The Gardener's Girls

Chapter6

The moment the lock clicked, the forced composure of the cellar shattered. Rose and Poppy moved to clear the table, their silence a heavy shroud. Lila, however, felt a different kind of release—not of tension, but of the control she had been desperately clinging to. The façade of strength crumbled, and a sob tore through her, raw and ragged. She curled into a ball on the sofa, the grief and terror of the past twenty-four hours finally overwhelming her. This couldn't be her life now. It simply couldn't.

"Oh, Lily, it's going to be okay," Poppy said, her voice a soft murmur as she sat beside Lila and rubbed her back.

"N-No," Lila wept, her words broken by gasps. "Not okay." Tears streamed down her face, soaking the knees of her dead girl's jeans.

"Shh," Rose cooed from the other side, her tone that of a mother calming a frightened child. "Take deep breaths. You're not alone, Lily."

"We're all in this together," Poppy added, her hand a small, warm weight on Lila’s trembling shoulder.

Lila took a ragged breath, trying to quell the storm inside her. "How can he?" she managed, wiping her tears away, her vision blurring the faces of the two girls beside her. "He's going out tonight. How can he do all this—the killing, the kidnapping—and still be a normal person to everyone else?"

Rose sighed, a sound of infinite weariness. "He's not going to a pub, Lily."

"Stop calling me Lily!" Lila growled, the name a physical irritant, a constant reminder of her stolen identity.

Rose ignored her outburst, her gaze distant. "As far as I'm aware, he doesn't socialize much. Most of his time is spent either at work or down here with us."

"Then what's he doing tonight?" Lila pressed, sitting up. "And how do you know what he does out there anyway?"

"He's a surprisingly honest person," Rose explained, her voice low and conspiratorial. "If you ask him something, he'll usually give you a straight answer. But please, remember to think about what you ask," she warned, her eyes meeting Lila's with a flicker of fear. "The Gardener… he despises certain kinds of people. And what he does, occasionally, is…" she trailed off, frowning into the distance as if searching for the right word.

"Is what?" Lila prompted, her heart beginning to hammer against her ribs.

"He… disposes of people who do harm."

Lila’s mouth fell open. The air grew cold. "He murders them?" she whispered, the words feeling alien and monstrous on her tongue.

Rose sighed again. "Yes. But that's not quite how he sees it. The women—prostitutes, mostly—he believes they are doing harm. Harm to the innocent families of the men who use them."

"Can you hear yourself?" Lila whispered, a new kind of horror dawning on her. It wasn't just fear of the Gardener; it was fear of what this place did to people. "Why are you defending him?"

"I'm not defending him, Lily," Rose insisted, though her voice lacked conviction.

"Yes, you are! You're making it sound like it's okay, like he's some kind of vigilante!"

"It's not okay, and I'm not. I'm just trying to explain how he thinks. That's all."

So he was a serial killer with a messiah complex. The knowledge settled in Lila’s stomach like a block of ice. He wasn't just a kidnapper who lost his temper. He was a predator who actively hunted.

"How does he get away with it?" she asked, her mind reeling.

"They're prostitutes, Lily. Most of them have run away from home or have always been alone," Poppy chimed in, her voice barely a whisper. "He thinks they're dirty and represent everything that's wrong with humanity." Rose looked at Poppy, a silent, pained understanding passing between them. "We think something must have happened to him when he was younger," Rose added. "No one just starts thinking like that. But we've never asked."

Of course, they hadn't. Asking the wrong question was a capital offense in this house.

"What does he do with them?" Lila questioned, her voice trembling. "How many?"

"He brings some of them back here," Poppy replied, her eyes dropping to the floor. "We're not sure if he kills more outside."

Lila’s blood turned to ice water in her veins. "H-he brings them here? To kill them?" She was going to have to witness that again. Would he expect her to "clean up," too? There was no way. She couldn't touch another dead body. She couldn't mop up another person's life from the floor. Scorching tears poured down her cheeks again. This isn't real. This can't be real.

Poppy lowered her eyes and nodded. "Yes. That way, no one finds any evidence. Or hears them scream."

"This is insane!" Lila cried, jumping to her feet. "We have to get out of here! We can do it if we work together, I know we can!"

"No, Lily," Rose said, her voice suddenly stern, cutting through Lila's panic like a knife. "We can't. There is no way out, so you need to get this idea out of your head right now. You have no real idea of what he's capable of. He has no concept of what is truly right and wrong. He can be very… brutal. And unforgiving."

A shiver ran through Lila’s entire body at her blunt, cold warning. Brutal and unforgiving. She had seen what he did to Iris. How much worse could it get?

Rose stood up, her face a mask of resolute composure. "Now, I'm going to clean the bathroom. Then we can watch a film."

Lila stared at her, dumbfounded. A film? As if they were just a normal family planning a normal evening. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she sank back onto the sofa, the rising, sickly feeling of hopelessness churning in her stomach. "I can't stay here," she whispered to Poppy. "I need to go home."

Poppy shook her head and squeezed Lila's hand. "I wish you could, Lily. But please, don't do anything stupid. I don't want to have to put you in a body bag," she said, her words a final, chilling nail in the coffin of Lila's hope. Her mind instantly conjured the image, and a bolt of pure horror shot right through her bones.

True to Rose's word, the rest of the day was a blur of forced domesticity. They watched an old romantic comedy, the sound of canned laughter echoing strangely in the sterile cellar. Rose and Poppy quickly became absorbed in the film, their faces illuminated by the flickering screen. How could they care about a fictional love story when a real-life monster was out there, preying on some poor, unsuspecting girl?

"Can we get normal TV?" Lila asked during a commercial break. Maybe she would be on the news. Surely, she was on the news by now.

Poppy shook her head without taking her eyes off the screen. "No."

Of course not. They were completely cut off from the world, utterly dependent on him for everything. Food, clothes, news, life itself. Regret, sharp and agonizing, pierced through her. She should have listened. She should have let Liam pick her up. Why didn't she just listen?

"We need to start dinner," Rose announced, switching off the television. The movie had ended, and the sun, somewhere far above them, must be setting. "Do you want to help, Lily?"

Did she have a choice? She sighed and nodded. It was better than sitting here, drowning in her own thoughts.

They worked in the small kitchen, the three of them moving around each other in a practiced, silent dance. The atmosphere had turned tense since her questions. She knew Rose was pretending not to have heard her plea for escape, but she also knew the older girl must be thinking about it. How could she not be?

As she peeled potatoes with the dull, plastic-handled peeler, an idea, faint and dangerous, sparked in her mind. Her eyes darted to Poppy, who was chopping carrots. Then to Rose, who was seasoning a chicken. The head of the peeler was plastic, but the blade in the middle was metal. It didn't look particularly sharp, but it was something. A possibility. Could it do enough damage?

Her head snapped up when Rose spoke. "Poppy, can you get me an oven dish, please?" Rose’s voice was strained. She was pretending, Lila realized. She was pretending this was all okay, but deep down, she was just as terrified as they were.

Later, as the smell of roasting chicken filled the cellar, the dread began to build again. He would be back soon. Lila could tell by the way Rose and Poppy fussed around the room, double-checking that everything was clean, that every cushion was plumped, every book perfectly aligned on the shelf. Her heart began to beat faster in anticipation.

Finally, the sound they had been waiting for echoed through the room: the click of the cellar door unlocking. Lila’s hands grew clammy, and her heart leaped into her mouth.

"Good evening, my blossoms," he greeted, his voice a calm, charming balm that failed to soothe the terror he inspired. He seemed pleased, relaxed. That was somehow worse.

Dinner was another agonizing ritual of polite conversation. He asked Rose about her day. She told him about the film they had watched. He nodded, pleased. Lila managed to eat a few bites of chicken, the food tasteless in her mouth. She kept her eyes on her plate, trying to fade into the background.

"Poppy and I were wondering," Rose said, her voice carefully casual, "if we could have some more dress patterns. We'd quite like to make a few summer dresses."

Lila’s head snapped up. They made clothes? You needed scissors to cut fabric. Sharp, metal scissors.

"Would you teach me?" Lila heard herself pipe in, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.

The Gardener turned to her, a triumphant, brilliant smile spreading across his face, as if he believed she had finally accepted his sick version of life. "That's a wonderful idea, Lily. I'm sure Rose and Poppy would love to teach you. Wouldn't you, girls?"

"Of course," Rose agreed, though her eyes held a flicker of warning.

Hope, sharp and dangerous, leaped in Lila’s chest. A plan, vague and terrifying, began to form in her head.

After dinner, he didn’t leave. He stood up, and the air in the room grew thick with a new, unspoken dread. He smiled, a soft, predatory smile, and turned to Rose.

"Good night, my blossoms," he said, and the cellar fell silent. He walked up the stairs, and the lock clicked shut.

But the relief didn't come. An hour later, the lock clicked again.

Lila, Rose, and Poppy were on the sofa, watching another film, when the door creaked open. They all froze. He came down the stairs, but he wasn't alone. He was dragging a girl behind him, a skinny young woman with dark, terrified eyes and smudged makeup. She was gagged and her hands were tied.

"Filth," he spat, shoving her to the bottom of the stairs. She crumpled to the floor, sobbing. "f*****g filthy whore." He yanked her up by her long, dark hair. She screamed against the gag, her body thrashing.

"Poppy," Lila whimpered, pressing herself into the older girl’s side.

"Shh," Poppy hushed, her own body rigid with fear.

He pinned the girl against the wall. "People like you make me sick," he growled, his face contorted with a righteous fury. He pulled the knife from his pocket.

Lila gasped. No. Not again. She couldn't watch this again.

She tried to look away, but her eyes were fixed on the scene in horrified fascination. The girl's eyes widened above the gag, and she shook her head violently, her muffled pleas filling the cellar.

He didn't hesitate. He plunged the knife into her stomach. A deep, feral scream, muffled by the gag, tore from the girl's throat. Lila gagged at the same time, the taste of bile rising in her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the sound was everywhere. The sound of his deep, ragged breaths, the girl’s choked spluttering, and the wet thud as her body hit the floor.

When the sounds stopped, his voice cut through the silence, loud and angry. "Clean this now!"

His footsteps thundered up the stairs, and the cellar door slammed shut. Poppy leaped forward, her movement causing Lila to jerk and open her eyes. He was gone. But the horror remained. A large, bright red pool of blood was already forming on the floor, slowly, inexorably, making its way towards them.