The Key (55 page)

In front of her, she sees Linnéa, Rickard and Nicolaus lined up. All three are wearing padded anoraks and are shining their torches straight through Ida. Reflected light dances over the cave walls and illuminates their faces, glinting in Rickard’s glasses.

Ida looks over her shoulder.

A subterranean lake. The surface of the water glitters in the light from the torches.

A rustle from an anorak as its owner moves. It’s Rickard, who is walking to the water’s edge. One of the arms of his glasses has been taped together. Ida wonders if he has hit his head while exploring.

He shines the torch on the water’s surface.

‘I can’t even see the bottom. We’ll have to turn back.’

His voice bounces between the walls.

Linnéa joins him.

‘Move over,’ she says.

Rickard backs away. Linnéa goes down on her haunches, puts her torch and her gloves away and closes her eyes. Then she reaches out to the water so that her fingertips are just a few millimetres above the surface, nearly touching it.

A crackling, creaking noise echoes though the cave. A film of ice forms on the water under Linnéa’s fingertips and then spreads across the lake. The surface hardens and turns milky white.

Linnéa pulls her gloves on and gets up.

‘Wow,’ Rickard says quietly.

Linnéa takes a step forward.

‘Linnéa …’ Nicolaus begins.

But Linnéa has already placed one foot on the ice and now she steps out on it with both feet. Ida hardly dares to look.

‘We don’t know if the ice will hold,’ Nicolaus warns her.

‘We’re about to find out,’ Linnéa responds.

She takes few more steps. Stops, and suddenly sways, as if she feels dizzy. Then she goes down on her knees.

Rickard and Nicolaus rush out on the ice to help her.

‘I’m fine.’ Linnéa pushes their hands away. ‘I was just overdoing it a bit. Have you noticed how sodding tired you get down here?’

‘Yes,’ Rickard says, frowning. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

‘So do I,’ Nicolaus agrees. He directs the light out over the frozen lake. ‘There’s something odd about these tunnels …’

His voice is cut off. Ida is no longer in the cave. She stands in a red corridor in front of a portrait of Henrik Ehrenskiöld. Once more, she is amazed that someone with such kind eyes could be so treacherous.

She hears cautious steps from the end of the corridor and sees Minoo come along it, stop outside a closed door and look around nervously. She carefully tries to open the door.

It doesn’t budge. Minoo tugs at the door handle a couple of times before starting to go back the way she came. She stops abruptly when the man she had been practising magic with turns up in the corridor.

‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ he says, sounding surprised. ‘I thought you had gone home?’

‘Yes, but I just …’ Minoo falls silent.

Her back is turned to Ida, but Ida can easily guess at just how guilty she looks. Minoo is probably the worst liar ever.

‘I just wanted to ask you if I can take time off to attend the magistrates’ court?’ Minoo continues.

‘Absolutely,’ the man says. ‘No need to ask, really.’

The grey mist sweeps past. Then too many impressions crowd in simultaneously. Lots of voices talking. Laughter. Clatter of cutlery. The air is thick with the smell of greasy fry-ups. And someone must have smothered themselves in cheap perfume.

Ida is in the queue at the hot food counter in the dining area of Engelsfors senior school. It is packed with pupils and many of the faces are new to her. Must be the new first years.

Ida touches her silver heart with her fingertips.

Her family has moved from town. Soon everyone she used to hang out with will have graduated and will surely leave. Before long, there will hardly be anyone left in Engelsfors who knew Ida Holmström. Though soon there might not be an Engelsfors left at all.

A shrill scream cuts through the noise. Hanna A stands at the salad buffet and screams and screams.

The screaming spreads across the whole dining area. People are jumping away from the tables, overturning chairs. A guy in the food queue throws his plate away. It spins straight through Ida and the macaroni scatters all over the floor.

No.

Not macaroni.

Maggots.

Repulsive, whitish larvae are writhing on the floor.

Now Ida screams, too. Those larvae
passed through
her. When she looks around, the maggots are everywhere. They well up over the edges of the hot food containers. Crawl across the tables.

At one of the tables, someone is throwing up noisily. Several more follow suit. Others spit out porridgy mouthfuls of chewed food and maggots.

The large room is filling with a stench, a heavy smell of rotting. Of
death
.

In the distance, Ida catches a glimpse of Anna-Karin’s stricken face and then the greyness thickens and whirls around her.

‘What did you want to talk about?’ It is Viktor’s voice.

Viktor and Minoo are standing in semi-darkness inside an old freight wagon. It looks like a drugs den, or a place where a serial killer might drag his victims. It’s probably both. On the upside, it’s free of maggots.

‘Just before the summer, you said you’d do anything for me,’ Minoo says.

‘Yes,’ Viktor replies.

Is he in love with Minoo
as well
? How insane is that? And can’t she just have him instead of Gustaf?

‘What would you like me to do?’ asks Viktor.

‘I need the key to Adriana’s room,’ Minoo tells him.

Ida sighs. She is so fed up with never understanding what people are on about.

‘Why?’ Viktor asks.

‘I understand if you don’t want to give it to me,’ Minoo says. ‘Now that you’ve sworn the oath—’

‘I’ll do it,’ he interrupts. ‘Is it urgent?’

‘Yes, it is. Sorry.’

Viktor nods and pats his already perfect hair into place.

‘I cannot believe that the wood element has reacted, too,’ he says. ‘Things are moving very quickly. Only four portents to go. Have they reopened the school yet?’

‘Anna-Karin told me that the whole dining area has been fumigated. And that they are blaming the whole thing on the caterer.’

They must be talking about what Ida has just seen.

Viktor kicks an old beer can that’s lying around on the floor. Ida can’t think why they want to meet in this horrid, filthy place.

‘How is everyone?’ Viktor asks. ‘Anna-Karin and the rest?’

‘Just fine.’ Minoo doesn’t look at him.

‘I know you’re lying,’ he says softly.

Viktor’s power is so annoying, Ida thinks.

Minoo smiles sadly.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Can’t you tell me what you want to do in Adriana’s room? If I knew, I might be able to help you more.’

‘Viktor, I’m sorry, but I can’t say more. The others wouldn’t be pleased if they knew I’d said as much as I have.’

‘But
you
trust me?’

Minoo meets his eyes.

‘Yes,’ she says, and sounds almost surprised. ‘I actually do.’

Viktor’s smile shows that Minoo has been truthful.

And then the mist rolls in.

Ida scans her surroundings. She is confused. Large stagnant puddles on a cement floor reflect tall windows with many broken panes. Square concrete pillars support a ceiling so high above her she can only guess at the massive beams and huge pipework up there. In one corner, an entire spiral staircase has worked loose from its attachments and collapsed sidewise onto the floor. When she turns around, enormous machines loom in the dark like prehistoric animals.

If Ida hadn’t heard a train rumble past in the distance she might have thought that the apocalypse had already struck. In here, it is very easy to imagine a lifeless planet.

She goes to look out of one of the windows. More dejected-looking buildings with broken windowpanes. Overgrown railway tracks and rusting freight wagons. The shadow of a huge chimney falls across the parking lot. She knows where she is now.

The steel plant. The pride of old Engelsfors.

Ida jumps when she hears a crackling sound.

A blue light flickers near the spiral staircase. Someone is sitting there.

Slowly, Ida advances, passing through a fire extinguisher and a pile of rusty steel-reinforcing mesh.

More crackling. The fluttering blue light fades away near the wall but Ida has time to catch a glimpse of her.

A girl in a black parka jacket and a black cap pulled down over her forehead. A girl with large, brown eyes.

Olivia.

Flashes of lightning flare again and again between the palms of her hands. Some meet in the air, twist around each other, form a ball that unravels and become new flashes.

Ida stares at them, as if hypnotised. Remembers what it felt like to be hit by one of them. How she was thrown backwards and slammed into the floor. The tingling that spread throughout her body and turned to chills.

Flashes of lightning leap high into the air, all the way to the ceiling, where they wind and twist around the pipes and strike sparks from the steel beams.

Olivia turns her face up to look. In the electrical glow, Ida sees the same hate-filled eyes that she had met in the gym.

Olivia is so strong. Much stronger than she was when she killed Ida.

I must warn the others, Ida thinks. There must be some fucking way.

The mist rolls past so quickly she hardly has time to react.

She is in a bathroom. She has been here before. The door is open a little and outside someone is listening to some really annoying music. And she remembers. This is Linnéa’s place.

The door opens and Linnéa comes in. She is wearing soft fitness shorts and a worn T-shirt with the logo
DIR EN GREY
. She goes to the mirror, pins her fringe back and starts washing her make-up off. It takes time. The basin fills with black splashes.

Ida looks at Linnéa’s back. Knows that she must try.

‘Linnéa! Hello! It’s me, Ida! You’ve got to listen to me! It’s important! Olivia is in town and she is hiding in the old steel plant!’

She reaches out with her hand and swallows the uneasy feeling when she sees it disappear into Linnéa’s back. She forces herself to keep waving it around.

But Linnéa just picks up some cotton-wool pads and starts wiping around her eyes. Far too roughly. You need to be gentle, because the skin there is really sensitive. Tug too much and you get wrinkles and bags under the eyes.

Ida looks into the mirror.

And sees a glimpse of her own face. Just for a brief moment.

Of course. They talked about it before the séance. Ghosts are attracted to mirrors. It made Ida terrified of mirrors. Now she’s a ghost herself. Irony of fate stuff again, how she loves it.

‘Linnéa!’ she shouts. ‘Look up!’ Then, ‘Look up! I’m here! In the mirror!’

And Linnéa does look up. And screams.

Ida shouts for joy now. Linnéa turns around.

‘You saw me!’ Ida says. ‘You …’

Linnéa looks straight through her.

‘Shit,’ Linnéa mumbles. She presses her wrist against her forehead. ‘I can’t cope. It’s too much.’

‘No, you’re not crazy!’ Ida shrieks. ‘You did see me! It’s true, I’m here! Linnéa!’

‘I need to get some sleep,’ Linnéa mutters to herself, turns back to the mirror where Ida is no longer visible. ‘I
really
need to sleep.’

She reaches for a jar on the cabinet shelf, pours out a couple of pills and washes them down with a mouthful of water. Ida stands there, helpless, as Linnéa leaves the bathroom and turns off the light.

‘Come back!’ Ida calls after her. ‘Come on, let me try again!’

But now she is back in the Borderland.

Her heart is beating fast as she looks around. Was she shouting here? Would the invisible monster have heard her?

Nothing.

But, suddenly, she becomes aware of something new.

It feels as if a thread is tugging at her. Pulling her closer. She begins to follow it.

The greyness around her is unchanging but, all the same, she is sure. She is on her way to somewhere.

Whatever is there, whatever she has to find, it is not something that she can perceive with her normal senses. All the same, she doesn’t hesitate. It is so clear. And so
familiar
. It is like something important that she has lost.

For the first time since she landed in this mess, she feels certain of something. Somewhere in the Borderland, there is something she must find. That is where she is going now.

Anna-Karin walks along the path leading into the forest, behind the new estate where Gustaf lives. She moves some low-hanging branches out of the way and holds them so that they won’t bounce back into Nicolaus’s face. After him, Vanessa, Evelina, Rickard and Gustaf follow in a single line.

They pass the ring of large blocks of stone linked by heavy chains. Anna-Karin casts a sideways glance at the sign stating that this is a mass grave for people who died in the 1853 cholera epidemic. It is a place that always makes her feel uncomfortable.

Autumn has come early this year. The leaves of birch and mountain ash are changing colour already. The September sun shines over the forest but doesn’t warm the air. For the last few days, Anna-Karin thinks she has smelled snow on the wind. They carry on walking deeper into the forest.

They have been exploring the system of caves for three weeks now. Thankfully, they have found other, easier entrances. Like the one they are heading to now.

The fox is walking lightly at Anna-Karin’s feet. Now and then his tail brushes her leg. She senses that today he is keener than usual to explore and his eagerness infects her. He is certain that, today, their search will be worthwhile. Still, Anna-Karin won’t tell the others. Even though nobody says it out loud, she knows that their patience is wearing thin.

All the time, tension is simmering below the surface. Once the wood element reacted in the dining area, there are only four more portents to go. Also, Minoo hasn’t managed to find out more about the box and has learnt no more about how to close the portal.

The ground is sloping upwards now. Anna-Karin’s back is dripping with sweat as she struggles to negotiate the dense growth of ferns. The sweat, she knows well, will turn ice-cold as soon as they are in the damp, chilly darkness of the caves. She shivers just thinking about it.