Fire, page 10
He falls silent. Looks down at his hands. And Linnéa goes cold inside. Even though she doesn’t know exactly what happened, she has followed Matilda on her journey to death. The others have done this, too, in their dreams.
‘I was a fool,’ Nicolaus says. His voice is very quiet. ‘I ought to have hidden her, protected her. Instead, I left her in the hands of the Council. They accused her of gambling with the fate of the entire world. Matilda insisted that another Chosen One would be born sometime in the future and that this he or she would be stronger than her and defeat the demons once and for all time. But the Council argued that she had betrayed them. And disloyalty is the one thing they will not tolerate …’
Nicolaus pauses briefly.
‘In those days, witch-hunting was at its height in this country. It goes without saying that no real witches were affected. That is, except those who the Council wanted to dispose of. They saw to it that Matilda was imprisoned and tried, accused of having learned her witchcraft from Satan. The court found her guilty.’
Now, the guilt that fills Nicolaus so overwhelms him that it flows into Linnéa and she has to fight to keep her mind clear of it.
‘I had known the judge since my student days. He was a very senior Council official, though of course the rest of the court had no idea. I begged him to be lenient and he told me that if Matilda confessed, mercy would be shown and the execution called off … I and my wife trusted my old friend.’
Nicolaus falls silent again and swallows hard before he can continue.
‘In this country, the practice was to behead convicted witches first and burn the body afterwards. But Matilda was marched straight to the pyre and tied to the stake … I went to speak to her. I said that they would set her free if only she would confess. And she obeyed me. I was so relieved. My friend nodded to the executioner. I was convinced that he would start to untie her ropes. Instead, he reached for the flaming torch …’
Tears are pouring down Nicolaus’s cheeks. Linnéa can hardly breathe.
‘I leapt towards the fire. The guards grabbed me and pinned me down. But they didn’t catch Hedvig … She threw herself into the flames. Their screams …’
He presses the backs of his hands against his eyes. Linnéa smells smoke from a fire. She is not sure if it is her imagination or if it comes from Nicolaus’s memory.
‘That very night, I opened the Book of Patterns and asked it to show me how to atone for my crime, but also how I could avenge my wife and daughter. The book answered both pleas. It showed me how to live on and help the next Chosen One, in order to make up for my betrayal. But for such strong magic, great sacrifices are required.’
He wipes the tears off his cheeks.
‘Matilda and Hedvig were not allowed to be buried in sacred ground. Not a witch and someone who had died by her own hands. But I bribed the executioner and he let me have their remains. The book instructed me to bury Matilda in the spot where I had found her that night when she lost her powers. The place you now call Kärrgruvan. I hid my wife’s bones. The most powerful members of the Council had attended the session of the court and they still remained in Engelsfors. They gathered for a meeting in the church. I locked the doors and set fire to the building. It was a wooden church and burned quickly down to the ground. I had drawn circles around it and for every life that was consumed in the flames, my own life was lengthened. Then I torched the vicarage as well. The scorched bones that were buried in my name belonged to my wife.’
Linnéa recalls the words of the principal from just one year ago.
The church and vicarage burned down in 1675, and a great many very important documents were lost.
‘The principal told us about the fire,’ Minoo says.
‘I heard her,’ Nicolaus replies. ‘You may remember that I stood outside her office and listened. But I am pretty sure that the Council is no longer aware that its leading figures died in the Engelsfors fire. Well, at least not members at Adriana’s level.’
‘But how could they forget?’ Minoo asks. ‘It must have been a huge trauma that affected the whole organisation.’
‘Perhaps that’s exactly why they have forgotten,’ Linnéa says and looks at Nicolaus. ‘Powerful people hate admitting that anyone can get at them.’
‘Precisely so,’ he says. ‘The Council hates losing face. They want to be seen as invulnerable and all-knowing. The failure over the Chosen One was bad enough, inexplicable and embarrassing. As for the fire … I didn’t dare go near the Council, of course, not after what I had done but, during my wanderings, rumours reached me now and then. New leaders stepped in and immediately suppressed all talk about the scandal in Engelsfors. Those who remembered kept their mouths shut. And grew old and died. The prophecy about the role of Engelsfors was just one among many prophecies. This must have been why the Council was so unprepared for all of you showing up just here. They had forgotten.’
Linnéa recalls how she picked up what went on in the principal’s mind last year. And how, as time went by, she had realised that Adriana knew much less than she pretended.
‘But what about your own memories?’ Minoo asks. ‘What did happen at the grave?’
‘Human beings are not meant to live for as long as I have,’ Nicolaus says. ‘I knew my forgetfulness would increase. That I would grow ever more lost. The book told me how to store magic in the grave, magic that would one day let me recover my memories. Some of them were stored in my familiar, memories that I hoped would lead me on the right way when the time came.’
‘As if you pulled together a backup copy of yourself and left it in safe storage here in Engelsfors?’ Vanessa says. ‘And then the magic kind of rebooted your brain?’
Some of the old confusion returns to Nicolaus’s eyes.
‘I am not entirely sure what you mean, but a copy kept safely … yes, that is right.’
‘So what have you been doing these past few centuries, then?’ Linnéa asks.
‘I drifted here and there, all over the world. Observed, as eras of war and peace passed. I carried the silver crucifix and it protected me. There were times when I became more lucid and remembered my task, and my crimes. Such periods allowed me to learn from my contemporaries, find out about their habits and language usage. Understand new things. But sooner or later I would slide back into the mist. I returned a few times to Engelsfors to store new clues for myself. Like that damned bank deposit box. And the letter.’
‘But …’ Minoo says and Linnéa can almost see the cogs in her brain racing and throwing out sparks. ‘When you wrote that letter to yourself, you did remember everything, but were scared that you would forget again. Why didn’t you open the grave then?’
‘Precisely,’ Linnéa agrees. ‘It would’ve been pretty useful if you had remembered everything last autumn, when we were called.’
Nicolaus looks away.
‘I don’t know why I left the grave untouched.’
‘So you remember everything else, but not that?’ Linnéa asks.
Nicolaus meets her eyes.
‘No, I don’t remember. What matters is that now you know who I am as well as I do myself. That I’m a man who betrayed his wife and his daughter. Who murdered in cold blood and chose revenge instead of forgiveness. And I am deeply uncertain whether I can ever atone for my crimes.’
He looks unhappy and Linnéa understands why he was reluctant to open up the grave. His subconscious must have wanted to protect him from all these insights.
‘I am sorry,’ she says. ‘I am sorry it happened and sorry that you were forced to remember.’
‘Taking up the burden of these memories is hard,’ Nicolaus says. ‘That I admit. But I must choose light, not darkness, even if the light is merciless. Even if the memories are full of pain at least I recall them once more. My most dearly beloved. Hedvig. Matilda.’
Linnéa nods. She has to look away. She could have said this about herself, about Elias.
‘I think she has forgiven you,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘I mean Matilda. She told us we could trust you on that very first night in Kärrgruvan.’
‘I am not sure that I deserve to be forgiven,’ Nicolaus says.
His body has been sagging more and more during the telling of his story. Now he almost seems about to faint.
‘I’m afraid I must rest now,’ he says.
‘Thank you,’ Minoo says. ‘Thank you for telling us this.’
‘I perfectly understand if you feel disappointed with me,’ Nicolaus says.
Anna-Karin shakes her head.
‘It changes nothing,’ she says. ‘We know who you are. And we’ve known all the time.’
14
Vanessa opens her eyes and sees a bird.
At first, she thinks it is part of a dream, but it is actually there, perched on her bedside table, looking at her.
It is a blue tit, one of the few bird species she recognises. Blue skullcap and white face with a black brush stroke across it at eye level. Its chest is yellow, like a chicken’s.
Vanessa waves sleepily at the wide-open window and tries to make it understand.
‘Hey, you. Fly out,’ she whispers hoarsely.
The blue tit puts its head to the side and peers at her with beady black eyes. Vanessa sighs. Starting the day by chasing a crazy bird around her room seems like hard work, and she’d only get bird shit all over her things.
She turns over and lies on her back, staring at the ceiling. She has only had a few hours’ sleep.
When she came home, she had wanted a shower more than anything else but couldn’t risk waking everyone. Instead, she grabbed a towel and, as best she could, wiped off the mixture of sweat and soil that coated her. Apart from the fact that she still feels dirty, her nightmares won’t leave her in peace. The grave. Nicolaus’s story. Fragments of last year’s dreams, dreams that were haunted by Matilda’s memories.
Then there is the different, more ordinary kind of evil that she has not yet had a chance to digest.
I’ve been with someone else.
Vanessa sits up abruptly, nausea rising into her throat. The bird flaps its wings, takes off to the ceiling, bumps into the lampshade and bounces out through the window. It disappears into the blue sky.
I’ve been with someone else.
She waits for the tears, but they don’t come. She feels like that parched Russian lake they studied in geography. It was one of the biggest lakes in the world once, but now it has shrunk to a small puddle surrounded by desert.
A fucking useless puddle in the Russian desert. That’s what she feels like.
Vanessa opens her wardrobe. The first thing she sees is the faded yellow T-shirt she usually sleeps in. Wille’s. It has a washed-out print on the front that shows a bottle of ketchup high-fiving with a hot dog.
Vanessa stares at the T-shirt and thinks that something should happen inside her now. She should want to grab a pair of scissors and cut it into tiny, tiny pieces. Or set it on fire. Or soak it in her period blood and carry out some thoroughly wicked witch’s ritual.
It should surely be possible to put a real curse on Wille. She could go to the Crystal Cave and bribe Mona Moonbeam to tell her how. Like sticking voodoo needles into that idiotic, ugly teddy bear he gave her. Or she could make herself go invisible, sneak into Wille’s room and trash all his stuff. Or tell Nicke about Wille and Jonte dealing in …
But revenge fantasies don’t make her feel better. Instead, she starts thinking about her slippers, which have probably been kicked into the mess under Wille’s bed.
She wants them back. And, come to think of it, she left her favourite lipgloss behind as well. She’ll have to buy a new one now. Or should she ask him for it? No, better not. It isn’t worth facing Wille just for that. She doesn’t want to see him ever again. But she isn’t sure if her special lipgloss is still in the shops. Perhaps it’s the last ever lipgloss of that type in the whole world and it’s left in that repulsive shitface Wille’s place, so she’ll never get it back.
A sob, so sudden that at first she can’t think who is crying.
‘Nessa? Would you like an omelette?’
Vanessa turns round. Mum has opened the door a little to peep into the room.
‘Oh no, darling girl …’ she says when she sees Vanessa’s face.
The puddle in the Russian desert suddenly fills and overflows. Grows into a whole sea of salty water.
Mum comes in, closes the door behind her and stops, with one hand held out, as if she wants to touch Vanessa but doesn’t quite dare.
‘Darling, what’s the matter?’
And Vanessa suddenly doesn’t give a shit for her pride, doesn’t give a shit that her mother might well say: ‘I told you so.’
She starts talking. Has to take long pauses when her voice breaks.
Mum puts her arms round Vanessa, wraps her daughter into one of those long, warm Mummy hugs. Vanessa hugs her back, tightly, and burrows her head into Mum’s dressing gown.
‘My baby,’ Mum says. ‘My sweet baby.’
‘I didn’t want to let on because I know you don’t like Wille,’ Vanessa wails.
Mum strokes her hair.
‘My lovely girl,’ she says, with such feeling she seems about to burst into tears, too. ‘Surely you know you can talk to me about everything?’
Vanessa thinks of Nicke and the woman in the car. Perhaps she ought to tell her mum now, perhaps this is the right opportunity, but then their roles would be reversed in an instant. She would have to comfort her mother.
Maybe it’s selfish, but she couldn’t cope. She feels small and vulnerable, and all she wants right now is for Mum just to be Mum.
Minoo examines her hands under the strong light of the bathroom lamp and notes that she still has soil stuck under her nails. For all her scrubbing, she can’t get her hands clean.
And, for all her trying, she can’t get her head around what happened last night.
She turns the tap on and puts more soap on the nailbrush.
All her dreams have been about Nicolaus and Matilda.
Minoo realises now, more clearly than she ever has, that the previous Chosen One was a real person and not only some mysterious being who speaks to them through Ida and visits them all in their dreams.
Above all, she realises how lonely Matilda must have been. A girl of Minoo’s own age, who carried the entire world on her shoulders. Minoo and the others at least share the task.
The word witch-hunt keeps coming back to Minoo’s mind. Suddenly, the witch trials have become real to her. Reality, instead of images in woodcuts remembered from history books. The trials happened. For real. Here in Engelsfors.
Minoo still remembers what it felt like to wake up with the smell of burning in her hair. She was with Matilda in the prison dungeon. She travelled in the cart with her, tied hand and foot, towards her death.
Burned alive.
The muscles in her arms ache after a night’s digging, but she carries on scrubbing with the brush. Her fingertips go red, but the dirt is wedged deep in under her nails.
She had been given many answers last night, but also thought of new questions.
What took place the night when Matilda lost her powers?
Why seven Chosen Ones this time instead of one?
Did Matilda know that this would happen? Was that why she did it, whatever it was? Because the burden was too heavy to bear alone? But why have seven, when there are only six elements?
Minoo scrubs and scrubs.
Of course, Matilda died before she had time to stop the apocalypse. Why didn’t the demons take the world over there and then? Was the final battle postponed when Matilda left the game and dumped all the responsibility on the future Chosen Ones? If so, what does it mean that only five Chosen Ones are left? Do they have the slightest chance of winning?
And why can’t she shake off the feeling that Nicolaus didn’t tell them all he knows?
She walks into the passage and meets Mum. She is wrapped in the worn, red dressing gown she has used for as long as Minoo can remember.
‘Bahar will come and see us in a few weeks,’ Mum says happily. ‘Perhaps Shirin and Darya are coming along, too.’
Minoo wishes she could share her pleasure. Even though she loves her aunt and her cousins, they are seriously exhausting to be with. And she has more than enough drama in her life just now.
‘Isn’t Darya in London?’
‘No, she’s back home and working as a trainee in some sort of advertising agency. But Bahar is positive Darya will start her law course in the spring. Or maybe she’ll do medicine. Or study for the Secretary Generalship in the United Nations.’
Mum rolls her eyes heavenwards and Minoo giggles. Bahar and her husband Reza have always had grandiose ambitions for their two daughters.
‘Hurry up or you’ll be late for school,’ Mum adds as she disappears into the bathroom.
Minoo walks downstairs and picks up her rucksack. As she steps outside, the sunlight dazzles her. She only spots Anna-Karin waiting for her after putting on her sunglasses.
‘Hi, Minoo,’ Anna-Karin says and they start walking to school together.
Anna-Karin wears a baggy black T-shirt and, despite the heat, a tracksuit top tied round her waist. As if ready for a sudden cold snap. She is wearing jogging shoes as well. Her feet must be boiling by now. Even Minoo has given in and shows off her abnormally big feet in sandals.
‘Did you sleep at all?’ Anna-Karin asks.
‘Not much.’
Anna-Karin’s face is hidden behind her mane of hair, but everything about her body language tells Minoo that she is keeping something back.
‘I’ve been thinking … this stuff about the Council. Last year, the principal said that they’d set up a group to investigate me and everything I’d done …’
She falls silent. It dawns on Minoo that Nicolaus’s story must have been especially terrifying for Anna-Karin.
Minoo is just about to say that the Council hardly goes around burning people at the stake any more, but then she remembers what they did to Adriana.
‘But that was back in the seventeenth century,’ she says, trying to sound reassuring. ‘And we’ve not heard another thing about the investigation for almost a year.’
