Lucky Number 23

by Krystle Able

  “What is it?” I groaned.

  “Time to go fishing!”

  I grunted, rolled back over in bed, and covered my head with the pillow. I had forgotten I promised to take her to the creek during breakfast that morning. I was looking forward to playing PS1 all afternoon since our studies would start back up the next day.

  “Come on,” the little girl whined at me.

  I couldn’t say no to her.

  I sat up in bed and stretched.

  “Father doesn’t have any treatments for you this afternoon?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Dr. John says I’ve been an excellent patient and that I can play this afternoon,” she smiled wide.

  I chuckled. She had no idea how much irony was behind her name. I often wondered if her mother could’ve known how much luck the little girl would need to get through life and so decided to give her all the luck she would ever need in her name. Smart mom. Smart to give her up too. Girls like Lucky were dangerous, but father and mama had taken a liking to Lucky.

  None of the others responded to the treatment as she had, and while father had been upset when mama first brought her to the manor, she had quickly become his favorite, which was also a stroke of fate itself. Lucky number 23 she was. Our 23rd patient, born on the 23rd. Father’s favorite number. More than a favorite he would tell us—the number was special, it had meaning. I didn’t believe in all the nonsense my father spouted about the number, but he was right that Lucky was different than the other girls. She hadn’t failed us.

  “Did you see any of the other girls today?” I asked her.

  There were only a few left then since father had focused most of his energy on Lucky. Numbers 8, 16, and 27 were the only ones left besides Lucky. Number 8 had been there the longest and was the oldest of the girls at 18. She would be aging out soon, and her caseworker would be coming to the house in a few weeks to take her back to the department of human services to sign out and get thrown right into adult life. She had to disappear before that day, and when father was getting ready to end treatment on one of the patients, he would often let them out of their rooms for more than just their daily exercise time.

  “Nope! I’ve been out all day though, and it’s such a beautiful day out today! Let’s go fishing!” she insisted with more enthusiasm this time.

  “Okay, okay,” I appeased her.

  “Tag!” she squealed before slapping me on the arm and taking off out of the living room where I had fallen asleep on the couch.

  I jumped up and raced after her to the basement door. She reached to open it, but I shoved it shut, almost slamming her fingers.

  “What the heck, Carter!” her tiny voice snapped at me.

  She barely reached my elbows, but she was strong enough to make me yelp when she stomped on my foot in her sneakers.

  “Cut it out Lucky; you’re going to get us both in trouble,” I scolded her. “We can’t go out through the basement. Dad works down there on Sunday evenings while mama is having dinner with her book club.”

  “Well, why can’t we go down there when Dr. John is working?” the naïve nine-year-old girl asked me.

  She hadn’t been through the same experiments the older ones went through. No, they were gentle with Lucky, taking a different approach, father said. Lucky was young enough and responsive enough that they could consider her treatment for long term observation. Most of the teenagers that came to live with us only had a few years if that at McCourt Manor, but Lucky would have ten years with us and the prospect of it all thrilled my father who was on the verge of a significant medical breakthrough in psychology.

  “Father likes to work alone. Besides, it’s boring and cold down there, not to mention dark and full of spiders. You don’t want to go down there,” I explained to her and held out my hand.

  “I’m not afraid of those things,” she told me and took my hand in hers.

  “I know. You aren’t scared of anything,” I told her. “You are the bravest person I know.”

  “No, you’re the bravest person I know,” Lucky countered me.

  “No, you’re the bravest!” I told her and poked her belly with my free hand.

  She laughed and swatted me away.

  “Come on, before it gets too late,” she said as she pulled me back through the house to the main entrance where we both slid on mud boots.

  We raced out of the house and across the yard to the big metal outbuilding that used to be a tractor shed years ago when my great grandparents farmed this land. Now it was just a place for my father to store his cars. Our fishing gear was tucked away in the corner just inside the entrance for easy access ever since summer started.

  We grabbed our gear and headed to the creek at the back of the property, down the side of the hill. We had spent all of her free days at the stream since the weather got warm. The water wasn’t deep enough for me to teach her to swim, but I taught her to catch the small bluegill and frogs that floated down the creek with the town runoff.

  Lucky took her pole and baited the hook all by herself, just like I had shown her a few days ago. She smiled triumphantly at me when she was finished, and I smiled back at her.

  “You remembered, good job!” I congratulated her.

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Bet I can catch more bluegill than you!” She squealed as she stepped onto one of the flat rocks and dropped her pole in the water.

  Catching the fish was easy. The creek was only a few feet across and barely three feet at the deepest. The water was only a few inches high near the gravelly bank where we stood so you didn’t have to cast. Just let your bait rest in the water and wait for a fish to swim by, open its mouth, and swallow it.

  “Got one!” She screamed.

  She had only had her pole in the water a few seconds, and she already had a fish. Once again, she was living up to her name. She pulled the pole up, and bluegill the size of my palm hung off her line. She beamed and jumped up and down on the wet rock.

  “Bring it here, and I’ll take it off the hook for you and be careful! That rock is wet. Stop jumping,” I directed her.

  She stuck her tongue out at me and rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t need your help,” she told me.

  She bent and set down her pole on the rock, making sure not to kick it into the water. Then, the nine-year-old girl grasped the tiny fish around the head with one of her small hands and grabbed the hook and line with the other. Before I could say anything to her, she yanked the hook as hard as she could, tearing through the fish’s eye where the hook had caught, and cutting straight through his gill.

  Blood was spurting from the wounded fish and dripped down her hand like raindrops. The fish was so tiny, there wasn’t much blood, but I stared at her, mouth open, and in shock. No expression crossed her face until she narrowed her eyes in confusion when the fish stopped flapping its tail against her hand. She shrugged her shoulders and tossed the fish back in then jumped back to the bank and grabbed another nightcrawler.

  I grabbed her arm gently and looked her in the eyes when she looked up at me.

  “Let me help you next time,” I insisted.

  “Why?” she pouted with her lower lip sticking out.

  “So, you don’t accidentally kill the next one,” I told her and pointed to where the small bluegill had floated to the surface of the creek and was slowly being pushed away with the current.

  She turned and looked where my finger pointed then stared back at me for a few seconds.

  “That wasn’t an accident,” she admitted along with a bright smile of pure joy and happiness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I rolled over and groaned. I was sore but couldn’t remember why, and the vivid dream I had of Lucky was disturbing. I opened my eyes and squinted into the sunlight that was coming through the window where the black curtains were parted. Black curtains? The curtains in my room were red.

  I bolted upright as I remembered everything that had happened in
the last day or so—Finding my inspiration for what I would turn the cashier girl into, that same girl fighting me every step of the way, and the surprise of finding the new girl, Ivy—number 23, down by the creek.

  Ivy!

  I looked down at the bed and found it empty.

  “Shit,” I cursed under my breath as I saw the large black door hanging wide open.

  I shot out of bed and bounded down the corridor.

  “Ivy!” I yelled.

  I got no response and saw no other open doors, so I raced to the upstairs foyer. When I got there, I stopped dead in my tracks. I smelled something.

  I inhaled hard through my nose and sniffed the air.

  Bacon?

  I leaped down the staircase leading to the kitchen and burst through the doors.

  Ivy squealed and whirled around to face me. She dropped the spatula she was using to turn the bacon she was cooking on the stove in the process.

  “You scared me!” She scolded me.

  Her hands were on her hips, and she stood in front of the stove wearing only her panties and one of my dirty, sweat-stained, white T-shirts she must have found lying around the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded to know.

  “Seriously?” she asked and cocked her head to one side as if I were the crazy one.

  Her voice was back mostly but seemed a little too deep for a small woman like she was. She turned back around and tended to the bacon again as though her, cooking breakfast in my house, was the most normal thing she could have been doing on a Sunday morning.

  I stepped forward and grabbed her arm hard. She gasped and reached up to try to pry my hand off her, but I was too strong. I turned the knob on the stove to switch off the gas then yanked her arm hard, dragging her away from the stove. I had had about enough the girl and her lies and games.

  “Why are you doing this?” I demanded she tell me.

  “Doing what? Making your favorite breakfast?”

  Her voice cracked as it got louder.

  I looked at the counter and saw eggs, fresh baked white bread, cinnamon, milk, a small box of whipping cream, and freshly washed strawberries. I had eaten scrambled eggs, bacon, and strawberry French toast every Sunday morning for breakfast growing up and it was indeed my favorite breakfast, if not my favorite meal altogether. Mama and I made it together, and when Lucky was here, father let her eat with us as well. How could Ivy have known? The night before and the names she called out—mine and my parents, flashed through my mind.

  “Who are you?” I asked her.

  “Ivy. Don’t you remember me?” she asked quietly as she shrunk in on herself. Her confident attitude had waned rather fast.

  “Why would I remember you? I don’t know you,” I insisted.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, and I let go of her arm. She turned back to the stove and twisted the burner knob back on. I stepped back and watched her go back to work on the breakfast with neither of us saying another word. My eyes trailed down her slender back to her perky ass and strong thighs. Her black thong panties showed through the white T-shirt that barely skimmed the bottom of her ass cheeks. She wasn’t modest and seemed not to mind that I was getting a pretty great show as she swayed in front of the stove top moving the pots and pans about.

  She’s no different than the rest. A slut, just like them all. Look at how she parades in front you like a whore.

  Robert’s voice invaded my head as though he could see Ivy through my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a breath. I was thankful for the lessons he imparted on me in the two years I spent in his home and stuck with me well enough that his voice was now my conscience. I was a good student, just like Lucky had been for my father.

  “If you don’t know me, then why did you bring me here? Why did you save me from freezing? Why did you touch me? Why did you sleep in bed with me last night?”

  “I thought you were unconscious,” I justified as I remembered groping her breasts as I massaged her body to help get her blood circulation going. If she wanted me to apologize, she had another thing coming.

  “And as far as last night,” I continued, “I was just too damn tired to go to my room on the other side of the manor, but you can’t bet your ass I won’t be making that mistake again.”

  She turned back around and started to plate the food she had cooked. I hated to admit it, but my mouth was watering, and my stomach was growling. I couldn’t remember the last time I had something to eat, and years had passed since I last had my favorite breakfast. I sat down at the breakfast bar and waited for her to put the plate in front of me, just like Mama had always done for my father, on mornings when he came to breakfast at least.

  Ivy sat the plate in front of me and positioned herself on the barstool on the other side of the bar with a plate of her own. I looked down at my plate—two pieces of French toast, a heaping pile of strawberries on top with cream she had whipped herself, four strips of bacon, and a ladleful of soft scrambled eggs. I was confused, but also starved and picked up a fork and started shoveling the food in my mouth without asking any questions.

  Everything was delicious and cooked the same way mama used to make it for me. I curled my lip at the thought of her and after a dozen or so bites, pushed my plate away in disgust. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  Ivy hadn’t taken a bite of her food yet and jumped up from her barstool when my plate came sailing across the breakfast bar at her. The plate crashed to the ground and shattered. Ivy gulped and dropped to her knees. I stood and watched her scramble to gather up all the good and broken pieces of plate.

  “Where did you get all this food?”

  I didn’t keep food in the house. There were a few condiments in the fridge, but I tended to pick up gas station sandwiches and convenience store snacks out in the hot shop where I spent most days working. The thought of the hot shop reminded me of my unfinished project outside. I needed to get back to her, and I was beginning to think that I would need to put number 23 in the cage after all.

  “The farmer’s market,” she responded after taking a long drink of water she had gotten from the tap before she sat down.

  I balked at her.

  “How could you have gone to the farmer’s market?”

  She smiled and held up a lime green stretchy keychain. The one that usually hung from the front door coat pegs. The key to the golf cart hung from it, and I reached across the bar and snatched it from her hand. She had tried to pull her hand back, but she was too slow, and the key to the golf cart was mine again.

  Ivy shrugged and smirked.

  “You took the golf cart to the farmer’s market?” I asked her, to make sure I had heard her correctly.

  Ivy had seen what I did to the cashier girl. She knew too much, and now she was telling me she had gone into town, shopped and came back as though none of what happened was wrong. I knelt next to her on the tiled floor and grabbed her shoulders to force her to stop cleaning and look at me. She stared at me, dead in the eyes, as though I didn’t scare her one bit.

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” she assured me before I could ask her any questions.

  “Bullshit!” I spat and backhanded her across the face which sent her back onto her ass on the hard mosaic tiled floor.

  I towered over her as she stared up at me with wide grey eyes full of disbelief. She held one hand to her face where I hit her and searched the floor with the other hand. She was trying to find something to protect herself with, but the tile floor was clean.

  I stepped towards her, and she scrambled until her back was against the bottom cabinets. I squatted down in front of her and grabbed her ankle. I sighed deeply and tried to calm down, but I felt the rage building. I traced her calf with my fingertips and looked up at her face. She didn't flinch or pull away, and although the shock of being slapped was still in her eyes, there was no fear of me on her face.

  "Why aren't you afraid of me?" I asked her.

  "You wouldn't hurt me, not really," she said without hesitation.<
br />
  My eyes flicked to the hand that still covered the side of her face. She let the hand fall into her lap with the other one. Her face was red, and her jaw was a bit swollen. I walked my finger up her slender calf, over her knee cap and then leaned in and grasped her thighs. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even break eye contact with me. She knew I was testing her, and she was desperate to pass. I needed to understand why.

  “Do you know who I am? Like exactly who I am?” I asked her.

  “Yes. Carter McCourt. Don’t you know who I am?”

  “Ivy, apparently,” I told her but immediately regretted my actions.

  Letting her ask questions was letting her have a bit of the control, and I was not going to let my last muse treat me like number 22 did. Ivy was just as feisty if not more so than Amber had been.

  “Yes, Ivy. Your sister,” she said and reached for my face.

  I recoiled and stood up.

  “You’re not my sister,” I told her with a shake of my head. “I don’t have any sisters.”

  “Of course, I’m your sister. Dr. John and Mama Ester were my parents too.”

  Her voice was confident and unwavering as though she was telling the truth, but how could she be? None of father’s patients were named Ivy and all of them but Lucky was too old or already dead, so Ivy couldn’t be any of those patients.

  “Ivy.”

  I let the name slide off my tongue.

  “Yes, are you remembering?” she asked eagerly.

  “There wasn’t an Ivy here,” I told her.

  “Well, I mean, I’m here now, and I have very vivid memories of growing up with you Carter. I don’t know how you could forget four years!”

  Ivy was hysterical, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “I’ve been trying to get back here for so long. How can you not remember me?” she asked meekly.

  My head was spinning. I didn’t know if she were crazy or if it were me. She believed she lived here, that she was one of the patients. Maybe she was delusional, actually messed up in the head. She would have made a perfect patient for my father if she were younger and he was alive.