The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,35
can be addictive. You want to win once and for all.’
Vanessa doesn’t know what to say. If Evelina or Michelle tries to lie to her she picks up on it instantly. But Linnéa makes her feel unsure of herself. And she won’t find out the truth from Wille. She can’t confront him with this information because no one can know that she and Linnéa are talking to each other.
If only she could think clearly. She’s been awake for so long that her drunkenness has given way to a hangover.
They head for the front door. Vanessa borrows an old pair of shoes, and ties them –it seems to take ages, with Linnéa’s eyes burning into the back of her neck.
The latch on the front door sticks. Vanessa tugs at the doorknob, twisting it in different directions. Linnéa opens the door for her, and Vanessa practically flies down the stairs.
12
REBECKA IS STILL wide awake when she hears the key in the front door, then her mother hanging up her jacket and taking off her shoes. The door to her brothers’ room opens, then to her sisters’.
Rebecka has already looked in on them. It was only once she and Minoo had parted company that she realised the children had been at home on their own all night. What if there had been a fire? Or one of them had woken up, not found either Rebecka or their mother, gone out on to the balcony, fallen off—
She ran home as fast as her tired legs could carry her. Everything was quiet and calm, just as she’d left it.
Her mother’s footsteps approach in the hall and Rebecka forces herself to breathe normally. Her door doesn’t open. Instead she hears her mother go into the kitchen.
Rebecka stays in bed, feeling an odd mixture of relief and melancholy. It’s obvious that her mother doesn’t see her as a child any more. Even when Rebecka was five or six, she had made sure that Anton and Oskar stayed out of trouble and behaved themselves, then later with Alma and Moa. She was constantly told what a wonderful babysitter she was.
She sits up in bed and thinks of her new family, the one she’d met tonight. Now she’s expected to play the same role there: the one who leads, mediates and keeps the group together. Will she be able to pull it off? Will she have the energy?
She goes into the kitchen where her mother is preparing breakfast. ‘Up already, Beckis?’ she asks, and gives Rebecka a hug.
Rebecka cheers up a little. It’s not often she and her mother got to spend time alone together.
As they set the table together, her mother tells her about an eventful night in A&E. A fight had broken out at Götvändaren, the only hotel in town, which had left a man needing seven stitches. Another man had beaten his wife with a hot frying-pan because she had burned the pork chops. An older woman working the nightshift at the saw mill had accidentally cut off her left hand. And a little child had been so terrified of the dark he had become almost psychotic. He was utterly convinced there were monsters wandering along the street below his window.
‘You could sure tell there was a full moon last night,’ her mother says and sets out the breakfast bowls.
Her mother has a theory that people behave differently during a full moon. If it affects the tides then it has to affect people, too, since they consist primarily of water. In her mother’s world, anything from an unusual number of births to outbreaks of violent crime or insomnia can be attributed to a full moon.
‘Maybe things are especially crazy when the moon is red,’ Rebecka suggests.
Her mother looks at her questioningly. ‘What do you mean?’
Rebecka becomes uncertain. ‘It was red. Blood red.’
‘Strange you should say that,’ her mother says. ‘A few of the patients were talking about how red the moon was. But when we nurses looked outside it seemed completely normal.’
Her mother pours herself some more coffee.
Rebecka looks out of the window to where a transparent moon lingers in the light morning sky. It’s still red. Her mother follows her gaze without reacting. Obviously she sees nothing strange about it.
‘I must have dreamed it,’ Rebecka says quietly. She thinks for a moment. ‘Mum, have you ever heard anything strange about Kärrgruvan?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know – has anyone ever said something weird happened there?’