Lucky Number 23

by Krystle Able

  I stepped away again, and Carter sighed and put his arms down.

  I looked at the clothes he sat on the table and recognized the dress immediately.

  The long flowing, white gown was the same one Mama Ester had worn the day I arrived at McCourt Manor.

  “This is Mama Ester’s,” I reminded my brother.

  “Not anymore,” he shook his head. “It’s yours now. All of her clothes are in totes in the shed. You look a bit smaller than she was, but I think a lot of the clothes will work. I’ll dig the warmer stuff out later,” he assured me.

  I picked up the dress and let it unravel. The material was still soft and smelled like lavender fabric softener. I let the towel that was still wrapped around me to drop to the floor and pulled the dress on over my head.

  Carter was right; I needed a smaller size. The dress dragged a few inches on the floor, and the neckline hung low and loose fitting on my ample cleavage, but it would work for now. I smoothed the fabric with my hands over my stomach and felt Carter’s arms wrap around me from behind. He buried his nose in my hair, and I stepped away from him and turned around.

  “Carter, stop.”

  My brother stopped and looked at me bewildered. He had every right to after last night and the signals I had been giving him over the last few days when I wasn’t myself, but as much as I enjoyed what happened between us, I wasn’t interested in any lovey dove romance. There was work that needed to be done, things to do. I didn’t know what yet.

  “Listen to me brother,” I insisted with my hands up between us.

  “Don’t call me that,” he interrupted with a hiss.

  “You are my brother and—”

  “No damnit! I was your foster brother. I’m not anymore,” Carter insisted.

  He was agitated, and his face was reddening. If he were any other man, I might have been afraid, but I knew no one in the McCourt family could ever hurt me. I was there Lucky Number 23 after all.

  “You don’t fucking get it, do you?!” Carter shouted me no longer able to contain his rage.

  He swiped his arm across the marble countertop and knocked the tissues and soap dispenser flying across the bathroom.

  “I’ve done nothing but wonder where you are and what had happened to you after the police came for my dad. You’ve consumed my mind any time I am not working on my art. Then, I find you by the creek, of course, I don’t know it’s you, but I found you and what do I get for it? Fucking games. Fucking mind tricks. You pretended to be someone you weren’t and for what? To toy with me? And then, you decide to give up the charade, fuck me, and then pretend it didn’t happen like you don’t love me?” Carter ranted.

  “I don’t love you,” I stated plainly.

  The shock of the statement was a lot even for me. I hadn’t planned on blurting it out like that, or maybe I did, but either way, I felt a punch in the gut when I said it out loud. I wanted to regret it, take it back, but I buried those feelings deep down and promised myself to be true to who I knew I was, and that was not a girl, or woman it would seem, who fell in love.

  “Look, I can’t explain to you why I pretended to be Ivy, but that game is over now, and I don’t love you, I can’t love you,” I tried to rationalize with him.

  “You know, you’ve fucked things up for me,” Carter said with a laugh under his breath. “You, well, Ivy, was supposed to be number 23. Just like you were, and I was supposed to be able to stop at 23, and now I have to find another!”

  He slammed his fist on the counter, and I jumped back.

  “You don’t think I’m confused? You don’t think I wish I knew what had happened to me since I got taken away from you, from my family? You’re over there worried about your art project, and I don’t even know who I am exactly!” I yelled back at him.

  “You’re right,” Carter said quietly.

  “I know!” I replied.

  Carter sighed heavily and closed his eyes. I watched his chest rise and fall with each breath he took slowly in and out, holding it in for a few seconds before letting it out in a whoosh of hot air. The red in his face slowly receded and the calmer he became, the calmer I became as well.

  “Do you still have urges?” He asked almost inaudibly.

  I cocked my head and looked at him quizzically.

  “Urges? What do you mean, like last night?” I asked.

  “No, like, the time you cut the cats open before you came to the manor, or the time you stabbed number 17 with a pencil just to see if lead could penetrate flesh.”

  He asked as though all of the things I had done were normal, mundane activities as if the dark urges weren’t evil or bad like all my previous foster parents thought. At least Mama Ester and Dr. John knew that the darkness wasn’t who I was, though it consumed me. They knew another person lived inside me that was begging to get out and be good—if only I could keep the darkness at bay.

  I thought about my brother’s question. In the pit of my gut, I could feel the darkness inside of me, wanting to get out and part of me didn’t want to keep it caged any longer. I felt like it was a part of me that deserved to be seen, that was begging to be released. If I allowed it to consume me as it wanted; however, all the training I had endured with Dr. John would have been for nothing.

  “Lucky?” Carter interrupted my thoughts.

  “Yes. I do, but your father taught me to control those urges,” I reminded him.

  Carter stepped towards me again and took my hand. I let him touch me this time, his hand on mine brought an immediate feeling of comfort, and I followed him as he led me out of the bathroom. I followed him all the way downstairs to the foyer where he stopped and offered me a heavy winter coat that hung from the wall. I took it over my arm rather than putting it on.

  “It’s cold outside,” my brother lectured.

  “Where are we going?” I replied.

  “To the hot shop. I want to show you something.”

  “I already know about the girl,” I reminded him.

  “I’m not done with her yet,” he told me as we stepped out onto the wraparound front porch.

  The temperatures had dropped drastically in the days I had been at the manor, and the winter wind bit at my face as Carter rushed us through the yard and into his shop. The towering metal building was hot inside, and I was glad I had decided not to put the coat on. We were barely three feet in the door when sweat began to bead along my hairline and lip.

  I wiped my sweaty face off and tossed the coat onto the countertop that went all the way around the building, just like the counter space installed in the basement. What looked like a giant brick oven stood in the center of the room. Another, even larger one was in the back of the building. I had watched him push a woman’s body into that one just a few nights ago.

  “What is it that you do exactly?” I asked him as I looked around the hot shop as he called it and checked out the sweltering furnaces.

  “I make glass,” he replied.

  I turned around and watched him put on rubber-like gloves that went up to his elbows.

  “What’s all that?” I gestured to his get up as he placed the safety glasses on his face.

  “Protection. Molten glass is hot as fuck,” he explained.

  He sat on a stool and patted the one next to him so that I would sit.

  I took my place next to him and watched as he shook out a bit of ash from a large jar into a small clay bowl. A torch sat on the counter next to him along with a foot-long metal rod. He turned the knob to light the torch. Flame burst through the end of the torch glowing blue and yellow. He picked up the metal rod next and heated the tip of it in the flame then stood up, walked over to the furnace and stuck the rod into a cavity. When he pulled it out of the fire a molten ball of glass was stuck to the end. He turned the rod round and round then put his lips to the end and blew until the glass bubbled up like a small balloon.

  “Sprinkle the ash in a straight line on the bubble,” he instructed me and gestured to the bowl.

  I took a
pinch of ash and sprinkled it along the hot glass bubble. Carter picked up a tool that looked like pliers and twisted the glass.

  I remembered watching my brother shove the tray with the woman’s body into the furnace. Not only was he cremating the women, but he put their ashes in the glass.

  “You’re a genius you know?” I asked him as he worked the glass with different tools.

  “How’s that?” He asked without looking at me, his eyes trained firmly on his art piece.

  I admired his concentration and patience as he rolled the glass on a mat that sat on the countertop. I was never the kind to wait around for anything.

  “You burn them then take their ashes and make glass figures. There’s no body, no evidence. You’ve gotten away with murder brother,” I smiled in congratulations.

  “Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out burning a body gets rid of the body,” he told me absentmindedly, not able to take the compliment.

  I rolled my eyes at him, but he didn’t notice.

  “She wasn’t the first you know?” Carter asked quietly. “She was number 22. My mission was almost completed.”

  “What mission?” I inquired.

  “My foster father, Robert, he believed in cycles. He used to tell me that cycles repeat over generations and that I couldn’t escape my fate. The best way to deal with life was to lean into it and accept your destiny. So, that’s what I did.”

  Carter paused for a moment and lit the torch again, he warmed up the glass piece on the end of his rod and prepared to remove the piece to finish.

  “My father had 23 patients—you are the 23rd. So, I needed 23 muses. After my project was completed, I was to be set free of the burden of my past and my bloodline. Ivy, the girl you pretended to be, was going to be 23, but she doesn’t exist, does she? I guess it’s you again Lucky number 23.”

  A chill ran down my spine as I thought about his words.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered as he stood up from his stool. “The annealer is in the basement of the manor.”

  “What’s an annealer?”

  “A kiln. The glass has to cool gradually, or it crystallizes. Come on,”

  The way Carter ordered me around had me unnerved. I wasn’t sure where the shift in his demeanor came from, but I followed him into the all too familiar basement through the cellar doors. My brother had snuck me into the house on many occasions through the basement, and I was confident in my surroundings.

  As we entered the McCourt Manor basement the kiln was already hot and ready. Carter carefully put the glass piece inside the kiln and let the door slam shut with a bang.

  “You’ve got to go back in the cage Ivy,” Carter told me with disdain.

  “Yeah right Carter,” I laughed.

  My brother’s eyes narrowed as he stalked towards me. I held firm and stood my ground, unsure of what he was planning to do precisely. When he reached me, he grabbed my shoulders and sighed.

  “I’m not Ivy,” I reminded him and shifted my shoulders to try to shake off his hands.

  “Yes, yes you are,” Carter insisted.

  “I’m Lucky,” I pointed to myself.

  “No, unfortunately, you’re not,” Carter stated as he whipped from his pocket the metal rod he had used on the glass.

  “Whoa, whoa, what the fuck are you doing?” I said and backed up while I held my hands between us.

  “You need to get in the goddamn cage,” he warned with malice and took another step towards me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked as he backed me into a corner.

  “Because Robert told me I had to. Because you’re Lucky number 23.”

  “Yes, I’m Lucky, not Ivy. You know, that right?” I asked him.

  “Please, don’t make this hard on me. I want it to be over,” Carter whispered and looked down.

  I took the opportunity and shoved him hard to the side. De Ja Vu struck me again. I was sure I had been in a comparable situation just recently, but I didn’t have time to think about it. I darted past the kiln to the cellar stairs. The doors were still open, and my escape was just a few steps away when I felt the hard yank on my foot. I landed hard on the steps and Carter dragged me down the hard, concrete steps.

  “Stop it, Carter. Stop!” I screamed at him and kicked my feet.

  Something had changed in my brother. He had never hurt me before, but now he was going to kill me. Turn me into ash and glass like all the rest of his muses.

  This wasn’t supposed to be my fate. I was special, Dr. John had told me as much over and over again. His greatest lifetime achievement. Blood dripped down my face, and my head was throbbing along with my shoulder. I had to push past the pain just like Dr. John taught me.

  “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be Ivy!” Carter warned again as he grappled with my legs.

  I would make killing me as hard as possible for my brother I decided and let out a bellowing cry before I started kicking and twisting my body this way and that to hurt him and force him to let go. I sent a hard kick to his nose, and I was out of his grip and scrambling around the other side of the kiln on my hands and knees.

  “Fucking Hell!” Carter shouted and grabbed his bloodied face.

  I was only a few feet away from the staircase that led up to the kitchen. I could get away! I looked over my shoulder just as Carter caught my eye and growled at me. I shot up and darted towards the staircase. Carter was right behind me though, and just before I got to the top of the stairs, his arms were wrapped around my waist dragging me back down.

  “No!” I screamed and kicked at him as I grabbed onto the wood railing and tried to stop him from dragging me back into the basement.

  I twisted around and caught sight of the metal rod he used for his glass at the bottom of the steps where he had dropped it in our struggle. Carter turned me onto my back, and I let him drag me down the last few steps. I reached for the rod and in one swift motion brought it up and bashed my brother with it as hard as I could in the shoulder.

  He roared and dropped my legs. I swung the rod like a baseball bat and whacked him hard on his knee cap.

  “Mother fucker!” He exclaimed and fell to the floor in anguish.

  My entire body was sore and tired, but I stood anyway.

  I took a step towards Carter. My face was swollen from smacking it on the steps, and I couldn’t see very well out of my right eye, but I saw enough to know that I had the upper hand. I swung the rod over my head and brought it down hard on his.

  He groaned and slumped over onto his side.

  I paused and tried to catch my breath. I looked down at my brother and cried out in anguish. How had we gotten to this point? Why did he insist on calling me Ivy when he knew I was Lucky?

  I looked down at Carter and saw the dark blood pooling on the floor under his head. Part of me wanted to save him, to start CPR and bring him back to life. That part of me, the part I kept trying to keep buried since I woke up in Carter’s cage, was screaming in agony deep inside. I needed to get rid of the voice inside that was so attached to my foster brother, that loved him. That love was going to get me killed, and I was a hunter, not prey. I wouldn’t let my brother turn me into a weak, useless, animal. Dr. John had spent too much time making me strong.

  I looked down at the rod in my hands. The ends were round and hollow, not pointy, but I still felt confident that Carter’s tool would be his demise. I imagined the rod stabbing through his skin, breaking his skull and allowing his brain matter to ooze out. I wanted to make the vision reality.

  I brought the rod over my head with two hands and dropped to my knees. I readied myself and took a deep breath. I was going to end this once and for all, for me, and my brother.

  “Ivy Lane!”

  A shout came from the top of the stairs to the kitchen.

  I dropped the rod and stood slowly. I recognized the voice from the memories that had been steadily infiltrating my consciousness. Ivy’s psychologist was at McCourt Manor.

  Chapter Ninteen
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  “Dr. Neumann?”

  The doctor shook his head and wagged his finger at me as he walked down the stairs.

  “What’s going on here Ivy?” He looked from me to Carter’s body that was still slumped over on the ground.

  “Lucky. My name is Lucky,” I insisted.

  A crooked smile stretched across the Psychologist's face.

  “Well, my, my, Carter did it then,” Dr. Neumann chuckled and placed his hands on his hips. “Who would’ve thought he could do it?”

  “Do what?!” I snapped at the doctor.

  “Bring you back out,” the doctor answered and put a hand to my cheek.

  “Back out of what? What are you talking about?” I slapped the doctor’s hand away. “I want to know what the fuck is going on. Why does everything feel so wrong? Why are you here? What the fuck is happening!” I became more hysterical as the questions bombarded my mind.

  “One thing at a time…Lucky.”

  Dr. Neumann crouched by Carter’s body and pressed two fingers to his throat.

  “He still has a pulse. Come on then, help me get him up,” Dr. Neumann instructed.

  “I don’t fucking think so,” I said as I backed up the stairs gingerly.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” A female voice questioned from behind me.

  Dr. Neumann smiled, and I turned around to see another familiar face on the landing, blocking my way.

  “Didn’t think you’d see me again huh?” Barb, the woman who ran Ivy’s half-way house, sneered at me.

  Barb hated Ivy, never liked her, wanted her gone from the Lochnar House. I could feel the contempt I had for the woman bubbling up through my gut.

  “Get out of my way,” I warned her.

  “Is Santiago here too?” Dr. Neumann asked the older woman.

  Dr. Santiago? The group counselor?

  “Yes, she’s upstairs getting the medication ready. Are we taking both of them?” Barb asked the doctor.

  “Well, she’s almost killed Carter, I think, and we can’t very well take him to a hospital can we?” Dr. Neumann pondered.