by Em Bailey
Tina lets out a rush of air, almost like she’s disappointed. ‘So what’s going to happen now, do you think? If this leader is still out there, is he going to go and kidnap a whole new bunch of people? Start a new branch of the cult?’
‘No,’ says Esther firmly. ‘That won’t happen.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
Again Esther turns and looks directly at the camera, and I understand that what she’s about to say is intended for me. ‘Because I am going to find him first.’
My heart expands with joy. She’s searching for me! I lean forward and press my face against hers through the screen. It’s what I used to do sometimes when I watched her in the house, so I could feel closer to her.
Don’t worry, my most precious one, I promise her. We’ll be together again very soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
We haven’t spoken about it yet. The interview. In fact, we haven’t spoken at all. Mum and I drove back from the studio in total silence. Not the comfortable sort, either. When we arrived home, the people waiting outside had to leap out of the way – it was clear Mum wouldn’t slow down as she drove through the gates.
Once we were inside, she stormed off to her room and slammed the door while I found myself heading to the kitchen. I needed to do something – active and mindless.
My first urge was to start scrubbing – to clean the oven, for instance, but ours is used so rarely that I knew there wouldn’t be much satisfaction in it. After searching through the cupboards and finding flour and an ancient sachet of yeast, I decided to make bread.
Yet even kneading dough didn’t stop my thoughts entirely. How could I have been so stupid? Had I really believed that I’d be able to appear on prime time and talk only about the missing girls? That I’d be able to get a message to Harry somehow? I remember what those news shows are like. I feel like an idiot for thinking it’d be different for me.
I also feel guilty about the way Harry was slandered. I should’ve done more to defend him. But even as I was trying to stick up for him, I found the same terrible thought creeping into my head that has been pestering me for days now: How much do you truly know about him? I don’t want it to be there. But I also can’t seem to get it out.
On the farm, I never thought about who Harry had been before he was Special, just as I tried not to think about who I’d been either. I’d never even considered how he came to be there. There were more important things to focus on, like surviving.
I squeeze the dough between my fingers, the frustration ballooning inside me. I wish so much that I could see Harry – even for a short time, or speak to him at least. I have so many questions.
I’m taking the bread rolls from the oven that evening when Mum finally comes out of the bedroom. Her face looks blotchy.
‘Was life with me and your dad really that bad?’ she blurts out. ‘So bad that you thought joining a cult would be better?’
I know I shouldn’t feel annoyed, but I do. Wasn’t this covered in the interview? The one she’s heard twice, now?
‘It was a mistake, Mum.’ Tendrils of steam curl up from the bread. ‘I was dumb. And I didn’t know I was joining a cult. I thought I was doing what I was destined to do. I believed I was …’ I trail off, unable to say the word.
Mum shakes her head. I’m not sure she’s even heard me.
‘When you disappeared, the police kept referring to you as a runaway,’ she says tightly. ‘But I said that no, you’d never do that. I insisted you’d been kidnapped.’ She covers her face with her hands so that her words are muffled and distorted. ‘You told the police, didn’t you? That you’d gone to that place by choice.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t tell us.’
I say nothing. What can I say?
Mum straightens up, her eyes suddenly as hard and cold as the kitchen counter. ‘Tell me the truth, Tess. You went to that place because of Harry.’
‘No!’ I say, suddenly shrill. She hasn’t changed. Not one bit. She still won’t listen to me. ‘I didn’t meet Harry until I got there. You have to believe me. I’m your daughter.’
‘Well, it’d help if you acted like you were!’ Mum yells, her face red. ‘I feel like you’re some stranger who doesn’t want to be here – who disapproves of everything we say and do!’
I must look shocked, because instantly Mum covers her mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean it. I’m just – it’s all so – oh, Tessy!’
She rushes towards me, arms outstretched. Instinctively, I flinch and pull back. Mum freezes, arms midair. Then she lets them drop and bursts into tears.
I stand there, feeling awkward and terrible. I know I should say something, or even just hug her – that’s what she wants more than anything. But I can’t. It would feel fake. Talking should be easier than hugging, but the trouble is there’s too much to say. I want to tell her I’m still discovering how much being on the farm has changed me. What it’s like obsessing over why he chose me. Why he wrote to me and me alone, making me believe that I wasn’t just some ordinary girl. And always, always having to live with the feeling that maybe I can still do something to make it right again. Survivor’s guilt, I guess they’d call it. But this is so much more complex than that. My head is too full. My heart is too guilty.
‘I promised myself that if you came back, I would never get mad or argue with you again,’ says Mum. She’s stopped crying but her voice is awful – all strangled-sounding. It makes my own throat ache to hear it. ‘I told myself I would agree to everything you wanted, all your opinions. But that was never going to work.’
I think about the promises I made too, during sleepless nights on the farm. Those deals with fate. I would be the perfect daughter. Smile for photographs. Hold back my criticisms of the way my parents live. I’ll do anything.
‘I guess it’s not that easy,’ I mumble.
Mum reaches out a cautious hand and puts it on my shoulder. It’s hard, but I manage not to move although I feel it there, heavy as a rock. ‘The important thing is that you’re back here. Safe.’
‘Yes.’ But as I say it, I find myself remembering something from the night I last saw Harry, outside the police station.
A car.
The glint of metal from just inside the window.
The feeling, like a constant prickle in my neck, that someone was watching me.
Safe is the last thing I feel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘There was something about that girl – Tess – which is not to be trusted. Even I could see that, on my terrible old TV.’
Mrs Lewis is sitting in my kitchen, perched on a plastic crate. I am sitting opposite her, also on a crate, with her laptop open on my knees. I am still not quite sure how she ended up in here, other than that she somehow got to the front door (I must have left the gate unlocked – a careless mistake), and I quickly understood that it would be more dangerous to forbid her entry than to let her in.
She will only be allowed to stay for a short while, however. I finally have a day off work and there are many more pressing things to do than help Mrs Lewis discover what’s wrong with her laptop. From what I can tell so far, the short answer to this appears to be everything.
I look up from the computer. ‘What do you mean, “not to be trusted”?’
Mrs Lewis purses her lips. ‘She’s holding things back, that one – picking and choosing what she reveals. Did you notice how she hardly looked anyone directly in the eye? Very suspicious. And as for this mysterious “him” who she claims is the leader of the Special Ones – well, I don’t believe he even exists. It’s obvious that Harry is the one in charge – no matter how much she denies it.’ Mrs Lewis leans closer. Close enough that I can smell her stale cigarette breath. ‘She’s in love with him. That’s why she won’t say where he is. She’s trying to protect him. Classic Stockholm.’
A dust storm whirls inside me, blurring my judgement. But although I’d like to wring her skinny neck right now, it’
s not really Mrs Lewis I’m angry at. It’s Harry. This, after all, is his fault. I had been so fair to him and he broke his contract.
From the moment I first saw the photograph, I knew that I was Harry and that I would eventually live with the others in the farmhouse. But as it got closer to the time when I was to move in, a niggling doubt began to grow inside me.
Eventually the vision appeared before me during a meditation and confirmed what I already suspected. ‘It is not the right time for you to move into the house. Your role is to watch over the group, keep it safe, keep it controlled, while remaining on the outside.’
As the vision said this, I knew she was right. There were still so many things that needed to be organised. The Special Ones portal, for instance.
But there was one thing that still troubled me. ‘Does this mean that I won’t ever live with Esther?’ I asked. It had taken months of back-breaking work to bring the farm to a livable state – even after I acquired some help. It was a terrible blow to think I might never live there.
‘When the time is right, you and Esther will be together,’ the vision had assured me. ‘But there are many things you must do before that is possible. Bring the Special Ones back together, and choose someone to stand in for you, until it is time to take up your rightful place.’
I nodded. It was what I had already felt to be true.
The vision raised a hand, streams of light billowing from her as she moved. ‘It’s important to choose your stand-in very carefully. Someone who won’t ever question you. And be sure that he doesn’t stay too long. Otherwise he may begin to believe he is more important than he really is.’
‘Mrs Lewis, your computer is past repair,’ I say, handing it back to her. This may not be true, but I’ve wasted enough time. ‘You’ll need a new one.’
‘Oh no!’ wails Mrs Lewis. ‘But they’re so expensive! Could you help me find a cheap one somewhere?’
It’s so tempting to shout at this insufferable woman. Order her out of my house and tell her I have more important things to do than help her shop. But it seems wasteful to destroy my carefully constructed good neighbour persona, especially when I am about to bring Esther here. The last thing I need is an offended Mrs Lewis spying on me.
‘Hang on,’ I tell her and, going into the pantry, I grab one of the undelivered laptops from the pile and hand it to her. ‘Here. You can have this.’
Her eyes bulge. ‘How wonderful! How much do I owe you?’
‘It’s a gift.’
Mrs Lewis looks like she might cry or, worse, hug me. ‘I am so blessed to have you as a neighbour!’ she gushes. ‘Let me at least cook you dinner as a way of saying thanks. I often think, that poor young man must be so lonely all by himself, stuck in that place where such a terrible thing happened. You come round and I’ll cook you some spaghetti.’
‘That’s really not necessary,’ I say firmly, and usher her, as quickly as I can, out the door. I hurry around to the garage and get in my father’s car. I should wait until she’s gone, but I’m impatient to get on with my work so Mrs Lewis has only just reached the front gate when I drive up. She hurries to swing it open for me, her purple yoga pants almost snagging on a protruding twist of wire in her haste.
‘Where are you going?’ she asks, when I get out to lock the gate again behind me.
‘Just catching up with an old colleague,’ I tell her. And then I drive off quickly, before she can delay me any further. Nestled safely in the glove compartment is my gun.
It’s almost amusing how obsessed the world seems to be with finding Harry at the moment. All this fuss for someone who amounts to so very little! Crime Stoppers keeps replaying grainy footage of Harry from the house; they’ve even produced an identikit photograph that makes him look twice his actual age and three times his weight.
One national paper – the Morning Star – publishes an article describing all that is known about Harry (basically nothing) and where he might be (basically anywhere). A psychic appears on daytime TV claiming that Harry has committed suicide and his spirit is sorry for everything he did. Several people come forward claiming to be him. I hear a police spokesman say that they’ve received so many calls it may take weeks to go through them all.
Of course, I am also very interested in finding Harry, and unlike the media and the police I have a lot of useful information to hand. Not just facts, either, but detailed insights into how his mind works and what his weaknesses are. This is why I head for the part of town where the lowlifes hang out – the thieves, the drug dealers, the criminals. It’s where I first found Harry, and no doubt where I’ll find him again.
I drive slowly around the litter-strewn streets, getting out occasionally to stare down a dark alley or to ask someone if they’ve seen a dodgy-looking guy who seems like he’s hiding from something. One drunk laughs in my face. ‘You just described ninety per cent of the people around here,’ he says.
Eventually I come to an empty doorstep – the very one where I first spotted Harry, all those years ago. He hadn’t looked like much back then, sitting there with another wasted guy, both of them drugged-up and dirty – but he bore a strong enough resemblance to the Harry in the photograph for me to stop and watch. When the other man had said, ‘Pass us the bottle, Harry,’ it felt like a clear sign.
I hadn’t needed to use force with him in the beginning. The promise of some cheap gear was enough to lure Harry out to the farmhouse, where I locked him in the changing room with a bucket of water. He was in a sorry state when I went back a week later. Battered and bruised. Shaking from the withdrawal. I stood over him and breathed in his fear. It smelled good.
When the worst of it was over, he took to work at the farmhouse better than I’d anticipated. He seemed to genuinely enjoy it – sleeping out under the stars, eating simple food and drinking nothing but water. After a month, he told me he wanted to stay. I remember the eagerness in his voice. His sincerity. ‘It’s really changed me, being here.’
I smiled but did not say what I was thinking: people like you are incapable of change. Instead I said, ‘That is very good news.’
It was then that I showed him the photograph, explaining that I wanted him to stand in as Harry for a while, until I was ready to take over myself. I told him that I would pay him – a pittance, but it was steadier work than he’d ever had. It was obvious he would’ve done it for free, but I wanted to be clear that this was just a job for him. That he wasn’t special. And he agreed.
It was soon after this that I finally spotted the first of the Special Ones – a Lucille – coming home from a dance class. Her hair was the wrong colour but the set of her features and the way she moved were instantly familiar to me. Excitement leapt in me. It’s definitely her. I had always imagined that the first collection would be Esther, but I saw now that it didn’t really matter. I would collect them as fate and fortune allowed.
I remember the excitement of that first collection so vividly. I had driven Harry into town that evening and I could tell he was nervous, as well as confused. We parked near the dance school and waited until the blonde girl came out.
‘I know her,’ I told Harry. ‘Can you go tell her that her dad is in trouble and we need her help? I’ll wait for you both around the corner.’
Harry looked mildly uncertain as he hopped out, but did not question me. I parked around the corner and popped the boot. From under my seat I pulled a blanket – an old favourite of my brother’s – and pulled on a balaclava. I’d felt jittery with excitement until I heard the vision counselling me. Stay calm, stay in control.
A few moments later, Harry and the girl entered the lane. I saw him gesture to my car and she peered forward, trying to see me through the tinted windscreen.
‘Is my dad okay?’ she said, looking worried.
‘I’m sure everything’s fine,’ Harry told her. ‘He just needs your help.’
A thrill passed through me as the girl came closer. Finally my little family was coming back together! The moment she
turned away from the car, I stepped out quickly and threw the blanket over her, swaddling her tightly. Muffling her cries.
‘Help me lift her into the boot,’ I said to Harry. My voice was calm, but I made it clear he had to obey me.
Harry stood fixed to the spot, staring at me with an almost comical look of horror on his face. I had to heave her in by myself.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I snapped, when the boot was securely closed. ‘You’re paid to help me.’
‘You lied to her!’ His voice was strained.
‘She belongs on the farm,’ I told him. ‘She just doesn’t realise it yet.’ From within the boot came the sound of muted yelling. ‘Let’s go,’ I said, striding around to the driver’s seat.
‘No!’ said Harry. He had the nerve to sound angry. To doubt what I was doing. ‘You have to let her out!’
I knew that I did not have to justify my actions to this temporary fill-in, but then he made a move towards the boot. I pulled my gun from my jacket and pressed it to his chest. ‘If you open that, I will shoot you and then I will shoot her too.’ I spoke slowly and clearly so he would understand how serious I was. ‘Get in the car, and let’s go.’
I trawl the streets for hours, my frustration and irritation steadily growing until they threaten to spill out. I uncover no sign of Harry – not a trace. As far as I can tell he hasn’t checked into any of the boarding houses he used to frequent when he could cover the rent, or the doorsteps he’d sleep on when he couldn’t. No-one seems to have any information, not even when I threaten them or offer money.
I feel bone-weary by the time I start driving home late that evening and I am sorely tempted to take a swig from the purple bottle – but the contents are getting low and I am not sure when Esther will be back to make me a new supply.
When I stop to unbolt the front gate, I find that a newspaper has been shoved between the bars. It’s almost definitely been passed on from Mrs Lewis. It falls to the ground as I swing the gate open and I see the front headline: HUNT FOR HARRY HEATS UP.