The Circle (53 page)

‘Is it the play?’

Anna-Karin has no idea what he’s talking about. She opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water. That’s how she feels in this house.

‘Minoo said something about how you rehearse on Saturdays.’

‘That’s right,’ Anna-Karin answers. She was within a hair’s breadth of ruining Minoo’s alibi for their meetings at the fairground. ‘But today we’re going to do some chemistry,’ she says, and hopes that Minoo’s father won’t ask any more questions.

Finally she hears footsteps on the stairs and Minoo appears in the doorway. Her black hair is in a ponytail and her eyes are still a little puffy from sleep.

‘Hi,’ she says, without managing to hide her surprise.

‘Shall we get started on the chemistry?’ Anna-Karin asks.

Minoo catches on. ‘Of course. Let’s go up to my room.’

Anna-Karin notices how easily Minoo moves through the house, as if there’s nothing special about being surrounded by nice things.

They walk down a long landing. She glances into a
bathroom
with an old map of Engelsfors on the wall. The deep bath has lion’s feet. That was where Minoo was attacked.

Minoo takes Anna-Karin into her room and shuts the door.

The wallpaper is striped yellow and white and brings out the warm tones of the lacquered wooden floor. A red counterpane has been thrown rather sloppily across the bed, and a large art book lies on Minoo’s bedside table. The books on the shelf are neatly lined up, no doubt in alphabetical order.

The chaos in Minoo’s room is concentrated on the desk in front of the window. It’s overflowing with textbooks and notebooks, which threaten to engulf the closed laptop.

‘So it wasn’t Gustaf,’ Anna-Karin says.

‘Not the real one,’ Minoo says. ‘I mean … he doesn’t know he has an evil doppelganger.’

Anna-Karin goes to the bed and sits down. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t Gustaf,’ she says. ‘Even if that means we still don’t know who did it.’

Minoo sits down next to her. Waits.

Anna-Karin doesn’t know where to begin. Eventually she takes a deep breath and starts with what she feels is most important. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry I just disappeared.’ She glances at Minoo, her dark eyes gaze at her intently.

Anna-Karin has always been a little afraid of Minoo. She often seems so intense, almost angry. When Minoo is impatient, when she thinks you’re being stupid or childish
or
doing something wrong, you can feel it in your whole body. And then that laser stare.

‘You know the accident when the barn burned down,’ Anna-Karin begins. ‘It wasn’t an accident.’ She doesn’t tell her everything, as she did Nicolaus. She starts with the fire, but leaves out Jari and her mother. It’s still difficult to own up, especially to the fact that at first she didn’t resist, that she almost welcomed her death.

When she gets to the bit with Grandpa she starts to cry. She wipes away the tears with the back of her hand. She doesn’t want Minoo to think she’s trying to gain sympathy.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Minoo asks.

She’s angry. Just as Anna-Karin thought. Her courage falters. ‘I was ashamed. I shouldn’t have gone into the barn alone.’

‘When you resisted … did you see anything?’ Minoo asks.

Anna-Karin is unsure what she means. ‘I didn’t see whoever did it,’ she says.

‘No, but did you see anything else? Something in the air, maybe?’

‘No. Why?’

Minoo shakes her head. ‘Forget it,’ she says. She doesn’t look angry any more.

Anna-Karin is so relieved that she starts crying again. Maybe there’s hope that they’ll forgive her. ‘If only I hadn’t used my powers at school. Everyone told me not to,’ she chokes out.

Minoo furrows her brow. ‘What does that have to do with the attack?’

‘Whoever attacked me must have noticed I was using magic, like you warned me might happen. It fits with what we know about protective magic, too. Nicolaus told me about it. If you’re the one who’s visible now, I must still be protected. But maybe the one who attacked me realised I was Chosen anyway—’ Anna-Karin breaks off. Catches her breath. ‘I’ve been thinking about something,’ she says. ‘The one who’s trying to kill us is the same element as me. An earth witch. Maybe that’s why I could put up such resistance. And maybe that’s why he hasn’t tried again. Because I was too strong.’

‘The voice,’ Minoo muses. ‘Is that how
you
get people to do what you want?’

Anna-Karin flushes. ‘More or less. Although I’ve never taken over someone’s body like that.’

Minoo nods slowly. ‘Do you think you could make a person think they saw someone who wasn’t there?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Anna-Karin answers. ‘Maybe. I’ve never tried.’

‘If an earth witch can do that, it might explain why Rebecka saw Gustaf on the roof. If Gustaf was an illusion, and someone else was actually there … But that doesn’t make sense …’ She looks straight at Anna-Karin. ‘Are you sure the fire was caused by magic?’

‘It started so suddenly and came from several different directions at the same time. And then I had this feeling …’

‘But earth witches shouldn’t be able to perform fire magic.’

‘No,’ Anna-Karin answers.

Minoo’s expression is blank, yet intently focused. ‘But Rebecka could,’ she says, almost to herself. ‘And she would have been able to get the barn door to slam shut again.’

‘Rebecka?’

Minoo opens the drawer of her bedside table. She pulls out the notepad she always seems to have with her and flips through it. ‘When you and Ida experienced Rebecka’s death, you said something happened just before she died. As if she was incinerated from within.’

Anna-Karin nods. It’s not a memory she enjoys revisiting.

‘What if the murderer took her power?’ Minoo continues.

‘Yes,’ Anna-Karin says breathlessly. ‘It was as if he took everything that was her.’

‘Her soul?’

Anna-Karin nods again. She doesn’t know if she believes in souls, but that’s the best word to describe it.

Minoo is absorbed in her notes. Anna-Karin doesn’t want to disturb her. She looks around the room. Fingers the red bedspread. Notices the big book on the bedside table again. The front cover shows a painting of a couple who are about to kiss. Anna-Karin wipes her hands on her jeans before she dares touch it.

The book is heavy. It falls open automatically to a page in the middle, as if Minoo often looks at it. There are a few books like that in Anna-Karin’s house, too. Thick paperback novels about people from the Stone Age that always open
where
they’re having sex with each other on animal skins in caves.

Anna-Karin looks at the image printed on the thick, glossy paper: a portrait of a dark-haired woman in a blue dress. She’s holding a pomegranate in one hand and looks sad. She’s somehow familiar too.

‘I think I get it now,’ Minoo says.

Anna-Karin looks up.

Minoo lowers the notepad. ‘If the murderer is an earth witch, he may have used his power to force Elias to commit suicide. When Elias died, he took his power, too. The principal said that wood witches can “shape and control different kinds of living material”. That might mean that wood witches can change their appearance, like a magic disguise.’

‘So after Elias was murdered … the killer could make himself look like anyone?’

‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Minoo says, ‘but he could at least have looked like Gustaf.’

‘And then he got Rebecka’s powers …’

‘Telekinesis and fire. Those were the powers he used in the barn.’

Minoo gets up and starts pacing back and forth. She reminds Anna-Karin of the principal.

‘We have to sum up what we know,’ Minoo says. She lets down her hair and slides the rubber band on to her wrist. ‘The murderer is an earth witch. When he kills us, he can take our souls and our magic. Now he has wood and fire. He didn’t manage to kill you or me. Why not?’

‘Because I’m an earth witch,’ Anna-Karin suggests again, ‘and maybe because he’s weaker outside the school.’

Minoo stops and gives her an appreciative look. ‘Just what I was thinking. The school is an evil place, and all that.’

‘But why did he let you live?’

‘Because he discovered that I don’t have any power?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘You’re still a Chosen One.’

That vacant yet intently focused look has returned to Minoo’s face.

She’s standing in half-profile towards Anna-Karin and the light from the window illuminates her cascading hair.

Anna-Karin looks at the woman in the blue dress. And then at Minoo. ‘Speaking of doppelgangers,’ she says, ‘the woman in this painting is a total carbon copy of you.’

She holds up the image to Minoo.

‘She is not,’ Minoo says.

‘Yes, she is,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘Maybe not if you make an exact comparison of every feature, but taken as a whole, she looks a lot like you.’

Minoo stares at the painting as if it’s a Chinese poem Anna-Karin is asking her to recite. ‘But she’s beautiful,’ she says.

Anna-Karin lowers the book. Minoo doesn’t say it in the way Julia and Felicia would have, as if she’s fishing for a compliment. She means it.

‘So are you,’ Anna-Karin says.

Minoo snorts. ‘You don’t have to lie,’ she says.

‘I’m not.’

Minoo looks annoyed.

‘First, I’m a massive pizza-face, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’ve got spots too.’ Anna-Karin says.

‘Not as many as me.’

Now it’s Anna-Karin’s turn to get annoyed. ‘Maybe not exactly as many but some people have a lot more. And you’re pretty. You could be her reincarnation.’ Anna-Karin points at the image with an index finger.

All the colour leaves Minoo’s face. She looks as if she’s about to faint.

‘Are you all right?’ Anna-Karin asks. Now she feels stupid. It was a ridiculous thing to argue about –whether or not Minoo is beautiful.

‘I don’t feel too good,’ Minoo mumbles. ‘I’m sorry, I have to lie down again. Thanks for telling me.’

Anna-Karin closes the book and gets up. Minoo tries to smile at her. ‘I’ll set off home,’ Anna-Karin says. She remains standing there for a moment, but when Minoo doesn’t say any more, Anna-Karin pats her shoulder a little awkwardly and tells her to get better soon.

When she comes downstairs, Minoo’s father is in the kitchen reading a newspaper. He doesn’t look up and Anna-Karin doesn’t say anything. She puts on her coat and sneaks out of the front door as quietly as Pepper.

53

MINOO HAS A
free period. She climbs to the top floor of the school and follows the corridor leading to the attic door. The toilets up here have just been reopened. The graffiti-covered door was replaced during the Christmas break but is already filling with new messages. Some are dedicated to Elias and Rebecka, but a few are about other people, other lives.

Minoo presses down the handle and enters. For a school toilet it’s almost unnaturally clean. Even if people write things on the door, they rarely go in. Something keeps them away.

The white tiles gleam around Minoo. She’s back where it all began.

She walks up to the cubicle in which Elias died. Of course there are no traces. What had she expected?

Minoo looks at the sinks. The mirrors have been removed. Maybe they were afraid that someone might feel the urge to copy Elias.

But Minoo is happy she can’t see her reflection. She’s studied it far too often for far too long, and always hated what she saw.

When Anna-Karin said she looked like the beautiful
woman
in the painting, she couldn’t believe it at first. But when Anna-Karin used the word ‘reincarnation’ all the pieces fell into place.

You have to wake up now
.

You have to find the courage to see yourself as others see you
.

‘Reincarnation’. That was the word Max used.

I love you, Minoo. I’ve loved you since the first day I set eyes on you
.

That hadn’t been the first time he’d seen her.

Minoo looks like the woman in the painting. The woman in the painting looks like Alice. His greatest love. That was why he couldn’t kill Minoo. It would be like seeing Alice die all over again.

I won’t do it. I won’t listen to you!

Max is the murderer. He killed Elias. He killed Rebecka. He tried to kill Minoo and Anna-Karin.

It makes sense, yet she still can’t believe it.

She takes the little brown bottle from the pocket of her cardigan.

She has to know for sure.

‘If you’re going to move home there will have to be some rules.’

Vanessa and her mother are the only customers at Monique’s. It was Vanessa’s suggestion that they meet here, on neutral territory. Now she’s regretting it. She wishes they were in a place where she could scream uninhibitedly at her mother. Slam a door or two, maybe.