CHAPTER 8

Linnéa manages to slip inside the classroom just before Petter Backman comes plodding along and closes the door behind him. She can sense him ogling her from behind her back and wishes she could shake off his sleazy eyes.

As soon as she had received her power, the art lessons became almost more than she could stand. Backman has always had a reputation for putting his arm around female students, rubbing up against them in a creepy way, but Linnéa has never actually caught him at it. He’s presumably too smart. But when he’s sitting at the teacher’s desk or patrolling the art room, he allows his mind free rein instead, with very detailed fantasies.

Olivia is sitting at the back, doodling on her sketchpad. Linnéa goes over to sit next to her. Might as well get this out of the way.

‘Where the fuck were you yesterday?’ Olivia whispers. ‘Why didn’t you text me back?’

Her blue hair looks like radioactive spun sugar. Her heavily made-up face is paler than ever. Sweat has formed tiny runnels in the powder.

‘I forgot,’ Linnéa says.

‘Not answering is so mean.’

‘But you’ve hardly been in touch all summer.’

‘Can I help it that my parents force me to stay in the country the entire freaking summer?’ Olivia looks hurt as she stares at Linnéa with big brown eyes that would look perfect in a Manga figure’s face. Linnéa can’t be bothered to say that she knows Olivia is lying. She has been spotted several times in the center of town. Blue-haired girls aren’t that common in Engelsfors.

‘You went to Elias yesterday, didn’t you?’ Olivia asks.

‘Yes.’

Olivia carries on doodling in her sketchbook. Always the same kind of picture. A girl with huge eyes weeping black tears.

‘You might’ve called,’ she says quietly. ‘I was a good friend of his, too. I’ve been so anguished about having to go back to school. Like, it happened here.’

Linnéa notes the irony of having to carry on avoiding Olivia in order to be alone with Elias, even after his death.

The three of them got to know each other at the same time. They belonged to the same group and went to the same parties. Linnéa and Elias had been spontaneously attracted to each other, as if their friendship was predestined. But Olivia clung to them, shadowed them like a tiresome little sister who tries to be like her older siblings. And who is so eager to do the right thing that she always comes across as slightly off-key, slightly embarrassing.

If Elias talked about a band he had just found out about, Olivia would turn up in school the next day with its name inscribed on her arm in black ink, claiming that she had been listening to that band like forever.

It was so easy to see through Olivia that Linnéa in the end stopped minding about her. Except that it still maddens her when Olivia chatters about her ‘anguish’ and her ‘problems’, like they’re cool accessories. In fact, her background is a Brady Bunch-style idyll. Mom, Dad and her two older brothers have all treated her as their sweet baby, the favorite, the little princess.

There are moments when Linnéa feels that Olivia uses Elias and his alleged suicide to boost her status. As if the connection with him made her more authentic.

But at other times, like now, this line of thought gives Linnéa a guilty conscience. Olivia is the only one of the old crew who still keeps in touch with Linnéa, now that she has stopped partying. And they do have fun together now and then, although right now Linnéa can’t recall the last time.

The chains on Olivia’s tank top are tinkling as she bends to get closer to Linnéa.

‘I don’t want us to fight.’

‘We haven’t.’

‘Good. You see, there’s something I want to tell you. I met your dad last Saturday, in Västerås.’

Linnéa stiffens.

‘And do you know what he said?’ Olivia goes on.

‘I don’t want to know.’

‘You’ve got to listen to this, honestly. It’s good news.’

‘Nothing to do with my dad is ever good news.’

‘He’s sober now.’

Linnéa’s eyes are fixed on the desktop, where someone has carved EFC Rulez.

‘He told me and I really believe him,’ Olivia continues. ‘He didn’t smell like alcohol or anything like that. And he looked kind of neat.’

I can’t bear this again, Linnéa thinks. Not again.

‘Look, what’s wrong with you?’ Olivia whispers and now she sounds upset again. ‘I thought you’d be happy.’

*

Last autumn, Minoo had been keeping the place next to her free for just one, special person. For Rebecka.

Now, the place next to Minoo is empty.

It is true that they had been friends for just a very short time, but that wasn’t how it felt. Did Minoo care so much for Rebecka because of the bond between the Chosen Ones? Or was it because Rebecka was the first real friend Minoo had ever had?

Ylva, the new teacher, is checking attendance.

‘Minoo Falk Karimi?’ Ylva asks.

Minoo puts her hand up and her name is ticked off.

Ylva is in her thirties. She has thin, blonde hair, round glasses and all the charisma of a cheese sandwich.

Minoo suddenly realizes that she misses Max. Just for a moment. And not Max the killer, but Max the teacher.

Now, he lies immobile in a hospital bed, just a few miles away but still unreachable. No one knows if he will ever come out of his coma.

Ylva finishes the register and instead starts to scare them systematically with tales of all the hard work they will have to do this year.

Minoo loses herself in memories again. In memories of Max. This time she doesn’t fight them. She looks for clues that she might have missed, but soon she can’t control the direction of her thoughts. Her memories lead their own lives. And suddenly she is there. She sees Alice, Max’s first girlfriend, in her room. Alice, who is so like Minoo.

‘Please, Max, go away,’ she is saying. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I never want to see you again.’

Minoo senses anger welling up inside Max. He wants Alice dead. He wants it passionately. And it is in this moment that his powers are aroused. He makes her climb up and stand on the windowsill, then makes her jump. The intoxicating feeling of power that fills Max also rushes into Minoo’s mind, although she only wants to scream.

Minoo grips the edge of the desk. The floor seems to be swaying under her feet. She closes her eyes, breathes deeply a couple of times until the world comes to rest around her again.

When she looks up, he is standing at the teacher’s desk. She knows him. He’s the guy from the manor house.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he says and smiles towards Ylva.

‘That’s all right just this once. Since you’re new to the school.’

She tries to look strict, but can’t hide a little smile. And she is blushing.

‘Class, this is Viktor Ehrenskiöld. He has just moved to this area and I hope you’ll all do your best to make him feel at home,’ Ylva says and then turns to Viktor. ‘Just find a spare place, please, and settle down.’

Viktor looks straight at Minoo. Despite the heat, he is wearing slacks, a shirt and a thin blue cardigan. Its color enhances his eyes, makes them glow with an almost unreal, intense blue. Cornflower blue. He nods to Ylva, then goes and sits down next to Minoo.

‘I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that the places you have chosen today will be yours for the rest of the term. At least during my lessons,’ Ylva says.

Kevin protests from the far end of the classroom.

‘Hey, miss! Is this effing kindergarten, or what? I don’t want to sit here all term!’

Levan, who is sitting next to Kevin, fiddles with his glasses but doesn’t say anything.

‘Well, we’ve all got our crosses to bear,’ Ylva says absently, as she skims through some papers in front of her. ‘But if not, how am I going to learn your names? Answer me that, eh … Kevin?’

Viktor opens his brown leather satchel and lines up notebook, mechanical pencil and eraser on the desktop. Shifts the eraser along a few millimeters. Fascinated, Minoo observes him out of the corner of an eye.

Even at close proximity he might have come straight out of an advertisement. He is fully dressed but shows not the slightest sign of sweating. He doesn’t even smell. Not of sweat, not of perfume, nothing. As if there were no human body inside his clothes. Minoo suddenly feels acutely aware of being moist and sticky all over.

Viktor, finally satisfied with his little desktop arrangement, turns to her.

‘It seems like we’ll have to put up with each other for a while,’ he says.

There might have been a hint of a smile around the corners of his mouth, but the impression fades so quickly she thinks it must have been her imagination. Then Viktor turns to Ylva once more and seems to pay attention.

The bell rings for the break. Anna-Karin sees Minoo rise and hurries to catch up with her.

‘Do you have time to talk?’ Anna-Karin asks quietly.

Minoo nods and glances meaningfully towards the staircase up to the top floor.

They start walking without looking at each other, pretending not to be going to the same place. It is hard to get rid of last year’s fear that they might give themselves away to the demons.

Anna-Karin sneaks a sideways glance at Minoo. She asks herself if they are friends now, after all they have been through together, all they have been made to reveal to each other. Or is it simply fate that has forced them into each other’s company? Made them some kind of … allies in the struggle against the apocalypse?

New messages have been scribbled all over the door to the bathroom. Students still make a pilgrimage to this place in order to write messages for Elias and Rebecka, or just to make some general point by leaving their marks. But the bathroom is hardly ever used. Rumor has it that the place is haunted.

As Anna-Karin opens the door, her eye is caught by a couple of lines written in round letters.

DON’T WORRY!

BE HAPPY!

Anna-Karin steps inside and checks the cubicles.

‘No one here,’ she says. ‘Except us, that is.’

Her voice echoes against the tiled walls. Minoo doesn’t reply. She stands silently, looking at the window. Then at the sinks. Along the wall where the mirrors used to be. The screw-holes in the tiles are still there.

‘How are things?’ Anna-Karin asks.

‘All right. It just feels strange to be here. What did you want to talk about?’ she says, fixing her eyes on Anna-Karin.

It’s her laser-beam gaze that looks capable of cutting through stone and steel. Anna-Karin clears her throat.

‘The forest,’ she manages to say. ‘It’s dying.’

Minoo looks confused.

‘But not because of the drought,’ Anna-Karin continues. ‘Something else is going on. Something is wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

Anna-Karin feels frustrated. She wants to make Minoo understand. But how to go about it, since she herself hardly understands? She starts over again.

‘Something is going wrong with the forest and it might have to do with the dry hot weather, of course. But what if it is the other way around? What I’m trying to say is, could it be that the bad things happening to the forest are also causing the drought?’

Anna-Karin tries to interpret the look on Minoo’s face. Pitying? Thoughtful? Irritated?

‘All I thought was … well, that it might be worth thinking about,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘You know how everyone is talking about the unnatural heat … what if it really is unnatural? Like, supernatural?’

She shrugs, looks away. Regrets that she started on all this.

‘Forget it,’ she says.

‘No, don’t say that, it’s fine,’ Minoo replies. ‘We know nothing about what the demons are planning. We must be alert to everything.’

Anna-Karin wonders if she says this only to make the situation less embarrassing for them both.

‘Have you talked to Nicolaus?’ she asks.

Minoo nods.

‘We’ll have to go ahead without him. Even though it feels all wrong.’

A small chilly lump begins to wriggle in Anna-Karin’s belly.

‘He’ll surely understand that we have to,’ she says. ‘That we’re doing it for his sake as well.’

‘I hope so,’ Minoo says. ‘Besides, maybe we won’t find a thing. And then he doesn’t need to know. Our best option now is to take one step at a time and not plan ages ahead.’

It sounds very much as if she’s trying to convince herself and Anna-Karin realizes that Minoo cares as much for Nicolaus as she does. They have that in common, at least, and it is a good feeling.