The Special Ones

It’s Lucille herself who suggests she join evening chat that night. ‘My followers have gone for long enough without my guidance,’ she says, tucking a glossy ringlet behind her ear. ‘And I’m sure he must be wondering what’s taking so long.’

  I examine her face, trying to work out if she’s sincere. I’m still not sure what I think of this new Lucille.

  ‘She’s got a point, Esther,’ says Harry. ‘It has been a very long wait for the followers.’

  ‘Well, okay,’ I say, making it seem that I’m the one allowing it. ‘I guess we can try it.’

  Lucille looks genuinely thrilled and Harry shows no sign of concern, but the uneasy feeling in my chest continues to grow.

  I take Lucille to the chat room early so I can explain how everything works. She reacts as everyone does when they see the sleek modern glow of the computers – with disbelief and excitement. ‘How do they work? I thought we didn’t have any electricity.’

  ‘We have a solar generator,’ I explain. ‘Harry looks after it.’

  ‘Why don’t … can you remind me why we don’t use it for other things? Like lights and refrigeration?’

  It’s something I’ve often wondered about myself. How much easier my work in the kitchen would be if I could put things in a freezer, or keep milk fresh for more than a single day in hot weather! But making life easier has never been the focus here. As it says in our books, hard work is our greatest teacher.

  ‘The generator is just for the computers,’ I tell her.

  ‘So which one is mine again?’

  I point. Lucille sits down in front of it and stares at the blank screen.

  ‘Remember, the chat is monitored,’ I tell her, a warning note in my voice. ‘If you say anything inappropriate to the followers, there will be repercussions. And not just for you.’

  She turns her head. Smiles her new, unnerving smile. ‘Oh, Esther. You don’t need to worry. Have you forgotten who I am?’

  The chat session goes well – better than it usually does with a freshly renewed Special One. When I glance over Lucille’s shoulder to check her answers, I can see she’s writing with the ease of someone who’s been doing this all her life.

  I find myself noticing how similar she is to the previous Lucilles. The Lucilles always have a particular way of sitting at the keyboard during chat – their backs ruler-straight, eyes intently focused. They all twirl a lock of hair around their index finger when they’re thinking, too.

  When the session ends, Lucille is glowing. ‘They were all so desperate to talk to me! They really valued my opinions and advice.’ She flicks back her hair. ‘We’re kind of like gods, aren’t we?’ she muses, more to herself than anyone else.

  Did I feel like this after my first chat? Probably, back when I still believed I really was Special. I definitely don’t feel like that now. Now I live in constant fear of making a mistake and exposing myself as a fraud.

  ‘Like gods?’ I say lightly. ‘Well, yes. Exactly.’

  With Lucille living among us, life on the farm finally returns to normal. She takes over her allotted duties and I’m free to get on with the tasks that have been mounting up: pickling vegetables for winter, giving the cutlery a thorough polish. And, of course, the followers fall over themselves with delight at finally having the four Special Ones back together again.

  I feel myself relaxing, just a little. I should know better.

  ‘I’ve had a message from him,’ says Harry one morning, between mouthfuls of porridge. ‘It’s verification day.’

  I knew we were due for this, but all the same I instantly lose my appetite. ‘Today?’

  ‘Oh no,’ whispers Felicity. ‘When?’

  Harry calmly takes another spoonful of porridge. ‘Directly after breakfast.’

  ‘Verification,’ says Lucille. ‘That’s when we stand underneath the photograph in the parlour. To check that we haven’t changed.’ She has developed a way, I’ve noticed, of asking questions that sound like statements. It’s a clever tactic.

  ‘Exactly,’ I say.

  I’m glad she doesn’t bring up the topic of what happens if someone has changed. If they’ve become too tanned, lost weight, or put it on, if their hair has become lighter or darker. Maybe the eyes look more tired than in the photograph, or more afraid.

  As I clear away the breakfast things, my eyes flit over Felicity, checking for faults. I’ve been so focused on Lucille recently that I haven’t been as vigilant about checking her appearance. Luckily I fixed her roots a couple of days ago, but she is getting tall – worryingly so. Her hems should’ve been let down in an attempt to disguise her growth. But there’s no time for anything like that now. No time to do anything but hope she’ll think of bending her knees slightly under her skirt during the check, to shrink her height a little.

  We file into the parlour. ‘Try and match the photo,’ I murmur to Lucille.

  Lucille snorts and without a word she goes and stands beneath the photograph hanging above the mantelpiece. Almost instantly her face assumes the exact expression of Lucille in the image. It’s amazing how well she does it. A little disturbing, in fact.

  Harry, Felicity and I take our places too, and I try, as always, to channel Esther’s face – that blank unreadability. We are so silent that I can hear the buzz of cicadas outside. Directly in front of us is the window, the curtains drawn. I focus my eyes on the place where the two drapes of material meet and overlap.

  The most difficult part of verification is knowing how long we are meant to stand in position. With some things we are given very detailed information on how a thing must be done, but it’s the opposite with verification. There’s no flash of a camera, no voice or bell that rings to let us know when our time below the photograph starts or ends.

  At first I made everyone stand in position for hours – sometimes for the entire day – until we were all dropping from fatigue. Eventually Harry gently suggested that it probably wasn’t necessary to stay there quite so long. Now I wait until I have counted to a thousand in my head.

  A numbness creeps up and around me as I stand there. I start to feel lighter and lighter, until it’s as if I’ve left my body altogether and am floating somewhere near the ceiling. I look down at the four of us standing there, so eager to please our invisible director, hoping that he will continue to cast us in the roles we’ve been selected to play.

  Nine hundred and ninety-eight, nine hundred and ninety-nine …

  ‘That’s enough, everyone,’ I say, and we all take in a breath at the same time.

  Lucille looks around expectantly. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now we get on with our normal tasks,’ I say. I’m already on my way to the door. I’ve got a lot to do today and less time to do it in than usual.

  Lucille frowns. ‘But we need to find out if we’ve passed or not.’

  ‘He’ll let me know tonight,’ I tell her. ‘Before evening chat.’ I hurry out before she can ask anything else.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There are no messages waiting when I log in.

  ‘You passed,’ I tell Lucille. ‘We all did.’

  ‘Sometimes we fail, though,’ she says.

  I think about the first Lucille. The one whose weight loss I’d been unable to disguise, despite the padding stuffed into her corset.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then we are renewed.’

  I turn away from Lucille, wiping dust from a shelf to hide my expression. ‘Yes. Then we are renewed.’

  Lucille is silent for a moment, then shrugs. ‘Well, I’ve only just been renewed. So that wouldn’t happen to me again so soon.’

  She’s wrong. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since your last renewal. It can happen at any time. But I keep quiet. Let her feel safe, for a while at least.

  The Lucilles always like to rearrange things in the house and, sure enough, by the end of the week all the furniture in the parlour and kitchen has been subtly reorganised. I don’t mind. The adjustments bring a freshness to the farmhouse. Lu
cille is in the eager to learn phase, and that’s fine by me too. With each skill she acquires – reacquires – my life becomes a little easier. She quickly masters the basics of mending and darning, and goes into battle against the dust with a determination I’ve never seen in a Lucille before.

  ‘Hard work strengthens our minds as well as our bodies,’ she tells me one day. Her eyes shine with the light of the newly converted. ‘Hard work is our greatest teacher.’

  When she’s ready for it, I unlock the fabric cupboard and show her the contents. Lucille runs her hand down the bolts of cloth. ‘Harry brings this for us,’ she says.

  ‘Sometimes he does,’ I say. ‘But sometimes it just appears in there.’

  Lucille narrows her eyes. ‘Just appears?’

  I nod, like there is nothing strange at all about a cupboard that fills itself. ‘Yes. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, there will be items we need waiting for us on the kitchen table. Sometimes things are already locked away in the cupboard. Never food or water, though. Just things we can’t make here.’

  ‘But how does it get there?’ Lucille persists. ‘Does he bring it?’

  I think about the night-time noises, the creaks that sound so much like footsteps. The prickling sensation I feel thinking that someone’s out there, prowling around. The way the purple bottle empties overnight. ‘I don’t know,’ I admit, because there’s nothing in any of our books that explains the things that appear. Or disappear.

  There’s a silence. ‘He takes care of us,’ says Lucille, eventually.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He does.’

  Lucille runs her hand down the cloth bolts. ‘This is for me to use,’ she says. ‘To sew things we need.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve … forgotten how to sew,’ says Lucille, chewing her bottom lip. Another Lucille characteristic.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I say. ‘I have a simple project that will help you remember.’ I hand her a rectangular object made from white cotton.

  She turns it over and over, puzzled. Then she looks up brightly. ‘It’s an eye mask!’

  ‘It’s a sanitary napkin,’ I tell her. I know it’s mean to laugh, but it’s hard not to at the horrified look on her face.

  ‘I don’t want to make sanitary napkins!’ she objects. As her voice rises in pitch and volume, I catch a glimpse of the girl she was when she first arrived. It’s somehow reassuring to see she hasn’t completely disappeared.

  ‘Fine by me,’ I say. ‘But you’re going to need them.’

  Lucille looks down at the napkin in her hand as this information sinks in. ‘How many do I need to make?’ she asks, finally.

  ‘That depends,’ I say, ‘on how frequently you want to wash them out.’

  She blanches. ‘Can’t I just throw them away once they’re used?’

  I pull a shocked expression as I open the door to the parlour and usher her inside. ‘Of course not. That would be terribly wasteful.’

  When I look in before dinnertime, there’s a tall pile of napkins on the table beside Lucille. ‘Not bad!’ I say, examining them. Her stitch work is surprisingly good.

  ‘It had to be done,’ she says, as if her objections from this morning never happened.

  I smile at her, pleased and a little astonished at how well she’s handled it. ‘We need to start on some new clothes too. Maybe tomorrow?’

  Lucille nods her head. ‘Yes, of course.’

  A few days later, she presents Felicity with a skirt. It’s very simple and slightly wonky, but Lucille has clearly spent a lot of time on it. She’s even embroidered little bluebirds around the hem.

  Harry is full of praise for her work. ‘She’s changed so much,’ he marvels to me, later.

  And it’s true, she has. But although I’d never say it to Harry, this new obedient, rule-following version makes me nervous. Unlike with the loud, angry girl who first arrived, I have no way of knowing what she’s thinking.

  Although life in the house has settled down, there are still things on my mind. The heatwave, for instance. The garden is rapidly wilting and turning brown. The trees look limp and tired. Felicity mentions that it’s taking her a long time to pump water out of the well. Bushfire thoughts steal hours of sleep from me. What would we do if everything outside started to burn?

  He would rescue us, I tell myself. He’d open the gates and let us out. We are the Special Ones, after all.

  But there’s always another voice in my head that persists in asking, But what if he doesn’t?

  Harry returns one evening with a look I recognise. Something is wrong. He doesn’t say anything while Felicity and Lucille are there, but when we are alone in the kitchen after dinner, he leans against the sink as I do the washing-up.

  ‘The main water tank is almost empty,’ he says quietly. ‘I’m not sure how much longer it’ll last, even if we’re very careful. I’m giving the animals water from the creek but that’s almost dry too.’

  I’ve suspected this for a while now – the water Felicity brings in has been getting progressively murkier. But when I actually hear Harry say it, I feel a squeeze of panic. ‘What can we do?’

  Harry breathes out slowly and, for once, he has no reassuring words. ‘We just have to hope it rains.’

  I say nothing. We both know from experience that relying on hope is pointless.

  That evening during chat, I find myself doing something I haven’t done for a long time – fantasising about asking the followers for assistance. We are about to run out of water. Please help us.

  Maybe someone will come to our rescue. But there’s no question that he would see what I’m writing, and I would end up being punished, or renewed. It’s strictly forbidden to complain to the followers, or ask for assistance.

  I force the thoughts from my mind and busy myself answering a follower’s question about curing her insomnia – you need to listen to your inner voice and then reassure it – instead.

  Another week passes with no rain. Then another. Every day I get up and look out the window to be faced, yet again, with a smooth, blue, cloudless sky, the air more stifling than the day before. One by one the chickens die of heat exhaustion, then – even worse – one of the goats. I salt the meat, wrap it in cloth and hang it in a dark cupboard to cure.

  We stop using water for anything other than drinking and even that is strictly rationed. Everyone’s hair and skin takes on a greyish-brown tinge. My tongue develops a furry coating.

  I dream of water – especially of the fountain in the park near where I used to live. In the dreams I am standing in the fountain’s base, my head tilted back to watch the shining ropes of water arc up into the air. Droplets tumble down towards my outstretched arms and opened mouth but disappear before they touch.

  Harry stops whistling, but works just as hard as ever. ‘The rain will come,’ he promises every time he catches me staring out the window at the sky. ‘Don’t fret.’

  We have another sharing night, and this time Felicity manages to drop to the floor first, for the heinous crime of keeping a tomato all to herself one day. ‘I was thirsty,’ she admits.

  My heart aches for her. But she seems pleased. ‘This time you don’t get punished,’ she whispers to Harry.

  When she spins, the arrow lands on knife.

  Harry shakes his head. ‘No. Spin it again.’

  It lands on knife again.

  ‘Let me do it,’ says Harry, taking the spinner. The result is the same. Felicity protests but Harry insists on trying once more. Knife.

  ‘Let her receive her punishment!’ says Lucille, exasperated. ‘It’s clearly what he wants!’

  Felicity places her small hand on Harry’s arm. ‘It will be okay.’

  I get up and go to the chest in the parlour, unwrapping the punishment knife from its dark square of velvet. Its handle is carved from bone and its hooked blade gleams.

  Felicity’s hand trembles, just a little, as she takes the knife from me. ‘Not too hard,’ I whisper. ‘It
doesn’t have to be hard.’

  Harry seems frozen, his eyes fixed on Felicity. She lays the knife across both her palms and then squeezes her fingers tightly around it. Her eyes shut and a moment later there’s a trickle of blood from each side of her clenched fists. The blood drips onto the kitchen floor.

  Two minutes isn’t even long enough to boil an egg. But right now, it feels like an eternity.

  The moment I’ve mentally counted to 120, I say, ‘Time’s up, Felicity. Let go now.’

  Her hands are a mess of dark blood but her face is radiant. ‘Now it will rain,’ she says. ‘I’ve fixed it.’

  The certainty in her voice makes me want to cry.

  I dream about being cornered by a large dog, growling and baring its teeth at me. As it’s about to bite, I see that it has the face of a man – someone I’ve never seen but somehow recognise.

  Then there’s a loud crack, and I wake just as the room is illuminated by a flash of light.

  At first I don’t dare to believe it. A storm?

  There’s a knock on my door. Harry. ‘Esther! Come out and look at the rain!’

  ‘But we’re not allowed to leave our rooms during the night –’

  ‘It’s okay,’ says Harry. ‘These are definitely special circumstances.’

  I pull on my robe and rush to the kitchen just as the rain starts to fall, drumming on the verandah roof. Harry is already there and Lucille and Felicity join us a moment later. Together we gather around the window and stare out.

  ‘I knew the cut would work,’ says Felicity triumphantly, clasping her bandaged hand against her chest. ‘I just knew it.’ She turns to me, her face bright with a sudden idea. ‘Can I go outside and run in the rain? I’m so hot and sticky.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say quickly, before I can think of a reason why she shouldn’t.

  Lucille shakes her head disapprovingly. ‘You shouldn’t let her do that.’

  ‘Felicity shows our followers how to take a childlike joy in the world,’ I point out. ‘And what could be more joyful right now than playing in the rain?’