wrist.
A white light flashes and Anna-Karin is blinded.
Anna-Karin sees a blue sky, and the edge of a roof. The roof of the school. She’s lying there feeling so tired, so dreadfully tired. A hard wind is whipping her face. Her head is buzzing and throbbing and she’s looking for Gustaf.
Gustaf. There’s so much love inside her for him. It even breaks through the awful pain in her forehead.
Anna-Karin realises she’s no longer in her own body. She’s inside Rebecka. As if she were a parasite looking at the world through Rebecka’s eyes. She can’t hear her thoughts, but each feeling and impression permeates her as if it were her own.
This gives way to longing for another person. Minoo. The only one who can help her. She fumbles for her mobile and pulls it out.
She hears footsteps approaching from the open door behind her.
Rebecka and Anna-Karin turn together, in a single movement, a single body.
And there he is. Anna-Karin feels Rebecka’s confusion.
‘Hello,’ she says. ‘How did you know I was here?’
Gustaf doesn’t answer. He approaches her but doesn’t look her in the eyes.
Rebecka barely recognises him. She doesn’t understand. ‘What is it?’ she asks.
The next moment, Gustaf bends forward and helps her to her feet. But he doesn’t let go of her. Instead he pulls her across the roof.
‘Stop it, Gustaf … What are you doing? Let go of me …’
Her voice is weak. She has no strength left to scream and the pain that’s throbbing in her head makes it even more impossible. Gustaf’s face shows no emotion as he pulls her towards the edge –it’s as if he just wants to get it over with. Rebecka tries to brace her feet against the roof, but they keep slipping.
‘Gustaf, stop it! Please, stop!’
Gustaf turns her so that she’s standing with her back to the playground below. The wind tugs at her clothes. Terror takes hold of Rebecka and paralyses Anna-Karin.
Anna-Karin tries to shut her eyes, but she can’t. Not while Rebecka is unable to take her eyes off her boyfriend. She still can’t believe what’s happening.
‘Look at me,’ Rebecka begs.
Gustaf meets her gaze. For a few silent seconds, Anna-Karin stares straight into those cold blue eyes. The sudden shove against her chest takes her by surprise and she falls. Her arms fly out, her fingers claw at the empty air and then—
Anna-Karin hears the excruciating thud as Rebecka’s body hits the ground. But she feels nothing. Her head is lying so strangely, flat against the ground. She doesn’t understand how she can still be alive. She tries to take a breath, but her lungs produce only a wet bubbling sound as her mouth fills with blood.
Suddenly something unknown intrudes into her consciousness. Rebecka recognises the presence.
It’s almost over, a strange voice says.
And then comes the pain, which can’t be compared to anything Anna-Karin has ever known in her entire pain-filled existence. It’s like a blinding radioactive light that incinerates every thought, every feeling, every memory that is Rebecka – anything she’s ever been.
And then: ashes. Emptiness. A piece of blue sky way up there. A piece of blue sky that slowly gives way to darkness. Black ink slowly bleeds out and covers everything until the only thing left is that voice.
Forgive me.
Anna-Karin opens her eyes and looks straight into Ida’s. She sees her own panic reflected back at her. She realises they have just had the same experience. Ida lets go of Anna-Karin’s hand and backs away from her.
Anna-Karin looks around. Hundreds of pairs of eyes are staring at her. One of the extinguished candles from her crown is still rolling across the floor. Tommy Ekberg is still on his way over with the fire extinguisher.
Here, in reality, no time has passed at all.
37
THE STARS GLISTEN in the black sky. The fir trees are weighed down with snow.
Everything looks peaceful, like a scene from a Christmas poem, Minoo thinks. If it weren’t for the blue flame casting an eerie, flickering glow over their faces. If it weren’t for what Anna-Karin and Ida have just told them.
Gustaf murdered Rebecka and therefore he must have murdered Elias. Gustaf is the evil they have to put a stop to.
‘But I don’t get it,’ Vanessa says. ‘How could you see all this?’
Anna-Karin, who has been sitting on the floor trying to pick clumps of candle wax from her hair, looks up at the principal at the same time as Ida. They are waiting for an answer. The bully and the bullying victim have been