The Circle (Hammer)

55



THE OTHER BED in Grandpa’s room at the hospital is now empty and tightly made up. They’re alone, Anna-Karin, her mother and Grandpa.

My family, Anna-Karin thinks.

Her mother’s fingers drum on the metal frame of Grandpa’s bed. It’s obvious that she needs to go out for another cigarette. She’s already complained that there are no smoking rooms in the hospital. Not even a balcony. They expect you to trek all the way to the front entrance before you can light up.

Anna-Karin stares at her short, stubby fingers, which still show signs of scalding. Suddenly the fingers are still.

Briefly Anna-Karin thinks she has inadvertently forced her mother to stop. She glances nervously at her face, which looks normal. Anna-Karin can’t take her eyes off her. This may be the last time they see each other. There’s a good chance that Anna-Karin won’t survive the night.

Her mother shifts impatiently. ‘What’s with you?’ she asks.

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, I’m going for a cigarette,’ her mother says, and stands up.

Once she’s disappeared, Grandpa opens his eyes. He smiles at Anna-Karin. ‘Gerda? Is that you?’ he asks. A tear rolls down her cheek, Grandma Gerda died years ago.

‘No, Grandpa. It’s me. Anna-Karin. Your granddaughter.’

He seems not to hear her. Instead he gestures feebly for her to come closer. She leans down to him. Grandpa looks at her probingly.

‘It’s time now, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘The war has come?’

Anna-Karin nods. It has.

It was Minoo who had devised the plan, once the seventeenth-century witch had left Ida’s body, a plan in which Anna-Karin will play the most important role. A plan that none of them believes in, she knows, but they have to stop Max now.

Grandpa blinks in the light. He asks for some water and Anna-Karin holds out the blue plastic spout cup, tipping it gently towards his mouth. It’s like helping a child.

‘I wish I was young and strong enough to be in uniform,’ Grandpa says dreamily, when he’s finished. ‘I was so small when my papa went off to war.’

‘Don’t think about that,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘You just concentrate on getting better so we can take you home.’

‘I’m no warmonger, as well you know, Gerda,’ he says, ‘but I’m no pacifist either. Some wars are necessary. Some things are worth fighting for. You have to be ready to lay down your life to do the right thing.’

‘I know,’ she says.

‘But a bear is at his most dangerous when he’s been forced into a corner. Remember that,’ Grandpa says.

‘I will.’

He seems to have said what he wanted to. His body relaxes and he shuts his eyes again. Anna-Karin takes his hands and holds them until she’s sure he’s fast asleep. ‘Goodbye, Grandpa,’ she whispers. ‘I love you.’



The frozen expanse of Dammsjön Lake stretches before them through the windscreen. Wille has stopped the car at the water’s edge. It’s a mild day, too warm for any skaters to venture out on the ice.

Vanessa catches sight of her face in the wing mirror. She’s aged –not with wrinkles or anything like that: she just looks older. More grown-up. There’s an expression in her eyes that she hasn’t seen before.

She rolls down the window a little and breathes in the damp, soft smell that is a sure sign spring isn’t far away. Everything is still. Only the wind soughs in the treetops.

‘I miss you already,’ Wille says.

‘But I’m here.’

‘You know what I mean.’

As soon as she had got back to Sirpa’s apartment last night, she’d told them she was moving home. Sirpa seemed relieved but tried hard to conceal it.

Wille has just helped Vanessa back to Törnrosvägen with all her things. She knows he’s afraid that she’ll leave him. But he has no idea that this may be the last day of her life.

You’ve still got nGéadal hanging over you.

Vanessa looks out of the window. There’s the spot where she and Wille usually make their campfire in the summer. At this time of year, the little copse where she and Wille have their secret nest is just a few low trees with bare branches. So much has happened since they were last here, on the night of the blood-red moon. And tomorrow morning it will all be over. Tonight they are going to seek out Max. No matter how it ends, it will be over.

Wille interrupts her thoughts when he takes her hand and squeezes it hard. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.

‘Nothing in particular.’

How could she tell him that she’s wondering if she’ll ever see this place again?

‘I know I’m hopeless,’ he says, ‘but I’m trying. I just have to work out what I want to do. Maybe things were easier for people like me when there wasn’t as much choice. You know, you had to work in the mines or whatever all your life.’

Vanessa turns to him and gives his hand a hard squeeze. ‘I’m sure it would have been great to live in those days,’ she says. ‘I would probably have died at the stove while I was boiling turnips and giving birth to our seventeenth child.’

She tries to laugh, but Wille just gazes at her. ‘I’d never want to live without you,’ he says.

She reaches for him and they hug each other. She kisses him gently, blotting out all other thoughts. There’s no past, no future.

Then she pulls him closer to her, clings to him with a desperation that’s not at all like her. She wants to get as close to him as she can, and it’s not easy when there’s a gear lever in the way.

‘Come on,’ she says, and clambers between the seats. She sinks down in the wide back seat and pulls off her jacket.



Minoo seals the envelope and lays it in the drawer of her bedside table.

‘Dearest Mum and Dad,’ the letter begins.

Of course she hasn’t written about what they’re going to do tonight. But she tells them an important truth: that she loves them. That if anything happens to her and they find this letter, they must never think it was their fault.

If they don’t manage to neutralise Max tonight, their bodies will probably be found tomorrow morning. Five young girls who have taken their own lives in some magnificent final celebration of the infamous suicide pact.

Minoo gets up, goes out to the landing and down the stairs. Her mother and father are, for once, sitting in the same place. They’re in the living room, reading, with classical music playing softly – Ravel.

She feels strangely calm, even though she should be terrified. For the first time since it all began, she has a clear goal. They know who the killer is and they’re going to stop him.

Let go. That’s the key to everything, Minoo. Let go.

Those words have become part of her. She doesn’t know what they mean, yet something inside her understands.

It’s like when she came up with the plan. After Ida had slumped in Nicolaus’s kitchen and become herself again, there it was, clear as day.

Anna-Karin has to force Max to break the demons’ blessing. Then she’ll force him to go to the police and confess to murdering Rebecka and Elias.

In other words, Anna-Karin will lead the attack, but everyone has to be there.

The Circle is the answer.

Minoo thinks back to when they broke into the principal’s house, how she and Vanessa couldn’t move until they’d joined hands. It was when Ida and Anna-Karin had joined hands on Lucia night that they could share Ida’s vision. And Vanessa, Ida and Minoo had joined hands during the ritual when they had created the truth serum.

All the talk about how they belong together and are connected to one another isn’t just talk: it’s fact. Together they are stronger. When they merge their energies, the combined effect is greater than that of the individual parts.

Tonight they will go to Max’s house and ring his doorbell.

Anna-Karin should be able to carry out the first attack with the help of invisible Vanessa.

They will force Max back into the house. Then Linnéa, Ida and Minoo will go in after them to let Anna-Karin feed off their energy while she’s fighting Max.

The Circle is the weapon.

Minoo stands there for a moment in the living-room door way, looking at her mother and father, thinking through everything she’s written in the letter and hoping it will be enough for them to understand how much she loves them.

Her mother looks up from her book and Minoo walks into the room. She sits on the sofa between her parents.

‘Feeling better now?’ her mother asks.

‘Yes. I don’t think it was flu after all,’ Minoo says.

She missed school today for the first time in her life.

‘It’s ages since we sat here all three of us,’ her mother says, and puts an arm around Minoo, stroking her hair a little distractedly.

‘M-hm,’ Minoo answers, and leans against her.

‘You haven’t said whether there’s anything special you want for your birthday. It’s not far away, you know. Almost too late if I’m going to send for something.’

‘I’m happy with what I’ve got,’ Minoo answers, and means it.

Her father looks up from his book. He’s been completely absorbed in it. It feels right, just as it should be. A perfectly normal Tuesday evening. Minoo just wants to sit there and listen to the piano music and the faint rustle as they turn the pages.