The Circle (Hammer)

IV

46

THE CRYSTAL CAVE’S sign is midnight blue set with gold curlicue lettering and a sprinkling of little stars and half-moons. Vanessa had hoped that Mona Moonbeam’s shop would be closed. Yet another forgotten victim of the City Mall, a.k.a. the final resting place of failed businesses. But she had caught a whiff of cigarettes and incense as soon as she’d opened the door to the mall. And now she can see through the shop window that three people are waiting to be served in the Crystal Cave. Mona is wearing the same denim outfit as last time, and is receiving a wad of banknotes from an old man who looks to be somewhere between eighty and death.

Vanessa spits out her chewing gum so violently that it bounces against the floor.

Why was she so stupid as to bring up the Crystal Cave? Why had she let herself be talked into coming here?

She knows the answer, of course. They’re desperate.

The Book of Patterns has shown them they need ectoplasm but, of course, refused to tell them how to get it.

Vanessa has started to hate that book. It behaves like a grumpy old hag. She’s shaken her own copy viciously, threatened to rip out every single page if it doesn’t show her how to solve the mystery of Gustaf and his doppelganger. But nothing appears to her through the Pattern Finder.

Ida is still the only one who can read the Book of Patterns. But in front of the principal, whom they still see on Saturdays, she pretends it’s not showing her anything. What Ida finds in the book they discuss at Nicolaus’s house.

When the book wanted them to practise detecting each other’s energies, it had taken Ida a quarter of an hour to explain what they should do. But it had offered no insight as to the point of the exercise.

‘Don’t blame me,’ Ida said. ‘I’m just reading what it says.’

Minoo had tried to put a positive spin on things. She said that the Book of Patterns probably knew what they needed, that there must be a really important reason why they had to learn this.

They had no alternative than to put their trust in the grumpy old hag of a book and try the exercises it recommended, no matter how meaningless they seemed. They took turns to sit blindfolded on a chair in Nicolaus’s living room and concentrate on where the others were standing.

Minoo was the first to sit in the chair but she couldn’t find anyone. When she took off the blindfold, she looked devastated. ‘Put through a meat grinder,’ as Vanessa’s mother sometimes said. Vanessa felt sorry for her.

Ida had pulled it off perfectly on the first try and was almost bursting with smugness. She would have loved to give herself a round of wild applause and do cartwheels across the room.

Linnéa had done pretty well, too. When it was Vanessa’s turn to sit in the chair, she’d been more nervous than expected. The soft blindfold – actually one of Nicolaus’s old, musty scarves – was fastened behind her head. It was unpleasant knowing that everyone was looking at her yet she couldn’t see them.

Her senses had played tricks on her the whole time. At one moment she thought she’d heard someone giggle, at the next it was so quiet she was sure everyone had left.

It was only after Nicolaus had urged her to relax that it started to work.

Then she could feel the others, faintly at first, but the more she trusted the feeling, the stronger it became. Eventually there was no hesitation: she could point out where they were standing, one by one, in quick succession.

Vanessa would never be able to explain how she did it. It was as if she could detect the other Chosen Ones using a sense she hadn’t been aware she possessed. Not smell or taste, not hearing, touch or sight. It was something else altogether.

The book also taught them a magical version of hide-and-seek, or ‘pendulation’ –that was the word Ida had used when she’d tried to explain the procedure. A Chosen One would stand in Nicolaus’s living room while the others would go into the kitchen, shut the door between the two rooms and sit at the kitchen table. Then they would spread a diagram of the apartment on the table. The one doing the exercise would take Ida’s silver necklace and let it hang like a pendulum above the diagram.

Vanessa was the first to try. She took Ida’s necklace while Linnéa waited in the living room. At first the little silver heart just hung there without anything happening. But when she started moving it back and forth over the diagram and concentrated on Linnéa, it swung faster and faster in a clockwise motion over a certain point.

‘Linnéa is standing to the left of the coffee-table,’ Vanessa said.

Nicolaus opened the door, looked into the living room and reported that Vanessa was right. ‘Pendulation’ doesn’t always work for Vanessa, but she manages to find Linnéa each time.

It was strange in the beginning, but the novelty soon wore off. The book insisted they should practise this over and over again, but never provided them with anything new. Minoo’s constant babble about how the book was both a transmitter and a receiver, and that whatever it showed them had to be important, was sounding more and more hollow with every passing week.

But now, after two months, the transmitter finally changed frequencies. They’ve finally learnt something that could help them find out the truth about Gustaf and his doppelganger.

A bell jangles when Vanessa opens the door to the Crystal Cave. The plucked harp strings, burbling water and birdsong are filtering out of the speakers. Vanessa feels as if someone is plucking directly at her nerves.

She almost bumps into Monika of Café Monique, who smiles so widely that her eyes almost disappear behind her cheeks. It’s the first time Vanessa has ever seen her smile. She’s carrying a big, rustling plastic bag in her arms with ‘Crystal Cave’ written on the side in the same curlicue lettering as the sign outside.

‘Vanessa! How nice to see you!’ she says, and adds, in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Isn’t she amazing?’

It takes Vanessa a second to realise she’s talking about Mona Moonbeam.

‘Absolutely,’ she answers. ‘Totally amazing.’

‘Good luck,’ Monika says, and gives her a gentle nudge before she leaves.

Vanessa notices that the shelves are full of new products. Most striking among them are a couple of large crystal fountains with dolphins suspended above the water’s surface, frozen in their frolic. The copper dragon that was standing by the red curtain has gone. Not only is the Crystal Cave still there, but business seems to be booming.

Vanessa waits until she’s alone with Mona. She stops at the shelf of porcelain cherubs and fingers the price tag stuck to the biggest. The one Linnéa had liked.

The doorbell jingles again as the last customer leaves. Mona is still behind the counter, lighting a cigarette. ‘I assume you’re not here to buy a dream-catcher,’ she says.

‘How do you know?’

‘That kind of knick-knack is the last thing a real witch would be interested in,’ Mona says.

Vanessa’s shock must have registered clearly on her face because Mona is grinning with such satisfaction that both rows of yellowed teeth are showing. She goes to the door, locks it and flips the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’.

‘How did you know I was a witch?’ Vanessa asks.

‘I saw it in your hands. And in the teeth. Not that I needed the Ogham characters. It’s just fun to take out that pouch in front of cheeky little girls.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything when you read my fortune?’

‘You didn’t know it yourself then, and it wasn’t my responsibility to tell you. That job was already taken.’

‘If you could see that I’m a witch, does that mean you’re also—’

‘What a silly question. Of course I am.’

When Vanessa had suggested the Crystal Cave to the others, it had been a gamble. She’d thought that Mona was just your typical crystal-rubbing ex-hippie. A bit nutty, but harmless. Or, rather, Vanessa hoped she was, considering the fortune she’d received. If it’s true, then goodbye Wille, hello, death. Vanessa looks at Mona, sizing her up. Tries to decide what to do. If Mona is a witch … what sort of witch is she? Does she know the principal? Does she report to the Council?

Vanessa looks around the shop. She looks at the crystal fountains. Thinks about Monika’s smile. Monika who never smiles. Looks towards the red curtain. Looks at Mona Moonbeam as she stands there, puffing away, in her denim outfit with butterflies on it. Suddenly she understands how everything is connected.

‘You’re tricking them,’ Vanessa says.

Mona raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything.

‘When you read my fortune, you first tried to pull some kind of hocus-pocus crap on me to make me believe all your clichés. I felt there was something … and I wouldn’t fall for it. That was when you got annoyed, wasn’t it? And then you told my fortune for real.’

‘I was annoyed as soon as I laid eyes on you,’ Mona says. ‘And as for your fortune, I remember you weren’t especially pleased to hear the truth.’

She moves closer to Vanessa and blows a huge cloud of smoke in her face. ‘Can you honestly believe people want to hear their actual fortunes?’ she asks. ‘They want to feel happy when they walk out of here. Have a little hope for their future. And I’d say they need it in this backwater.’

‘So is this some act of charity for you?’ Vanessa says ironically.

‘Of course not,’ Mona snaps. ‘It’s business. A happy customer is a regular customer. What I do doesn’t harm anyone.’

For once Vanessa is grateful to the principal for constantly droning on about the Council.

You’re not allowed to practise magic without the Council’s express permission.

You’re not allowed to use magic to break non-magical laws.

And you’re not allowed to reveal yourselves as witches to the non-magic public.

‘I wonder if the Council would see it that way,’ she says. ‘You dupe people. And you’re the first successful business in the City Mall since it was built. Not especially discreet.’

Mona is about to take a drag, but her hand stops before it reaches her mouth. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know how we can help each other,’ Vanessa answers. ‘I’ll keep quiet about your activities if you keep quiet about mine.’

Mona stares at her, as if she’s trying to decide whether Vanessa’s threat is serious. Vanessa stares back at her. Doesn’t even blink. Mona is the type who would never respect her if she looked away. Finally Mona snorts, but Vanessa spots a glint of appreciation beneath those turquoise-daubed eyelids.

‘You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that. Mona Moonbeam is no snitch, that much I can promise you, but she’s not someone you can push around either. Don’t you forget that.’

‘I won’t,’ Vanessa says. She hesitates. ‘There’s something I need to get hold of. Do you have things in stock that aren’t on display in the shop?’

Mona lights a new cigarette from the old one and smiles wanly. ‘Tell me straight out what you’re looking for.’

‘Ectoplasm,’ Vanessa says.

Mona smirks and nods, then ducks behind the curtain.

Vanessa takes the opportunity to text Minoo. ‘Got the ectoplasm.’

Now all that’s left is the problem with Anna-Karin.

Mona’s bracelet rattles at the other side of the curtain. When she comes out she’s holding a brown glass jar filled with a light-coloured cream. ‘Extra virgin,’ Mona says, and holds out the jar.

It’s warm – warmer than it could have become from Mona’s hand. Vanessa tips the jar to the side. The ectoplasm barely moves. It looks like partially congealed meringue. She unscrews the lid and sniffs. It is odourless, the olfactory equivalent of deafening silence. ‘What exactly is this stuff?’

‘Soul matter,’ Mona answers.

‘Never heard of it. How do you make it?’

‘You don’t. It’s excreted by witches when they act as mediums for the dead.’

Vanessa recalls the white substance oozing out of the corner of Ida’s mouth when she hovered in the fairground that first night. She puts the lid back on and screws it tight. The warm contents jiggle inside the jar.

‘Looks to me like you’re scared of your first ritual,’ Mona says.

‘Who says it’s my first?’

Mona doesn’t answer. She just rattles out her irritating chuckle and lights another cigarette. If chain smoking were a sporting event, she’d be world champion several times over. Vanessa looks at the jar again. She doesn’t like asking Mona questions, but no one else can answer them.

‘Do you have to use this … drool?’

‘I don’t know if you have to exactly,’ Mona says. ‘If you’re just doing some light magic you can use chalk or graphite to draw the circles. If you’re in a round room you can use the walls as the outer circle. But proper ecto binds the energy better than anything else. If you try to perform heavy-duty magic with chalk circles the whole thing’ll go poof.’

‘Poof?’

‘That cute little head of yours will go up in smoke.’

Vanessa is suddenly very thankful that the Crystal Cave exists. They had discussed trying something else if they couldn’t get their hands on ectoplasm.

‘How much is it?’ Vanessa asks.

‘Five grand.’

‘Five thousand?’ That’s exactly how much money Vanessa has in her bag. Hardly a coincidence, she thinks. It’s no easy job negotiating with a clairvoyant.

‘Were you expecting a student discount? It’s not like you just spit out all this stuff in a single session. It takes a long time to collect enough for a jar.’

‘But five thousand? Seriously?’ Vanessa says quickly, so that she doesn’t have to listen to a lengthy description of the finer points of spittle harvesting.

‘If you want to blame someone, blame the Council,’ Mona says. ‘They control all official trade in ectoplasm. That means the rest of us have to add a surcharge for the risks we take. I’m sure you understand how it works, considering what your boyfriend does for a living. Have you dumped him yet, by the way?’

Vanessa doesn’t answer. She digs out ten five-hundred-crown notes from her bag. They’re crumpled. Nicolaus literally had them hidden under his mattress.

Five thousand crowns is more money than Vanessa has ever held. Mona takes it without blinking. It’s obvious she’s used to dealing with such sums. She puts the jar of ectoplasm into one of her crackly plastic bags and hands it to Vanessa across the counter.

‘Do come again, won’t you?’ she says. ‘You should all shop here more often because I’ve stocked up. With the biggest trans-dimensional war about to start, business should be brisk.’

‘Do you sell to those collaborating with demons, too?’ Vanessa asks.

Mona just smiles and releases a cloud of smoke from her nostrils. She looks like an old dragon in its lair.

‘Sorry, I forgot,’ Vanessa says contemptuously. ‘“Mona Moonbeam is no snitch.” The only thing that matters to you is business, yes? All customers are good customers.’

‘Well well well, I see you’re not as blonde as you look.’ Mona smirks.

Vanessa makes for the exit without a word.

‘You’ve still got nGéadal hanging over you. Don’t forget that,’ Mona calls after her.

It is only once Vanessa has made it out of the desolate City Mall that she realises exactly what Mona said. You should all shop here more often. She knows they’re more than one. Vanessa isn’t even surprised.

‘Nessa!’

It’s a voice she hasn’t heard for three months. Vanessa turns and sees her mother outside the Crystal Cave.

‘Hello,’ her mother says.

Her hair is bleached a few shades lighter. She’s wearing a jacket Vanessa doesn’t recognise. Signs that her life has continued without her daughter. ‘Hi,’ Vanessa answers.

An awkward silence settles between them. There are a thousand things to say, a thousand reasons to stay silent.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Vanessa says.

Her mother nods. ‘See you around,’ she says, as if they were casual acquaintances who had bumped into each other on the street. She opens the door to the Crystal Cave. A puff of incense and she’s gone.

Vanessa looks after her. What had she expected?

I miss you.

Sorry.

Come home.