The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,154

time now, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘The war has come?’

Anna-Karin nods. It has.

It was Minoo who had devised the plan, once the seventeenth-century witch had left Ida’s body, a plan in which Anna-Karin will play the most important role. A plan that none of them believes in, she knows, but they have to stop Max now.

Grandpa blinks in the light. He asks for some water and Anna-Karin holds out the blue plastic spout cup, tipping it gently towards his mouth. It’s like helping a child.

‘I wish I was young and strong enough to be in uniform,’ Grandpa says dreamily, when he’s finished. ‘I was so small when my papa went off to war.’

‘Don’t think about that,’ Anna-Karin says. ‘You just concentrate on getting better so we can take you home.’

‘I’m no warmonger, as well you know, Gerda,’ he says, ‘but I’m no pacifist either. Some wars are necessary. Some things are worth fighting for. You have to be ready to lay down your life to do the right thing.’

‘I know,’ she says.

‘But a bear is at his most dangerous when he’s been forced into a corner. Remember that,’ Grandpa says.

‘I will.’

He seems to have said what he wanted to. His body relaxes and he shuts his eyes again. Anna-Karin takes his hands and holds them until she’s sure he’s fast asleep. ‘Goodbye, Grandpa,’ she whispers. ‘I love you.’

The frozen expanse of Dammsjön Lake stretches before them through the windscreen. Wille has stopped the car at the water’s edge. It’s a mild day, too warm for any skaters to venture out on the ice.

Vanessa catches sight of her face in the wing mirror. She’s aged –not with wrinkles or anything like that: she just looks older. More grown-up. There’s an expression in her eyes that she hasn’t seen before.

She rolls down the window a little and breathes in the damp, soft smell that is a sure sign spring isn’t far away. Everything is still. Only the wind soughs in the treetops.

‘I miss you already,’ Wille says.

‘But I’m here.’

‘You know what I mean.’

As soon as she had got back to Sirpa’s apartment last night, she’d told them she was moving home. Sirpa seemed relieved but tried hard to conceal it.

Wille has just helped Vanessa back to Törnrosvägen with all her things. She knows he’s afraid that she’ll leave him. But he has no idea that this may be the last day of her life.

You’ve still got nGéadal hanging over you.

Vanessa looks out of the window. There’s the spot where she and Wille usually make their campfire in the summer. At this time of year, the little copse where she and Wille have their secret nest is just a few low trees with bare branches. So much has happened since they were last here, on the night of the blood-red moon. And tomorrow morning it will all be over. Tonight they are going to seek out Max. No matter how it ends, it will be over.

Wille interrupts her thoughts when he takes her hand and squeezes it hard. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.

‘Nothing in particular.’

How could she tell him that she’s wondering if she’ll ever see this place again?

‘I know I’m hopeless,’ he says, ‘but I’m trying. I just have to work out what I want to do. Maybe things were easier for people like me when there wasn’t as much choice. You know, you had to work in the mines or whatever all your life.’

Vanessa turns to him and gives his hand a hard squeeze. ‘I’m sure it would have been great to live in those days,’ she says. ‘I would probably have died at the stove while I was boiling turnips and giving birth to our seventeenth child.’

She tries to laugh, but Wille just gazes at her. ‘I’d never want to live without you,’ he says.

She reaches for him and they hug each other. She kisses him gently, blotting out all other thoughts. There’s no past, no future.

Then she pulls him closer to her, clings to him with a desperation that’s not at all like her. She wants to get as close to him as she can, and it’s not easy when there’s a gear lever in the way.

‘Come on,’ she says, and clambers between the seats. She sinks down in the wide back seat and pulls off her jacket.

Minoo seals the envelope and lays it in the drawer of her bedside table.

‘Dearest Mum and Dad,’ the letter begins.

Of course she hasn’t written about what they’re going to do tonight.