The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,19
is still smouldering. She’s staring at Anna-Karin, wide-eyed. She clears her throat and tries to say something, but all that comes out is a hiss.
Anna-Karin glances at Grandpa. He looks concerned.
‘Are you all right, Mia? Is there something stuck in your throat?’ he asks.
Mama reaches for her glass of water and gulps. She hawks loudly, but still can’t speak.
‘Mama?’ Anna-Karin says.
‘I’ve lost my voice,’ she mimes.
She gets up and shuffles out of the kitchen holding her cigarettes. Soon afterwards the TV comes on in the living room.
Grandpa and Anna-Karin stare at each other. Anna-Karin starts to giggle uncontrollably.
‘It’s nothing to laugh at,’ Grandpa reproaches her, and she goes quiet.
But it is, she wants to say. It’s hilarious.
Minoo spits out the toothpaste, rinses her brush and wipes her mouth with a towel. She looks at herself in the mirror and feels a shiver down her spine. The glass surface is hard, shiny. Would she be able to smash it with her hand? Is that what Elias did?
She’s got to stop thinking about it.
She leaves the bathroom and goes into her room. The little round lamp with the green shade is casting a warm glow from the bedside table. Minoo is wearing her pyjamas, dressing-gown and slippers, but she’s still shivering. She goes to the window to check that it’s closed properly.
She remains standing there.
The tops of the trees and bushes are swaying uneasily in the wind. It’s stopped raining. The paved street is glistening in the light from the streetlamps. A bush casts a strange shadow.
No. Someone’s standing there. In the darkness, just beyond the reach of the streetlamp.
She draws the curtains and peers through the narrow gap between them. She is absolutely sure now. A person is standing in the shadows, looking straight at her house.
Minoo sees the figure move away. When it reaches the next lamppost and passes through the cone of light, she sees the person’s back. A black sweater with the hood pulled up.
Minoo stands stock still until the figure has disappeared.
Suddenly she hears the creak of footsteps behind her, and the panic she has been carrying all day explodes. Minoo screams in terror. When she turns, her mother is in the doorway.
‘Minoo …’ she says.
The tears come. In the next moment, she feels warm arms around her and breathes in her mother’s scent. Minoo sobs until she has no more tears.
‘Bashe azizam,’ her mother says comfortingly.
That night her mother sits on the edge of the bed until Minoo has fallen sleep.
Vanessa is dreaming about Elias. He is standing in front of the dead trees in the playground, watching her. When she sees him, she feels sad. Elias Malmgren is dead and will only be remembered as the boy who killed himself in the school toilets.
She is woken by Wille’s phone vibrating hard against the floor. Damn it. They had fallen asleep on a mattress in Jonte’s house. Is it the middle of the night? It’s hard to tell with the blinds pulled down.
Wille’s telephone is still ringing when she lifts it to see what time it is. She rejects the call, but registers the name on the screen.
Wille has taken all the bedclothes as usual and she shivers. She lays her hand on Wille’s midriff and feels the warmth of his skin. He’s moving around uneasily – he looks so different when he’s asleep. It’s as if she can see him as a boy and as a very old man at the same time. Vanessa spoons against him and pulls the covers over them.
‘Linnéa W,’ it had said on the screen.
Linnéa Wallin.
Elias Malmgren’s best friend.
Wille’s ex.
7
THE CART BOUNCES and lurches along the road. She’s on her knees and has managed to free herself from the sack they pulled over her head. The morning air cools her sweaty face. She glances at the driver’s hunched back and floppy black felt hat.
She straightens up a little and struggles with the ropes. They are tied too tightly.
A forest stretches along one side of the road, dark and silent, and on the other, a wide expanse of open fields. Little grey huts lie scattered here and there, huddled beneath the clear sky. In the east, the morning star glows above the pink streak of dawn.
She tries to muster the courage to jump from the cart. But how far would she get with her broken body and fettered feet? Would she even survive the fall? She wouldn’t be able to catch herself with her bound hands.