Ilse stood facing the two-story blue house on Mundenhoffer Street. Her mouth felt dry as if she'd been sucking on cotton swabs. Her chest hammered. She glanced up and down the street, wondering if she'd missed it. A couple of the homes further down looked close enough to blue, so she was now second-guessing herself. Three doors down, at first, the multi-family duplex had seemed purple. But now, standing outside her chosen residence, she wasn't so sure.
"You're stalling," she said out loud, directing the words at herself.
Her fingers tapped against her thigh, and she breathed in for four seconds and out for four.
Memories were a tricky thing. She couldn't recall much following her escape from the basement with her siblings' help. She couldn't remember, even, how many siblings she'd had. Couldn't remember their names unless prompted. A combination of trauma repression and physical injury during her escape, which had left her waking in a hospital three weeks later, seemed to have clouded over everything from before. Already, now in her early thirties, it was difficult to perfectly recollect anything from more than two decades ago. But the addition of memory repression was her own mind's way of trying to protect her. Everything from her past was hazy—only sensory clues, like a smell, or a familiar sight or a voice managed to arouse recollection... It was like playing “Guess Who” with her own past.
She barely remembered this brother at all... But she'd come here for a reason.
Ilse exhaled one last time, then, like ripping a band-aid, she sprang up the stairs in one quick motion and took two jogging steps towards the front door. Exhaling heavily, she reached out and tapped against the frame.
Doubling down, in case she lost her nerve, she also pressed the bell.
Isle waited, standing on the porch and glancing around; the house was well-maintained and the yard had a low hedge and a small flower bed. Only one car sat in the driveway—a white sedan. The most common vehicle color.
She waited, then heard the sound of footsteps from within.
Maybe it was the wrong house. It wasn't like she'd been given an address. She half began to turn, convinced she'd made a mistake. But then the door suddenly opened, swinging inwards.
Her eyes flitted up, meeting the gaze in the threshold of the doorway.
No mistake.
He looked just like her. The same dark hair, the same pale skin, his mouth bunched up on the side, the ways hers did whenever she was confused. He was watching her, frowning, his own gaze tracing her expression. No recognition, though—he didn't know who she was.
"Can I help you?" came a polite voice in German.
Ilse didn't say a thing. Her voice felt lost, trapped beneath an air bubble in her throat. For a moment, she wanted to shout. She barely recognized Francis. She couldn't even remember the names of all her siblings who'd been trapped with her. There'd been eight of them. She felt certain now. Two of them killed, when she'd escaped. Heidi dead now too. Which meant only five of her siblings were still alive. And one of them was standing in the doorway with a polite expression of mild concern.
"Sorry," she stammered at last, trying to breathe, but forgetting how. "My name," she hesitated, wondering if she'd face the same issue here as the antique store if presenting her real name. But it just felt wrong to pretend. Especially now. Especially here. So she said, "Hilda Mueller."
The moment she spoke, the man's face fell. It was like watching a rose whither, leaving only thorns behind. The pleasant smile, the earnest look all faded to a twisted, horrified expression of fear, and pain.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, quickly, grasping at the German she remembered. Her grammar was fine, but pronunciation on some of the longer words was difficult. "I'm not here to bother you. I promise. I won't be long."
"Hilda?" he said, quickly. "Is this a joke?" An edge cut through his words now.
"I-I'm not joking. No, really. I got your house from the antique store owner.”
She waited, half expectantly, but instead of replying, he stepped back, beginning to close the door. His eyes flared, his breath coming quickly. He swallowed, suggesting his throat was dry. He had a far off, shellshocked look: telltale signs he was mentally shutting down. Many of her clients often reacted similarly when confronted by their past. But for them, it happened in a safe, controlled environment, with only people they trusted. Now, facing her brother, he was in full-blown panic mode.
She dropped her voice, and took a step back of her own, trying to give him space. "I-I'm not trying to intrude. I came here, from, well, from overseas. I just... I had questions."
"I'm sorry, I have a lot to do. Early day of work tomorrow. I don't know who you are."
He began to shut the door completely, and she resisted the urge to reach out to stop him. This would only be seen as a threat. Instead, she said, in the face of the closing door, "Heidi visited me, a couple of weeks ago."
The door stopped.
"Heidi is alive, too?"
Ilse hesitated. "She was."
The door opened a bit wider. "She's dead?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Do you know how she died?"
A blunt, painful question. This one, despite herself, Ilse dodged. "Have you seen Heidi recently?"
Francis just shook his head, his eyes still wide. "She's cursed like the rest of us if she's already dead."
"I—wait, cursed?"
"The curse of the Muellers,” he snapped, as if the answer was obvious. “If I could get further away from this town, I would. Not that it would help. And not that I'd get hired anywhere else." He snorted, shaking his head. "We didn't exactly get a head-start on the job market, did we?”
Ilse winced, glancing at his house, then back at him. "Looks like you've done well enough."
His brow furrowed. “I don't have anything to tell you. If you're around here asking questions, good for you. But I don't have answers. And the ones I do have, I want to forget." There was an edge to his voice, a panic setting in.
She kept her own tone calm. She didn't quite meet his eyes now, glancing off, hoping he would take the posture as nonconfrontational. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to cause problems."
"Heidi's dead. Deirdre also died in a drunken car crash nearly five years ago. Timothy is in prison, just like the old man."
Ilse flinched, taking the news about her other siblings in stride. Deirdre. Timothy. Did she remember them? Barely, perhaps. Faint, vague faces on the other side of misty glass. She exhaled slowly. "The curse. That's what you're calling it?"
"Can you think of anyone more cursed than us?"
"I guess not. So you know Dad's in prison?"
At this, he visibly blanched, shuddering. "Don't call him that. He's no one's father. He's a monster. He deserves to be locked away. I hear Justizvollzugsanstalten Freiburg is rough—I'm glad."
She stared. So he knew where their father was; she hadn't heard the prison's name before. Articles on the internet were sparse, in German, or—from twenty years ago—missing entirely. Just another reason she avoided the internet, and all things tech. Briefly, she thought of Agent Tom Sawyer. She didn't smile, but found, at least for a second, her breathing came easier. The lanky, sandy-haired FBI agent also hated technology: one of the very few things they'd had in common. But as she returned her attention to Francis Mueller, another little shiver crept up her spine.
"I'm sorry. Look—I'm sorry. I'm not trying to bother you."
Here, though, something else suddenly emerged in his features. His expression hardened. The panic turned to something close to rage. He jammed a finger through the doorway, pointing at her face. "You should be sorry. Hilda. Little Hilda. You ran away and didn't come back. We suffered down there. He killed Hans and Dietrich. He did horrible things to Heidi. You knew he would! He said he would if ever any of us tried to run! It's your fault. You should've come back!"
Now, Ilse could feel her heartbeat pounding wildly. She could feel the terror, the pain in his voice, the tears trembling in his eyes, and her own sense of horror came crashing in. Guilt, terrible guilt. She still didn't know what had happened in those three weeks between when she had escaped and when police had come to help the others. Her father had taken vengeance on her family because of her freedom.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice cracking.
"Go. Go away. And don't ever come back. I don't know you. And you don't know me."
"I didn't mean to bother you. I shouldn't have come."
He stared at her for a moment, the door shut nearly completely again, only one of his eyes visible in the slit. His fingers braced against the wood as he huffed out an angry, sobbing breath, and said, "I don't know what you're up to. You should leave. You managed to get out; good. You're not the only one who came around asking questions. Katarina also did. You remember her?"
A flash of memories—a picture of a small girl with dimpled cheeks and a bowl cut. A freckled nose, and a smile to melt even cold hearts. The youngest of the Muellers, the only child younger than Ilse. How had she forgotten Kat? Now she remembered. A sensory prompting—so simple, just a name.
"Kat?" Ilse said, gasping. “Our sister?”
"She wanted to get to the bottom of all of it too. She was never able to recover after what he did to us. Unhinged though she was, she still wanted to know more than any of us did. She also asked questions. If you want to talk to anyone, then talk to her."
Ilse tried to suppress the rising bile in the back of her throat. "Where is she?”
"St. Mark's," he replied, his tone dull. "An insane asylum. She asked too many questions, and she was already a bit crazy.” A note of grief rattled his voice, but then his eyes narrowed again, and he fixated on her once more. “Never come back here again!" He slammed the door, and she heard the click of a lock, then a rattling chain.
Ilse stood on the porch for a moment, breathing heavily. She hadn't remembered her brother. Hadn't remembered little Kat. Couldn't remember until confronted by it. It felt like groping around on the bottom of a silty lake floor, looking for a lost ring. Heidi had hated her. Now her brother did as well. Did all of them hate her? What had happened in those three weeks between her escape and waking in a hospital bed? It was all still so hazy.
Trembling, Ilse turned back towards her car on the side of the road.
An insane asylum? Her baby sister, the smiling, dimple-faced girl. Ilse barely remembered Katarina. But if baby Kat had been asking questions too, maybe she would have found the answers Ilse was looking for.