The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,63
‘Do you think she’s got an alarm?’ she whispers, as she pulls out her torch.
‘I reckon we’re about to find out.’ Linnéa smirks and takes out the key.
Minoo has to admire Anna-Karin’s courage. She stole the principal’s key, ran to the locksmith a few blocks from the school, made a copy and managed to return the original without anyone noticing.
Linnéa turns the key and the lock opens easily. She presses down the handle and makes an ironically inviting gesture.
‘Welcome to the House of Horrors,’ she says. ‘I’ll stay here and keep watch,’ she adds in a more serious tone, when she meets Minoo’s gaze.
Vanessa fades into view on the other side of Minoo and gives her an encouraging nod. Then she vanishes again as she slips inside the darkened house.
Minoo thinks of Rebecka and follows her.
Minoo switches on her torch and aims it at the floor to minimise the chance of anyone seeing the light through the window. A row of coats hangs in a large alcove in the hall. They sneak across the creaking floorboards – Minoo hopes they’re not leaving footprints.
‘Does she actually live here?’ Vanessa murmurs, as they enter the living room.
Minoo knows exactly what she means. The place looks too perfect. The furniture is heavy and dark, and looks as if it belongs in a castle. Old portraits and landscape paintings in sombre colours hang on the walls. The open fireplace seems never to have been used, despite the basket of neatly stacked uniform-sized logs. There are no books lying around. No magazines. It smells spotlessly clean. Too clean. As if the air has never been sullied by human presence.
They walk along a corridor and look into the kitchen, a bathroom and a guestroom. Everything is furnished in the same manner. Opposite the stairway leading to the second floor there is a little room used as an office. A shelf is filled with ordinary books – literature, biographies and poetry. No old parchments or Latin manuscripts.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Minoo whispers.
No one answers.
‘Vanessa?’ she whispers, louder, panicked at the idea of being alone in this big, dark house.
‘Sorry. I forgot you can’t see me. I nodded,’ Vanessa says, beside her.
They sneak up the stairs, which creak beneath their feet. Minoo realises that if the principal were to come home now they would be trapped upstairs. Unlike Vanessa, she would never get outside unseen.
The landing is bathed in moonlight pouring through a skylight so Minoo switches off her torch. Shadows lurk in every corner.
‘Shall we start with the rooms on the right?’ she whispers.
Silence.
‘Vanessa?’
‘Sorry. Yes.’
A long carpet deadens their footsteps. Minoo opens the door at the far end of the corridor, where the shadows are at their thickest. She steps into the room and switches on her torch again. At the far end, there is a neatly made bed and a simple floor lamp. Fitted cupboards line one wall. But there’s no indication that anyone sleeps here.
‘She must be a psychopath,’ Vanessa whispers.
One of the cupboard doors opens. Something black and shapeless flies out, like a desperate bird released from its cage. Minoo lets out a muffled cry. When the black shape stops moving she sees an elegant evening dress floating in the air.
‘A rich psychopath,’ Vanessa whispers, and hangs the dress back in the cupboard. ‘This is Prada.’
Minoo opens the door to the adjoining bathroom. Thick towels hang over a bar of brushed steel. The shelves and cabinets are filled with an immaculate array of exclusive cosmetics and skincare products, all with the labels facing forwards.
‘Wow! What a lot of makeup. D’you think she’d notice if something went missing?’ Vanessa asks.
There’s an unmistakable eagerness in her voice that causes Minoo to shake her head in terror.
‘Just kidding,’ Vanessa says.
Yet Minoo doesn’t dare move away from the front of the cabinet until Vanessa has left the bathroom.
The next door leads into an empty room.
As does the next.
The third is locked.
Minoo pulls at the handle. If there’s anything of interest in this house, you can bet it’ll be in the locked room. ‘What do we do now?’ Minoo asks.
She hears a strange noise, a faint metallic scraping coming from the door. Like little claws scratching. Minoo takes a step back. If the principal is some kind of evil queen, maybe she has nasty little minions hidden about her palace, silent sentinels ready to defend her secrets.
The handle presses down and the door opens a crack.
Something materialises in the corner of her eye, and Minoo whirls around.