‘The Old Testament God is unpredictable and jealous because He’s basically a human being. There’s an original truth about the nature of humanity that the Bible’s God knows nothing about.’
She saw that their time was almost up, and let him go on.
‘Gnosis. Truth and wisdom. You ought to know that, if you’re called Sofia. It’s Greek, it means wisdom. In Gnosticism, Sofia is the female emanation who is responsible for the Fall.’
Once Lundstr?m had been collected and driven back to the cells, Sofia remained seated, deep in thought. She couldn’t stop thinking about Lundstr?m’s daughter, Linnea. Only just into her teens, but already so badly damaged that it would affect her for the rest of her life. What would happen to her? Would Linnea herself, like Tyra M?kel?, become an abuser? How much can a human being withstand before they break and turn into a monster?
Sofia leafed through her papers, trying to find any facts about the daughter. All that was there were scant details of the girl’s schooling. She was in her first year at boarding school in Sigtuna. Good grades. And very good at sports. School champion at 800 metres.
A girl who can outrun most people, Sofia thought.
Town of Sigtuna, 1984
THE OLD MAN could have been anyone, she’s never seen him before. Yet he evidently thinks it’s OK to comment on how she’s dressed. As for her, Crow Girl thinks his pea coat looks all right, so it’s perfectly justifiable to spit in his face instead.
On the western hill in Sigtuna stand the ten student blocks that belong to the boarding school. The school, whose previous pupils have included King Karl XVI Gustaf, Olof Palme and the Wallenberg cousins, Peter and Marcus, positively drips tradition.
The grand yellow main building is impregnable against scandal for the same reason.
The first thing Victoria Bergman will have to learn is that everything that happens here stays here, but she’s already very familiar with that particular rule. She’s lived the whole of her childhood in a bubble of mute terror. That’s her clearest memory, much clearer than any individual recollection.
Compared to that, the closed ranks at Sigtuna are nothing.
As soon as she steps out of the car she feels a liberation that she hasn’t felt since she was on her own in Dala-Floda. Immediately she feels she can breathe. She knows she’ll be able to stop listening for footsteps outside the bedroom door.
At reception she is introduced to the two girls with whom she’ll be sharing a room for the coming term.
Their names are Hannah and Jessica. They’re from the Stockholm region as well, and she gets the impression that they’re quiet and orderly, not to say boring. They’re keen to tell her that their parents have senior positions in the Stockholm court system, and suggest that it’s already been decided that they will follow in their parents’ footsteps and train as lawyers.
Victoria looks into their naive blue eyes and realises that they could never be a threat to her.
They’re too weak.
She sees them as two passive dolls who always let other people think and plan things for them. They’re like shadows of people. Scarcely interested in anything. It’s almost impossible to pin them down at all.
During the first week Victoria realises that some of the girls in the top year are planning something. She picks up amused glances across the dinner tables, exaggerated politeness, and a constant tendency to want to be near her and the other new pupils. All of this makes her suspicious.
Justifiably so, as it turns out.
From careful observation of their glances and movements, Victoria soon works out who the group’s informal leader is. Her name is Fredrika Grünewald, a tall, dark-haired girl. Victoria thinks that Fredrika’s long face combined with her large front teeth make her look like a horse.
During one lunch break Victoria makes her move.
She sees Fredrika go into the toilets and discreetly follows her in.
‘I know all about the initiation,’ she lies right in the face of a surprised Fredrika. ‘There’s no way I’m going to agree to it.’ She folds her arms over her chest and tilts her head nonchalantly. ‘Not without a fight, that is.’
Fredrika is clearly impressed by Victoria’s cockiness and self-assured style. They each smoke a sneaky cigarette during the ensuing conspiratorial conversation, as Victoria presents a plan that she says will raise the bar for all forthcoming initiation rites.
There’s no question that it will cause a scandal, and Fredrika Grünewald is particularly taken by Victoria’s dramatic vision of what the evening papers would say: SCANDAL AT KING’S SCHOOL! YOUNG GIRLS HUMILIATED IN RITUAL.
During the following week she gets a bit closer to her room-mates, Hannah and Jessica. She lures them into revealing their secrets, and in a short space of time manages to make them her friends.
‘Take a look at this,’ she says.
Hannah and Jessica stare wide-eyed at the three bottles of Aurora wine that Victoria has managed to smuggle in with her.
‘Who’d like to share some?’
Hannah and Jessica both laugh uncertainly and exchange anxious glances with each other before eagerly nodding their assent.
Victoria serves the girls large glasses, convinced that they haven’t got a clue what their tolerance levels are.
They drink quickly and curiously, talking loudly.
The initial giggling is soon replaced by slurring and tiredness. By two o’clock the bottles are empty. Hannah has already fallen asleep on the floor, and, with a great deal of effort, Jessica manages to get to her bed, where she promptly loses consciousness.
Victoria has drunk just a couple of sips, and goes to bed tingling with anticipation.
She lies there awake, waiting.
As agreed, the older girls show up at four o’clock in the morning. Hannah and Jessica wake up as they are being carried through the corridor, down the stairs and across the yard towards the tool shed next to the caretaker’s house, but are so drowsy they can’t put up any resistance.
Inside the shed the girls get changed and put on pink capes and pig masks. They’ve made the masks themselves out of plastic cups and pink cloth that they’ve cut eyeholes in. They’ve drawn on grinning mouths with a black marker, and the nostrils in the snout are marked by two big black dots.
The cups are full of shredded aluminium foil, and they fasten the masks around their heads with rubber bands. Once they’ve changed, one of the girls produces a video camera, and another one begins to speak. The sound that emerges from her jutting snout is more like a rustling, metallic hiss than real words.
Victoria sees one of the older girls leave the shed.
‘Tie them up,’ another one hisses.
The masked girls throw themselves on Hannah, Jessica and Victoria, putting each of them on a chair, tying their arms behind them and blindfolding them.
Victoria leans back contentedly, and hears the girl who left the shed return.
Victoria is taken aback by the smell of what the girl brings in with her.