Fire, page 29
‘I should have known that I’d become possessed all the same,’ she whispers to him. ‘Whatever, it always ends with me in the shit.’
She recalls what she saw when she was possessed, a reflection on the surface of still water. So that’s what Matilda looks like. Freckled face.
Ida’s power is totally pointless. She would much rather be able to communicate with the living than with the dead.
If only she could make Gustaf’s soul materialise and ask it a straight question.
Where would the glass go? YES or NO?
Mum and Dad were angry with her for coming here, instead of helping them to sort out the chaos left by the floods at home. But no way would she miss out on being with Troja. Not tonight. He is the antidote to all that has happened to her over the last twenty-four hours.
They have been out in the forest. She thought galloping could get her away from the filthy sensation that lingered in her body after the seance. The trail left by the other, who had ruled over Ida, taken control of her body, spoken through her mouth, seen through her eyes. Meanwhile, Ida herself had been dismissed into a corner where she had cowered, forced to experience everything from a distance.
Being stuck in that corner for ever is Ida’s worst nightmare.
She strokes Troja’s muzzle, then straightens up and starts scratching at that special place near his ear until sheer pleasure makes him close his eyes.
‘It will be all right in the end,’ Ida whispers. ‘Julia is on my side. She totally sees it my way. Felicia is thick and it isn’t my fault that she didn’t speak out earlier about how she felt for Robin. Besides, whatever they’ve got won’t last. And then she’ll come crawling back.’
Troja’s muzzle butts lightly against her.
‘And I’ve fixed things with Erik, too. I called him today and he agrees that Felicia was drunk out of her mind and talking a lot of rubbish.’
She has put her rucksack in the corner of the loose box. She gets a carrot for Troja. His lips nibble at it with tremendous delicacy. Always so careful not to hurt Ida.
She checks her bag again. A corner of the Book of Patterns sticks up. She has noticed scratches on the bridal chest, suggesting that someone, probably Lotta, has tried to force it open. Ever since then, she has always taken the book and the Pattern Finder with her if she goes out.
‘Maybe it will work better here?’ she says. ‘Hey, old boy?’
She picks up her bag and locks herself into one of the toilets, despite being certain that she is alone in the stables.
A handwritten note, taped to the wall above the toilet, forbids its use due to the water problems.
Someone hasn’t taken the ban seriously enough, judging by the smell.
Ida sits down on the lid and opens the book on her lap.
Will I be together with G in the end?
When she queries the book, it’s sometimes hard to focus her thoughts properly. But not this time.
She feels with all her heart that she must have an answer, a straight, clear yes or no. The guardians must let her know how this will pan out – she can’t waste more time on pursuing something that might be hopeless. She can’t risk humiliation for no return.
The book does not answer. The signs remain motionless on the page. Apparently the guardians don’t care to communicate.
The Pattern Finder makes a ringing noise as Ida puts it on the handbasin. She is just about to close the book and get up, when the familiar dizziness takes over, stronger than ever.
And in the next instant, she’s there.
Close, close to Gustaf’s face. His lips meet hers and they merge, until she can hardly tell Gustaf’s mouth from her own.
She wants him so intensely it hurts.
Another split second passes and then she is back in the toilet.
She fumbles for the Pattern Finder, drops it on the floor among the scrunched-up paper towels around the waste bin. When she has got hold of it, she twists the segments and concentrates.
Was that a vision of the future?
The patterns shift across the pages, unbearably slowly.
Yes.
The book seems certain, but Ida doesn’t quite dare to trust its glorious message. Not yet.
All right, but you said there are different futures. Is this the one that will be?
She stares impatiently at the book.
Yes. In all probability. If you keep true to our agreement. Collaborate with the others. And, whatever you do, don’t join Positive Engelsfors.
Why would she even think about joining that pathetic cult?
‘I promise,’ she says loudly and has a strong sense of how satisfied the book is with her.
Don’t say anything to the others. This is our secret.
Ida promises once more. She’ll have no problem whatever with keeping this to herself.
For the first time this autumn, the evening air carries a hint of cold.
Minoo is curled up on the deckchair in her corner of the garden. Romeo and Juliet is next to her, closed.
She didn’t wake up until the afternoon. Mum and Dad were not at home and after a walk around town, she returned to a house that was still empty and unlit.
A gust of wind. She shivers, but doesn’t want to go inside into that silence.
Minoo thinks about everything that has happened since the night of the blood-red moon. She remembers Elias and Rebecka.
One of Max’s memories bubbles up to the surface. A visual memory of Rebecka falling off the roof of the school, falling to her death.
Where were the guardians then?
It seems to her that they are harder to believe in than the demons. As hard as it is to believe that their powers belong also to her.
Matilda had said almost exactly what Nicolaus had told her earlier.
You have no reason to be fearful as long as you use your power responsibly, for good. And I know you will.
Why hasn’t the book, and Matilda, told them earlier about the guardians and about Minoo’s powers? Matilda had said that the guardians don’t think in the human way, don’t have the same notion of time and that they communicate in a different manner from humans. Is that the explanation? Couldn’t they grasp how much it matters to know these things?
A car slows down outside, turns into the drive to their garage.
Minoo hears the car doors slam, hears Mum and Dad going into the house and watches as the lights come on in there.
Mum calls her name. Minoo will go indoors soon, but not quite yet.
First, she must pull herself together.
Gather the strength she needs to feel sure that she won’t burst into tears and tell them that Engelsfors is a door and the demons are just outside, banging on it. That the apocalypse is approaching and is closing in fast. That they have no idea how to stop it.
‘We’re in the kitchen, Minoo. Come here, would you?’ Mum calls when Minoo opens the front door.
They are sitting at the kitchen table and as soon as Minoo sees the expressions on their faces, she knows.
The time has come. They will tell her now. Naturally, they would pick today of all days.
‘Sit down,’ Mum says with a quick glance at Dad.
Minoo realises that she is nervous. Meanwhile, Dad sweeps the crumbs on the table into a small pile, then stares fixedly at it.
Minoo crosses her arms on her chest. Steels herself. Right, let’s get it over and done with.
‘Just say what you’ve got to say.’
‘I have been offered a consultant’s post,’ Mum says. ‘In Stockholm.’
Minoo had been prepared for the word ‘divorce’. But not for this.
‘Actually, the offer came up early in the summer and I’ve been hesitating ever since, weighing up the pros and cons. But somewhere deep down, I knew all along that I would accept. It’s the kind of opportunity you have only once in your life.’
Minoo can’t process what she is being told. Her brain seems to have switched off.
‘You see, Minoo, twenty years ago I followed Erik here because he was so fired up about running the local paper in the town where he grew up. It was important to him to make it a really lively, high-quality newspaper. And I wanted to try life in a smaller town, experience a calmer tempo. But I can’t bear staying in Engelsfors much longer. That’s how I’ve felt for years … Of course, I want you and your father to come with me, but he refuses to leave the paper.’
Dad sighs impatiently, strongly enough to scatter the crumbs again.
‘In the end, I’ve made up my mind to make the move, come what may,’ Mum continues. ‘I must go for that job. I deserve it. And I know you’d like to complete your schooling in Stockholm. You’ve always talked about that, right through senior school …’
Mum doesn’t end the sentence and looks hopefully at Minoo instead.
She obviously expects Minoo to be overwhelmed, happy, ready to throw her arms around Mum’s neck and thank her for this wonderful chance to change her life.
Minoo hates her. Hates them both, because they’re only asking her now, for the first time, when it is too late.
She must stay in Engelsfors. Or else the world will end.
‘I can’t move anywhere,’ she says.
Dad looks up from the tabletop with a glint of triumph in his eyes.
‘But not because I want to be here with you,’ she snarls and the glint disappears. ‘That’s not why I’m going to stay in this fucking awful dump.’
‘Now I don’t understand a thing,’ Mum says.
‘What is it you don’t get?’ Minoo yells. ‘That you should’ve asked a year ago? Why not ten years ago? You’ve kept me prisoner here when I had no friends or anything. When I hated every second in the ghastly place!’
‘What—’ Dad begins.
‘Shut up!’ Minoo yells. ‘I’ve had it with listening to you! You don’t give a damn for either Mum or me, all you want is your stupid paper and working yourself to death!’
For once, her father seems at a loss for words. Minoo turns to her mother.
‘Of course, you didn’t think it mattered enough that I’ve always had a rotten time here, oh no, you had to get an offer of a top job. Then it’s suddenly okay to move! And now you’re going to leave me here!’
By now, Mum is screaming, too.
‘I thought you wanted to come with me. I will not accept—’
‘You don’t get it! You never get a single thing!’
‘All right, explain it!’ Dad says.
Minoo stares at her parents. She will never be able to explain to them, will never be able to tell them the truth.
I must carry this burden alone, Minoo thinks. I have no choice.
She doesn’t want to be left alone with Dad. Perhaps she could persuade Mum to stay. But that is as bad an alternative. Three unhappy people sharing a house.
‘I would like to come with you,’ she says and now her voice sounds quite dead. ‘But I can’t risk my marks by changing school in the middle of the second year. And I’ve found some friends here, at last. I don’t want to leave them.’
‘You don’t have to decide straight away …’ Mum begins.
‘I have made my decision,’ Minoo says and forces herself to meet her mother’s eyes. ‘I am not going to change my mind. But you go. I understand.’
Mum shakes her head.
‘You can change your mind any time,’ she says. ‘For one thing, you can visit Stockholm whenever you like. And I promise to come home as often as possible. Your father and I are not divorcing. We’ll just live in different places for some time.’
‘Fine,’ Minoo says and stares at the floor.
‘Minoo—’ Dad starts, but she interrupts him.
‘I just want to be left in peace for a while.’
She walks upstairs, stops briefly at the open bathroom door and looks at the bathtub. Thinks of what happened there last winter. The voice in her head saying that she had no idea of what was coming her way.
It’s only going to get worse. Much, much worse.
PART III
42
Ida stops in the kitchen doorway.
It looks exactly the same as it did before the water damage six months earlier. The whole house is white and clean again.
Ida has always been proud of her family home. Lately, though, her perspective sometimes shifts. Then, all the whiteness makes the whole place seem soaked in milk. Together with the mist outside the large windows, it feels as if milk is oozing all over the world.
That mist. During the autumn and winter, it has been hanging over Engelsfors almost every morning. The snow lasted for a few days around the New Year, but the rest of the time it melted as soon as it landed on the ground.
Ida observes her family at the kitchen table. Mum and Dad are both eating their crispbread sandwiches. Lotta has pulled her legs up so high her face is almost hidden behind her knees. She is chatting quietly with Rasmus, who is giggling at something she says.
Looking at them like this, at a distance, Ida feels it is easy to love them. Mother. Father. Sister. Brother. Standing here, she can sense the reality of her love. It is floating inside her, light and pure. She wishes that she could encapsulate the feeling and save it.
She clutches her French textbook closer to her chest and steps into the kitchen.
‘Good morning.’
Mum and Dad mumble something in response.
Ida sticks a slice of bread in the toaster. And gets a shock when she accidentally touches the metal cover. She swears quietly under her breath. It’s going to be one of those days. It started with the mobile charger. Next, the hairdryer. Her metal element is running wild these lousy misty mornings.
Gingerly, she extracts the toast when it pops up, butters it thinly, and brings it to the table with her mug.
Mum pushes the teapot towards Ida.
‘Did you sleep well?’
‘I can’t remember, so I guess I must have.’
She meant it humorously, but Mum looks irritated. Ida regrets it at once. Now this morning is ruined already.
‘Are you working today or can I take the car to school?’ she tries all the same.
‘No, I have to go to the shop.’
Ida nods, opens her book and starts quizzing herself on irregular verbs.
‘I don’t like it when you read at the table,’ Mum says. ‘And you know it.’
‘I’ve got a test coming up. Would you prefer me to fail, or what?’
‘Mum, Ida is being negative again,’ Rasmus says.
Dad lowers his crispbread sandwich and eyes her.
‘Now, now. What kind of attitude is that, Ida?’
‘You’re to imagine you get the test back and the teacher is pleased and has ticked all your answers,’ Lotta tells her.
‘Or else I can study, like normal people,’ Ida says.
She drinks some tea and tries to stay cool. But she can feel the others looking at her.
Please don’t say anything about Positive Engelsfors, she thinks. I’ll simply die if I hear the words ‘Positive Engelsfors’ again.
Besides, is it really normal for people to study for a test these days? It seems at least half the town argues exactly as Lotta just did.
Mum and Dad joined Positive Engelsfors just a few weeks after the autumn party. Not that they seem to believe very much of what it preaches. Never mind, the PE philosophy is useful for a whole lot of reasons. For instance, it saves you from having to take complaints from employees seriously. Or you can explain that if Lotta is supposed to have bullied someone, the kid was spreading negative energy.
The fact is, being a member is a social ‘must’. The Engelsfors elite are all followers of Helena and Krister Malmgren. If you don’t join the movement you cease to exist. That’s already happening to Ida.
Erik and Kevin don’t talk about anything much except PE. Robin and Felicia don’t talk to Ida at all, but they are just as heavily into the PE thing. Julia is the only one Ida has persuaded not to go along with it yet, but it’s obviously only a matter of time before she does.
And then Ida will be an outsider, all alone.
She has asked the book lots of times why she can’t join. No answer. Apparently, the guardians don’t want to communicate with her in any way.
Ida sometimes feels she is ready to dump all her promises to the book. Going against the flow simply isn’t her. Rather, she’d want to be in the lead.
The doorbell rings. Lotta jumps from her chair and runs to the hall.
Ida drinks a large mouthful of tea. Pretends to be engrossed in French verbs.
‘It’s Erik!’ Lotta shouts and dances into the kitchen in front of him.
‘Hi, everyone,’ he says and everyone greets him with enthusiasm. Except Ida.
‘Well, now, Erik. All prepared for the Spring Revel?’ Dad asks.
‘Yes. Brighter times are ahead. In many ways!’
Erik’s cheeks are red with cold and a large, clear drop of snot is dangling from his nose.
‘I hear there’ll be a huge crowd meeting up at the centre,’ Mum says.
‘It’s the same at school,’ Erik says. ‘Everyone I know is coming along. Except Ida, actually. Because only PE members are invited.’
All eyes are on Ida now.
She shuts her book.
‘I just haven’t made up my mind yet,’ she says and gets up before they start discussing it. ‘I’ll just brush my teeth and then we’ll go.’
Ida hurries upstairs to her room. She can hear how downstairs, in the kitchen, Erik, Mum and Dad are chatting about PE’s Spring Revel. The centre has laid on a buffet and dancing to a live band. The senior school group is throwing a party in the gym hall. Erik is one of the arrangers. Naturally. He has been one of Helena’s favourites ever since last autumn, when he asked her along to do a coaching session with the hockey team.
Ida brushes her teeth briskly and examines her face in the mirror.
She hardly recognises the Ida who is looking back at her. It is as if all the colour has been drained out of her during the winter.
How did my life become like this? Ida thinks.
It is March now. You hated this time of year as much as I do. It is the worst time, when you’ve been wandering around in the dark and the cold for half a year and can’t believe that light and warmth will ever come back again.
