The Key (41 page)

‘Where is the portal?’ she asks.

‘Sorry, I thought it was obvious,’ Walter says. ‘In the senior school.’

Of course, Minoo thinks. It
is
obvious. No wonder Max and Olivia were stronger there than anywhere else. They could connect directly to the demons.

The school
is
the site of evil. And Anna-Karin, Linnéa and Vanessa go to that school every day.

‘How will the elemental signs manifest themselves?’ Minoo asks.

‘We don’t know.’

‘But ought we not … it seems to me … it mightn’t be safe to keep the school open.’

‘I realise that you’re worrying about your friends, Minoo,’ Walter says. ‘It’s very commendable. If this had been an operation officially sanctioned by the Council, we might have pulled something off. As matters stand at present, that route isn’t open to us. But I’m sure your friends are quite capable of looking after themselves.’

But what about the others? Minoo thinks. People without magic powers?

But she doesn’t say it.

‘Do you know where in the school the portal is?’ Viktor asks.

‘We aren’t sure about the exact place,’ Walter replies. ‘And we can’t just root around in the attic looking for it. The portal won’t become accessible until all six portents have shown themselves and the darkness is falling in Engelsfors.’

He looks at his watch. Minoo reckons it would cost an average citizen’s annual wage.

‘That’s it for today,’ he says. ‘See you tomorrow at nine o’clock.’

He walks out into the garden and Nejla, Felix and Sigrid follow him like a tail.

‘See you tomorrow, Minoo.’ Sigrid waves before walking away out of sight.

Viktor puts his hand on Minoo’s arm.

‘Wait a moment,’ he says quietly.

Minoo stays and listens as the voices of the others become more distant.

‘How do you feel now?’ Viktor asks. ‘You were so nervous earlier.’

‘No problem,’ Minoo says. ‘As soon as I saw a sign of the apocalypse, I felt right at home.’

Viktor looks baffled for a moment, then laughs. For once, she has managed to be funny when she tried to be.

‘You must ask if there’s anything you’re unsure about,’ he says. ‘The Council has so many established ideas about things which we probably don’t even realise could look eccentric to an outsider.’

Minoo nods. She catches sight of Clara, who has gone up to the inner circle where the blue sky is reflected on the surface of the water.

‘Take this.’ Viktor pulls a key from his jacket pocket. ‘Walter told me to give it to you, so you can come and go as you like here.’

‘Do you all live here?’

‘Yes,’ Viktor says, rolling his eyes. ‘It’s like being back at school again.’

Clara kneels and holds her hand out over the pool of water. Her hair is blown about as if in a breeze and the water begins to swirl. Then she takes her hand away and all becomes still again.

‘Everything seems so much more tangible now,’ Clara says. ‘Do we truly have a chance of closing the portal?’

‘It’s been done successfully six times before,’ Minoo tells her.

‘But each time it was done by a Chosen One,’ Clara replies, staring at the water as if hypnotised. ‘Not by some last-minute emergency circle.’

‘The guardians tell us that there is hope,’ Minoo says.

But Clara doesn’t seem to be listening. She is resting her head in her hands. Viktor is watching his twin sister intently.

Minoo has no idea what is passing between them.

‘I must go,’ she says.

‘I’ll walk you to the front door,’ Viktor says.

They leave the garden in silence. Viktor looks grim. Minoo wonders if he is deep in thought, or if he’s still talking with Clara in his head. How far does their mind-reading connection stretch? she wonders.

‘How is Clara now?’ she asks as they cross the ballroom.

‘She isn’t well.’ Viktor’s voice echoes in the large, empty room.

‘No one would be, after what we just saw happening to the sun.’

Viktor doesn’t reply, just holds a door open for her.

‘Or, is it something else?’ Minoo adds, although she has a strong feeling she shouldn’t ask anything more.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

She shuts up, feeling as if she’s been told off. Instead, she tries to concentrate on memorising the layout of the house. But since Viktor takes a different route to the one Clara did earlier, she becomes more confused than ever.

They enter a corridor with a carpet the colour of oxblood and dark-red wallpaper. The walls are hung with gloomy portraits in oil. The subjects look familiar, and Minoo realises that it’s because so many of them look like Alexander and Adriana. She has seen these portraits before. In Adriana’s old house.

Viktor stops and turns to her.

‘I’m sorry. That was rude of me.’

A strand of his ash-blond hair has slipped down on his forehead and he puts it carefully back in place.

‘This thing with Clara is so complicated,’ he says quietly. ‘People have always known that I had a twin sister, but they always thought she must have gone to a different school. I’ve never answered questions about her. Just talking about her makes me feel like a traitor.’

He looks at Minoo. It feels as if the portrait behind him is staring at her too. It shows a man with blond hair and clever, gentle eyes. A small golden plaque informs her that he is Baron Henrik Ehrenskiöld.

‘I do worry about Clara,’ Viktor goes on. ‘I know she is an adult who makes her own decisions, but I have an awful feeling that all this might be too much for her.’

He looks over his shoulder and lowers his voice a little more.

‘I have trained in the Council’s schools and know my way around this world. But Clara has stayed with Alexander all the time. She has been sheltered and alone a lot of the time. She isn’t used to having people around her. She has no … armour. You noticed how the others reacted to what we have just seen, right?’

Minoo tries to understand what he is getting at.

‘They didn’t react much at all, I would’ve said.’

‘Exactly,’ Viktor says. ‘They saw a portent foretelling the end of the world and nobody showed any fear. Not openly, anyway. They know that the Council has nothing but contempt for weakness. They …’

He stops. He has caught sight of something behind Minoo. She turns and just has time to see Adriana go through a door further along the corridor. Then, the sound of a key turning in a lock.

The Council has nothing but contempt for weakness
.

Adriana once said something like that.

Minoo realises that she wasn’t surprised by the others’ lack of response. She had assumed that they actually felt as shaken as she did but that keeping a calm face came naturally to them. As it did to her. This thing about not being seen to be weak was clearly deep-rooted in her as well.

* * *

Vanessa stands in the schoolyard together with Linnéa and Anna-Karin. They are looking at the pupils pouring out through the front door. Tommy has announced a half-day and added that anyone who looked at the sun during the eclipse must go straight to hospital for a check-up.

Vanessa has no idea what all this has been about. Still, she has a strong feeling that the horror is stepping up.

Her mobile pings at the same time as Linnéa’s and Anna-Karin’s. Minoo is finished with the manor house for today and wants to meet them in Nicolaus’s flat now.

‘You go ahead,’ Vanessa says. ‘I’ll pop round to Mona’s and ask her if she has an angle on the eclipse story.’

‘Do you really think she’ll have something useful to add?’ Linnéa asks.

‘Maybe. And maybe not. But I know how these sessions usually end. Like, “Vanessa, why don’t you ask Mona?” Seems just as well to get it out of the way.’

She gives Linnéa a quick kiss and hurries off to the City Mall.

The smell of incense is so strong it reaches her the moment the automatic doors slide open. The ceiling lights are flickering. Leffe, who owns Leffe’s kiosk, is coming out from Sture & Co. He stops to shake hands with Sture, who has followed him to the door. Under one arm, Leffe holds a big bundle of cigarette cartons with the warning notices in Cyrillic script. Vanessa looks the other way, just as she used to when the punters came to Jonte’s house.

The Crystal Cave is completely dark and there is a notice on the front door.

CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY

When Vanessa was working at the shop yesterday, Mona hadn’t said a thing about going away. But it’s typical of Mona to disappear without warning, so she’s not worried, just irritated.

Linnéa looks at Minoo, who sits on one of the wooden chairs in Nicolaus’s sitting room and drinks in deep swallows from her glass of water. She has told them about the other circle in great detail and answered every question. Linnéa asked most of them.

The air is stale but they don’t dare open the windows in case some passer-by hears their conversation. The Venetian blinds are closed.

Linnéa is twitching with irritation. She would like to see all these characters for herself, so she can inspect the new players. The only one Linnéa has a clear opinion of is Walter. Even though she has never met him, she hates him passionately. Especially when she can see how impressed Minoo is by him.

‘Seems to me this stuff about how to close the portal is pretty fucking vague.’ Vanessa chomps on her chewing gum. ‘Like, you know, “Generate a high output of magic energy”. What does it mean?’

Linnéa glances at her and almost forgets to be annoyed with Minoo. During the summer, Vanessa has become deeply tanned, and with her blonde hair and light pink lip gloss she almost looks like a
ganguro
girl. A very, very hot
ganguro
girl, which is confusing because Linnéa has never cared for that look.

Minoo puts the glass down and wipes her mouth. ‘We do know at least that there’s a point in practising our magic and working up our powers.’

Linnéa wonders if Minoo is talking about the Council’s circle or the Chosen Ones.

‘It is so totally obvious that the portal had to be in the school,’ Vanessa says.

‘I never thought of the portal as a physical place,’ Minoo says evenly, as if she was thinking aloud. ‘I guess I just thought that all of Engelsfors was the portal.’

‘You know, Minoo, I can’t get my head round you dropping out of school.’ Vanessa takes her gum out and drops it into Minoo’s empty glass.

‘I can’t either,’ Anna-Karin says.

She seems sad, and Linnéa realises that Anna-Karin will be very much alone without Minoo in her class.

‘I’ll just take a sabbatical year, not drop out,’ Minoo says. ‘But I don’t know how I’ll explain it to my parents. Maybe I won’t say anything at all.’

‘They’ll hear about it anyway,’ Vanessa tells her. ‘The best pupil drops out of school in her final year. The daughter of the editor-in-chief and his doctor wife. Pupils from the posh end of town don’t usually do that. You must realise what a juicy piece of gossip this is!’

Minoo blushes. ‘I’m not the best,’ she mumbles, but Linnéa feels sure she only protests because she feels it’s the right thing to do.

‘Yes, you are,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘And you must brief me about what to say to your parents if you do walk out of school, or I’ll end up saying something wrong.’

Linnéa looks at Minoo’s unhappy face and feels her irritation rising again. So, it’s tough for Minoo. She can see that. But the reason Minoo has a hard time is because everyone expects her to be the best at whatever she does. For Linnéa, it’s the other way round. Everyone, including herself, expects her to fuck up.

It would be great to be able to say fuck it, drop out of school and not worry about the social and the maintenance grant and being homeless.

What will happen to Minoo if she takes a year out? Her parents would
worry
about her. Maybe even get
rather cross
. Perhaps even cut down on her
weekly allowance
. Big fucking deal.

‘I don’t know what I can tell them,’ Minoo says. ‘I have to find an excuse that works but doesn’t worry them.’

‘Perhaps not the worst problem we’ve got just now, wouldn’t you say?’ Linnéa remarks.

‘Hey, easy,’ Vanessa says.

‘I just don’t get why we have to keep fucking going on about it,’ Linnéa goes on. ‘Have we finished now?’

‘Not quite.’ Minoo looks uncomfortable. ‘Alexander wanted a word with me. He is going to be in court during the hearing. And if any one of us uses magic to affect the conduct of the case, he’s going to kill us.’

Panic grips Linnéa by the throat. She makes herself take a deep breath.

‘
Us?
’ she says. ‘He’ll hardly be planning to kill
you
, will he? Because his boss isn’t going to like that, is he? Lucky you, Minoo. You’re friends with such high-ups these days.’

Minoo opens her mouth to say something, but she shuts it again.

Linnéa turns to Anna-Karin. ‘I told you. It’s far too dangerous. You mustn’t do anything.’

Anna-Karin looks shocked.

‘Linnéa’s solicitor says that everything points to Erik being convicted, even if he doesn’t confess,’ Vanessa says. ‘So …’

She stops abruptly at the sound of a key turning in the front door. Linnéa fixes her gaze on Minoo as the door opens.

Where is the silver cross?
she thinks.

In my house
, Minoo thinks, and looks at Linnéa with terrified eyes.
I am so sorry. I should have brought
…

The door is shut. Shoes are cleaned on the mat. If it is the Council’s reps, they are at least polite.

All four sit frozen in their seats as Nicolaus comes into the room.

Linnéa stares at Nicolaus, framed in the doorway. She hardly recognises him. His hair has become even greyer and yet he looks younger than he did. His hair is smartly cut, his tasteful and discreet clothes actually fit him. No more eye-watering colour combos. No scruffiness at all – not even a wrinkle.

Nothing about him gives a clue as to his feelings. But they are so overwhelming that Linnéa senses all of them. Amazement. Relief. Joy. Love. Concern. Nicolaus fears what they might say to him. How they will react. He remembers the last time he saw them a year ago, on the night when they had dug up the grave.