Lucky Number 23

by Krystle Able

  “You don’t even look like anyone that stayed here,” I tried to rationalize with her.

  “I don’t know what to tell you about that,” she shrugged.

  “Explain to me how you lived here if I have no memory of you and the manor is mine. I’ve lived here almost my entire life,” I challenged the woman.

  “The room you gave me!” she said as though she had a sudden epiphany. “The room was mine before too. It’s been like ten years, and everything still looks the same—just dirty. And that’s why I look different! I was twelve the last time you saw me! My hair and eyes have both darkened a bit since then. My eyes were blue when I was a little girl, but they are greyer now, and my hair’s been dyed so many times I can’t even remember my natural hair color,” she announced excitedly as though she had just solved all the mysteries of the universe.

  “No,” I told her and shook my head. “None of the patients were twelve years old.”

  “Carter, I don’t know what’s going here. Is this a game?” she asked

  I didn’t say anything. I just stood there and leaned over the breakfast bar with my head in my hands.

  “No, this isn’t a game, but there’s something wrong with you,” I warned her.

  “Carter. You’re my brother. I love you,” she reached for me, but I drew back.

  “You don’t love me. You don’t know what I am, who I am,” I explained.

  “I know you’re different,” she offered. “I know that your favorite breakfast is strawberry French toast because that’s what you and Mama Ester used to make on Sunday mornings. I know that you taught me how to bait my fishing hook when I was nine years old. I know we played tag in the apple trees and you used to sneak me out of the house. I know that when I was 17 years old, I stole a car to try to make it back here to you and I got caught. I spent two years in juvie then had to spend two years in a women’s prison. And most of all, I know that every day that I was in there, I thought of you, and making it back here and that’s how I got through it all,” She spoke so fast her words slurred together.

  She took a deep breath before she was able to continue.

  “I love you, Carter. As more than a brother. You’re my soul mate, and I don’t care what you did to that girl. I love every part of you, even the dark parts,” she tried to convince me.

  She stared at me, and I had no idea what to say back to her. Warning bells were going off in my head, but I didn’t know what to believe. Everything she said almost made sense and sometimes when I caught her looking at me, like out the bedroom window when I was working on number 22, she was familiar to me in a way that only one other person had been. This wasn’t Lucky though, this woman—this actress, was someone named Ivy and she knew details she shouldn’t, but some of her details were wrong. I had wished for Lucky to come back to me for a decade. I had hoped the only other person I loved besides my parents would be by my side again one day, but Lucky was gone, and this girl wanted to stand in it seemed. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I did know that whoever this woman was, she had problems, and not the kind the fire could solve.

  “You’re fucking sick you know that?” I told her.

  “I’m not sick,” she responded with an emphasis on the word not.

  “You got a fetish for serial killers, don’t you?” I sneered at her. “How far did you hike through the woods to get a good look at me? Did you honestly think that you could pretend to be one of my sisters and I would believe you?” I scoffed at her arrogance. “I remember them all,” I bluffed.

  “You never called any of the others your sister!” Ivy snapped in offense and stood up from the ground.

  The small young woman in front of me was huffing like a baby bull, full of anger and rebellion but not big enough to do any real damage. She was cute, but she needed someone like Robert to teach her how to harness all the anger inside of her as he did for me.

  “And, I don’t believe Dr. John was a killer. We both know he wasn’t,” she said and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  My head ticked to the side and my eyebrow raised. Her words were curious and piqued my interest. Most people wanted to know all the details about what went on inside McCourt Manor, the house of horrors as people in town called my home. The women I met were either delighted to try and cover the stories of how my father killed each girl, how some of them got away; other women were terrified of me when they found out who my father was and mothers in town made sure to mark my entire block as off-limits to their children. I didn’t care about the young ones as my father did, but it didn’t make a difference to the small-minded people of Cedarville. I hadn’t met anyone though who believed in my father’s innocence as much as I did.

  “You don’t think my father killed his patients?”

  “Of course not. He would never do that. Besides, I’m still alive, and I was a patient here for four years,” she explained.

  “The jury convicted him. He died in jail eight years ago for being a serial killer. How do you know he’s innocent? You were probably still in elementary school when all of it was on the news,” I challenged the girl.

  “I was here when all of it happened. Why don’t you remember!” She shouted. “I was here through everything, and I know Dr. John didn’t hurt them. They aged out, he let them go, they ran away—there were a lot of different things that happened to the other girls, but Dr. John didn’t kill them. He didn’t hurt us, ever,” Ivy insisted.

  I laughed and slapped my hands on my knees. I tried to hold back but the laughter burst out of my gut, and before I knew it, I could barely breathe. She had gotten me good. I had nearly believed her. For just a few seconds I thought I had her back, but then she gave herself away by saying my father didn’t hurt them. My father’s delight in causing the pain was what fueled his research. None of the girls had been spared my father’s violent experiments, not even Lucky in the end.

  “You’re a good liar,” I congratulated her. “You almost had me fooled.”

  “I’m. Not. Lying.”

  I had to hand it to her; she was committed to the lie. She wasn’t going to drop the act now, even though she was found out. She was still playing games, and I didn’t appreciate being lied to or toyed with. There was no time for the breathing exercises Robert taught me. Her head was between my hands in seconds, and before I knew what I was doing, her skull hit the ground with a sickening thud.

  Part III

  Lucky Lane

  Chapter Sixteen

  Waking up with a throbbing headache was a son-of-a-bitch. Waking up with a throbbing headache and having no idea where the fuck you are with a rumbling stomach, and the scent of bacon in the air is what nightmares are made of. I was hangry, and the throbbing was quickly turning into a migraine. I needed to figure out where the fuck I was at.

  I groaned, sat up and banged the top of my head of something metal.

  “Mother-fucking-Goddamnit” I shouted and grabbed my head.

  My hair was sticky. My vision was blurry, but I had no problem seeing the blood that covered my left hand. Someone hit me. I rubbed my eyes with my non-bloody, yet filthy other hand. The rusted cage I was in became clear, and I knew immediately where I was.

  I was home.

  The basement had changed a little over the decades, but I had spent a lot of time within these dark walls as a child, and only one other place in this manor felt more like home. I allowed a quick smile to cross my face. I had done it. I had gotten back to McCourt Manor. The question was why in the Hell I was trapped in a cage.

  I grabbed the bars and rattled them hard.

  “Hey!” I called out and shook the cage again. “Carter!”

  The house was silent except for the hum of the large metal furnace in the center of the basement. I tried to swallow some spit to wet my parched throat, but it hurt more than it was worth. I groaned again and put my head between my knees. My legs were bare, and the white T-shirt I wore was torn and bloodied.

  I rocked back and forth like flashes of the la
st few days came back to me in bits and pieces. Carter had hurt me and smashed my skull into the kitchen floor. He didn’t know me. Why didn’t he know me? The knowledge of Dr. John being dead suddenly filtered through my memories. I knew Mama Ester was missing. I knew I had been in jail for a few years. I knew I escaped a half-way house, but none of my past felt familiar to me.

  “Carter!” I roared as loud as I could.

  I heard the door creak open and loud clomping as someone came down the stairs. I tucked my dirty, bloody hair behind my ear and waited patiently. I drew in a breath as my brother came into view. He looked so much like his father, Dr. John. His hair was thick and wavy, but Carter’s was longer than Dr. John would have ever allowed. He had been so strict about our appearance, but this version of Carter was intriguing. His big brown eyes bore into mine and flashed with anger, but also…curiosity. He was tall and lanky like John had been when he met Mama Ester in college. I wondered if their wedding portrait still hung behind the desk in Dr. John’s study.

  “Let me out of this cage Carter,” I commanded. “Right now.”

  “Tell me what you like to do,” he asked me without stepping forward to unlock the cage.

  “What kind of fucking question is that?” I hissed at him. “Let me out of here!”

  I shook the cage again to get my point across, but Carter didn’t move to release me.

  “I need to get to know you. You’ve got to inspire me before I can set you free, so please, let’s stop your games, and cut to the chase,” he sneered.

  “You know everything there is to know about me,” I assured him and rolled my eyes.

  He scoffed and looked down at his hands.

  I grabbed the metal bars of the cage and pressed my face to the bars.

  “Look at me, Carter McCourt. Stop pretending like you don’t know me. What the fuck are you doing?” I sneered at him in disgust.

  He wasn’t the teenage boy I knew. Carter had grown into a man who was stupid, ignorant, and blind. I knew that a long time had passed since we saw each other, but I never expected our reunion to be like this—me in a cage and him, apparently not remembering. I knew he had always been a little jealous of my relationship with Dr. John, but I thought I meant more to him than being forgotten like the others.

  “I remember them all.”

  I heard his voice in my head. I remembered him hissing the words at me after I told him who I was—Ivy.

  Ivy?

  Why would I say that?

  A stabbing pain shot through my head. I reached up and grabbed my skull and cried out as the pain seemed to attack the back of my eyeballs.

  “Look,” I started as soon as I could open my eyes again. “I don’t know why I told you my name is Ivy. I hit my head pretty hard when you threw me down, and I’m not sure I remember everything correctly, but it’s me. Lucky,” I told him.

  “What?” Carter barely whispered the question.

  He moved closer to the cage and crouched down. The cellar doors were wide open, and the sun cast a beautiful light across his face which reflected off his chocolate brown eyes. I saw the spark of recognition as his eyes widened in disbelief.

  “Now, let me out,” I instructed.

  “Lucky?” He croaked. “No, it can’t be you…”

  Carter trailed off and held on tight to the cage. I interlaced my fingers with his.

  “Carter, let me out. You know who I am,” I assured him.

  My foster brother moved around to the front of the cage, and I crawled to join him. I waited patiently for him to twist the padlock round and take the chain off. He opened the door for me and offered his hand which I gladly took. He pulled me up from the floor then rushed up the stairs that lead to the kitchen.

  “Wait there,” he called down to me from upstairs.

  I stopped in my tracks at the base of the stairs and waited.

  Not more than fifteen seconds went by when he was racing back down the stairs with a bundle of blue linens bundled up in his arms. When he reached me, he shook them out and wrapped the cotton sheet around my shoulders.

  “I’ll get you some clothes out of the storage shed while you’re bathing,” He told me.

  “Why was I in the cage? I feel like I’ve been here for a few days, but you’re acting like you don’t know me,” I asked him.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” he gushed as he brought me to his chest and wrapped his arms around me.

  “I missed you too, but you’re not answering my question,” I pushed away from his chest and looked at him. “Carter, I want some answers. I’m confused enough as it is.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, but I’m so glad you’re here,” he confessed.

  “I’m not happy about being back. I woke up in a fucking cage for fuck’s sake,” I scoffed at him.

  “I’m sorry about the cage,” Carter began. He looked at his feet when he continued.

  “You were saying so much crazy shit to me like your name was Ivy. You acted. Differently, you looked different. Well, you still look different, but what I’m saying is, you shouldn’t have acted that way, and I wouldn’t have had to hurt you,” he fired off each word so fast I could barely hear him.

  “Wait a minute,” I told him as I held my fingers to his lips to cut off his speech. “You were the one that hurt me?

  I cocked my head to the side and stared at my foster brother in disbelief. Dr. John was the only person in the manor allowed to cause us pain. Carter knew the rules. Why wouldn’t he obey?

  So much was happening, and I wasn’t sure how to process it all. Memories of a life I didn’t believe was real kept flashing before my eyes. A life where I called myself Ivy and spent two years in jail and halfway houses and psychiatric care. When I tried to remember the life, I thought I should have had; it was like looking at a blank screen; as though my life had just been paused for a decade with nothing in between then and now but darkness.

  “I’m sorry Lucky. I’m not sure what’s going on either, but do you want to see what I do when I need to clear my head?” He asked me and held out his hand.

  “How about I get showered first?” I suggested and took a step towards him but brushed away his outstretched arm.

  I felt filthy. My undergarments were torn, and the shirt I wore had to have been Carter’s, but I didn’t remember putting it on. I needed to piece together the last ten years of my life and figure out what the fuck was going on, but first, I needed a soak.

  I pushed past Carter and started up the stairs. He grabbed my arm and stopped me as I ascended the first steps.

  “I’m happy you’re back Lucky. We will figure this out together, I promise,” he said with a goofy smile.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I scoffed at him. “Why are you acting like that?

  “Like what?”

  “Like…I don’t know…. That,” I told him and gestured him up and down.

  Carter was different than when I last saw him. My brother had been strong, brave, and obedient. Dr. John’s prodigy, but this man was softer than the teenager I last saw.

  No. Not softer.

  More images flashed in front of my mind—another girl with long dark hair, fire, and heat, the big building outside, blood. Carter was a killer. I knew that, but he was also an artist. I remembered standing in the window and watching him work with the glass. I had never seen anything like it.

  “It’s been a long couple of days. I’m not sure what to think about all this,” he admitted.

  “Hmpf. Well, standing here dirty and half-naked isn’t going to help anything. I’m going upstairs to the soaking tub,” I told him.

  “I’ll show you,” Carter offered and squeezed past me on the staircase to lead the way.

  I followed him upstairs but grabbed his arm before we crossed the kitchen to the second-floor staircase.

  “I know where to go. Feels like I was just here yesterday,” I told him even though nothing felt the same. “Find me a gown to wear please.”

  Carter gazed at me like a
lost little boy. The expression was the same as when he had found me hanging from the basement ceiling by my wrists when Dr. John finally had to up the ante. He was confused, scared, not sure what to do next. I felt none of what he was projecting. I just wanted to bathe.

  I walked around him and opened the door to the staircase. When I was inside, I pulled the door shut behind me and continued to the patient wing. I waited at the top of the stairs to see if he would follow me. He didn’t follow which was smart.

  Instead of heading straight to the bathroom I ventured down the long black hallway to the room at the very end — my room. I traced the scrawling handwriting on the chalkboard that still hung on the wall. “Lucky Number 23,” the inscription said.

  Dr. John had always talked about me being his Lucky Number 23. Ester tried explaining it all to me many times—how fate and the stars had aligned for me to come to Minnesota; how I was the perfect patient for Dr. John, and that, through me, he would have the medical breakthrough of the century. I was important, but I was also terrible. Evil. Dark. Each foster family before the McCourt’s had a different name for me. Dr. John was going to crack me open and let my light out. He failed.

  I pushed open the door and looked down at the bed. The mattress was dirty, but the sheets were slept in. I had slept in them recently I reminded myself. I didn’t know what to do about how I was feeling. I had heard of early onset Alzheimer’s and dementia before, but I was only 22 years old. There was no way I could be losing my mind already, right?

  I looked across the room to the window. I remembered standing in that window naked just a few nights ago. In my mind I watched myself watching him as though my life were a movie and I was sitting in the audience. I felt like I was there, but also removed. Trying to remember the details made my head throb even harder than it was. Dr. John had taught me how to withstand the pain and be strong, so I took a deep breath and crossed the room.

  I let the sheet drop to the ground, and I stripped off the dirty white T-shirt. I slid off the tiny black thong panties and pushed back the window curtain. The sun was high in the sky. My stomach was rumbling, my face and body were sore, and the last ten years of my life were a blur. I wished Mama Ester was there and that Dr. John was still alive. He would know exactly what was wrong with me and be able to fix me once and for all.