Fire, page 33
Impatiently, Vanessa taps her pen on the open book. She has no problem speaking English. Song lyrics and film subtitles have taught her everything she needs. The only snag is, she happens not to know all the rules or exactly why you’re supposed to use this or that phrase.
‘You’re asking the wrong person,’ Mum says and smiles.
Vanessa is just about to reply when her mobile rings from somewhere among the cushions. Mum instantly turns on her severe face.
‘Really, Nessa,’ she says.
‘I’m just going to check who it is,’ she says and digs out the phone.
Wille.
She’s deleted his number from her mobile, but hasn’t been able to delete it from her mind. Just about six months ago, a call from him around this time was a regular part of her day. Now it makes her heart beat double time.
The phone goes on ringing and Mum just stands there, staring at her.
‘Aren’t you going to answer?’ she asks.
It feels as though it would be a mistake to answer. Is it a mistake she can resist making?
‘I’ll have to take this call,’ she says and gets up from the sofa.
Mum sighs when Vanessa runs into her room. She presses the reply button at the same time as she shuts the door behind her.
‘Hello?’
‘Nessa, hi …’ he says.
His voice makes her feel dizzy.
‘Mum says she met you today,’ he says.
‘Yes?’ Vanessa says, trying to sound indifferent but doubting the effect.
‘I’m waiting at the usual place,’ Wille says. ‘Can you come?’
Seeing him would be the next mistake. An even bigger one.
‘Why?’
‘I just want to talk for a while. It’s been a long time.’
Vanessa swings round to the full-length mirror and fluffs up her hair. And as soon as she does this she realises that she has made up her mind.
‘I’ll be down soon,’ she says.
She doesn’t give him time to reply, just switches off the call, puts the phone in the pocket of her hoody and goes back to the living room. She looks out through the window. Wille’s car is parked at the bus stop.
She ought to text him to say she won’t come after all.
‘Are you working?’ Mum shouts from the kitchen.
‘Umm,’ Vanessa mutters.
Wille is waiting for her in his car and it all feels so familiar, so usual, as if the last half-year never happened.
She finds herself wondering if she isn’t ready to forgive him now. If he really, truly begged her maybe she would. Maybe.
Christ, Linnéa would think she’s pathetic.
But it shouldn’t matter what anyone else thinks, should it?
‘I’ve got to take Frasse out,’ she shouts to Mum.
‘But you’ve already been out with him.’
‘He’s like it’s totally urgent,’ Vanessa says and tugs a little at his collar. Frasse reluctantly lifts his head and stares sleepily at her.
‘Nessa, if this is a lousy excuse to get out of studying …’
Vanessa drags Frasse into the hall, clips on his lead and puts on her coat. The dog is alert by now and wags his tail happily, over the moon at the chance to go out again.
‘Back soon,’ Vanessa says.
The air is chilly, with a raw dampness about it. Vanessa starts feeling cold the moment she steps outside. Frasse sniffs the ground eagerly as they walk towards Wille’s car.
They are almost there when Wille climbs out and Frasse starts tugging at the lead so energetically he almost rips off Vanessa’s arm.
‘Hiya, Frasse,’ Wille says. ‘Hi there, old pal.’
Frasse leaps up, puts his front paws on Wille’s belly and allows himself to be patted and scratched behind his ears. Vanessa stands by silently, waiting. Wille avoids looking at her and she wonders if he feels as tense as she does.
Frasse finally calms down and settles back on all four paws. Wille looks at her.
And, yes. He is just as tense.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he says.
She hasn’t seen him since she spooked him in Götis, but she has heard that he’s moved in with Elin in Riddarhyttan, a village just outside Engelsfors.
And the transformation has clearly continued.
Wille’s hair is cut shorter than she has ever seen it. His jacket is new. Wille, who had been putting on the same worn old kit for as long as she had known him.
He looks handsomer than ever. One part of Vanessa wants to whimper a little and wag her tail, just like Frasse.
This is a mistake, she thinks as they look at each other for a long time. But I knew that already, didn’t I?
‘You look different,’ she says.
‘I’ve got myself a haircut and a job,’ he says and smiles. ‘Perhaps I’ll buy myself a new car as well.’ He kicks a front tyre. ‘This sad old heap has done its bit.’
He might as well be talking about hers. She has obviously been exchanged.
Suddenly she feels idiotic to have even considered forgiving Wille, since she hasn’t a clue what he wants.
‘Why are you here?’ Vanessa asks.
Wille puts his hands into his jacket pockets and leans against the car. His breath forms a cloud in the light from the street lamps. She shivers.
‘I wanted to see you,’ he says. ‘And thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For your belief in me. Look, right through our relationship I was a fucking loser, I know that. But you always believed that I could change. It’s because of you that I began to believe it myself in the end. I smoke maybe only once or twice a month now. I’ve landed a job in a call centre and it isn’t too bad at all. And I’ve moved away from home.’
Vanessa senses her own bitterness as distinctly as a taste in her mouth.
Well, isn’t that just fabulous, Wille, she wants to cry. Great to have had this fantastic opportunity to get you on the roll. And such fun for me to struggle and nag and beg and deliver endless pep talks. Shame, isn’t it, that somebody else will have the benefit of all that hard work? Still, that’s the way it goes.
‘You mean, you’ve moved in with Elin,’ she says.
Wille nods, doesn’t answer.
‘Great,’ Vanessa says. ‘What do you want me to say? Congrats to your new, happy life?’
‘I never said I was happy,’ Wille says and looks at her. ‘I should never have done what I did to you. I have never regretted anything so much in my whole life. I miss you.’
‘What about Elin? What does she think about it?’
Wille’s eyes fix on something else.
‘Aha, she doesn’t know a thing, does she?’ Vanessa says. ‘She thinks everything is fine now.’
She starts tugging at Frasse’s lead. He just sits there.
‘Come on, Frasse,’ she says and he stands up at last.
She walks back to the front door. Frasse’s claws are clicking against the tarmac. And then she hears Wille come running after her.
‘Nessa!’
He swings her around half a turn, pulls her close and kisses her.
She wants to leave, but can’t make herself do it. She can’t even control her own mouth. It opens to receive his kiss, go further.
Wille’s kiss is just as it always was, like nobody else’s and she wants to stop thinking, stop feeling bitter and twisted. Fuck everything. She wants them to jump into his car and drive until they run out of petrol.
‘There’s no one like you,’ Wille whispers.
She does free herself now. Her treacherous body protests. It already misses having him so close. Her Wille addiction has come back to life and, just now, her body is on a high and would easily sell off her pride.
‘I must go.’
‘Nessa …’
She turns and starts walking away with Frasse at her heels.
‘Don’t you miss me, too?’ Wille calls after her.
She doesn’t answer him. She doesn’t dare to answer, for fear of telling him the truth.
47
Minoo cautiously opens the door to her room and slips out into the corridor.
Mum and Dad’s bedroom door is slightly open. Dad’s snoring sounds like low rumbling in there. Just as Minoo puts her foot on the top step of the stairs, the snores stop.
She listens, hears him turn heavily in bed. She holds her breath until the snoring starts again. She starts to walk downstairs. Since the night of the blood-red moon, she has sneaked down the staircase so many times that she knows exactly where to place her feet, which of the steps creak.
Minoo has just reached the ground floor when the house phone rings out shrilly. She rushes into the hall to pick it up, hoping that the signal hasn’t woken Dad.
‘Hello?’ she whispers breathlessly.
No one answers. Only breathing, some scraping noises. Someone who listens and waits.
‘Stop calling,’ she says and puts the receiver down.
Cowardly shits, Minoo thinks.
She tries to work up some anger, but fails. Instead she hates them because they frighten her so badly. The calls make her feel as if someone is watching her, observing everything she does.
She switches off the ringtone. Listens out for sounds from upstairs. Dad’s snoring is perfectly audible even here. She pulls her coat on and leaves quickly.
The fog is so thick she can hardly see the gate on the other side of the lawn.
Someone is waiting on the pavement. That’s precisely what they agreed. But Minoo can’t be sure that the dim shape really is Anna-Karin until they are only a few metres apart.
‘Hi,’ Minoo says quietly.
‘Hi,’ Anna-Karin says and pushes a tangled strand of hair behind her ear.
They start walking along the street. The fog wraps Minoo’s face like a cold, damp blanket.
‘How are things?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know. I just wish it would all be over soon.’
Minoo feels like saying that she’s sure everything will be all right, but they both know that she has no idea, one way or the other. And it isn’t empty phrases Anna-Karin needs just now.
They carry on walking in silence towards Kärrgruvan.
Now and then, Anna-Karin halts and closes her eyes. Her familiar is keeping watch down by the manor house. It will warn her if anyone leaves the house. But just in case, Anna-Karin gets in touch with it quite regularly.
‘It must be such a strange feeling,’ Minoo says at one point when Anna-Karin goes through this routine again. ‘You know, like, being a fox.’
They have just arrived at the start of the dirt road to the fairground. Minoo lights her torch. Dense strands of fog dance slowly in the cone of light.
‘I’ve got used to it,’ Anna-Karin says and opens her eyes. ‘He suddenly materialised from nowhere but now it feels as if he has been part of me always. Like the magic, if you see what I mean?’
Minoo nods but doesn’t comment.
Magic has never felt part of her. Rather, it is like being occupied by a foreign power. Perhaps it would be like a more natural extension of her self if she knew what it could be used for.
Ever since she found out that the guardians are supporting her powers, she has dared to experiment a little. But she still can’t make objects move, make herself invisible, read people’s thoughts or affect the way they act. Her one talent seems to be an ability to haul souls out of bodies with her bare hands. She still can’t see how this can be for good.
They walk on and finally the familiar shrubberies around Kärrgruvan emerge ghostlike out of the misty air.
The fog lifts as they enter through the gate.
Inside the fairground, the air is clear. High above them, the black night sky, scattered with stars, forms an arch without end.
A shimmering light flickers around the pavilion. Adriana’s blue fire burns in the centre of the dance floor. Minoo turns off the torch. They pass through the gleaming shell and feel the warmth of the fire.
The other Chosen Ones are seated. Adriana is the only one who is standing. Minoo hasn’t seen her since she came with Alexander to inspect Nicolaus’s flat. Illuminated by the blue flames, she looks almost ill, but her eyes glitter with nervous energy.
‘Join us and sit down,’ she says. ‘We are short of time.’
She tugs at a narrow leather strap around her neck. From it hangs a white piece of something that looks like bone. Red lines are growing slowly over its surface, branching like blood vessels across the white.
Minoo and Anna-Karin pull off their coats and sit down on the floor.
Minoo can’t resist having a quick look at Linnéa, who sits next to Vanessa. She can’t understand how she failed to see this for so long. Now that she knows, it is unmistakable. Linnéa keeps glancing at Vanessa all the time, as if she doesn’t want to miss one second of being with her.
I must talk to Linnéa, Minoo thinks.
But she can’t work out how to handle it.
‘I’ll tell you everything, from the beginning, to make you understand how the Council functions,’ Adriana says.
Minoo shudders once the words have fully sunk in. Adriana seems to have decided to reveal all there is to know. Chosen to be on their side, regardless.
‘I was born to join the uppermost class of the Council hierarchy,’ Adriana begins. ‘Both my parents were immensely powerful witches. Both were descendants of families which had belonged to the Council for generations. It was clear from the start that I would follow in their footsteps.’
Her smile is sad.
‘Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that I had no particular talent for magic. Neither my mother nor my father was a natural witch, but they were both very gifted and the gift for magic is often inherited. Given the history of my family, no one had expected me to be such a disappointment.’
Adriana’s legs begin to fold under her and she sinks down to sit on the floor, too. She supports herself with one hand flat on the floor.
‘Happily, they had one child already, Alexander, who more than met their expectations. My father worshipped him and ignored me completely. My mother tried to share her love more fairly between her children, but she felt ashamed of me. I knew that she couldn’t understand what they had done wrong to have a daughter like me. The Council despises weakness. Also, strength is measured in levels of magic talent and the contributions individuals can make. I tried to compensate in different ways. Above all, to balance my lack of innate ability with perfect behaviour and devotion to my studies.’
Minoo notices Adriana’s quick glance in her direction. Once, Adriana had said that Minoo reminded her of herself as a young woman.
‘And then I met Simon,’ Adriana continues. ‘We were both nineteen. He and Alexander were friends. That was how we met. We soon fell in love. Deeply in love.’
She looks gravely at them. Her dark eyes shine in the light of the blue fire.
‘The Council exerts incredibly tight control over its membership. Everyone is a potential informant. That means one’s parents, siblings, children, friends, lovers. Everyone. But I trusted Simon. And he trusted me. For the first time in our lives we allowed ourselves to formulate in words a forbidden idea that we had both carried in our heads – that the Council was no better than a prison. Once we had taught each other to see, we could no longer shut our eyes to the truth. The Council de-humanised us. We decided to run away.’
‘Why did you have to run away? Couldn’t you simply … resign?’ Vanessa asks.
Adriana shakes her head.
‘Those of us who are born into Council membership have to choose on our eighteenth birthday if we want to join the Council formally or to leave for ever. And I mean, for ever. They sever all connections with dissenters. Extremely few have chosen that alternative. Even the doubters stay on. The Council is our family, our entire world. Both Simon and I had sworn an oath to stay faithful to the Council until death.’
Adriana turns her face towards the darkness that surrounds the dance floor, but she is looking at something else. She seems to search her mind for the right words.
‘We planned our escape for months. I was to meet Simon in a hotel in Copenhagen. When I arrived, the representatives of the Council were waiting for me. They had taken Simon already, before he left Stockholm.’
She shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath.
‘There was a court case. We couldn’t deny our crime, of course. Simon was sentenced to death and I would have been executed, too, if it hadn’t been for my mother’s intervention. She sacrificed so much to save me, but I could not be grateful. I wanted to die, I …’
She falls silent again.
‘They let me live, but saw to it that I would never forget my crime.’
She absently touches her left collarbone and Minoo feels a chill run down her spine as she thinks of the sign of fire, burned into skin that is hidden under her blouse.
‘They punished me in a ritual that physically bound me to the Council. I could not do anything other than obey their commands. And after a while, I wanted nothing else. I allowed myself to be brainwashed again. I suppose it was weak and cowardly. I was so badly broken, I saw no other way out … but I realise that you would find it hard to grasp.’
Minoo shakes her head. Everyone is silent. The blue fire makes the shadows flutter over their faces.
It almost feels as if Adriana is a member of the Circle.
‘I returned to the life that had been mine before I met Simon. To the books. As you know, by now most Council members find reading the Book of Patterns difficult. That’s true even of the natural witches. But we do have access to huge library collections of knowledge about the book and interpretations of what has been seen in it. The accumulated work of untold generations.’
Minoo wishes she could tell Adriana that they already know about these libraries and that they actually have spoken with Matilda. When Adriana opens up to them in this way, it feels awful to keep so many secrets from her. Secrets about themselves, about the previous Chosen One, about the guardians, Nicolaus and the history of the Council.
‘I was given the task of investigating how true various prophecies had been,’ Adriana says. ‘Vast numbers of prophecies are on record. They predict all sorts of things, from very minor to very important matters. A power shift in a country, a local magic phenomenon, the fate of a family. The Council studies the prophecies and attempts to use them to work out what the future will bring. Knowledge is power. And one thing you must understand is that, essentially, the Council is interested only in power.’
