The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,91

as if he had a splitting headache. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says finally. ‘This is wrong. You’re my student … And I’m far too old for you—’

‘No,’ she interrupts. ‘You don’t understand. I may be sixteen, but I don’t feel sixteen. I can’t even speak to people my own age.’

‘I understand you might feel like that,’ he says, ‘but when you’re older you’ll realise how young you actually were.’

It hurts so much that she can’t understand how she can still be alive. She gets up from the sofa. ‘I have to go.’ She rushes out into the hall and pulls on her jacket, shoves her feet into her shoes and staggers towards the front door.

‘Minoo,’ she hears Max say behind her.

She presses down the handle and almost falls out of the house. She continues straight across the street and runs as fast as she can, back the way she came, without turning once.

She doesn’t slow down until she reaches Storvall Park. The few scattered streetlamps spread pools of light in the dense darkness. Minoo sinks on to a bench. Snowflakes begin to fall and more come in quick succession. The first real snowfall of the year.

If I just sit here without moving I’ll soon be hidden under a layer of snow, Minoo thinks hopefully. I can thaw in time for spring, completely dead.

A low doleful mewing drifts through the park. She listens into the darkness. It’s impossible to tell which direction it’s coming from. The wind blows through bushes and the trees’ bare branches. A shadow glides into the light of the streetlamp.

Cat.

All at once she feels enormous pity for the poor creature. We’re both wretched, you and me. ‘Pss, pss, pss,’ she says, trying to get its attention.

The cat stops, looks at her and moves closer. Then suddenly it lets out a blurk and bends its neck as if something were stuck in its throat. Blurk. Minoo is glad she didn’t pet it – who knows what diseases it has?

Blurk, it croaks again.

And suddenly she realises what the animal is doing: it’s trying to cough up a hairball.

‘Goodnight, Cat,’ she mumbles, and stands up. ‘Good luck.’

Blurk, Cat responds, and something lands on the ground in front of it with a tinkle. A small object that glitters in the light of the streetlamp.

Cat looks at Minoo urgently and she moves closer.

There, in a little pool of cat puke and hair, lies a key.

Minoo hesitates for a long moment, then picks it up.

Like some kind of affirmation, Cat rubs against her once, then disappears into the darkness.

34

ON MONDAY MORNING Minoo gets up half an hour earlier than usual. The weekend feels like a long and strange dream. The blue flame. The six elements. The book of patterns. Cat and the key. And Max. Above all Max.

Max had kissed her.

There’s no denying that.

He had kissed her and it had meant something to him. However much she doubts herself, she could see it in his eyes.

He wants her. Her heart sings when she thinks about it. Max wants her, and she’s going to make him understand that it’s okay. There’s no reason to fight what they feel for each other.

Minoo puts on a black top she bought last year but never dared wear. It’s tighter than the ones she usually wears and is a bit lower cut. Normally she doesn’t wear much makeup, except for concealer on her acne, but now she takes out her barely used eyeliner and frames her eyes. When she examines herself in the mirror, she immediately dislikes the result. Her eyes look smaller.

She washes it all off and starts from scratch – covers her acne with concealer, applies a little more beneath her eyes, and finishes off with mascara on her upper lashes. She uses the concealer on a few more pimples just beneath her collarbone and on her shoulder. Why content yourself with pimples on your face when you can have them all over your body?

Minoo puts her makeup bag on the bedside table and catches sight of the little key. She’s washed it several times and rubbed it with disinfectant, but still she can barely make herself touch it.

She has a theory about where it leads. Before the weekend, Minoo would immediately have shown it to the principal. But she has no intention of doing that now. Not after what happened at the fairground. Adriana Lopez hasn’t been in touch since Minoo left – obviously she doesn’t consider her a Chosen One any more, so why should