The Circle (57 page)

‘I wish I could go with you,’ he says.

‘We need someone to wait for us, too,’ she says.

‘I’ll pray for you.’

They run across the car park. The school rises up into the night sky. It’s as if it it’s growing before Anna-Karin’s eyes. She tries not to think of how exposed they are in this open space.

They climb on to the loading bay where a wide metal door leads into the school.

Vanessa pulls out the bunch of keys.

‘Wait a minute,’ Ida says. She stands with her hands shoved into her pockets, looking down at her boots.

‘If I die and you guys make it … there’s a horse at the stables. Troja. Could one of you make sure he’s looked after?’

‘I will,’ Anna-Karin says.

Ida nods.

‘Okay,’ Vanessa says, and vanishes. ‘Let’s go in.’

Vanessa opens the door. It’s surprisingly easy and swings back without a sound. A ramp leads down into the darkness before them.

Anna-Karin takes out her mobile and switches on the light.

‘Turn it off,’ Minoo whispers. ‘We don’t know what’s in there.’

Vanessa takes Anna-Karin’s hand and they form a chain with Vanessa first and Ida last.

Ida closes the door. The darkness that envelops them is more complete than Vanessa has ever experienced before.

All four stand stock still, listening.

All they can hear is their own breathing and the faint hum of the ventilation system.

Cautiously, Vanessa moves forward, clasping Anna-Karin’s hand. With her other, she gropes along the rough wall.

She doesn’t dare try to sense if Linnéa is still alive. All her power is focused on sustaining her invisibility. And stopping herself rushing ahead in a crazed panic.

It feels like being blind, walking along with wide-open eyes yet seeing nothing. It’s impossible to tell how far she’s come or what’s waiting just ahead of her. Her whole body is in a hyperactive state, ready to react to the slightest sound. After a while Vanessa doesn’t know whether it’s the silence or the ventilation that’s humming in her ears. Then, she’s hearing whispers.

Vanessa
…

The voice becomes clearer. And she knows, without being able to explain how, that it’s Linnéa’s.

Vanessa
…

The voice is afraid, forlorn, but she’s alive. Linnéa’s alive. Vanessa picks up the pace. She senses that Anna-Karin and the others can’t quite keep up – too bad.

The deeper into the school she gets, the more difficult it is for her to sustain her invisibility. There’s a strange resistance to it, all the more terrifying as it had become so easy for her.

Vanessa’s hand reaches a corner and she stops. Her fingers touch a smooth surface. A door? She finds the handle. Presses it cautiously. Of course it’s locked. She whispers to
Anna
-Karin, asking her to turn on the light on her mobile. They have to take the chance.

Vanessa takes out the keys and tries them one by one in the light from Anna-Karin’s mobile. They rattle and clatter deafeningly in the cramped claustrophobic space.

Please … please … help me
…

The voice is desperate, filled with pain. Vanessa’s hand trembles when she finds a key that slides into the lock. It opens with a click. Anna-Karin turns off the light before Vanessa cracks open the door.

Anna-Karin crouches as she moves behind the invisible Vanessa into the kitchen.

On the right side a big rectangular opening faces the cafeteria dining area. It’s where the students collect their food from the stainless-steel trays that stand on the kitchen side. A faint light from the dining area falls through the serving hatch, glinting off the counters and the tiled walls. Plastic racks in different colours stand next to the silent dishwasher. It smells of dishwashing liquid, cooked food, steam and metal.

Anna-Karin is crawling along the floor on all fours. To the left of the gaping service hatch, a set of swing doors leads into the dining area. Linnéa is out there somewhere.

She stops next to the swing doors. They open excruciatingly slowly when Vanessa goes through to scout around.

Anna-Karin turns her head to look at Minoo and Ida, who are huddled on the floor behind her. They nod. It’s time for her to start. Anna-Karin shuts her eyes. Focuses her mind.
Slowly
she releases her power, afraid it will surge forth like a flood wave and drown her. But instead it seeps slowly into her body. And then it stops.

She’s never experienced this before. The power is there, but where once there was an unstoppable torrent, there is now barely a trickle.

Fear takes hold of her.

She might have been able to overpower Max at home on the farm, but now she’s on his turf.

The school is a place of evil
.

When Vanessa steps into the dining area, she stops and scans the room.

The chairs are upside-down on the tables with their legs in the air. The only light is coming from the side room, where the most popular students eat.

Her heart is pounding,
thump-thump-thump
, with every step she takes.

When she gets closer she hears a voice speaking fast and low. At first she thinks it’s Linnéa, but then she realises it’s a man.

He sounds young. Younger than Max.

Something isn’t right.

Vanessa presses herself hard against the wall and slowly moves closer. She doesn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. She’s never felt so unsure of her power before, of whether it’ll hold out.

‘Come on,’ the strange voice says. ‘Tell me. Believe me, I don’t want to do this.’

Vanessa’s heart is beating even faster now. She has almost reached the entrance to the side room. She drops to her knees and crawls the last stretch. The air is charged with magic. As she goes further into the force field, ever closer to its source, it takes almost all of her energy to remain invisible.

She peers around the corner into the room. The tables have been pushed aside, creating an open space in the middle.

Linnéa is sitting on a chair. Her ankles have been secured to its legs with duct tape. Her hands are tied together behind her back. Her makeup has run down her face and she looks exhausted.

‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ says the boy in the black hoody squatting in front of her. ‘Just tell me who they are.’

Vanessa can’t see his face, but she’s sure it isn’t Max.

Linnéa shuts her eyes. Whimpers.

Vanessa
.

The voice is in her head again. And, for a terrifying moment, Vanessa glimpses what is going on inside Linnéa.

She’s fighting for her life. A foreign presence is trying to force its way into her consciousness, but she’s resisting. And she’s very strong. Even though the intruding power is pushing hard, she’s keeping it at bay. But she’s tiring. She won’t be able to keep it up for much longer. Vanessa feels that clearly.

Now the boy gets up. And Vanessa sees who it is.

Elias.

The shock is so powerful that she almost lets go of her
invisibility
. Because Elias is standing there, large as life.

‘Do you remember when we used to hang out down by the locks?’ he asks Linnéa, in a voice full of nostalgia. ‘We sat there smoking and talking. You said that if I fell in, you’d come after me. Do you remember that?’

‘You … can’t know that,’ Linnéa gasps.

‘You told my mum and dad when I really did jump in that time. It was your fault I ended up in the psychiatric hospital. At first I hated you, but then I saw that you did it out of love. I know you love me, Linnéa. I’m your brother. You’re my sister in all but blood.’

‘Stop it …’ Linnéa groans.

‘Look at me,’ Elias says gently, and stares at her intently.

There’s a tug at Linnéa’s eyelids and they open again. ‘I know you’re not Elias.’

Vanessa spots the gun lying on a table. She’d been against killing Max, but now she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him to save Linnéa.

‘It makes no difference who I am,’ he says softly. ‘Elias is waiting for you, Linnéa. You can be together again. Stop fighting it.’

Linnéa shakes her head. Vanessa begins to crawl towards the table.

‘Come on,’ Elias pleads. ‘I just need two more names. Tell me who they are and it’ll all be over.’ He bends down till his face is just a few centimetres away from Linnéa’s. He fixes his eyes on her. ‘Tell me,’ he whispers.

And Vanessa feels how the magic streaming out of him
strengthens
. With her eyes glued to the gun, she crawls on towards the table. She barely dares to breathe. Just a few metres to go. Once she convinced Nicke to show her how to use a gun. Now she tries to remember what he’d said. Where’s the safety?

Linnéa squirms in her chair. ‘Minoo …’ comes out of her.

‘I know that already,’ Elias says patiently. ‘Anna-Karin … One more. Just give me one more and I’ll be satisfied.’

‘No!’

Linnéa’s tortured voice echoes through the cafeteria. It’s physically painful for Minoo to hear it.

Vanessa should have come back by now.

‘We can’t wait any longer,’ she whispers to Anna-Karin. ‘Can you influence him from here?’

Anna-Karin looks panicked and shakes her head.

‘No,’ she murmurs. ‘Maybe if I can see him … but I don’t know.’

‘Then we have to go out there.’ Minoo turns to Ida. ‘All three of us.’

Vanessa has almost reached the table. One hand, one knee at a time.

Elias is standing in front of Linnéa, his hands hanging limply at his sides. His face is strangely stiff, as if it were made of plastic.

Plastic that suddenly melts and morphs into another face. The body fills out with muscles, grows taller.

Max.

He raises one hand to his forehead and presses the tips of his fingers to it.

‘You said it would get easier!’ he says into the air. ‘I don’t want to do this!’

Vanessa rises to her knees and reaches for the gun. If only she can get hold of it, everything will be over. Not even Max can survive a bullet.

Just as she’s about to pick it up, Max grabs the handle. Their hands miss each other by a hair.

‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he says, and aims the gun at Linnéa. ‘But if you don’t tell me their names I will kill you.’

‘You think I care?’ Linnéa says hoarsely, and meets his gaze. ‘You think I’d have come to your house if I cared?’

Max sticks the gun into his waistband. Looks at Linnéa. Then he raises his hand and slaps her so hard that the chair falls over backwards.

Vanessa stifles a scream.

And Max turns. A surprised smile spreads across his face when he sees her. ‘And there you are,’ he says softly.

Vanessa doesn’t think, just gets up and rushes straight for him.

Max makes a sweeping gesture.

Anna-Karin is halfway across the dining area when Vanessa flies through the air, flung by an invisible force. She crashes into a table. The chairs crash to the floor. Vanessa is lifted a metre into the air, then pinned to the table. She screams in pain.

Minoo grabs Anna-Karin’s hand and holds it tightly. Ida takes the other. Anna-Karin can feel their energy streaming into her. And her own power is there. But it’s nowhere near as strong as it was when she was using it routinely here at school.

Max comes into the main dining area from the side room. He looks at Vanessa intently as she writhes on the table. Anna-Karin realises that they have only one chance to do this and it’s now: the moment before he’s seen them.

Let go of Vanessa
, she commands.
Leave her be
.

Max turns.

Minoo had seen the black smoke swirling around Vanessa as she flew through the room. Now it has settled over her body on the table, like a thick, oily fog.

More smoke shoots out of Max. It streaks towards Anna-Karin and, in the next moment, her hand is wrenched from Minoo’s.

Anna-Karin is tossed violently upwards, smacking hard into the ceiling, where she remains for a few seconds, pinned against the white tiles. Then the smoke drags her along the ceiling until she slams into the far wall. She slides down to the floor and lies there lifeless.

Minoo’s other hand is empty now.

Ida has let go. She’s running back towards the kitchen.

But she doesn’t get far. The smoke moves quickly and quietly towards her.

She falls to the floor. A ring of fire ignites around her. Minoo can see her terrified face behind the metre-high
flames
that keep her prisoner. A faint smell of scorched linoleum spreads through the room.

Minoo turns towards Max. The black smoke is still coiling around him, dancing, creating patterns in the air, as he moves towards her. It’s like a living organism. It’s almost beautiful. Alluring.

‘Minoo,’ he says, and smiles.