Fire, page 52
‘Perfect,’ Linnéa says.
With the choir yelling their positive campaign songs, the risk that anyone will hear the sound of the pane breaking is next to nil. And she has scanned this place for unidentified thoughts, but picked up nothing unexpected. It’s now or never.
‘Move over,’ she says and the others back down a few steps. ‘Mind the splinters.’
Linnéa tenses her arm, shuts her eyes and turns her face away.
The glass cracks with a dull sound, muffled by the fabric. But a few shards fall to Linnéa’s feet, clatter loudly against the metal grid and carry on down to the ground.
Linnéa raises her arm again. This time the inner pane breaks. Glass is falling on the floor inside the door. They all hold their breath.
Up here, only a very faint reverberation of the choir singing can be heard. Still, there is no mistaking the ecstasy in the voices.
Linnéa puts the stone down. She winds the top more tightly around her hand and arm before gingerly sticking her hand through the hole. Twisting the inside handle, she opens the door and steps into the corridor. Stands still and listens. Registers the swarm of thoughts buzzing far down inside the building.
She looks along the corridor that leads to the toilets where Elias died. Where everything began.
Vanessa comes and stands close to her.
And suddenly Linnéa wonders if she dares. She would so very much like to kiss Vanessa the way loving couples kiss in films, just as stuff starts exploding and the action should be far too fast and panicky for tender feelings.
Usually, she despises these couples. But now she understands them. Because how is it possible to face danger without giving your beloved a kiss that might be the last? What could be more important?
Vanessa looks quizzically at her. Linnéa is suddenly aware that Anna-Karin and Ida are standing right behind them. The moment is lost.
‘Ready?’ Vanessa whispers. Linnéa nods.
She might be too much of a coward to show her feelings for Vanessa.
But she is definitely ready to put a stop to Positive Engelsfors.
Vanessa wishes her power was enough to pull them all with her into invisibility.
Instead she walks ahead, checking that the coast is clear before the others follow her. If one of the amulet wearers spots them, all the others will know in an instant.
And if they are seen, it’s all over.
The last notes of a song are ringing out, deep down in the innards of the school.
She hears Linnéa’s voice in her head.
Anna-Karin says that Helena and Krister are stepping up on the stage now. They are not wearing any necklaces. At least not as far as the fox can see.
Just how absurd have our lives become when we think this is a normal piece of conversation? Vanessa thinks.
You mean, apart from the fact that the conversation is happening inside our heads? Linnéa replies.
Vanessa can’t help smiling. She goes and leans over the railing to look down into the stairwell. No one in sight.
I’ll go down to the second floor and look around, she thinks.
Fine, Linnéa responds. Take care.
Promise.
Vanessa starts walking downstairs. Over her shoulder, she sees Linnéa trying to place her feet as gently as possible. Behind Linnéa, Ida’s blonde hair glows in the faint light from the windows.
Vanessa could scream, tap-dance, do cartwheels, whatever came to mind. But the others are defenceless. And the slightest sound echoes against the dark stone of the stairs.
She reaches the third floor and scans the long corridors which disappear into the dark and seem to go on and on for an eternity. Still no one lurking. At least, no one she can detect. She is just about to carry on downstairs when Linnéa’s thought stops her.
Wait!
Vanessa stops in mid-pace.
I hear them, Linnéa thinks. Two of them. Maybe three. Directly below us. We’d better take the spiral stairs instead.
I hear you, Vanessa thinks. But wait a second.
She walks into the corridor, moves in and out between the lockers with their Positive Engelsfors stickers. Bits of yellow paper bunting swish in the draught as she passes by.
She opens the door to the spiral staircase.
All clear? Linnéa asks.
Yes. I’ll go down first, you follow.
She closes the door quietly and starts out downstairs.
The light from below is reflected on the walls but Vanessa casts no shadow.
Linnéa opens the door to the spiral staircase. Closes her eyes and sets out, with Ida and Anna-Karin close behind. To detect if anyone is nearby, she must try to orient herself in the humming haze of thoughts that fills the school.
Thank God for Alicja.
One thought that floats slightly above the rest.
After tonight, surely Helena and Krister will be pleased with me?
Linnéa instantly passes a thought on to Vanessa.
Someone is standing below.
I can see her, Vanessa answers quickly. It’s Kerstin Stålnacke. Come on down. She’s standing in the main lobby and can’t see you.
Linnéa sends her message on to Anna-Karin and Ida and the three of them descend to the ground floor as silently as they can.
They go into the corridor leading into the main entrance lobby.
Is she alone? Linnéa thinks to Vanessa.
Yes, Vanessa thinks. She seems to be standing guard. I saw her take over from our gym teacher, Lollo.
A burst of applause from the gym. The echo finds its way through the corridor. Linnéa thinks she can distinguish Helena’s laughter.
‘They’re about to choose the young PE member,’ Anna-Karin whispers.
‘Is Kerstin going to hang around all night?’ Ida says quietly.
Linnéa looks towards the lobby. Somewhere in there, Kerstin Stålnacke stands alone. Before Linnéa shuts her eyes and dives into the cacophony of thoughts again, she tries to imagine the dance and music teacher. She gets a grip on Kerstin’s thoughts almost at once. It feels a little like holding on to a loose thread in a piece of material and then starting to pull.
Perhaps I ought to have chosen the nice tune from that nice film about the nice choir from Norrland instead. I think Helena would have enjoyed that very much. But golly, how I ramble on! Now I must focus on what went really well. I am a good choirmaster. I am musical, ambitious and imaginative, but above all I am enthusiastic and can enthuse and if there’s something these young people need it’s—
Something breaks Kerstin’s line of thought.
‘Alicja!’ she calls from somewhere far off. ‘You have no idea how proud you’ve made me tonight!’
A frail small voice says something Linnéa can’t make out.
‘No, no, thank you,’ Kerstin says. ‘You were outstanding!’
Ida tugs at Linnéa’s sleeve.
‘Is she alone with Alicja?’
Linnéa nods.
‘Great,’ Ida says.
She slips away down the corridor and Linnéa stares after her, almost panicking.
Where are you going? she screams inside Ida’s head, but Ida blocks her at once.
Ida presses herself flat against the wall while she moves sideways along the corridor. Now she can hear Kerstin clearly.
‘You’re a star!’ she is saying, just as Ida with wildly hammering heart peeps around the corner to see into the lobby.
To mark the occasion, Kerstin is wearing a radiantly yellow poncho. Around her neck, with the chain entangled in a wooden African neckpiece, dangles the metal sign amulet. Alicja is chewing on a strand of her dark hair.
That baby has all the charisma of a wrung-out dishcloth, Ida thinks. And Kerstin is raving about her being a star?
Ida stays pressed against the wall. She is itching to make a move. Literally. Flashes spark along her hands.
‘You sing with such true feeling,’ Kerstin says.
Ida peeps out again. Stretches her hands out. Kerstin and Alicja have no time to react before Ida has thrown them right across the room. Both flop down on the floor in a faint.
Suddenly, Ida feels anxious.
Did she overdo it?
She takes one step into the lobby.
In passing, Vanessa’s invisible shoulder gives her a push. On purpose, obviously. Ida watches as an invisible hand removes the chains from around Kerstin and Alicja’s necks.
Anna-Karin and Linnéa join them now.
‘I’d better get them both to want to go home at once,’ Anna-Karin whispers and walks over to Kerstin and Alicja, who are twitching restlessly on the floor.
Linnéa looks crossly at Ida.
You shouldn’t have done that.
Ida shrugs.
So what? It solved a problem, didn’t it? There’s nobody to stand guard any more. Nothing to stop us from banging on straight ahead. Isn’t that what you usually go for?
Linnéa snorts.
Ida turns and looks at Anna-Karin, who is talking quietly to Alicja and Kerstin. They get up on shaky legs and obediently hobble along towards the main doors. Ida wonders if their brains will be totally burned out, having been controlled by two witches in succession. And, in between, being zapped by a third witch.
She looks towards the door leading to the gym. New applause is thundering down there. Ida can feel it through the floor.
Anna-Karin, Linnéa and Vanessa come to stand beside her. Anna-Karin’s eyes are shut.
‘The three top nominees are asked to come up on stage now,’ she whispers. ‘Erik, Kevin and Rickard.’
‘I hope Rickard doesn’t win,’ Vanessa murmurs. ‘Then we’ll never get at him.’
‘He won’t,’ Ida whispers. ‘Erik is Helena’s favourite.’
More thunderous applause from below.
‘We’ll fix this,’ Vanessa says.
‘Yes,’ Linnéa says. ‘Come to think of it, this is just like any other day in Engelsfors senior school. Only, people are a fraction more zombiefied than usual.’
71
It feels like coming home.
A power much greater than anything Minoo has ever known is filling her and now she is no longer afraid. Her hand rests lightly on Adriana’s forehead, where she senses the life force pulsating underneath the skull. Minoo could draw that force out of her, as she did to Max. But instead, she concentrates harder still and slides inside.
Adriana.
Minoo is with her, inside her, in her thoughts and emotions, everything that is Adriana’s self. Then Minoo observes the latest memory. She sees her own face as Adriana saw it. She is aware of Adriana’s fear, but also of her hope. She has come to believe that Minoo might save her.
Minoo lingers in that moment. She could have started to tug at that memory in order to pull out many remembered events, linked like pearls on a string. But she is suddenly aware that there are other ways.
She concentrates even harder. The first time she did this it felt like discovering a new sense. Now she realises that she has several senses she can use.
It is as if blinkers are coming off, as if walls are tumbling down. Memories are not linked into an anchor chain, steadily leading downwards, steadily deeper, through ever murkier waters. Memories are like a woven cloth. Thousands – no, many hundreds of thousands – of threads pass in and out, running above and below each other, forming patterns, associating in every direction.
And they are not static, but changeable. Slowly slowly, the memories shift, join up, merge, subdivide, distort, alter. They grow, shrink, are moved out of the way and push themselves forward. Their dynamism is hypnotic to watch.
Out of this constant shape-changing, her task is to extract certain details, cut away years from Adriana’s life.
It ought to throw her into a state of complete panic, but doesn’t. If anything, she grows interested. It feels as if everything about Minoo that is anxious, small, weak, human, can no longer affect her. It is liberating not to be afraid any longer. She is in control.
Around her, memories are pulsating slowly. She chooses a strong one. Slides into it.
Burns.
The pain is so extreme that she thinks she will die. She wishes herself dead.
And it fades, no, it is just that it hasn’t started yet, because now she has reached the moment before it will be done to her. Minoo sees Alexander’s face through Adriana’s eyes, sees him as Adriana does at the same time as she sees him as Minoo does. He is younger, but his face is recognisably as resolute, as stern. It doesn’t give away any emotion as he raises the branding iron with the sign for the fire element. It starts to glow as he holds it and moves it closer to Adriana’s bare skin.
Minoo lets go of that memory, disappears into the next one that insists on her concentrating.
A tall, imposing woman with an antique silver brooch on the lapel of her jacket. She looks like Adriana, and it is her mother. ‘I so wish I could have done more. I did try my best,’ she says sadly. Adriana doesn’t believe her. She hates her mother. She hates them all.
Minoo sees a boy in his late teens, with black, crew-cut hair. He is seated on a chair just like the one in the courtroom. No, it is the very same chair, Minoo is sure of that. And she is also sure that the boy is Simon, because Adriana loves him. Her love for him fills all of her. It is a love that will sustain her entire life. She cannot live without him. She is vaguely aware of how others look at them, but everyone else is only a shadowy presence in her mind. Simon is all she sees. He is gasping for air. His element has been turned against him. He cannot breathe. When she sees him die, something inside her dies with him.
Minoo pulls away, moves on. Back in time.
Two circles with fire as their power sign. Drawn on the stone floor in a room without any furnishings. It is high-ceilinged and its narrow windows admit a bleak light. ‘Try,’ a boy’s voice says just next to her. She turns and sees a young Alexander holding the Book of Patterns. ‘I can’t do it,’ she replies. He slams the book shut and sighs. Looks at the circles. A blue flame flares up. He gazes at her. ‘You’re useless,’ he says and leaves. She watches the blue fire. She will not give up. She is going to make them all proud of her.
Minoo follows the twisting memory threads forward in time.
A hospital bed, in a single room. Machines piping, pumping and hissing. Adriana approaches the bed and looks down at Max’s immobile face. Now she knows who he is and she curses herself for not having seen the signs, despite working together with him for almost a year. She examines the respirator, contemplates pulling the plug out. But it would mean an end to his suffering. And that, he does not deserve.
Onwards.
Adriana enters the Crystal Cave. ‘There, I knew you’d turn up sooner or later,’ Mona says and sucks on her cigarette. Adriana detests asking Mona for help, but she must find some way of telling the girls what’s what. She is prepared to pay any price.
Minoo changes direction and moves backwards.
Adriana is in her study in this house. She is turning over fragile, yellowing book pages, until she finds what she is looking for. An ancient, long-forgotten passage about how a witch can set about using her familiar to hide memories and at the same time be able to access them.
Backwards.
Nicolaus meets her walking along one of the corridors in the school. He glares disapprovingly at her and Adriana understands him. She likes him and wishes she was able to show it.
Minoo goes further back in time and comes across her own face again. She is in the passenger seat of Adriana’s car. Adriana has opened her Thermos and is pouring tea into a mug. ‘Drink some of this,’ she says. ‘Is it … magical?’ Minoo asks. ‘It’s Earl Grey,’ Adriana says. She is feeling guilty. Frustrated. She wishes it was possible for her to do more for the Chosen Ones. But the Council will not let her intervene. It orders her to wait.
Still further back.
Adriana sees the blood on the tarmac. Rebecka’s body has just been removed. If only she had run after the girl.
Backwards.
Rebecka is in her office, sitting opposite her. Rebecka’s eyes are tightly shut and Adriana tries to understand what is going on inside her head. ‘We’d better start at the beginning,’ she says. Rebecka opens her eyes. ‘Rebecka, what did you think this meeting was about?’ Adriana says. The girl gets up from the armchair. ‘Excuse me, I have to go,’ she says and runs away.
Backwards.
Strange memories. At night, a deep dark forest seen from above. It takes a moment or two before Minoo understands that this is something Adriana has seen through the eyes of her raven. It descends to fly at tree height, turning this way and that to avoid the treetops, zooms so fast that Minoo can’t pick out any details. It suddenly lands in a pine. Hears a voice. Nicolaus is speaking. ‘Welcome, O Chosen One, you who have come to this sacred place on the night of the blood-red moon. Behold! The prophecy has been fulfilled!’ The raven flies closer and, once more, Minoo sees herself, looking so small in her pyjamas and sounding so helpless when she says: ‘Excuse me?’
Backwards.
Adriana is spreading out all the lists of first-year pupils due to begin that autumn. Just on an impulse. She doesn’t think this will work. But she lifts the pendulum and moves her hand over the pages, leafing through the sheets of paper. Suddenly, the pendulum starts swinging over one of the class lists. She stares at it. In the next moment, her hand is pulled down. The pendulum has come to rest on a name. Elias Malmgren.
Backwards.
Adriana places the lamp with the dragonfly shade on the desk in her school office, plugs it in. She is feeling curiously full of expectation. Until now, she has not dared to believe that she was right all along. But now it feels as though something is about to happen in the godforsaken dump. Something that will change her. Set her free.
Minoo retreats.
She knows that here is where she must begin.
She has them in front of her now.
Shimmering, glowing threads. She links them, welds them together. She cannot tear the memories out of Adriana without damaging her, but she can construct new routes, weave new lines of thought that pass by all that is forbidden.
The black smoke wells out and closes in around Minoo, who feels the magic of the guardians operating through her; together they are burying the dangerous memories deep in Adriana’s subconscious, where neither she nor any of the interrogators can get at them.
