The Circle (40 page)

She sees Jari coming down the stairs and goes to meet him.

‘Is anything wrong?’ he asks anxiously.

‘I want to go home with you,’ she says.

The last few air bubbles escape from the corner of Minoo’s mouth and rise towards the surface of the water. Her chest cramps. She struggles against the black cloud, which wants to open her mouth and let her lungs draw in water.

There’s a buzzing in her ears, which rises and falls with her heartbeat. Water is trickling into her nose and down into her throat.

No!

Suddenly the iron grip on her body relaxes.

I can’t do it
…

And the black cloud, which has been swirling around her, is gone.

I won’t do it. I won’t listen to you
.

Minoo’s arms fly out of the water into the air. Adrenalin is surging through her, giving her the strength she needs. Her arms fling themselves over the edge of the bath and she heaves herself into a sitting position.

Water pours over the sides of the bath, spilling loudly on to the floor. She splutters and coughs until she gags, and then, at long last, she can draw air into her lungs. A little
water
comes with it and she coughs, again violently. This time she’s close to vomiting.

Minoo stands up on shaky legs and almost falls in the bath. Supporting herself on the sink, she climbs out and has to sit on the toilet. Water runs from her hair and from her pyjamas. She breathes heavily and a big pool of water forms on the tiles at her feet. She doesn’t dare believe it’s over.

She jumps as a sudden pounding on the door. Someone pulls at the handle. ‘Minoo!’ her mother cries.

The relief is so powerful that she starts to cry. She wants to unlock the door and throw herself into her mother’s arms. But how would she explain her drenched pyjamas?

‘What’s going on in there?’ her mother calls, and beats on the door again.

Minoo takes a few deep breaths. ‘It’s all right. I fell asleep in the bath,’ she calls back. Her voice is hoarse and cracked. She barely recognises it when it echoes from the tiles.

‘Good Lord, Minoo! I told you, didn’t I!’

Minoo rests her forehead in her hands. Her whole body is shaking.

‘I’m sorry,’ her mother says, in a softer voice. ‘I just got so frightened. Would you like me to come in?’

Minoo forces a smile in the hope that it’ll make her sound normal. ‘It’s okay. I’m just going to clear up in here,’ she says.

She takes off her pyjamas, which land heavily on the floor with a smack. She hesitates before she dares to put her hand into the water and pull out the plug.

*

Anna-Karin sits down on the unmade bed. She’s still wearing her bright pink dress. Her hair flows out over the pillow when she lies down. She closes her eyes to stop the room spinning, but feels worse.

She’s sobered up a little during the long walk through the forest and now she’s very nervous. ‘What if your parents wake up?’ she whispers.

‘They won’t. Their room is on the other side of the house.’

Jari pulls off his shirt. He’s not wearing a vest underneath. His skin is pale, smooth and taut over his muscles. Anna-Karin hardly dares look but can’t stop herself. He unzips his jeans and bends down to pull them off, his face hidden beneath his long dark hair.

Then he’s in a pair of black boxer shorts that are so tight she can see the contours of what lies underneath. He moves towards the bed, still wearing his socks. For some reason she focuses her panic on them.

Take them off! Take them off!

He stops short and yanks off his socks as if they’re on fire. Then he smiles apologetically at her and crawls into bed. They lie beside each other for a moment as he plays with a wisp of her hair. His knee slides up her legs as he moves closer. He kisses her probingly as he reaches for the hem of her dress and pulls it up towards her hips.

You and I both know he’d never do it voluntarily
.

Anna-Karin stops him. She lays a hand on his cheek, and looks deep into his eyes, trying to read his lustful, slightly
glazed
expression. Does he really want to be here? Does he really want to do this?

She takes a deep breath and holds his eyes. Then she switches off, cuts the power flowing out of her.

At first nothing happens. He looks at her with a patient but confused smile.

Then something changes in his eyes. It’s as if a film is lifted. A spark is suddenly reignited.

Jari looks away, scratches his arm distractedly. Looks at her again. And really
sees
her.

She knows that look. She’s seen it before.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

The room starts to spin again, as if she’s falling backwards in endless slow motion. A powerful twinge of nausea surges through her, like a convulsion. It can’t be ignored.

She leaps out of bed and tears open the door. The force of the bile builds in the pit of her stomach. Anna-Karin looks around the darkened hallway in panic. Lots of doors.

And here it comes, erupting into her mouth with the speed of a cannonball. She bolts into the corridor, keeps everything inside her mouth by clenching her teeth. Some shoots up her nose and that alone is so disgusting that she’s certain more will come at any moment. Her stomach groans, and she sees the little heart nailed on one of the doors. She yanks desperately at the handle. But the toilet door is locked.

Someone’s in there.

Anna-Karin drops to her knees. Vomit spurts from her mouth, dripping out of her nose. Her whole body shudders,
as
her stomach sends fresh streams splashing over the floor and walls. It sounds like someone emptying a bucket of water.

It’s over in a few seconds. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, can’t bear to look at what she’s left behind.

‘Jari?’ a woman calls, from inside the toilet.

Anna-Karin’s head feels so heavy that she just wants to lie down and close her eyes, but she stands up and runs back to Jari’s room. They almost crash into each other in the doorway.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he asks.

At the other end of the corridor, someone, undoubtedly Jari’s mother, flushes the toilet. Anna-Karin looks at Jari one last time. His eyes reflect disgust and disbelief.

She runs.

She runs towards the front door that she and Jari snuck through just fifteen minutes ago. Her sweaty fingertips can barely get a grip on the knob, but then the door flies open. She’s hit by a blast of cold air and remembers her jacket, grabbing it from the coat rack on her way out.

Behind her she hears the female voice curse with revulsion, and realises that the woman has probably just stepped into her pool of vomit.

Anna-Karin might have been able to put everything right, control Jari and his mother and make them forget everything, but she hates herself too much. Disgusting, stupid Anna-Karin – see what happens when you try to get things you don’t deserve.

Anna-Karin runs like she’s never run before. She becomes
one
with the wind. She shoots across the front garden, into the forest. Her head throbs and her stomach aches, but still she runs on, and on, and on.

41

IT’S COLD IN
the principal’s car. Minoo had texted her as soon as she’d got back into her room and they’d agreed to meet here, on a dirt track in the forest a few kilometres from Minoo’s home.

‘Take it from the beginning,’ Adriana Lopez says.

A milky-white layer of condensation forms on the inside of the windows as Minoo recounts what happened in as much detail as she can. But, for some reason she can’t explain, she leaves out the black smoke. Somehow she can’t make herself mention it, almost as if there’s something forbidden or shameful about it.

When she’s finished, the principal takes out a blue Thermos and two plastic mugs from the glove compartment. She pours hot liquid into the mugs. ‘Drink some of this,’ she says, and hands one to Minoo.

‘Is it … magical?’

Adriana smiles. ‘It’s Earl Grey.’

She sips cautiously and Minoo follows suit. The honey-sweetened tea burns the tip of her tongue.

‘I really don’t like these forests,’ the principal says thoughtfully. She leans over the steering wheel and peers
out
of the windscreen. ‘Tell me again what the voice said just before it let you go. Try to remember exactly.’

Minoo does her best, but the night’s events are already melting together into a single mass. It’s hard to pin down facts when the thing she remembers most vividly is panic.

‘It said, “No”, all of a sudden. Then it said, “I can’t do it, I won’t do it. I won’t listen to you.”’

Adriana nods. It’s snowing. Big fluffy flakes land gently on the windscreen, sticking together. ‘Do you think the voice was saying that to you or to someone else?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘’I won’t listen to you.’ Doesn’t it seem strange that the voice would be saying that to
you
?’

Minoo tries to collect her thoughts. ‘You mean that maybe there were two of them? That they were talking to each other?’

‘Two or more,’ Adriana says grimly.

Minoo’s stomach roils. Could several wills have fought over her tonight? What if the other wins next time?

‘Are you sure you’ve told me everything now? Every detail may be important.’

Minoo concentrates on the snowflakes. ‘Yes,’ she says.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I don’t know. All I can think about is Rebecka. And Elias. Now I know how scared they must have been and how they must have struggled. And the voice that felt it had the right to decide whether we lived or not, that said everything was meaningless … It makes me so angry now.’

The principal nods gravely. ‘If something had happened
to
you tonight, I would never have been able to forgive myself. I know you’re all disappointed in me, but I’m just following the Council’s orders.’

Minoo realises that was almost an apology. ‘You mean the Council’s wrong?’

‘No,’ the principal responds emphatically. ‘Absolutely not. I just wish I could do more for you. I know you think I’m some kind of ice queen …’ she pauses ‘… but I care about all of you. I care about you, Minoo. The last thing I want is for anything to happen to you. What happened to Elias and Rebecka torments me more than I can say.’

So there
is
a human being beneath the principal’s cool exterior.

‘You have to promise me to be careful and not take any action on your own,’ she continues. ‘I know it’s difficult, but we have to trust the Council’s judgement. And study the
Book of Patterns
.’

It’s the first time the principal has said ‘we’ without meaning herself and the Council.

‘I promise,’ Minoo says, and empties her mug before setting it in one of the cup-holders between the seats. ‘I should go home now.’

‘Shall I drive you?’

Minoo shakes her head. ‘It’s okay,’ she says, and climbs out of the car.

‘Remember what I said,’ Adriana urges, before Minoo shuts the door.

Minoo nods obediently to her through the side window and waves.

Once the principal’s car has disappeared around the corner, Minoo takes out her mobile and calls Nicolaus. After a few minutes they decide what has to be done. Everything that the principal said has confirmed what they already suspected. They can’t wait for her and the Council any more. They have to take charge of their own lives. While they still have them.

42

RUBBER SOLES SQUEAKING
on the floor, angry shouts and cheers, muffled thuds when a boot connects with a ball. The school’s gym feels completely different when Engelsfors Soccer Club practises there. It’s filled with another kind of energy, more focused, but the smells are the same. Sweat, rubber and stale air.

Vanessa is sitting invisibly in the stands, trying to take an interest in the practice game to make the time pass more quickly. She’s not succeeding. She’s never understood how anyone can be bothered to do something so meaningless as chase after a ball, much less watch other people doing it. There’s at least a billion things she’d rather do than follow Gustaf.

If Gustaf is a serial killer in league with demons, he’s doing a very good job of hiding it. Vanessa wonders if she’s thrown away half her Christmas break for nothing.

Kevin Månsson’s burly father is the coach, and now he blows the whistle. Vanessa looks at the big clock hanging above the wall bars. At last. The guys on the pitch gather in a group, exchange the obligatory backslaps, drink water from plastic bottles, pretend-wrestle and howl. Vanessa sighs
impatiently
. It’s at moments like these that she remembers why she could never be with a guy her own age.

She tiptoes down from the stands and attaches herself to the boisterous band. She’s learned not to wear scent or wash her hair before she tails Gustaf. She made that mistake the first time she attended a practice game. Kevin Månsson had started shouting that someone smelt like a poof and began sniffing around, like a bloodhound on speed, to find the culprit.