The Key (85 page)

‘She could never stand being with me in the long run.’

‘So you dumped her so you wouldn’t be dumped? Brilliant!’

Yes, Elias does understand her. Better than anyone. And it hurts.

‘I’d just ruin Vanessa as well! She deserves someone better than me!’

‘Isn’t that up to Vanessa? You wrecked a chance of being happy because you were scared of becoming unhappy. You must see how totally fucked up this is!’

‘Yes, it’s fucked up!’ Linnéa says. ‘
I
am fucked up!’

‘Yes, you are!’ Elias says. ‘But you’re amazing, too. You have always been there for me. Why couldn’t you be there for Vanessa? Sure, it might end one day. But, Linnéa,
everything
ends. Sooner or later. Don’t you get that?’

His voice breaks.

Linnéa can’t argue with him because what he says is true.

‘Excuse me …’ a familiar voice says.

Linnéa and Elias turn to face Ida who stands in the doorway.

‘I just have to say that Elias is absolutely right,’ she says as she walks into the room. ‘I’ve seen you and Vanessa together and, seriously, Linnéa …’

She falls silent while she quickly dries her eyes.

‘I don’t even have a chance to experience all that!’ she continues. ‘Elias doesn’t either. And you’re throwing it all away! I mean, seriously! Get your act together and sort this out!’

‘Exactly,’ Elias says.

Linnéa stares at the two of them.

‘I’m glad you two agree,’ she says.

Elias puts his arms around her and she leans her head against his shoulder. She is thoroughly shaken. Elias’s words have hit her hard. She feels as if she has been running towards an abyss and he has made her stop right at the edge.

She has been such an idiot.

‘Oh no,’ Ida says. ‘Not him.’

Linnéa straightens up.

A man with shoulder-length blond hair and a blond moustache comes into the room. Linnéa notes how expensive his clothes look. At a guess, seventeenth-century style. Member of the nobility.

He stands and stares blankly at the room, obviously not seeing them.

‘Who is he?’ Linnéa asks.

‘Baron Henrik Ehrenskiöld,’ Ida says with obvious distaste. ‘Alexander’s and Adriana’s great-great-great-whatever.’

Henrik Ehrenskiöld walks into the room, stops at the table, touches it with his hand and then he gazes at the chair. He looks pained. Then he bursts into tears.

‘Nicolaus told us about him,’ Linnéa says. ‘He is the one who promised to see to it that Matilda would live and then sent her off to burn at the stake.’

‘I thought it must be him,’ Ida says. ‘What an asshole.’

‘Yes, it was he who did it,’ a voice says. ‘But it wasn’t his idea. He just obeyed orders.’

They all turn towards the voice.

And see Matilda in front of the window. Vanessa and Anna-Karin stand next to her. Vanessa looks completely confused. And then she and the others vanish behind the mist that sweeps into the room. Linnéa clings to Elias and feels Ida grip her arm.

‘Vanessa!’ Linnéa calls out as the mist closes in around them.

Jolly dance music at a distance. Laughter; drunken voices shouting.

‘What’s happening?’ Linnéa whispers as she tries to see through the veils of mist.

‘This is what I’ve had to put up with all the time,’ Ida says.

The mist clears. Vanessa is there and Linnéa takes her hand. Anna-Karin and Matilda are facing them.

‘Where are we?’ Elias says.

Linnéa has never seen the place so alive.

It is a light summer evening. A smell of grease is coming from the hot dog stand. The mosquitoes are humming. People are criss-crossing the yard where the Chosen Ones stand. Now and then someone runs straight
through
them.

Five guys in shiny, baby-blue shirts are playing on the bandstand in the dance pavilion. They have all had their hair dyed blond. Couples and groups of girls are dancing to the music. Two women with white T-shirts under long, flowery dresses stroll past just behind Matilda.

‘Kärrgruvan,’ Anna-Karin tells them.

‘That’s right,’ says Matilda. ‘And we have a lot to talk about.’

Rebecka looks at Minoo and Nicolaus, who are walking in front of her through the greyness. Neither has said a word since Vanessa and Anna-Karin disappeared.

She fixes her eyes on the black dot they are walking towards.

It is the portal that Minoo mentioned. And Vanessa talked about guardians and said that it is their magic that makes Minoo so weird. Anna-Karin got round to explaining something about stopping an apocalypse, and something about demons.

Rebecka tries to understand but feels as if she is doing a thousand-piece jigsaw without a clue what it’s meant to look like.

‘Minoo!’ she calls.

Minoo doesn’t reply. Rebecka stops walking.

‘You’ve got to tell me something about what’s going on.’

Minoo turns and looks at Rebecka with her empty eyes.

‘I understand that you feel at a loss.’ She comes a little closer. ‘There’s so much you don’t know. After all, you’ve been dead for two years.’

It feels like being struck across the face. Rebecka feels dazed.

Two years.

Moa must be five, and Alma will have started proper school. Anton and Oskar are teenagers.

She has missed two years of their lives. And she will never see them again. Never see them grow up; never learn what happens to them. These thoughts are indescribably painful and lead on to other thoughts that she has tried to keep at bay.

Mum and Dad.

They believe that she took her own life. Are they blaming themselves? The last time she spoke to Dad she more-or-less hung up on him.

Gustaf.

It doesn’t hit her until now that he must believe it as well. That she wanted to die. Wanted to leave him.

Her pain is so overwhelming that she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

Then she feels Minoo’s cool hand against her cheek. The pain is dampened down, and then goes away altogether.

‘Did you do that?’ Rebecka asks.

‘Of course,’ Minoo says. ‘You were suffering. It seemed unnecessary.’

Rebecka can’t believe her ears.

‘Those were my feelings! You can’t just change them!’

‘Feelings are very interesting, but just now, too much is at stake. You must be focused.’

‘I can’t be focused when I don’t know what all this is about! And what’s the matter with you, Minoo? I don’t recognise you at all!’

Minoo blinks. Rebecka hasn’t seen her do that since their arrival here.

‘You want to know what has happened?’ Minoo asks.

‘Yes!’

Minoo nods. Then, before there is time to react, she has put her hand on Rebecka’s forehead and Minoo’s memories flood into her mind.

* * *

Ida is so glad that she wasn’t around at the time when Kärrgruvan was where all Engelsfors went to have a good time. The place is disgusting. Everything is gross: the music, the way people behave.

She looks at Matilda. ‘I think you should explain yourself.’

‘At last I can,’ Matilda says. ‘You know those invisible beings that were chasing us? They were guardians. I’ve been their hostage since I died.’

Ida’s irritation feels wrong now. Hostage?

‘I hated them at first,’ Matilda continues. ‘Later, I learnt to hide my hatred and pretended to collaborate with them. I waited and watched. And hoped I’d have a chance to contact you, the next Chosen Ones, and warn you about their plans. The first time I tried was at the ball for the final year pupils in junior school.’

She looks straight at Ida. All the others do, too.

Ida rummages in her memory. It had been a horrid evening. She had made up her mind to go all out to get G, but because the food was so vile she hadn’t eaten a thing and had passed out on the toilet floor. And when she’d left the toilets, she’d seen Rebecka and Gustaf kissing.

An evening she’d rather forget. But she has no memory of what Matilda is talking about.

‘The guardians caught me afterwards,’ Matilda says. ‘They kept me captive. I managed to escape a few times and tried to reach you again. Once was in the dining area when you managed to keep me out. And once in your bathroom, when I warned you of dangers to come. And, just at the start of the séance, when you called me. I tried to warn you of the
Book of Patterns
and the guardians. I tried to warn all of you.’

Ida looks at Matilda, remembering how she hated it when Matilda tried to get into her head. But she had wanted to help, all along. To save her.

‘The séance, it was really you who was moving the glass then?’ Linnéa asks.

‘Yes, but the guardians got hold of me again. That was when the glass exploded. Afterwards, all my words were really theirs.’

Her ice-blue eyes darken.

‘The guardians used me as a puppet to communicate with you. They realised that you would be more likely to trust another Chosen One. Everything that you and my father have heard me say has been dictated by the guardians.’

She sounds so bitter. Ida understands perfectly. She knows what it’s like to lose control of yourself and be manipulated by someone else.

‘By now, you know the truth about most things,’ Matilda says. ‘And I’ll tell you the rest.’

A meltingly romantic saxophone solo drifts out from the pavilion. And, nearby, the sound of someone throwing up. Ida turns away, revolted.

‘The guardians gave Henrik Ehrenskiöld his orders through the
Book of Patterns
,’ Matilda continues. ‘They wanted me to be burnt alive. Or else, the ritual wouldn’t be complete.’

‘What ritual?’ Vanessa asks.

‘The ritual I had to undertake to give up my powers. The guardians took me through the first steps. But never mentioned that my death was the last step in it.’

The music stops and the singer asks if there are any singles here tonight; tells them that the next dance is for them.

‘Henrik was not evil,’ Matilda says. ‘But the guardians came up with their usual threat. That the world would end unless he did what he was told. That’s what they told me to make me give up my powers. But it wasn’t true. I
could
have closed the portal. All this could have been dealt with when I was alive.’

* * *

Rebecka blinks.

She feels the same as always. Yet, everything is different.

Rebecka has Minoo’s memories of all that has happened between her own death and up to three weeks ago. Minoo’s memories and the memories of others. Rebecka’s own terrified face, seen through Max’s eyes. The bird’s-eye view of Engelsfors, seen through the eyes of Adriana’s raven. Erik Forslund’s reflection in Linnéa’s window, seconds before he smashes it with a baseball bat. A pale boy with ash-blond hair and blue eyes whose name is Viktor. Rebecka has never met him, but Minoo has, and Minoo has also seen his sister’s memories of him.

Rebecka knows it all.

She knows far too much.

Gustaf, crying after Rebecka’s funeral.
She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m so fucking alone without her. I don’t recognise my own life any more
.

Gustaf.

He and Minoo are together now.

They have kissed and they have had sex. And Rebecka knows exactly how much Minoo loves him.

The knowledge is tearing Rebecka apart. She knows how Gustaf has suffered and how bitterly he has missed her. And how much he has needed someone’s love. She also knows how guilty Minoo felt and how irresistible the attraction proved in the end. Rebecka is aware that Minoo and Gustaf need each other.

Still, for her, it feels as if it was only a few hours ago that she was standing on the school steps facing Gustaf.

I love you
.
You won’t forget that, will you?

Conflicting emotions pull at her. She envies Minoo, who is still alive, and she is wildly jealous of her being with Gustaf. At the same time, she has experienced Minoo’s happiness and feels relieved that Gustaf isn’t alone and that Minoo isn’t either. And she is grateful to Minoo for taking the risk of telling him the truth. Now he no longer has to struggle with the thought that she killed herself.

‘Is it too much?’ Minoo scrutinises her with her head tilted a little to the side. As if Rebecka is some kind of guinea pig. ‘I can take something away if you’d rather,’ she adds helpfully.

‘No,’ Rebecka says. ‘I’m not going to let you do anything else to me.’

‘As you like.’

The last memory transferred to Rebecka was of Minoo being locked into her room in the manor house. Rebecka guesses that she has been inside the black smoke since then. And she understands why. She has also felt the pain Minoo experienced and sensed the relief that the magic of the guardians could give.

She understands Minoo.

But she is convinced that this isn’t right. Minoo is being devoured by the magic of the guardians. She is disappearing.

‘We must go,’ Minoo says.

Together with Nicolaus, they walk through the Borderland. Minoo seems to be listening to voices that Rebecka can’t hear.

They come closer and closer to the black dot. Now, Rebecka sees that it is a gaping hole opening into blackness.

A hole that is slowly expanding.

* * *

Anna-Karin tries to ignore the music and the loud voices. She wants to grasp what Matilda has just told them.

‘But, why didn’t the guardians let you close the portal?’ she asks. ‘Do they
want
the demons to enter?’

‘Not at all,’ Matilda says. ‘The demons hate the guardians and would like to destroy them together with the rest of this world.’

A group of middle-aged women are running towards the dance pavilion. They are yelling wildly and one of them rushes straight through Anna-Karin. She doesn’t feel a thing; just catches a whiff of cigarette smoke and mosquito repellent. And then the woman is gone.

‘I shall have to start from the beginning,’ Matilda says. ‘Magic is a form of living energy. It’s part of nature. Once, the magic in our world was like a working ecosystem. It was based on balance. Earth and air. Fire and water. Wood and metal. But when the demons got here and brought their own magic, the balance was disturbed. The first Chosen One was our magic’s attempt to restore balance. The system had been disrupted by the portals and now there was a chance to close them. A Key.’