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.”
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.”