The Special Ones (6 page)

Harry must guess how I’m feeling. ‘We’ve done the right thing, Esther,’ he murmurs. ‘We did what we had to do.’

He sounds so sure that I feel a little less evil. For now, at least.

He takes his pipe out of his jacket pocket and leans against the wall. ‘Let her tire herself out.’

Unlike the rest of the farmhouse, the changing room is made from stone. It has no windows, just a couple of slits near the ceiling and a mesh grate set into the door. It’s always dark and cool in there, and I often think that it would make a good place to keep our food supplies in summer. Maybe that’s what it was designed for originally. But it’s also a good place to keep a newly collected girl. The thick walls almost entirely block the sound of screaming.

Harry smokes his pipe by the locked door while we wait for the girl to calm down. Normally at this time I would be in the kitchen, preparing our dinner, washing potatoes and greens for a simple meal. My stomach rumbles. But in these early stages of reintroduction, it’s crucial to stay nearby.

Instead, I work on my mental to-do list and the step-by-step strategy for turning this girl into a passable Lucille. The clothes should be easy enough. The previous Lucille’s things are already waiting in a pile on a chair near the bed. Obviously the girl’s hair will need dyeing and curling, but there’s no point attempting that for at least a couple of days. Acceptance needs to come first, or despair. Either will do.

The girl is still moving around the room, raging and yelling, but she’s slowing down now, and her voice is husky from overuse. My own tiredness builds as I watch her through the little grate in the door. She’s a mechanical toy – faltering, skipping, failing. When she finally crumples to the floor, it’s sudden and shocking – as if someone has yanked out her spine.

I give her a minute, and then when Harry nods I unlock the door. We walk in together and I pull the pillowcase from the girl’s head. Her face shines from a smeary combination of heat, snot and tears.

Our new Lucille.

I reach out a hand and lightly pat her shoulder, allowing myself a small moment to enjoy the rare sensation of touching another human being. It’s restricted and closely monitored during a collection, but Esther is allowed it.

Lucille pushes my hand away and gives me a look of stony hatred. Her eyes, I notice, are blue. Another thing that will have to change.

I sit down on the floor in front of her, my heavy skirts bunching around me like a deflated hot-air balloon. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course I’m not
okay
,’ spits the Lucille. She lifts her bound wrists and points a trembling finger at Harry. ‘He kidnapped me!’

Harry gently corrects her. ‘I brought you home.’

‘Lucille,’ I say. ‘You are back with us now. With the Special Ones.’

‘You’re insane,’ she snarls.

Harry crouches beside her, the fragrance of pipe tobacco wafting up from his hair and clothes. ‘Come on, Lucille,’ he says softly. ‘Don’t you remember us? Don’t you remember what happened?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘You were with us, then you left for a while,’ I say. When I’m doing this –
reminding
a girl of who she used to be – I speak in a singsong way, like I’m telling a bedtime story. ‘Then Harry found you and brought you home. Our dear, beloved Lucille. Don’t worry if you can’t remember it all yet. It’ll come back to you soon.’

The girl shakes her head savagely. ‘I know exactly who I am. I’m –’

I shush her. ‘No, Lucille. You’re confused. Your soul is still settling. False memories are blocking the pathway to remembering who you really are. But the knowledge will return soon, I promise.’

There’s another small shift in the Lucille’s expression then, so subtle that only Harry or I would be likely to spot it. Doubt. This is good, as uncertainty opens up the opportunity for a new version of the truth to be slipped into a person’s mind. The version that is needed to survive in here. But obviously there’s still a long way to go.

‘Who exactly do you think I am?’ she asks. Her speech is still slightly slurred, but it’s rapidly getting sharper. We need to work fast. The hours after Harry first brings someone back is when they are the most open to having ideas implanted. The ideas burrow deep into the still-groggy mind and begin to grow.

Harry hands me a small-scale copy of our photograph for Lucille. I show it to her and tap the dark-haired figure on the left. ‘This is you here,’ I say. ‘Your name is Lucille.’

Beneath the streaks of tears and snot, her face is very pale. ‘That photo must be a hundred years old. How could it possibly be me?’

I lean forward. If I say the right thing now it could mean the difference between an easy transition for this girl and weeks of hardship for everyone. ‘You are special, Lucille,’ I say in my lullaby voice. ‘You are one of
the
Special Ones. Just like Harry, Felicity and me. We live here on the land together, away from all the evils of the modern world. We are spiritual farmers who lovingly tend to our followers, shepherding them through the difficult times.’

‘They worship us,’ puts in Harry.

The girl lifts her eyes to him. ‘Worship?’ It’s clear she likes the word. The Lucilles always do.

‘Yes,’ says Harry. ‘
Worship
.’

She looks back at the photo again. ‘That can’t be me,’ she whispers, more to herself than to us. ‘No-one can live that long.’

She’s resisting it – of course she is – but at least she’s listening.

‘Imagine pouring milk from one glass into another,’ I say. ‘The milk stays the same, doesn’t it? It’s just the glass that has changed.’

The Lucille gives a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. I suppress the smallest flare of triumph.

‘Well, your soul has always lived here with us,’ I explain. ‘But your glass needs changing over time. Each time the glass renews, it messes with your memory for a little while. Kind of like the bubbles of froth you get in milk after pouring. They go away and the surface steadies again, doesn’t it? It’s a natural part of the process. Inside you’re still our Lucille. You’ll see.’

I’ve recited this passage many times. More times than I care to think about.

Lucille’s eyes are wet. ‘But what happens to my – to the other soul? Which was already in this body that Lucille has now been
poured into
?’

‘There was no other soul,’ I say, allowing a note of sadness into my voice. ‘That body was just a shell. It moved and talked, but there was nothing real inside. Not like now.’

Lucille is shaking her head, but I can tell I’ve struck a nerve. We all have that sense of emptiness inside, but it’s worse for some of us than others. It goes deeper and stays longer. It’s what Harry saw in the food court. It’s what
he
recognised in me.

I stand up, smooth down my skirts. ‘You’ll see how different you feel in a day or two, Lucille, as your soul clears.’

‘We’re really glad to have you back,’ Harry tells her and he sounds so genuine that I have another momentary flicker – is it possible Harry believes all this is actually real?

When he offers her a hand, the Lucille allows him to help her up off the cold stone floor. I smile to myself. Harry’s charm is hard to resist. He leads her to the small cot in the corner and she sits down with a snuffle, raising her bound wrists to wipe her nose.

Then Harry gently takes the picture from my hand and shows it to Lucille again, pointing to the other figures. ‘That’s Felicity,’ he tells her. ‘The little girl who was in the kitchen before. She helps her followers remember what it’s like to be a child. How to play, how to laugh, how to be filled with lightness and wonder.’

Poor Felicity. She didn’t look so full of light and wonder when she fled to her bedroom. I will have to make an extra effort to be kind to her over the next few days.

‘I’m Harry, obviously,’ he continues with a smile. ‘I work on the farm and produce the food we eat, teaching our followers how to harness the sacred bounty of the sun, earth and rain to provide sustenance.’

‘Don’t forget kidnapping,’ the Lucille says, coolly. ‘You could teach them about that as well.’ And then suddenly she looks at me. ‘Did he kidnap you, too?’ she asks. ‘Is that how you ended up here?’

I look away, my face flushed. Harry laughs good-naturedly. ‘It’s called a collection,’ he says. ‘Your soul is still settling into its new form. You’ll remember everything soon enough.’

Lucille swallows, and looks at the photograph again. She points a finger at the central figure. ‘And this is you?’ she says to me.

‘Yes, I’m Esther,’ I say. ‘I teach our followers how to heal themselves with natural remedies and how to find inner harmony and balance.’

Lucille leans closer to the image. ‘She does look a lot like you.’

I smile serenely. Esther’s verification smile. ‘She
is
me.’ I sound like I believe it. ‘And you
are
Lucille.’

The Lucille bites her lip, staring at the image. ‘She’s a little like me, I guess,’ she admits. But then she shakes her head vigorously, as if trying to stop something from taking hold. ‘But it can’t be –’

‘Yes, Lucille,’ I say firmly. ‘That girl
is
you. You’re Lucille. You help your followers bring beauty to the world, to their homes and to themselves. You teach them how to find love by teaching them how to love themselves. Your followers need you. They’ve been
waiting
for you to return.’

For a moment, Lucille’s dirty, tear-stained face is transformed by a tiny smile. I lean even closer, seeking out her gaze. ‘I know you want to help them,’ I say softly. ‘That’s what we do. We are the Special Ones.’

Lucille closes her eyes. She doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t argue either. I glance at Harry and he nods. The process of reintroduction is a bit like repainting a house, and today we’ve begun to sand back the top layer.

When I look back at Lucille, she’s stretching out on the cot, bringing her hands under her head like a pillow. The extreme heat, her emotional exhaustion and whatever Harry’s given her have taken their toll. Within a few minutes, she’s fallen into a deep sleep.

When he’s sure she’s out, Harry gently unbinds her wrists. She hardly stirs, though her skin is rubbed raw in places.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he whispers, winding up the ropes, and I unlock the door so he can leave the room.

Once the door is relocked, I remove the girl’s clothes. It’s difficult to do because she is a dead weight, and yet I need to be quick and careful to avoid waking her. Also, I know
he
still frowns upon my touching skin if I can help it, even today.

I check that she is decently covered by the sheet as I bundle her into Lucille’s long white nightgown. When I leave the room, I take her clothes with me and put them directly into the stove.

CHAPTER SIX

There’s no sound from the Lucille during the night, and when I press my ear against the door at sunrise the next morning there’s still silence. It’s not until we’ve almost finished breakfast that we hear a muffled thumping from down the corridor.

‘Ah,’ says Harry cheerfully. ‘Someone’s finally woken up.’

I peer through the grate in the door to find Lucille standing there completely naked, the nightgown a shredded heap on the ground. She stares back at me defiantly, the hazy look from yesterday gone. ‘Let me out,
right now
.’

‘Lucille,’ I say calmly, ‘we’re happy for you to join us when you’re dressed and ready.’

‘Where is my stuff?’ she says through gritted teeth.

‘On the chair next to you.’

Lucille kicks the chair so viciously that it topples. The clothes tumble to the floor. ‘Those aren’t mine!’

‘Of course they’re yours, Lucille,’ I tell her. As I move away from the door, something whacks against it from the other side. Probably the chair. I sigh quietly. It looks like she’s decided on the slow and painful path. That’s so typical for a Lucille.

For an entire week she refuses to get dressed, or even get up. The tactics that usually help in this situation – withholding food, threats – don’t seem to affect her and it crosses my mind that she might be prepared to die rather than do as we ask. Something else occurs to me too. Maybe the problem actually lies with me. Maybe I’m losing my ability to pull off this sort of transformation.

One morning I come in to find that she’s tipped a full bedpan onto the ground and smeared the contents everywhere. Any sense of triumph or relief I had at this girl’s arrival here has long vanished. I feel her glaring at me as I silently clean up the disgusting mess.

I fetch a basin of hot water and hand her a sponge and some soap. She eyes these with displeasure. ‘I want a shower.’

‘Sorry,’ I tell her. ‘This will have to do.’

‘Where do you get this horrible soap from?’ she says, examining it with a frown.

‘It’s homemade. From fat and lavender.’

Lucille drops the soap like it’s crawling with maggots. ‘I’m not washing myself with
fat!
’

‘That’s up to you,’ I say mildly. Given the state of her hands, I’m confident she’ll change her mind. She does, eventually, and when she’s finished I pass her a cloth to dry herself with.

‘Are you going to bring me my clothes now?’ she says. ‘My
real
clothes I mean, not that stupid costume.’