The Cellar

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses abuse; rape, sexual exploitation, and sexual assault; death by suicide; abduction; and graphic violence.

Each chapter’s title indicates the character viewpoint. A time note heads each chapter: “Saturday, July 24th (Present)” (1). The “present” is 2010.

Sixteen-year-old Summer Robinson, eager to celebrate the end of school, leaves her home in the small English town of Long Thorpe and walks a few blocks to a club where her friends await. Her boyfriend of one-and-a-half years, Lewis, who is friends with Summer’s 18-year-old brother, Henry, offers to drop Summer off at the club, but she refuses. Lewis and Summer kiss; she reflects on how she has liked Lewis since age 11.

Summer nervously walks past the graveyard and arrives safely at the club. Once there, her friend Kerri says their friend Rachel “ran off,” upset over a bad boyfriend, and they must look for her. Kerri and Summer go in opposite directions along the street. Summer enters an empty park, where a tall adult man in his late twenties or early thirties approaches her. He calls her “Lily” repeatedly, though she tries to correct him. Without warning, he grabs Summer and drags her out the back gate, through a field, and into the back of a white van.