Ida opens her eyes. A sense of dread wakes her instantly. She sits up in bed and checks the time. Just about half past five.
They took Wille to Västerås, just in time for him to catch the last train to Stockholm. Ida didn’t get back home until the middle of the night. The house was dark and silent. No one was waiting up for her. No one had even bothered to send a text asking where she was.
She gets up and showers for a long time, in an attempt to wash away her anguish. And then she inspects her body, searching for signs of change, traces of Anna-Karin. She can’t find any.
Back in her room she opens her wardrobe. And stands there, staring at the row of clothes.
All these everyday choices used to be a matter of course but now they don’t seem at all straightforward. Presumably because nothing in her life is straightforward any more.
What to wear to school when you know everybody hates you? If she were Anna-Karin, she’d hide inside a shapeless sack, made herself unnoticeable. If she were Linnéa, she’d dress up in some insane outfit that would force everyone to look at her.
But as for Ida, what would she choose?
It is as if she’s inside an alien body once more. As if she’s not the real Ida, but still has to keep up the pretense. She slides her finger across the pile of neatly folded tops, across the dresses on their hangers. Her stock of ‘Ida’ disguises.
She tries on clothes for half an hour before making up her mind: a V-necked, pale blue sweater and jeans. She takes care with her make-up and scrutinizes her face in the mirror. The silver heart glints in the light from the ceiling lamp. Its surface is scratched and worn. Her mom gave it to her when she started elementary school, and since then she has worn it almost daily. It has grown into a part of her, so much so that she has hardly looked at it properly for years.
Ida touches the heart. She has to speak to Mom. Try to make her understand.
The whole family is seated at the breakfast table. It takes a moment before Ida spots what’s wrong. Four people at the table, four occupied chairs. Ida’s usual chair stands by a wall.
Dread is invading her again. She places the chair at the short end of the table. No one has laid a place for her. She gets herself a mug and a plate from the cupboard.
‘Good morning,’ she says.
No response. No one even looks at her. It is as if she’s invisible. For one awful moment, Ida thinks that she has body-swapped with Vanessa.
But then she sees Rasmus sneak a glance at her and try to hide a grin, before he quickly turns away again.
‘Aren’t you looking forward to the Spring Revel at the center?’ Dad says to Rasmus and Lotta.
They nod enthusiastically.
‘I love the spring equinox,’ Lotta says. ‘Afterwards, the days are longer than the nights.’
‘That’s right,’ Dad says and ruffles her hair. ‘What better reason for celebrating, eh?’
‘I’m sorry I came back so late last night,’ Ida says. ‘I simply had to—’
‘I dropped in at the center yesterday and they’ve prepared everything so nicely for tonight,’ Mom interrupts without looking at her.
‘Can you hand me the butter?’ Lotta says.
‘Please, can you pass me the butter,’ Mom corrects her before giving it to her.
‘What’s the idea?’ Ida says. ‘Why are you ignoring me?’
No one answers. Lotta smears lots of butter on her toast. And then wipes off what’s left on the knife with her finger and pops it into her mouth.
‘Christ, you’re such a pig,’ Ida says.
‘You’re not allowed to do that,’ Mom says calmly and takes the knife away from Lotta.
Crunching noises from Dad’s mouth as he chews his toast sandwich. No one speaks. But Rasmus looks fit to burst with laughter.
‘Having fun, or what?’ Ida says.
He stares at the tabletop and squashes a breadcrumb under his finger.
‘By the way, I met Erik at the center,’ Mom says, looking at Dad. ‘He was looking forward to tonight, too. To the party at the school. Apparently they’re going to choose the Young PE Member of the Year. I think he hopes that he’ll be the one. Not that he said as much out loud, of course.’
She and Dad smile at each other, a complicit smile.
‘Could anyone tell me what I’ve done? Or is that too much to ask?’ Ida says.
She can’t bear losing them as well. Without them, she has nobody standing by her, nobody at all.
No one answers her. Lotta sighs and chews slowly with her mouth partly open.
‘Look, it’s so obvious that you think I’ve done something wrong,’ Ida continues and her voice cracks so that she has to swallow several times before she can carry on. ‘It would only be fair if you at least told me what I’m being punished for.’
‘You know that well enough, Ida.’
Mom doesn’t look at her.
‘No, I truly don’t,’ Ida says, barely managing to keep her voice steady.
‘We have been informed that you have started to go about with criminals,’ Mom says, coolly and factually. ‘You refuse to talk to me or your father. Then you disappear for practically the entire weekend and take my car without asking permission. You come home in the middle of the night. Clearly, you can’t be bothered with us. That’s why we have decided not to bother with you.’
Ida feels torn apart inside. As if someone has stuck a knife into her and started to slit her open while still alive.
‘What can I do?’ she says, unable to hold back her tears. They drip on to her lap. ‘Say I’m sorry? Please forgive me. I truly mean it. Forgive me. I … haven’t been myself.’
‘No, we noticed,’ Dad says.
‘But what do you want me to do? Start going out with Erik again, for your sake? That’s so twisted!’
‘You’re taking part in a campaign of filthy gossip directed against the son of our best friends …’ Mom begins.
‘But what’s being said is true!’ Ida exclaims. ‘All true! He did do it!’
She can’t stop herself. Everyone is looking straight at her now. Mom, Dad, Rasmus, Lotta.
‘You’re deliberately closing your eyes to what Erik is like,’ Ida continues. ‘He’s horrible! All his life, he’s been bullying people. Do you know what he did to Elias Malmgren when we were all, like, twelve years old?’
‘All boys fight now and then,’ Mom says. ‘It’s human nature.’
‘He ripped off Elias’s earring so blood was spurting everywhere and then he shouted that people shouldn’t touch or they might get AIDS from the queer—’
‘That’s enough,’ Dad says coldly and nods in the direction of Lotta and Rasmus.
‘—and I was with him!’ Ida continues without a break. ‘I laughed, too. And was just as repulsive as Erik. And so are you, sometimes. You insist that Erik’s parents are your best friends, but you always say awful things about them behind their backs—’
‘That’s enough, Ida!’ Mom shouts.
Ida, with tears running down her cheeks, meets Mom’s eyes. Frightened, Rasmus and Lotta stare in turn at both of them.
‘Listen, Ida,’ Dad says. ‘We’re very worried about you. But you cannot be part of this family unless you pull yourself together. We require a meaningful apology. And, above all, a complete change in your behavior.’
Ida is crying so much she finds it hard to speak at all. She turns to Mom.
‘Mom … please. Mommy … please …’
A hint of sadness in Mom’s eyes. But she shakes her head.
Ida gets up from the table. Her whole body is trembling. She can barely control the shaking as she walks into the hall, puts her jacket on, picks up her schoolbag.
If only Mom would call her name. Ask her to come back. If only Dad would hurry after her to say that the punishment has gone too far.
Then, Ida would have been prepared to forget all this. It would be over and done with. Just an unpleasant memory that would never have to be mentioned again.
But no one comes. No one calls her name.
Ida stands with her hand on the door handle and waits for just a little longer.
The only sound is the clatter of plates as someone starts clearing the table.
She opens the door and steps outside.
Vanessa walks slowly across the schoolyard. Two neon-bright yellow posters have been stuck to the main entrance doors.
‘PE!’ one of them announces. ‘SPRING PARTY!’ shouts the other one.
She checks the screen on her phone. No reception all morning.
She wonders if Wille has tried to reach her.
He phoned Elin from the car while they drove to Västerås last night. He had told her that his uncle had fallen ill and that he was going to Stockholm to be with him, but didn’t know for how long.
And Vanessa couldn’t help noticing how plausible he sounded. How easily he told fibs. And how good he was at lying.
‘Thank you,’ he said later, while they were waiting on the platform. ‘Not that I can get my head around what’s happened. But I do believe you saved my life.’
He is safe now.
But Jonte is dead. Helena and Krister murdered him.
Vanessa walks up the steps and into the entrance lobby, which is decorated with yellow bunting and large paper suns.
A crowd has gathered in front of the bulletinboard. Vanessa hears a babble of voices. And, often, Linnéa’s name. She goes closer.
The yellow party posters on the bulletinboard have been covered in graffiti. Someone has scribbled on one of them with a broad, black marker ‘PE = MURDERERS’. Photos of Erik and Robin have been glued on the poster. Their eyes filled in with black and their smiling faces scored with something sharp.
‘She’s got to be a psychopath,’ a voice says and Vanessa doesn’t need to think for a second about who the ‘she’ is. The person who everyone believes has done all this.
‘I’ve heard that they’re going to have her locked up,’ another voice says.
‘About fucking time.’
Approving mumbles all around.
Disgusted, Vanessa turns away and catches sight of Michelle and Mehmet as they come in through the main entrance. While Michelle says something to Mehmet, she pulls down the zip of her jacket. And Vanessa spots something glittering at the neckline of Michelle’s sweater.
A silver pendant, the metal symbol.
‘Michelle!’ she calls. The crowd in the lobby falls silent.
Michelle turns from Mehmet to look her way. That glance pierces Vanessa’s heart like an ice pick.
Michelle whispers something to Mehmet and he shakes his head. Vanessa feels certain they are saying something about her.
Someone bumps into her, so hard she almost falls over.
‘Can’t you look where you’re going?’ she says as she turns to see who it is.
And meets Robin and Felicia’s eyes. Behind them, the rest of the crowd stands in silence, staring at Vanessa.
She is used to being stared at. Lots of people don’t like her and that’s fine by her. She’d rather people reacted to her than failed to notice her.
But nobody has ever before faced her with such hatred. And there are so many of them. The whole cluster is like one single, many-headed creature.
She starts walking away and hears excitable whispers behind her back.
‘She’s such a slut,’ a voice says.
‘What do you think, how many abortions has she had in the last twenty-four hours?’
Felicia and some of the other girls start tittering. Vanessa doesn’t want to hear another word. She gives them the finger over her shoulder and increases her pace.
Tommy Ekberg, arms crossed over his chest, is waiting for her by the lockers. His pea-green shirt is more unbuttoned than ever and the silver amulet is buried deep in his mat of curly hair. It’s so thick, it looks as if his pubic hair covers him all the way to his collarbones.
‘I want a word with you,’ he says. ‘In my office. Now.’
‘Why?’
‘Your friends are already there.’
‘My friends?’
‘You’ll come with me now!’ Tommy roars.
Vanessa is shocked. Tommy’s shirts are normally the only noisy thing about him. She has never before even heard him raise his voice.
‘Fine, I’m coming,’ she says. ‘But calm down.’
Linnéa jumps when the door is pulled open. Tommy Ekberg shoves Vanessa into the room, and then points wordlessly at a folding plastic chair that is waiting for her next to Linnéa. Minoo, Anna-Karin and Ida are crammed together on the sofa.
‘When I heard about the rumors you have been spreading about two fellow students in the school, at first I didn’t think it possible,’ Tommy begins while Vanessa settles down. ‘Such vicious gossip. Such blatant malice! And then I come in this morning and what do I see? That appalling poster. That was the final straw!’
Tommy stands, arms akimbo, eyes fixed on Linnéa. The contempt in his eyes, the hatred he clearly feels for her, almost frightens her.
Is it his hatred? she wonders, looking at the amulet. Or is it Helena’s, or Krister’s?
All Linnéa knows is that Tommy is convinced that she and the others are guilty. There is obviously not a trace of doubt in his mind.
‘I want you to know that I take this close and very personally,’ he says. ‘Whatever you do to my students, my school, you also do to me.’
‘But we haven’t done anything,’ Anna-Karin says.
‘Lying will only make it worse for you. I know what you girls are up to. Do you think I haven’t noticed how you try to sabotage the good atmosphere in this school?’
‘They must have done the vandalizing of the poster themselves,’ Minoo says.
‘And why would PE members blacken the name of their own people?’ Tommy asks sneeringly.
‘In order to set us up just like this!’
‘Do you think I’m completely stupid?’ he shouts.
Minoo stares anxiously at him and Ida starts crying quietly.
‘Do you really want us to reply to that question?’ Vanessa says.
Tommy’s rage has reached such a pitch he can’t breathe normally.
‘Look, the truth is that none of us has done any of this,’ Linnéa says hurriedly. ‘We are being harassed, for Christ’s sake.’
Tommy marches up to her and puts his bright red face close to hers. His breath smells sweet like chocolate.
‘You have to root out the weeds before they suck up all the goodness in the garden,’ he says.
They mustn’t get away with this.
His thought echoes so loudly through Linnéa’s head, it seems unbelievable that no one else hears it. Tommy straightens his back and storms out of the office.
‘Don’t even think about going anywhere,’ he shouts before the door slams behind him.
‘What’s he going to do?’ Minoo asks Linnéa.
‘I don’t know.’
She tries to up the range of her power, catch more of his thoughts.
Now she hears it again. The same thought as before. And yet, not the same.
They mustn’t get away with this.
‘Hang on, wait,’ she says and gets up.
‘Where are you off to?’ Vanessa says, but Linnéa doesn’t answer.
She opens the door and looks along the empty hallway. Stands still and listens. The only sounds are distant voices from the classrooms, steps of someone running in the stairwell.
She closes her eyes and releases more power than she has ever dared to do before, ever been able to do.
It is like sticking her head into a beehive. The sensation is as it felt in the beginning, before she knew anything about her power, when she still thought she was going mad, that all her years of anguish and chemicals had finally ruined her brain.
So many people, so many thoughts. But in the middle of the buzzing, the same thought recurs, over and over again.
They mustn’t get away with this.
Above her, below her.
They mustn’t get away with this.
It is a mantra repeated endlessly, from different directions, everywhere in the school.
They mustn’t get away with this.
They mustn’t get away with this.
They mustn’t get away with this.
Hatred is such a temptation. How good it would feel to let go and enter into it, to be allowed to hate without limit, unthinkingly. Linnéa is almost pulled along and she shuts her power down. Opens her eyes. An eternity seems to pass before there is silence inside her head once more.
The soles of her shoes grind against the floor when she turns and looks back at the others.
‘They’re all thinking the same thing,’ she says. ‘We’d better beat it.’
She looks over her shoulder and sees Tommy and Backman at the far end of the corridor, approaching briskly.
‘Come on!’ Linnéa shouts and the others leap up from their seats, finally energized.
Like a herd of terrified animals, they rush out from the headmaster’s office, down the spiral staircase and out into the ground-floor corridor.
They swing around a corner and there is Kevin, waiting for them.
They’re here!
Instantly, the thought rattles onwards through the school, like a row of falling dominoes.
They’re here! They’re here! They’re here! They’re here!
Kevin grabs hold of Linnéa’s jacket, but Vanessa gives him a push and Linnéa tears herself free.
They run into the lobby. Footsteps behind them in the hall. Footsteps coming down the main staircase.
They mustn’t get away with this.
They push their way out through the main doors and keep running.
I deeply, truly detest this school, Linnéa thinks.