The Special Ones (14 page)
I watch until they disappear out of view into the farm, and then I can only listen as their voices fade. Finally, faintly in the distance, I hear the main gate bang closed.
My entire body prickles like I’ve been dunked in icy water. It’s happened. Harry’s gone. Inside, I feel something swing loose, then break.
For the first few days after Harry’s departure, I struggle to move. Even the simplest of tasks – combing my hair, peeling potatoes, nodding – suddenly seem to require monumental effort. I drag myself through the day, cripplingly tired, but also dreading the moment when I go to bed. Bed means having no tasks to distract me.
In quieter moments, I catch myself composing letters to Harry in my head, filling him in on every tiny detail.
I made jam out of the ripest of those peaches you salvaged after the storm. It was a little sour so I stirred some honey into the mixture and it helped. Felicity is being brave, but I know it’s hard for her working on the farm alone. She really misses you, Harry. So do I …
The night-time noises seem to grow louder and more frequent, although maybe it’s just that I’m hardly sleeping anymore. Almost every night I think I hear footsteps, which often seem to stop just outside my door. Worst of all are the times when I think I hear the sound of heavy breathing too, coming through my keyhole.
It’s just the wind,
I tell myself over and over as I lie there, picturing a hand reaching out towards the doorhandle, grasping hold, starting to turn. I try to work up the courage to fling open my bedroom door, but I can’t. I’m afraid of what I will – or won’t – find out there.
One night after evening chat I linger in the chat room alone, dreading the thought of going back to my room and the night-time noises. I draw out the routine of shutting down the other machines for as long as possible, polishing every surface until it gleams. Then, when there is absolutely nothing left for me to do, I sit down in front of Esther’s screen. Stare at it. It looks like a piece of the sky, that unwavering blueness. Something you could float off into.
Just when I’m finally, reluctantly, about to turn it off, I hear it – the ping of a message arriving. This happens sometimes – a follower sees that I’m still online and tries to sneak in a question. Normally I’d ignore it, but tonight I’m eager for distractions. The username – Piper – is not familiar to me.
Esther. A close friend recently gave me twenty dollars and I’m not sure what to do. Should I save it?
I stare at the message and feel a little pulse of hope.
It’s Harry,
I think.
He’s alive.
But it might not be Harry. It might be from a normal follower, just asking an innocent question. It might also be a test from
him.
Maybe he saw me slip the money to Harry.
It’s too much to fathom and my hand darts out and turns off the screen. I can’t answer it now. I need to think. I climb into bed and lie there, heart pounding and the covers pulled up to my nose, trying to decide what to do.
I want with all my heart to believe the message was from Harry.
He’s asking if you want him to come and rescue you,
my tired, overly stimulated brain keeps insisting. But I also know that this is very unlikely. It doesn’t make sense that anyone could survive renewal.
But maybe he did, maybe Harry’s the exception. The only one who made it through.
Just before dawn, having not slept at all, I get up and dress. I want to go to the chat room before the others in case the message is still there – or any more have arrived. I still haven’t decided what I am going to do.
Outside, two kookaburras go through their morning song routine, accompanied faintly by the rooster down on the farm. The house has the stillness of very early morning. I pad down the corridor, instinctively stepping over the squeaky floorboards. I unlock the chat-room door and go inside. The room seems charged, the way the air feels before a thunderstorm. I hold my breath as the screen comes to life. And then I deflate when I see what’s there.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The message has disappeared. Maybe it was never there. I bow my head in my hands and nearly burst into tears. I’m so tired.
A voice speaks behind me, making me almost leap from my chair. ‘Esther? What are you doing?’ It’s Lucille, still in her nightgown, watching me from the doorway.
‘Just getting on with things,’ I reply. In my attempt to pull myself together, I sound terser than I intended.
She leans forward, squinting at the screen. ‘Are you about to write a report?’ she asks. Without realising, I’ve opened the form that is used to contact
him
if someone has broken a rule. ‘Have Felicity and I done something wrong?’
I quickly close down the report form. ‘There’s nothing to report,’ I tell her. ‘Nothing at all.’ I click on another icon, one that opens up the most recent message from him. ‘Your word today is
trust
.’
Why didn’t I reply to that message?
The thought torments me throughout the day. Of course it’s possible that the message was a test from him, or a genuine question from a follower. But now that it’s gone I feel almost certain that it was from Harry. I should’ve taken the risk. Because what other options do I have now? I’m not safe in here, no matter how obedient I am. Harry’s renewal has made that clear.
After evening chat, when Lucille and Felicity have gone to bed, I sit down in the chat room and wait. Hoping what happened last night will happen again, but not daring to believe that it will.
Which is why when the message from Piper appears, long after the chat session has finished, I feel my breath catch in my throat.
Are you there, Esther?
I’m really worried about my twenty dollars.
I think something bad might happen to it, if it stays where it is.
But maybe it’s better off there – I’m not sure.
This time I don’t let myself think. I just begin typing.
That twenty dollars is at risk. You should save it.
The next message appears almost immediately.
Yes, that’s what I thought too.
I can’t write anything direct. I can’t ask if it’s really Harry and, if so, how he managed to survive renewal. But it’s not as hard as it could have been. Harry and I have always had to talk in code.
Do you have a savings plan in mind?
It’s not a typical topic for discussion with a follower, but
he
has always stressed that we should answer all genuine questions with respect.
Not yet. But I’m working on it. I just wanted to hear if you thought it was a good idea. Something you’d approve of.
I shut my eyes as I type.
It sounds like a wise idea to me. And I’d do it sooner rather than later.
The conversation is making me dizzy, light-headed. Another message appears.
I have to go but I’ll contact you again once I’ve decided on a savings plan.
Just keep being you, Esther. Don’t change, whatever you do.
I stare at the final two sentences. They contain a warning, that’s very clear. But is it from Harry, telling me to keep my head down and not do anything stupid, or is it from
him
, letting me know that he has his eye on me, even more intently than usual?
Piper logs off before I have a chance to reply.
The conversation buzzes in my head, devouring almost all other thoughts. By late the next day I’m convinced I’ve made a terrible mistake. When I log on to my computer, I am fully expecting to see a message from
him
, telling me he knows what I’ve done and that I’ll be punished for it. Renewed, even. But there’s nothing there. Still, I need to be careful.
Obey the rules and act like nothing has changed,
I instruct myself.
Just keep being Esther
.
But it’s hard. I’m so exhausted, so completely drained. I spend hours awake each night, unable to shut off my thoughts, falling asleep just before dawn – only to wake up as the sun streams in through my window.
Except that one morning it doesn’t stream through. Or maybe it does, and in my exhausted state I roll over and fall instantly back asleep. I don’t remember.
The next thing I am aware of is Felicity’s voice calling to me. ‘Esther? Are you all right?’
I open my eyes to see her small face peering at me anxiously. Lucille is behind her, hands on hips and eyes narrowed.
I sit bolt upright. ‘I’m fine. Sorry. What time is it?’
‘Well past dawn,’ says Lucille, scrutinising my face. ‘What’s going on, Esther? Are you sick?’
‘No,’ I say. Not that being sick would be an excuse for me to stay in bed, anyway. There have been times in here when I’ve been almost delirious with fever or weak from flu, yet I’ve dragged myself from my bed and done my chores as usual. Sickness is described in Esther’s remembering book as a sign that the spirit is restless and possibly in need of renewing. I’ve learned to smother every sneeze, suppress every cough.
‘Then get up!’ Lucille orders. ‘We can’t even choose what to wear if we don’t know the guiding word.’
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. I say nothing to Lucille, partly because she’s right and partly because I’ve scared myself.
Harry told me to hang in there until he came to get me out, but sleeping in past dawn is one of the primary rules Esther mustn’t break. It makes me fear that my self-control – the one thing I’ve always had in here – is starting to slide away.
Felicity and Lucille hover outside the chat room as I check for the guiding word. My nerves flicker as I turn on the screen. Maybe my sleeping in will have already produced a renewal notice. But all I find is the guiding word.
Dare.
We’ve never had a word like this before and I’m not sure how to interpret it. As a challenge? A threat?
‘What is the word?’ calls Lucille from the doorway.
I turn around so I’m looking directly at her. ‘
Dare
,’ I tell her.
Lucille frowns. ‘That’s a very strange guiding word. Are you sure?’
I gesture to the screen. ‘Come and have a look for yourself.’
She hesitates and I know she’s weighing up her desire to catch me out in a lie against the risks involved in breaking a rule by coming in here during the day. ‘No,’ she says eventually. ‘I trust you wouldn’t lie to us.’
I make a
daring
breakfast – soup rather than the bread or porridge we usually have. Then Felicity goes off to the farm and Lucille goes to the parlour to sew, leaving me alone in the kitchen with a mess to tidy up.
The sleeping-in incident has left me on edge, like I can’t really trust myself. Practically every task on the farm has rules or rituals attached to it. There’s an order to how the floor must be swept (‘from the far right corner to the far left’) and how dishes are washed (‘first cutlery – largest to smallest – then plates, bowls and pots’). Even the porridge must be stirred in a particular way – twenty times to the left and then twenty times to the right, swapping hands with each direction change. There are so many opportunities for mistakes.