The Circle (Hammer)

57



NICOLAUS PULLS UP in the car park behind the school and turns off the engine. The heater that has been humming at Minoo’s feet falls silent, and the windscreen wipers are stilled.

It’s snowing again. Fluffy flakes float slowly over the outside world.

Minoo looks towards Engelsfors High School, looming in the darkness ahead. Only a few streetlamps cast a yellow glow across the playground. The windows are blackened squares. Impossible to see into. But someone inside would have no difficulty in seeing out.

They have to cross the brightly lit car park. It’s either that or making their way across the equally well-lit playground outside the main entrance. There’s nothing to hide behind on the way into the school.

Someone knocks on the side window beside Minoo, who jumps in shock.

It’s Vanessa.

She tears open the door and cold air gushes into the car.

‘Linnéa is in the cafeteria,’ she says. ‘I felt her energy. She’s alive.’

As she speaks, she casts nervous glances at the school.

Nicolaus pulls out his bunch of keys and hands it to Vanessa. ‘This one leads to the kitchen entrance over by the loading bay. A corridor goes straight from there to the kitchens.’

‘Is Max with her?’ Minoo asks.

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t feel him.’

‘Excuse me, but has anyone considered this may be a trap?’ Ida says.

Minoo glances at her in the rear-view mirror. What an idiot. That idea hadn’t even occurred to her. They’ve all been so focused on saving Linnéa.

‘Like with Anna-Karin’s grandfather in the barn,’ Ida continues.

‘Maybe it is,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘But what choice do we have? We’ve got to risk it.’

Ida clearly isn’t happy with that, but she doesn’t object.

‘Are we still working to the same plan?’ Vanessa asks.

‘Yes,’ Minoo answers.

She turns to Anna-Karin, who nods.



There’s so much that Anna-Karin would like to say to Nicolaus and thank him for, but there’s no time.

Minoo steps out of the car and folds the passenger seat forward. Ida clambers out, but Anna-Karin pauses and meets Nicolaus’s gaze.

‘I wish I could go with you,’ he says.

‘We need someone to wait for us, too,’ she says.

‘I’ll pray for you.’

They run across the car park. The school rises up into the night sky. It’s as if it it’s growing before Anna-Karin’s eyes. She tries not to think of how exposed they are in this open space.

They climb on to the loading bay where a wide metal door leads into the school.

Vanessa pulls out the bunch of keys.

‘Wait a minute,’ Ida says. She stands with her hands shoved into her pockets, looking down at her boots.

‘If I die and you guys make it … there’s a horse at the stables. Troja. Could one of you make sure he’s looked after?’

‘I will,’ Anna-Karin says.

Ida nods.

‘Okay,’ Vanessa says, and vanishes. ‘Let’s go in.’



Vanessa opens the door. It’s surprisingly easy and swings back without a sound. A ramp leads down into the darkness before them.

Anna-Karin takes out her mobile and switches on the light.

‘Turn it off,’ Minoo whispers. ‘We don’t know what’s in there.’

Vanessa takes Anna-Karin’s hand and they form a chain with Vanessa first and Ida last.

Ida closes the door. The darkness that envelops them is more complete than Vanessa has ever experienced before.

All four stand stock still, listening.

All they can hear is their own breathing and the faint hum of the ventilation system.

Cautiously, Vanessa moves forward, clasping Anna-Karin’s hand. With her other, she gropes along the rough wall.

She doesn’t dare try to sense if Linnéa is still alive. All her power is focused on sustaining her invisibility. And stopping herself rushing ahead in a crazed panic.

It feels like being blind, walking along with wide-open eyes yet seeing nothing. It’s impossible to tell how far she’s come or what’s waiting just ahead of her. Her whole body is in a hyperactive state, ready to react to the slightest sound. After a while Vanessa doesn’t know whether it’s the silence or the ventilation that’s humming in her ears. Then, she’s hearing whispers.

Vanessa …

The voice becomes clearer. And she knows, without being able to explain how, that it’s Linnéa’s.

Vanessa …

The voice is afraid, forlorn, but she’s alive. Linnéa’s alive. Vanessa picks up the pace. She senses that Anna-Karin and the others can’t quite keep up – too bad.

The deeper into the school she gets, the more difficult it is for her to sustain her invisibility. There’s a strange resistance to it, all the more terrifying as it had become so easy for her.

Vanessa’s hand reaches a corner and she stops. Her fingers touch a smooth surface. A door? She finds the handle. Presses it cautiously. Of course it’s locked. She whispers to Anna-Karin, asking her to turn on the light on her mobile. They have to take the chance.

Vanessa takes out the keys and tries them one by one in the light from Anna-Karin’s mobile. They rattle and clatter deafeningly in the cramped claustrophobic space.

Please … please … help me …

The voice is desperate, filled with pain. Vanessa’s hand trembles when she finds a key that slides into the lock. It opens with a click. Anna-Karin turns off the light before Vanessa cracks open the door.



Anna-Karin crouches as she moves behind the invisible Vanessa into the kitchen.

On the right side a big rectangular opening faces the cafeteria dining area. It’s where the students collect their food from the stainless-steel trays that stand on the kitchen side. A faint light from the dining area falls through the serving hatch, glinting off the counters and the tiled walls. Plastic racks in different colours stand next to the silent dishwasher. It smells of dishwashing liquid, cooked food, steam and metal.

Anna-Karin is crawling along the floor on all fours. To the left of the gaping service hatch, a set of swing doors leads into the dining area. Linnéa is out there somewhere.

She stops next to the swing doors. They open excruciatingly slowly when Vanessa goes through to scout around.

Anna-Karin turns her head to look at Minoo and Ida, who are huddled on the floor behind her. They nod. It’s time for her to start. Anna-Karin shuts her eyes. Focuses her mind. Slowly she releases her power, afraid it will surge forth like a flood wave and drown her. But instead it seeps slowly into her body. And then it stops.

She’s never experienced this before. The power is there, but where once there was an unstoppable torrent, there is now barely a trickle.

Fear takes hold of her.

She might have been able to overpower Max at home on the farm, but now she’s on his turf.

The school is a place of evil.



When Vanessa steps into the dining area, she stops and scans the room.

The chairs are upside-down on the tables with their legs in the air. The only light is coming from the side room, where the most popular students eat.

Her heart is pounding, thump-thump-thump, with every step she takes.

When she gets closer she hears a voice speaking fast and low. At first she thinks it’s Linnéa, but then she realises it’s a man.

He sounds young. Younger than Max.

Something isn’t right.

Vanessa presses herself hard against the wall and slowly moves closer. She doesn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. She’s never felt so unsure of her power before, of whether it’ll hold out.

‘Come on,’ the strange voice says. ‘Tell me. Believe me, I don’t want to do this.’

Vanessa’s heart is beating even faster now. She has almost reached the entrance to the side room. She drops to her knees and crawls the last stretch. The air is charged with magic. As she goes further into the force field, ever closer to its source, it takes almost all of her energy to remain invisible.

She peers around the corner into the room. The tables have been pushed aside, creating an open space in the middle.

Linnéa is sitting on a chair. Her ankles have been secured to its legs with duct tape. Her hands are tied together behind her back. Her makeup has run down her face and she looks exhausted.

‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ says the boy in the black hoody squatting in front of her. ‘Just tell me who they are.’

Vanessa can’t see his face, but she’s sure it isn’t Max.

Linnéa shuts her eyes. Whimpers.

Vanessa.

The voice is in her head again. And, for a terrifying moment, Vanessa glimpses what is going on inside Linnéa.

She’s fighting for her life. A foreign presence is trying to force its way into her consciousness, but she’s resisting. And she’s very strong. Even though the intruding power is pushing hard, she’s keeping it at bay. But she’s tiring. She won’t be able to keep it up for much longer. Vanessa feels that clearly.

Now the boy gets up. And Vanessa sees who it is.

Elias.

The shock is so powerful that she almost lets go of her invisibility. Because Elias is standing there, large as life.

‘Do you remember when we used to hang out down by the locks?’ he asks Linnéa, in a voice full of nostalgia. ‘We sat there smoking and talking. You said that if I fell in, you’d come after me. Do you remember that?’

‘You … can’t know that,’ Linnéa gasps.

‘You told my mum and dad when I really did jump in that time. It was your fault I ended up in the psychiatric hospital. At first I hated you, but then I saw that you did it out of love. I know you love me, Linnéa. I’m your brother. You’re my sister in all but blood.’

‘Stop it …’ Linnéa groans.

‘Look at me,’ Elias says gently, and stares at her intently.

There’s a tug at Linnéa’s eyelids and they open again. ‘I know you’re not Elias.’

Vanessa spots the gun lying on a table. She’d been against killing Max, but now she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him to save Linnéa.

‘It makes no difference who I am,’ he says softly. ‘Elias is waiting for you, Linnéa. You can be together again. Stop fighting it.’

Linnéa shakes her head. Vanessa begins to crawl towards the table.

‘Come on,’ Elias pleads. ‘I just need two more names. Tell me who they are and it’ll all be over.’ He bends down till his face is just a few centimetres away from Linnéa’s. He fixes his eyes on her. ‘Tell me,’ he whispers.

And Vanessa feels how the magic streaming out of him strengthens. With her eyes glued to the gun, she crawls on towards the table. She barely dares to breathe. Just a few metres to go. Once she convinced Nicke to show her how to use a gun. Now she tries to remember what he’d said. Where’s the safety?

Linnéa squirms in her chair. ‘Minoo …’ comes out of her.

‘I know that already,’ Elias says patiently. ‘Anna-Karin … One more. Just give me one more and I’ll be satisfied.’

‘No!’



Linnéa’s tortured voice echoes through the cafeteria. It’s physically painful for Minoo to hear it.

Vanessa should have come back by now.

‘We can’t wait any longer,’ she whispers to Anna-Karin. ‘Can you influence him from here?’

Anna-Karin looks panicked and shakes her head.

‘No,’ she murmurs. ‘Maybe if I can see him … but I don’t know.’

‘Then we have to go out there.’ Minoo turns to Ida. ‘All three of us.’



Vanessa has almost reached the table. One hand, one knee at a time.

Elias is standing in front of Linnéa, his hands hanging limply at his sides. His face is strangely stiff, as if it were made of plastic.

Plastic that suddenly melts and morphs into another face. The body fills out with muscles, grows taller.

Max.

He raises one hand to his forehead and presses the tips of his fingers to it.

‘You said it would get easier!’ he says into the air. ‘I don’t want to do this!’

Vanessa rises to her knees and reaches for the gun. If only she can get hold of it, everything will be over. Not even Max can survive a bullet.

Just as she’s about to pick it up, Max grabs the handle. Their hands miss each other by a hair.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he says, and aims the gun at Linnéa. ‘But if you don’t tell me their names I will kill you.’

‘You think I care?’ Linnéa says hoarsely, and meets his gaze. ‘You think I’d have come to your house if I cared?’

Max sticks the gun into his waistband. Looks at Linnéa. Then he raises his hand and slaps her so hard that the chair falls over backwards.

Vanessa stifles a scream.

And Max turns. A surprised smile spreads across his face when he sees her. ‘And there you are,’ he says softly.

Vanessa doesn’t think, just gets up and rushes straight for him.

Max makes a sweeping gesture.



Anna-Karin is halfway across the dining area when Vanessa flies through the air, flung by an invisible force. She crashes into a table. The chairs crash to the floor. Vanessa is lifted a metre into the air, then pinned to the table. She screams in pain.

Minoo grabs Anna-Karin’s hand and holds it tightly. Ida takes the other. Anna-Karin can feel their energy streaming into her. And her own power is there. But it’s nowhere near as strong as it was when she was using it routinely here at school.

Max comes into the main dining area from the side room. He looks at Vanessa intently as she writhes on the table. Anna-Karin realises that they have only one chance to do this and it’s now: the moment before he’s seen them.

Let go of Vanessa, she commands. Leave her be.

Max turns.



Minoo had seen the black smoke swirling around Vanessa as she flew through the room. Now it has settled over her body on the table, like a thick, oily fog.

More smoke shoots out of Max. It streaks towards Anna-Karin and, in the next moment, her hand is wrenched from Minoo’s.

Anna-Karin is tossed violently upwards, smacking hard into the ceiling, where she remains for a few seconds, pinned against the white tiles. Then the smoke drags her along the ceiling until she slams into the far wall. She slides down to the floor and lies there lifeless.

Minoo’s other hand is empty now.

Ida has let go. She’s running back towards the kitchen.

But she doesn’t get far. The smoke moves quickly and quietly towards her.

She falls to the floor. A ring of fire ignites around her. Minoo can see her terrified face behind the metre-high flames that keep her prisoner. A faint smell of scorched linoleum spreads through the room.

Minoo turns towards Max. The black smoke is still coiling around him, dancing, creating patterns in the air, as he moves towards her. It’s like a living organism. It’s almost beautiful. Alluring.

‘Minoo,’ he says, and smiles.

That’s the worst thing. That he seems so happy to see her. As if what he has just done doesn’t matter.

‘I know you don’t understand now,’ he says, ‘but all I want … the only thing I’ve ever wanted … is for us to be together. We belong together.’

Rage fizzes through her blood. ‘But I don’t,’ she says, and is surprised by how strong and confident her voice is.

Max stops short. He looks hurt. The black smoke writhes around him, sending out long feelers that approach Minoo but pull back at the last moment.

Minoo stands her ground. Her body is filled with unfamiliar signals. Something is swirling in the air around her, flowing in front of her, intoxicating her with its power.

‘Minoo,’ Max says weakly. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m letting go.’

The black smoke between them thickens.

But it’s not just coming from Max. It’s streaming out of Minoo, twisting and churning with long black tentacles.

She’s powerful. She’s a whole army. She’s plugged directly into something that is staggeringly more powerful than she is. They are many. They are one. Together they move towards Max.

He looks at her in panic. He can’t move. The smoke envelops him, stops him running away as she approaches, engulfs them both in a swirling black maelstrom.

‘Please, Minoo,’ Max says, dropping to his knees at her feet. ‘I love you.’

The words don’t move her. She knows what she has to do. Minoo lays her hand on his forehead. She shuts her eyes and sees: the demons’ blessing.

Like a shimmering black aura it surrounds Max. The demons’ magic. The black smoke streaming out of Minoo chokes it.

The aura fades. Eventually there’s nothing left. The blessing is broken.

She feels Max’s life force leaving his body, sucked out by her hand, filling her and making her even stronger and more powerful.

Something is stuck inside Max, something that is struggling to make its way to the surface. She helps it pull itself out.

It’s like a weight that suddenly releases.

And Minoo’s eyes fill with tears, because now she feels it so clearly.

Rebecka. She’s been trapped inside Max. But now her soul radiates through Minoo, fills her with light. All that was her is inside Minoo – and then she’s gone. Free at last.

Soon afterwards comes Elias. Minoo recognises him as if she’d known him all her life, and long before that. His soul passes through her and disappears.

Minoo’s fingers grab Max’s forehead, boring themselves into his hair. His body sags and she sinks to her knees beside him as he drops on to his side.

She is filled with him. Impressions, thoughts and feelings, everything that he’s experienced. Everything that is him flows through Minoo, as if picked up by a hitherto unknown sense.

Memories.

Max drags Linnéa from his car across the playground. Her hands and feet are tightly bound, but she tries to resist.

He opens the door to his house to find an unknown girl with a long black fringe standing outside. She pulls out a gun and tells him he’s going to die for what he did to Elias. But he sees in her hesitation that she won’t shoot. She’s no killer. And he knows that she’s a Chosen One. That she’ll help him find the others. What a gift.

He wakes, as if out of a dream, and sees Minoo in front of him in the classroom. They whisper to him that he has exposed himself. They’re angry but he’s afraid. Afraid she’ll misunderstand, that she won’t realise he’ll never harm her again, that they belong to each other.

The barn is burning and the cows are bellowing in panic. He runs away with Their strident voices in his head. They threaten to renege on their promise. They won’t let Minoo live after all.

Minoo asks if he can wait for her. He can wait for ever.

He’s in the classroom looking at Anna-Karin: she’s changed so much during the term. He knows how such things happen. Why didn’t he pick up on it sooner?

Minoo is so beautiful when he sees her by the viaduct. He knows he shouldn’t but he kisses her anyway. He’s made a new pact with Them: they’ll let her live.

The awful moment in the bath when he defied Them for the first time.

The first kiss.

Suddenly she’s outside his house and he wonders if he’s dreaming when he sees her.

He discovers that Minoo is the one he must kill.

He rips Rebecka’s soul out of her body as he begs her forgiveness.

She falls.

Rebecka turns and sees his face, sees him as Gustaf.

Rebecka at the City Mall.

He tries out Elias’s power for the first time. Sees himself transformed into Gustaf in the mirror, the one Rebecka trusts, who can get close to her if need be.

He sees Rebecka jogging along, knows that she’s his next victim. They whisper to him that she’s stronger than the first. That he has to prepare himself carefully.

The prophecy was wrong, the voices say. The Chosen Ones are seven. Six left.

He stands outside Minoo’s window, wishing she hadn’t been the one to find Elias. He wonders how she is and wishes he could comfort her.

He watches as the trolley with Elias’s body is rolled out of the school and feels relieved. It’s over.

Through the closed toilet door he hears the mirror shatter.

He enters the classroom and sees Minoo for the first time. Alice is alive again.



*



Minoo becomes aware of yet another weight deep inside Max. Like an anchor that clears the bottom and is slowly being drawn up to the surface.

His soul.

The memories come faster and faster.



He hangs up the poster of Persephone that is so much like Alice it’s painful to look at. A pleasurable self-torture.

So many nights he lies awake and thinks of the awful things he’s committed himself to carrying out. He reminds himself that it’s worth it. Alice is worth it.

From the first moment he hates Engelsfors. The town is like the one where he grew up.

The years of teaching, women who come and go, friends he secretly detests. Those who think that the world is only what you see with the naked eye.

They have promised he’ll have Alice back. A fresh start.

The years of guilt.



And everything slows down again.



The funeral is like a fog. No one had known she was so unhappy.

The call from the police in the morning. They had found her body on the cliffs below the house.

The party’s in full swing, the music blaring. He’s shaking with adrenalin. The ‘friend’ he’s selected is there. ‘If anyone asks, I’ve been with you all evening,’ Max says, because he’s suddenly noticed something new about himself. Still, he’s surprised when he sees his friend’s eyes glaze. Max is giddy with his first taste of magic. Getting others to obey.

He wants her to die. Better that no one has her if he can’t. If only she would just kill herself. He wishes it with all his heart. And that is when she gets up and climbs on to the windowsill. He know he’s making her do it. They look at each other, shocked. It’s just a moment. And she submits to his wish and lets herself fall.

The windows stand wide open to let in the warm summer air and she perches on the sill, her forehead on her knees. She says, ‘Please, Max, go away.’ He tries to convince her that he loves her, that they belong together. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I never want to see you again,’ she says.

Alice, whom he loves so much, who showed him the painting of Persephone. Together they laugh at how alike Alice and Persephone are.

Alice, the very first time he sees her. He knows she’s going to make him happy.



Max’s soul will soon surface. Minoo becomes aware of a scream growing louder and louder, filling her head. It’s Max screaming in pain. She is inflicting that pain.

She can sense the darkness of his childhood and knows that if she doesn’t let go now, she’ll be doing the same to Max as he did to Rebecka and Elias. She’s going to rip out his soul, take everything from him.

Let go.

And Minoo gently lets go, feels how the weight sinks back into the depths. The scream fades out. Everything falls silent.

Minoo opens her eyes.

The black smoke is gone.

She kneels on the floor. Max’s forehead is red where her hand lay. His eyes are closed. His chest is moving slowly.

It’s over.