The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,124
tell he’s hesitating. A year is a lot to ask. An eternity. ‘I understand if you can’t make any promises,’ she mumbles.
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he says, ‘A year is nothing. I’ll wait for as long as it takes.’ He reaches out and strokes her cheek. A gentle caress that almost shatters her logic.
Just one night, she wants to say. Just one night together. That can’t make any difference, can it? And she sees in his eyes that he wants it as much as she does.
She pulls away from his hand. ‘I have to go,’ she says.
She turns and starts walking. Thirty-five, thirty-three, thirty-one, twenty-nine. Only now does she hear him shut his front door. She speeds up. Twenty-seven, twenty-five, twenty-three, twenty-one, nineteen, seventeen. She stops. Turns.
The street looks just as it did before. Yet everything has changed.
Anna-Karin can’t sleep. She’s lying on her side, staring into the room. The blinds aren’t pulled down and she can see the stars through the window. Tonight they seem more distant than ever.
Tomorrow it begins, she thinks. Tomorrow I have to go to school and be Anna-Karin Nieminen without magic. The girl everyone hates or, if she’s lucky, doesn’t notice.
That must be my true self, she thinks. That must be my lot in life. Why else would it have gone so wrong when I tried to change it?
Deep down she had known all along that what she was doing was wrong. It was just that she’d felt it was worth it so she had ignored the warnings, turned a blind eye to the signs. But what good had it done her? Is she happier? No.
Anna-Karin closes her eyes, but her brain keeps whirring, like a crashing computer. She opens her eyes again. There’s no point.
Anna-Karin.
She recognises the voice from the vision on Lucia night. It belongs to Rebecka and Elias’s murderer.
Life isn’t worth living. You’re going to suffer. Every day you’re going to suffer.
A great calm spreads through Anna-Karin. She feels her body go numb as it climbs out of bed. Her feet walk on to the landing. One step down the stairs, then another.
Anna-Karin allows herself to be guided into the kitchen. She doesn’t resist. What the voice is saying is true. If anyone knows that life is suffering, it’s Anna-Karin. The BO Ho. The fat kid. The peasant. The girl who had to use magic to make her own mother care about her.
She feels relieved. She doesn’t need to be afraid any more. Soon it will all be over.
The voice says no more. It knows that Anna-Karin doesn’t need convincing.
There’s a faint smell of cigarette smoke in the kitchen. The wall clock is ticking away the seconds. Her feet move across the floor to the knife stand next to the stove. Her hand reaches out and takes a firm grip on the biggest knife. It feels strange to see her hand like that, see it grab something even though she can’t feel it. As if it belongs to someone else.
Don’t worry. You won’t feel any pain.
Her hand angles, turning the blade towards her throat.
She catches sight of Grandpa’s house outside the window.
Grandpa loves her.
And if Grandpa loves her, she can’t be completely worthless. She doesn’t deserve this.
Nobody does.
Suddenly Anna-Karin is afraid. That can mean only one thing. She wants to live. She doesn’t want to die.
The edge of the blade brushes against the soft skin of her throat.
Anna-Karin starts to resist. The other tries to press the knife into her neck. She can feel her carotid artery beating against the blade. Her skin is so thin there. All it will take is a little slit and her blood will spurt all over the kitchen. It’s as if an iron hand is clenched around her wrist. Her arms are shaking from the strain as she struggles to resist. The line separating life and death is so fine.
You’re alone, Anna-Karin. Alone. Why should you go on living? You’re worth more. Maybe you’ll get another chance after death.
But she’s not listening now. She can’t leave Grandpa. And she can’t abandon the other Chosen Ones in the battle against evil.
She isn’t weak any more. She’s no victim. She controlled the entire school. This is nothing. She’s got more power than this cowardly bastard who hasn’t even the guts to show himself to the one he’s killing.
Let go!
Her power surges through her body and the knife falls to the floor. Anna-Karin slumps down and stares at it. She’s breathing heavily.