The Flowerbed

There is an old barn behind the house. I used to live in that barn. I was the first girl to live there - there have been a handful since me. But these two will be the last.

He called me Mary, but my name is really June.

When I was seven, I was walking home from school with my friend Zan, since she only lived one street away. When we got to her gate, a car pulled up. He said he was friends with my mom and she had asked him to pick me up. He said she was in the hospital, and he seemed very concerned. I got in. My last memory of Zan was her worried face.

He didn’t take me home. He took me to the barn. It is old and run down, but it has good bones, and so it stands, albeit sadly. There is a trap door in the floor, leading to a hidden underground room, with a bed and some shelves for books and toys. There was a dresser with clothes. He took me to that space. It was dark down there, and smelled like dirt and freshly cut wood. There were emergency lights on the walls, but no electricity or water. A bucket for a toilet. He left me there, alone, scared. He told me my mom died, and no one would look for me.

He called me Mary.

I said my name was June.

He closed the hatch, leaving me with only the light from the emergency lights. I cried the whole night.

He kept me there, alone, for four years. Every year he would mark my birthday with a chocolate cake. I hate chocolate cake now. He told me that I had no one but him. I learned to turn inward. I read. I made stories in my head. I walked in circles.

After four years, he brought another girl, Violet (but that wasn’t her real name either). She was only six. He had stole her as well, and she, like me, was scared. I was grateful for a friend. She slept in the only bed with me. She cried a lot. I could only hug her close to me and tell her it would be okay, but I didn’t know that.

Violet and I lived together for two more years, but then, I got my period. I was 13. He didn’t want me anymore because I wasn’t a little girl. But he seemed lost about what to do, as if he had not been expecting this. I couldn’t go home, but I wasn’t any good to him anymore. He moved me into the house to do his chores and laundry and take care of Violet. She was so lonely in the hole by herself. I brought her books, and coloring books with crayons, and stuffed animals. I sat in there with her and we played and talked and I would give her school-type assignments however I could. She was not a strong girl - being kept in the hole was hard on her. She cried all the time.

Then he took another little girl. Rose. She was six.

And he kept bringing us all chocolate cake on our birthday - which was the same day for all of us, February 16. That’s not really my birthday - my birthday is in November. But it was easier this way.

When Violet got her period, he was ready. He kidnapped another girl, Iris, so that Rose would not be alone. He brought Violet outside of the hole. She hadn’t seen the outdoors in six years; she seemed bewildered, lost, blinded by the bright light of the sun.

He had built a raised garden bed out of railroad ties, and he buried her in the garden. I watched him plant violets over her grave. After Violet and I understood his plan, I vowed to be the mother they lost, love in the midst of the horror of our imprisonment.

Over the years, I watched more flower join the violets. Roses. Irises. Tulips, His grotesque and beautiful trophy case.

When he brought home Lily, it was the last straw. She was so little, only four. Four years old! His sexual appetite for little girls had become depraved. A four-year-old. She was terrified, cried herself to sleep and then woke up crying again. Her partner, Pansy, was nine. They were so young to try to make a break for it, but I had to. For Lily. For every girl he would rip from their home if he was allowed to continue. For all of us who had lived in his lonely, horrible hole.

I had spent 12 years in the house with him, doing his laundry, cooking his meals. I had been a quiet little church mouse, and so he trusted me. I used that to my advantage.

I crept down to the barn and unlocked the hatch. I could see the girls in the harsh glow of the emergency lights, sleeping, Pansy curled around Lily. I climbed down the ladder quietly, and shook Pansy awake, then placed a finger against my lips. I hoped that we could take Lily with waking her, but she woke up when I picked her up and looked at me with big scared eyes. I kissed her on the forehead and whispered quiet messages to her. She sniffled, but didn’t cry.

We got out of the hatch and locked it again, so that it looked normal. I could tell they were both scared, but Pansy was strong and kept walking beside me. I carried Lily. The dirt driveway was long and didn’t provide cover, but it was dark and I figured that we were safe. We walked until we hit the road. I didn’t know where to go from there, but we went took a chance and turned right. I had imagined that the house and barn were far from other people, but it was not very long before we found a house. The lights in the house were out, but there was a car in the driveway, and so we went and pounded on the door. It took a couple minutes, which felt like a lifetime. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting him to come out of the darkness. Lily started to cry.

Finally, the door opened. A very disheveled looking man took in front of us. I started to cry, and he softened when he saw the three of us, all weeping, and ushered us inside. Lily started wailing, and Pansy grabbed my hand and squeezed. I couldn’t stop crying. We were safe.

The kindly man ushered me to a chair and I collapsed grateully. Pansy sat on the floor next to me, holding my hand like it was her lifeline. The man’s wife came into the room, and tried to ask me questions, but I could only cry, rocking back and forth with Lily. She called the police, and I was grateful. While we waited, she offered us water and crackers, which Pansy and i took gratefully. She gave Lily an old stuffed rabbit, and Lily buried her face in its patchy fur.

I cried myself out before the police arrived. Between hiccups, I told our story to the man and his wife. They were horrified; they knew this man who had imprisoned us. They had seen him at the store, at the post office. He had told them he was buying clothes for his nieces. He had asked them for any hand-me-down games or books he could give to children at his church. All of it was for us. They had no idea. He seemed so nice, so normal, they said. Isn’t that always what people say, in hindsight?

Two officers rapped on the door as I was finishing the story. I was so tired. The adrenaline of the escape had worn off, and the rush of relief left me exhausted. Lily was already asleep in my arms, and Pansy was nodding off as she knelt next to me. The lady gently, expertly extracted Lily, and guided Pansy to the living room, where the girls could curl up on the sofa, their little bodies wrapped around each other. I followed them - I had to see them, to know they were okay. I told our story again, to the police this time, standing in the doorway of the living room. Those girls would not leave my sight, not for a minute.

It all happened so fast after that. The officers called for backup, and four police cruisers set off the short distance to his house. I imagined that he would be in bed, sleeping, when they entered the house. I imagined him ripped from his bed, like he ripped us from our families. I imagined them putting him in the cruiser, like he coaxed us into his car. I imagined him locked up in a cell, like he locked us in the hole.

Later, after the raid was over, after the girls and I went to the hospital and slept, beautiful restful sleep, all in the same room together, Pansy and Lily sharing a tiny hospital bed, I learned the truth. I learned that he had expected them. While we had been making our escape, he had gone to the barn and found the girls missing. In the house, he found my fake body in the bed, pillows to look like someone was there. He knew that we had left, and that it was over. They found his body in the flowerbed.

But before he did that, he left a lone package on the table, wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine. It said nothing, but it had a single marigold on top, threaded through the twine.

A marigold for me.