The Cellar

by Natasha Preston

  I nearly laughed even though there was nothing funny about this situation.

  When their plates were empty and I sat back, he stood up. “I’ll bring you a paper again today,” he said. Another paper. Please let Lewis be in it. Or anyone. I just wanted to see someone I love.

  After kissing Rose and Poppy on the cheek, he took a step closer to me. My heart stopped and my breath caught in my throat. What’s he doing? He stopped right in front of me. I bit down on my tongue. He leaned down and pressed his lips to my cheek. I tensed every muscle in my body and fought against the growing urge to be sick. I wanted to scream. He pulled away after a second and walked away.

  As soon as I was out of his sight, I sprinted to the bathroom. My skin was crawling, and I felt sick and dirty. Lifting the toilet seat, I threw up. My skin felt dirty, like I’d rubbed mud and crap on my cheek.

  “Lily,” Poppy said and knelt beside me. “Everything’s going to be fine. Come on, calm down, you need to be strong. ”

  I slumped back against the wall and burst into tears. I just wanted to go home. “I-I don’t want him to touch me,” I said, stuttering my words. I had to get him off me.

  “Shh,” she soothed and handed me tissue to wipe my eyes. “I don’t either. You just have to do what you have to do. ” That was it? Just do what you have to do? Let him do whatever he wanted. “This is, hopefully, only temporary, until we’re found. Just hang in there, please. ” “Hopefully” wasn’t good enough, but it wasn’t like we had anything but hope.

  I nodded and pushed myself up. Pull yourself together. “Okay. ” Poppy smiled and nodded her head toward the door, gesturing for me to follow her. Taking a deep breath and giving myself an internal pep talk, I stepped out of the bathroom. “Are we watching a movie?”

  “Rose and I plan on reading, but you can watch a movie if you like. ”

  I shook my head. “I’ll read too. ” Getting lost in another world sounded good—whether that was on the TV or in a book. I chose the thickest book on the bookshelf and sat down. When I was only a few chapters in, Rose put her book down and got up. She walked to the kitchen area and slipped on her rubber gloves.

  I stopped reading to watch her. The place was clean—it actually made operating rooms look like landfills. Poppy didn’t clean as much as Rose did, and it didn’t seem like Rose was doing it just so Clover wouldn’t flip out either. Rose was as obsessed as him. She sprayed surface cleaner on the counter and worked the cloth in circular motions. The room quickly filled with a stronger scent of lemons. It’s not even dirty!

  Glancing around the room, I saw that excessive cleaning wasn’t his only thing. The bookshelf between the bedroom and bathroom door stored books in alphabetical order by title. It was the same with the DVDs. Everything sitting on the shelves under the stairs looked the same distance apart. Did he go as far as measuring how far apart they needed to be? Surely no one was that OCD.

  Turning my head, I looked back toward the kitchen and saw everything there was lined up and matched too. Freak! The three vases of flowers held almost-dead roses and poppies. My flowers were the only ones still standing tall. What was the point of keeping flowers when down here they would just die so quickly? What a waste of money.

  Lewis used to bring me sunflowers—because they reminded him of me, apparently—though that was usually only when he was in trouble. I would have given anything to be home staring at Lewis’s flowers instead of in this prison looking at lilies.

  “Right,” Rose said as she put the rubber gloves back in the cupboard. “We need to sort through our clothes now. Clover wants them all bagged up by the time he gets back. ” New clothes from him. Well, at least they won’t be hand-me-downs from someone he’s murdered. She smiled and held up two black bags, as if this was something fun she had been looking forward to doing. “Come on then. ”

  Page 37

 

  I reluctantly followed them into the bedroom and opened my wardrobe. Rose shook the bags and laid them out in the middle of the room. There wasn’t much space at all; the walkway between the ends of the beds was only wide enough to fit one person through at a time.

  “Everything?” I asked.

  “Everything,” Rose confirmed. “I’ll do Violet’s as well as mine. ”

  We bagged the outfits in silence. Rose and Poppy exchanged a few knowing glances that I didn’t get. I frowned and asked, “Why is he doing this?”

  “I don’t know, Lily,” Rose replied.

  “Summer!” I exclaimed.

  Rose sighed and shook her head. Maybe all this was easier for her to accept because she had cut ties with her family years ago, but I hadn’t. I loved my family, as much as they drove me crazy. I couldn’t imagine not seeing them again.

  “Lily is your name now,” she said, her eyes hard and stern. I glared at her. Maybe you gave in to that sick freak but I won’t! We stared at each other, neither of us backing down. Poppy kept her head down and busied herself sorting the clothes. She wasn’t as messed up as Rose. I bet if she had the opportunity to get out, she would take it.

  Rose finally sighed. “Let’s just get this done. I’ll take this bag out. ” She took the tied bag from Poppy and walked out of the room. Whatever.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Poppy half shrugged. “Three years is a long time to be down here. ” Three minutes was a long time to be down here. “We need to stick together. ” That wasn’t the first time Poppy had said that, and I started to wonder if she said it so much to try and convince herself. We stuck together and what would happen? We would magically appear back home? Realization slammed me in the chest. No. She wasn’t talking about escaping—she was talking about surviving. My heart dropped. I thought we were on the same page.

  I stuffed the last of the clothes from my wardrobe in the bag roughly. This was stupid; there were three of us and one of him. We could smash him over the head with something—a chair, the TV, anything—but I couldn’t do it alone.

  Lifting the heavy black bag, I carried it into the main room and dropped it next to the other one. Two black bags held all the clothes we had, and they were just hand-me-downs from the previous dead girls. I froze. Where were my clothes? I hadn’t even thought of where they were. Did he take them? Did it even matter?

  “Good work, girls,” Rose said. “I’m going to start some knitting. Want to join in?” Poppy nodded. “Lily?”

  “I don’t know how to knit. ” I’m sixteen, not sixty!

  “That’s not a problem. We can teach you. Poppy, grab Lily a new set of needles and we’ll get started. ”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Don’t cry. “What’s the point of knitting?” There wasn’t anything knitted in the cellar, so what did they do with what they made?

  “We don’t knit for ourselves; we knit for others. ”

  “What?” I replied.

  “Clover donates the garments to charities. ” Or so he tells you. He could be burning them for all they knew.

  “Wouldn’t it look weird, a grown man with knitting stuff?”

  Rose frowned. “I don’t think so, and I believe he donates through charity bags. ” Ah, so no one sees him; the bag is picked up from outside his house. Smart sicko.

  Rose’s knitting lesson lasted an hour and was very in-depth. It was boring, but I sucked at it, so at least my mind was distracted for a while. That was probably why they did it too—anything to stop your mind wandering to what was actually happening. Survival.

  ***

  We had just finished making dinner when the cellar door unlocked. The blood drained from my face and I felt dizzy. He was coming. Did he have another newspaper? Please say the press used a picture of me with someone else. I didn’t care who; I just needed to see someone I loved.

  He strolled down the stairs, looking around at the three of us. “Good evening, Flowers,” he said. Gulping, I took a step back. My heart raced. “Here are your new clothes.
” He placed at least a dozen bags down beside the black bags and smiled. “All packed up, I see. Very good. ”

  Rose and Poppy walked toward the bags, grinning with excitement. Act like them. I took a small step closer, making sure I could see where he was and pretended to look in the bags too. The room was too small to be as far enough away from him as I wanted. Wherever I was, he was too close. “Now, I want you all to change into the clothes in this bag and hand me the ones you have on now. ”

  Page 38

 

  Now? I didn’t want to look in the bag and see what he wanted us to wear. At least it wouldn’t be anything revealing or degrading—not degrading in the sexual sense anyway. Anything we had to wear to suit him was degrading.

  Rose nodded. She was so obedient, although I’d seen what he did if you weren’t. “Okay,” she said and took the bag from his hand. “Come on, girls. ” I walked into the bedroom in shock. Were we really doing this? Rose tipped the bag upside down and four outfits fell out. They were all exactly the same. Smart gray trousers, a dusty pink high-neckline camisole, and matching pink cardigan. It looked like something you would wear to work.

  “All the same,” Poppy said, stating the bloody obvious. Was that what he wanted now, us to match too?

  “Let’s just change quickly,” Rose replied. “They’re all the same size, just grab one. ”

  I picked one set up and checked the label—size ten. Why didn’t he just get the size we wore? Oh God, were we all supposed to be this size?

  “You look beautiful, girls,” he said, smiling at us as we walked back into the main room. Psycho, psycho, psycho!

  Rose beamed. “Thank you, Clover, and thank you for the clothes. ” I wanted to grab her and shake her. She either needed some serious medical help or an Oscar.

  Clover stepped forward, took Rose’s hand, and kissed her knuckles. “You’re very welcome. ” My stomach turned for her, but she didn’t flinch.

  “Lily,” he said, turning to me. “Don’t worry. We’ll soon have your weight to where it should be. ”

  To where it should be. I clenched my jaw and forced a smile. There was no way I wanted to put on weight, especially not for him. If he wanted me bigger, I wanted to be smaller.

  “And, Poppy, you look incredible too. ”

  She bowed her head. “Thank you. ”

  He clapped his hands together, looking incredibly pleased with himself. “Well, shall we eat?”

  ***

  I shoved the stupid needle through the stupid hole, or whatever the hell Rose called it, and the whole thing came undone—again! I wanted a distraction, not something that was going to make me want to hang myself. “I’m done with this,” I growled and threw it to the floor.

  “Lily, you’ll get there,” Rose said and laughed.

  “I don’t want to get there. I. Want. To. Go. Home!”

  Rose looked at Poppy. “I think we should give it to her. ”

  “Give me what?” I snapped.

  “Clover bought a paper. It was in one of the bags. We didn’t want to give it to you yet because you were so upset earlier, and we didn’t want to make it worse,” Poppy explained.

  I sat forward, my eyes widening. “Where is it?”

  “I’ll get it. ” Poppy walked into the bedroom and came back with a national newspaper. “Here. ”

  I grabbed it from her and turned it over to the front page. My heart stopped. Lewis. It was a picture of us both, taken in the spring when we went to Alton Towers theme park. The headline and article faded into nothing and all that I could see was his face. He looked so happy with a big smile that lit up his eyes. His arm was around me and his head tilted toward mine. Suddenly wearing clothes for a psychopath didn’t bother me as much. I could do that if it meant I had a chance of seeing Lewis again.

  I was so absorbed in the paper that I didn’t notice he had come back until I heard a deafening scream. I jumped in shock and looked up to see him shove a girl down the stairs. She fell halfway down and landed in a heap at the bottom. I clutched the newspaper to my chest.

  He stood above her, hovering over her skinny frame. “Filth,” he spat. “Filthy whore!” Like when he said bastard, whore didn’t sound like his word; it was like when you hear a ten-year-old call someone hot. Grabbing the girl’s hair, he yanked her up. She screamed in protest, gripping her long dark hair.

  “Let me go. Please, let me go,” she begged and sobbed violently.

  “Shut up,” he screamed and slammed her back against the wall. “Filthy whore,” he repeated.

  My heart beat so loud I could barely hear what he was saying. “Poppy,” I whimpered, pressing my body into hers. I almost felt safe; it reminded me of when I was little and I hid against my mum’s body at the firework display.

  “Shh,” she whispered.

  He pinned her against the wall and she cried out in pain. “No, please. ”

  “Shut up, just shut up. ” She cried and turned her head to the side as Clover leaned in and spoke. “People like you make me sick. ”

  Page 39

 

  “Please let me go. I won’t say anything. ” Tears streamed down her face, making her makeup run.

  “You’re disgusting. You’re all disgusting. ”

  “I-I’m sorry. Please, let me go. ” He shook his head and pulled a knife out of his pocket. I gasped.

  I watched the scene in horror, unable to look away. She sobbed loudly, desperately, and shook violently. “Please, no, please. ”

  We should do something. I went to step forward, but Poppy pushed me back. “No,” she hissed.

  He pulled her hair again, making her scream and thrash around as she tried getting out of his grip. Like with Violet and without hesitation, he plunged the knife into her stomach. I gagged at the same time she screamed a deep, feral scream. Closing my eyes, I shrank back behind Poppy.

  Suddenly all of the sounds were amplified—his deep, ragged breaths and her spluttering and gagging. Within seconds, her noise stopped, and after a thud to the floor, his noise was the only thing left.

  He killed her.

  I didn’t dare open my eyes. I was too scared of what I would see. “Clean this now. ” His loud, angered voice cut through me, making me tremble. He ordered us around as if we’d done it.

  Poppy leaped forward, causing me to stumble and my eyes to fly open. He ran up the stairs and slammed the cellar door. Very slowly, I looked down and almost threw up. My body shook in fear. Rose and Poppy gathered the cleaning things and got to work. I would have loved to be inside their heads when they were cleaning up a murder. They didn’t give much away on the outside. Was it easier for them because they didn’t know her?

  They were a whirlwind: Rose mopped up with purpose, her lips pursed as she worked with ruthless efficiency, dodging me. Poppy was more reserved; she still looked like she was only cleaning up dirty footprints but she had slightly more emotion. She at least looked a bit sad. We didn’t even know the poor girl’s name. Did she have a family? Children? She was a person and she had a life. He just took it as if it were nothing.

  I turned around slowly and walked back into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I didn’t want to see him come back for her body or watch Rose and Poppy act as if nothing was wrong. I climbed into bed and cried into the pillow.

  14

  CLOVER

  Friday, July 15th (2005)

  “Good morning, Violet. I have some news,” I said as I walked downstairs. It was very exciting news. I didn’t like there only being two of us. The table was unbalanced. Three seats were empty.

  She looked up from the worktop where she was whisking eggs. “News, Clover?”

  “Yes, another surprise. You’ll find out later, perhaps in a day or so. ” Violet was a bright young woman. After I brought Poppy back two days ago, although I’d not seen her since, she would know my surprise was another family member. Poppy just needed a little r
eadjustment time; Violet was helping her settle in, and I was sure she would be right as rain soon enough. As desperately as I wanted her out here with us now, I could give her a few days. I’d waited so long for this, I could give Poppy time. “What’s for breakfast? Scrambled eggs on toast?”

  “Oh, okay. Yes, scrambled eggs. ”

  I smiled. “One of my favorites. ”

  “Can you cook?”

  “I can. Mother taught me. ” My eyes widened and I mentally chastised myself for giving away too much. I didn’t ever want to speak of Mother in front of my new family. I wanted that part of my life separate. “How long will it be?”

  “Five minutes. We’re running low on food. ”

  “I have the delivery coming tonight. I’ll bring it down later. ”

  “Thank you. ”

  I sat down at the table, looking at the empty seats. My fingers tapped away on the wooden surface as if they had a life of their own. I was anxious and restless. It wasn’t supposed to take so long; we should have a full family by now. As fond as I was of Violet, I couldn’t bear it to just be the two of us for much longer.

  She sat down, placing our food before us. “Thank you, Violet. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Are you lonely?” Her eyes dropped to the table, telling me that she was. “Violet, answer me please,” I prompted. “I don’t like when you hold something back. ”

  “Yes. I am. I’m sorry. ”

  “I thought so, and please don’t apologize. ” I could barely contain my excitement of bringing Rose and Lily back. Four beautiful, pure flowers. “Is Poppy not good company?”

  Violet’s eyes widened, alarmed. “She is. It’s just taking a little time to settle in. I promise she’ll be fine, though. ”

  Page 40

 

  “Oh, I know she will. It’s natural to feel apprehensive when this is so new to her. Is she healing?”

  “Yes. Her head is still sore so I let her sleep in. ”

  “I thought you had. ” I sipped my orange juice. “What are your plans for today? I haven’t forgotten those extra books. I’ll make sure the bookshelf is full soon enough. ”

  “Thank you. I was planning on reading. ” She poked around at her eggs. “Clover?”

  “Yes?”

  She bit on her lip nervously. “I used to knit, and I was wondering if you would consider getting me some needles and wool?”