The Circle (34 page)

Cat comes sneaking up, jumps on to the desk and gets comfortable.

Minoo glances at it and it looks around the room. Minoo gets the feeling that it’s trying to act disinterested. She takes out the key and hands it to Nicolaus, who turns it over in his hand as she tells him how she came by it.

‘This unholy animal vomited up this artefact?’ Nicolaus asks, almost proudly, as if Cat were his child, who had just done something amazing.

It lets out a miaow and rubs against Nicolaus’s hand. He pats its head distractedly, a little too roughly, Minoo thinks. But the animal looks content as it closes one eye halfway and starts purring.

‘I think I know what it opens,’ she says. ‘My parents have a safety deposit box where they keep their valuables. I checked their key, and this one is the same type. I thought of it because I saw Cat outside the bank on Storvall Square the day Rebecka died. I suspect it has a safety deposit box in your name, and this is the key to it.’

‘Why in my name?’

‘That’s the only logical conclusion I could come up with. Cat turned up here first, didn’t it?’

‘Verily it did,’ says Nicolaus, thoughtfully, ‘and I have to admit that I’ve started to grow rather fond of the flea-ridden beast.’

Cat mews approvingly.

‘You’re right,’ Nicolaus concludes. ‘I ought to go over there and enquire.’

‘Good,’ says Minoo.

‘I have just one question. What is a safety deposit box?’

Minoo bites her lip. ‘I’ll go with you,’ she says.

‘I won’t allow it. We mustn’t be seen together. The powers of darkness—’

‘Okay, okay!’ Minoo cuts in. ‘But we don’t know what’s in the box. You shouldn’t go alone.’

‘That’s precisely why I
must
go alone. I have no intention of exposing anyone else to danger,’ Nicolaus says.

Minoo sighs. She can’t let Nicolaus go off on his own. They still know nothing about the cat and what it’s after.

She’ll have to ask Vanessa for help, even though she has no desire to see any of the Chosen Ones after her embarrassing exit from the fairground.

When Minoo steps out of Nicolaus’s room, the corridor is filling with students. She spots Linnéa talking to a girl with blue hair. Luckily she doesn’t see Minoo when she gets her books out of her locker and hurries down the corridor.

She is just about to walk up the stairs when she hears Gustaf call her name. She turns. There he his, in his thick down jacket, his cheeks rosy from the cold.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi,’ she answers.

She feels that people rushing past them on the stairs are looking at them. What does a guy like Gustaf Åhlander have to say to someone like Minoo? He’s more popular than ever after Rebecka’s death and the interview in the paper. Naturally, the school is teeming with girls eager to comfort him.

Gustaf pulls off his hat and shoves it into his jacket pocket. ‘I just wanted to say thanks,’ he says.

‘For what?’

‘For listening. At the church. And for telling me to speak to Rebecka’s parents. I never would have dared otherwise. I felt like … well, if you could understand me, maybe they would, too.’

Minoo sees his eyes are wet. ‘What did they say?’ she asks.

‘They were happy I came to the funeral and weren’t angry with me. They understood. The newspapers had been after them, too. Rebecka’s mother also regretted having spoken to Cissi. It was … nice. We sat there crying together.’

Now she understands what Rebecka saw in Gustaf. He has an incredible openness. Minoo wonders how he manages it in a town like this, where a guy’s identified as gay for the least display of emotion. It means social death. ‘Great,’ she says. ‘That everything went well, I mean.’

Gustaf nods and gives her a quick hug. Suddenly she wishes she knew him better. He lets her go and disappears down the corridor.

She is just about to go up the stairs when she sees Max on the landing above, holding a coffee cup. He smiles at her and continues up towards the classroom. Minoo remains where she is.

There hadn’t been a trace of warmth in that smile or the slightest hint that they had a shared secret. It had been a teacher’s smile to a student. Any student.

Anna-Karin gets off the bus and starts walking home. It’s stopped snowing and the white blanket stretches across the countryside. She hadn’t had the energy to stay at school
past
lunch so for once it’s still light when she arrives. That’s the worst thing about this time of year for Anna-Karin: it’s dark when she goes to school and dark when she gets home.

Grandpa is standing outside the barn talking to Jari’s father, who’s over today to fix the roof on Grandpa’s cabin. It’s hard to imagine that Jari and his father are related. His father is short and stocky, almost cube-shaped.

Anna-Karin stands to the side until he climbs into his car and drives off, and she’s left alone with Grandpa.

‘Hello,’ Grandpa says, when he catches sight of her.

‘Hi.’ Anna-Karin walks up to him.

Grandpa looks up at the sky. ‘If it were summer I’d say we were in for lightning,’ he says.

Anna-Karin follows his gaze. The sky is an infinite mass of nothing. An even greyish-white without end. ‘What do you mean?’ she asks.

‘Can’t you feel that the air is full of electricity?’ he says. ‘Some kind of discharge is on the way, no doubt about it.’ He looks straight at her. ‘Can’t you feel it?’

She shakes her head silently. Grandpa is like a living barometer. And he can read more than just the weather. He always knows exactly how the animals on the farm are feeling. It’s as if they tell him in some mysterious way. And several times he’s helped people in the area find water with his divining rod. He doesn’t make an issue of these things. It’s just something he does. But this time he seems confused by what Nature is telling him.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he mutters, and spits
into
the snow. Then he attempts a smile. ‘Maybe I’m going senile.’

‘Stop it, Grandpa,’ says Anna-Karin. She hates it when he talks like that.

His eyes are distant. ‘I almost hope it’s just the figment of an old man’s imagination,’ he says. ‘I’m woken at night by whispering in the trees. And every morning when I look out of the window the forest seems to have closed in a little more tightly around us. It’s as if it’s preparing itself.’

‘For what?’ she asks.

He stares at her. It’s as if they are standing on opposite shores of a sea, and Grandpa is trying to work out a way to cross to her side. ‘Sweetheart …’ he begins.

Everything unsaid stands between them. And that’s so much. A whole sea of silence that has been there all Anna-Karin’s life.

‘I know I’m not always good at talking about … certain things,’ Grandpa continues. ‘We men didn’t learn how to do it in my day. But I hope you know that I … that I love you.’

Anna-Karin is embarrassed. She wants to say she loves him, too, but she’s unable to speak.

‘And I would love you no matter what mistakes you made. Even if you did something wrong, I’d love you, and if someone wanted to hurt you, I’d defend you with the last drop of my blood.’

Anna-Karin feels her cheeks flush.

‘I’m on your side, even if I don’t know what it’s about. And, God knows, there’s a lot I don’t understand right now. These are strange times.’

It’s at this moment that she feels she could tell him everything. If you only knew how many people have wanted to harm me over the years, Anna-Karin wants to say. If you only knew what’s going on in my life now.

It’s my job to inform you that the Council has launched an investigation
.

The principal’s words echo in her head. She doesn’t want to contemplate what form punishment by a witches’ council might take.

A flock of jackdaws lifts from the forest across the other side of the pasture. They circle through the air, cawing frantically as if someone had frightened them. Anna-Karin can hear their hard wing beats from where she stands. They cluster beneath the white sky before heading off over the treetops.

Grandpa mumbles something in Finnish, his gaze fixed on the birds.

Anna-Karin looks at Grandpa. He looks at her. And they both know that the moment has passed. The sea still separates them, impossible to cross.

35

VANESSA IS STANDING
in the lobby of the bank, leaning against a high table on which small cardboard stands of fliers ask whether she’s considered getting a credit card, or if she’d like to borrow money for a new lawnmower and even her dream house.

She’s promised Minoo to follow Nicolaus into the bank without his knowledge. Of course the stubborn old fool refused to accept the help he obviously needs, so she’s been told to make herself invisible and keep an eye on him.

And he’s supposed to be
our
guide, she thinks, glancing at him as he stands there, staring at his number slip. He’s wearing a heavy, moth-eaten winter coat that looks as if he bought it at a flea market.

But she has to admit she’s excited. She’ll be the first to see whatever’s in the mysterious safety deposit box. Further more, she likes going behind the principal’s back. They had a class with her on Sunday, too, and it was no more fun than being in school. You might expect a course in magic to be thrilling, but they just sat there staring into the
Book of Patterns
with their mini spyglasses. All they’d got from it was headaches. It reminded Vanessa of the
digitalised
dot images in which you’re supposed to be able to see 3D figures. She can never make them out.

Vanessa is watching the bank staff typing silently or speaking to customers in low, trust-inspiring voices. Everyone working here is neat and well dressed, and their footsteps whisper along the wall-to-wall carpeting. Vanessa tries to imagine what it would be like to work here and is instantly bored.

Her mother actually dated a guy who worked here. Tobias. He was as tedious as he was smug. When he met a rich girl from Gothenburg he’d dumped her without a second thought, and Vanessa had had to comfort her and hide the wine box.

Eventually, when her mother had been sitting at the dinner table, snivelling again, Vanessa had lost patience and told her off – maybe she should meet a guy who made her happy, she’d suggested. Her mother had just looked at her with bloodshot eyes and blubbered that Vanessa didn’t understand. ‘Love hurts,’ she said. ‘Or it isn’t really love.’

Vanessa refuses to believe that. If it was true, there wouldn’t be any point in being with someone. You might just as well screw around without ever having to wash someone else’s dishes or whine about how he doesn’t understand you.

That’s probably why she doesn’t want me to be with Wille, Vanessa thinks. She’s jealous because we’re happy together.

Vanessa’s anger builds again. She and her mother still
haven
’t spoken. She hasn’t even left a message on Vanessa’s mobile. Vanessa is sure that Nicke told her that it’s better if she doesn’t get in touch – she can just hear him saying that Vanessa has to ‘learn that her actions have consequences’.

Vanessa has no intention of calling either. There’s no way she’ll let them win. Melvin’s the only one she misses. Melvin, who was crying when she left.

A loud electronic yelp announces the new number on the screen. Nicolaus looks around, clearly confused. He’s next, but he has no idea where to go – as if the blinking number above the only free teller didn’t offer a clue. He examines his ticket as if he expects to find the answer there, and Vanessa sighs. She has to stop herself going up to him and giving him a shove in the right direction.

A girl with long black hair is standing at the free counter. She’s attractive and knows it. Unlike the other bank zombies, she’s irritated, which, as far as Vanessa is concerned, is to her credit. She beckons to Nicolaus impatiently.

‘It has the number one,’ says Nicolaus, when he walks up to her.

‘What?’

‘The deposit box to which this key corresponds. It has the number one. That was the information I was given this morning when I telephoned.’

‘You mean you have a safety deposit box?’ she asks.

‘That is what I have been told.’

She smiles professionally, but not one millimetre wider than necessary, while Nicolaus signs a few papers. ‘This way.’

Nicolaus goes around the counter and Vanessa follows him. She hopes her shoes aren’t leaving traces of melted snow on the carpet.

They walk along a corridor until they reach a pair of solid steel gates that the black-haired woman unlocks. ‘It’s just one flight down,’ she says. ‘I’m going to lock you in.’

Nicolaus looks horrified.

‘Use the phone to call us when you’ve finished,’ she says.

Nicolaus walks down the steps cautiously. Vanessa just has time to slip in behind him before the bank employee shuts the gate so hard that the metal bars ring.

The walls of the vault are covered with small rectangular numbered doors in dark-grey matte metal. Vanessa wonders about the money, jewellery and dirty secrets hidden in the boxes. Deeds revealing hitherto unknown siblings and illegitimate children. Illicit photos and love letters.