor. Every knot in the boards is familiar. She is in the kitchen at home.

Ida clutches the silver heart around her neck. The kitchen table and the chairs have gone. That was where they sat at their last, dreadful breakfast together. It seems like only yesterday.

She looks into the hall. It is piled high with boxes from a removal firm.

‘Stop that, Rasmus!’ It’s Mum’s voice coming from the garden.

Ida runs into the sitting room and then out through the open French windows to the terrace. It’s an evening in late summer. A swarm of midges dances in the slanting rays of the sun. Ida goes to lean on the railing. Lotta sits on the steps to the playhouse, holding a mobile phone. She was always on about how much she wanted one. Mum stands on the lawn, by her beloved rose bushes. Her eyes are empty. Dazed. Not at all as usual.

Rasmus hacks at the grass with a rake.

‘Where’s Dad?’ he asks, and Ida holds her breath. She is terrified that Mum will say something vague about how Dad is in heaven now.

‘I told you, he’s at the petrol station,’ Mum says.

‘I don’t want to move to Borlänge. I want to stay here.’

‘I’m not in the mood to discuss all that with you again,’ Mum tells him. ‘What would we do here in Engelsfors, did you think?’

‘Wait for Ida to come back,’ Rasmus says.

Ida lets go of her silver heart. Looks in utter amazement at her little brother.

Then, the mist swallows the garden and the terrace and everything becomes one great big nothing again.

‘Mum!’ Ida calls, but without expecting an answer.

And then she sees Anna-Karin. She is sitting on a bed with a photo album on her lap. Ida goes to stand next to her and looks at the faded, yellowing images. She recognises Anna-Karin’s mother as a young woman, because she is so like her daughter. Then she grows older. Suddenly she is holding a baby. It’s Anna-Karin and she is so cute. Her green eyes are enormous. But her mother looks at little Anna-Karin as if unsure what to do with her.

Ida observes how Anna-Karin’s hands clutch the album covers, squeezing them like she squeezed those roof tiles. Ida expects the album to break apart any second.

Then Anna-Karin’s hands relax their grip. She is crying. Large tears are falling on the shiny photos. She is sobbing and blubbering and Ida feels she, too, will burst into tears any moment now.

And then she is back in the Borderland.

She starts running. The need to weep is growing stronger; she must force it down, because if she lets out her grief she wouldn’t be able to take another step. She has to keep running. She must. Not cry. It would suck all the strength from her. She would have to lie down. Not give a shit about anything. Let the invisible thing find her.

So what? Could anything be worse than this?

It strikes her that perhaps this existence is what Mona saw that time in the Crystal Cave, though Mona didn’t see the whole picture.

The year ahead will be dark and hard for you
.

Does that mean she’s stuck here for a whole year? In this totally fucked-up situation?

Besides, ‘a year’, according to what time scale? Time in Engelsfors, where everything seems to happen much more quickly than here? Or a year in limbo time, which seems to make no sense at all? And, after that year, what then?

But you will get what you were promised
.
So plodding on is worth it
.

The guardians promised her that if she collaborated with the Circle until the final battle had been fought, she would be relieved of her powers and everything else that had to do with the Chosen Ones. At this moment, it feels more like a threat than a promise.

Ida does the only thing she can do. She leaps into the next source of light.

Minoo reaches in under the bed and pulls out her rucksack, which has been lying there all summer. She brushes the dust off it and opens it. Stares into its gaping interior.

This should have been her first day as a third-year pupil.

But it is not to be.

Two weeks ago, she received a letter. Her name and address were printed on a stick-on label. The letter was from Walter, asking her to come to the manor house. Today. She is going to meet the others.

The others.

Minoo wonders who they are. She keeps staring into the rucksack, as if hoping to find clues inside it.

She hears wardrobe doors opening in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. Then the metallic shriek of clothes hangers being pushed back and forth on a rail. Dad is packing. He is off to a conference in Malmö. Minoo has no idea what it’s about, even though he has been telling her for a week. All she’s been able to think about is this day.

And now it has arrived.

She opens the drawer in her bedside table and takes out the
Book of Patterns
.

It has been quiet ever since she asked it about Walter, but she puts it into the rucksack all the same, together with a notepad and a pen. She hesitates for a second and then puts the Pattern Finder in, even though she has never found it of any use. There’s still plenty of room, but she doesn’t know what else she should bring for a day like today.

Minoo fastens the flap and gets up. Looks quickly at herself in the mirror and wonders if Walter’s circle will be like the rest of the Council members. Cool, self-assured, smartly dressed, with spotless skin and expensive haircuts. Minoo can’t bear to even think of how her clothes, skin and hair will compare. Has anyone in the Council ever worn jeans?

Outside in the passage, she meets Mum stepping out of the bathroom. She smiles at Minoo.

‘
Fadat sham, vaghean bavaram nemishe
,’ she says, giving Minoo a hug. ‘The final year has begun.’

Her dressing gown feels so soft against Minoo’s cheek. She doesn’t even want to think about the fact that what Mum has just said might be literally true.

‘What do you think, shall we order a pizza from the Venezia and watch a film tonight?’ Mum asks, letting her out of the hug.

‘Great,’ Minoo says. She tries not to obsess about what might happen before this day is over. ‘I’ve got to run. Anna-Karin is waiting for me.’

Dad comes out of the bedroom carrying his red roller-case. He has changed so much this summer. His jawline has firmed up and his cheekbones, which Minoo only remembers seeing in old photos, have reappeared. But, above all, he looks healthier. His whole being shows that, for once, he has taken a proper holiday.

He puts the bag down, puts his arm around Minoo and gives her a squeeze.

‘Good luck, Minoo,’ he says.’ Not that you need it.’

Oh, yes I do, Minoo thinks. You’ve no idea just how much.

The sky is bright blue. The sun is shining but it’s cold for August. This year, the summer never seemed to get started and now it is almost at an end. Everyone has been complaining about the cool weather, as if they had suppressed all memories of last summer’s heat wave.

Minoo and Anna-Karin navigate between the slugs that are invading Engelsfors. The creatures crawl on the pavement, plump and glistening, leaving slimy trails across the tarmac. Minoo and Anna-Karin pass many gardens where people have rigged up slug traps – mostly just plastic buckets. In them, drowned slugs are fermenting in the sun into a repulsive, soupy mess. Minoo is so pleased that her parents gave up fighting them long ago, leaving the slugs to eat their greenery undisturbed.