Read Fire for Free Online

display is streaked with white suncream from her fingers.
    A text message from Minoo. She opens it and reads,sensing that Vanessa, still on her towel, is watching her.
    Ida deletes the text. Then stands, straightens her bikini and walks towards the water.
    ‘You going for a swim?’ Felicia calls out after her.
    ‘What do you think?’ Ida replies without stopping.
    She navigates between the shouting kids and their overprotective parents, who are at least as noisy.
    The water feels warm against her calves. She keeps going, then dives and swims until she finds one of the chilly currents running through the lake. She stays there. All the time, one sentence echoes through her body.
    I don’t want to be part of this. I don’t want to be part of this. I don’t want to be part of this .
    But she knows that she will do as she has been told.
    Like the others, she will turn up in the cemetery tonight. Not because she gives a damn about some old gravestone bearing Nicolaus’s name, but because she must keep her promise to the Book of Patterns .

5
    Anna-Karin’s mother made supper. Deep-frozen meatballs heated in the microwave and tinned fruit salad with mayonnaise dressing. They eat in front of the TV set, as usual. Mum would have liked to do this even when they lived on the farm. It was Grandpa who insisted that they should sit together around the kitchen table.
    Anna-Karin and her mum don’t speak to each other, not once. The telly is on about a millionaire who pretends to be poor. Later on, the millionaire reveals who he is and gives away loads of money to truly poor people who become so pleased and grateful, they are crying with happiness. The programme makes Anna-Karin feel a little nauseous. Or maybe it’s just that salady thing. Once again, she has eaten too much and it wasn’t even tasty.
    ‘Thanks for the supper,’ Anna-Karin says and gets up.
    ‘Sure,’ Mum says absently and lights a cigarette.
    Her eyes stay fixed on the TV screen.
    Anna-Karin goes to her room, turns on the computer. With Pepper purring in her lap, she starts chasing information about forest death but nothing fits with what she has seen. Instead she drifts away on the Internet, looking up veterinary schools in places far away from Engelsfors. But what matters is doing well enough this high-school year. And the next one. And hope the apocalypse doesn’t get in the way.
    She looks at her watch. Time, she realises, to set out for Nicolaus’s place. She has told him that she wants a lift to the cemetery, but actually she wants to find out how he reacted to Linnéa’s find.
    The telly is still on when Anna-Karin pads through the living room. Mum is lying on her side and snoring a little. Anna-Karin tiptoes over to the sofa, picks up the ashtray and takes it to the kitchen to soak the fag ends under the tap.
    As Anna-Karin leaves their block, she takes a look at the house across the road, the shut-down library. They have been refurbishing it all summer. The large windows are covered in brown paper, but light is seeping out through the gaps.
    Anna-Karin wonders who is going to set up shop there and is feeling sorry for the owners already. They’ll do well if they can hang on for a year.
    She starts walking through the centre of town.
    It is Monday night and not a soul is about, as usual. Here and there, the blue light of a TV lights up a window. The August moon is like a fat, bright yellow cheese. The outside air is still warm and Anna-Karin longs for the end of this seemingly endless summer.
    She crosses Storvall Square and turns into Gnejsgatan, where she stops in front of the three-storey building covered in green-painted render.
    The front door slides open after just a slight push. Anna-Karin walks up to the only door on the ground floor and presses the doorbell.
    ‘Good evening, Anna-Karin,’ Nicolaus says when he opens the door.
    She hasn’t seen him for a week and since then, he has tanned a little. His ice-blue eyes seem to glitter more