A House at the Bottom of a Lake

23

While James was in the kitchen, studying the pepper shaker, Amelia had been doing flips, floating somersaults, through every room in the house. By the time she reached the lounge with the oil painting still life, she was dizzy from it, even a little turned around. She flipped once more and her flippers struck the wall and the wall opened and Amelia gasped, within her mask, understanding that, despite having explored the house a dozen times now, there were still new rooms to be found.

She swam into the surprise entrance and excitedly ran her beam in all directions, finding at first only a wall of chipped pink paint, possibly a closet. She shone the light to the floor, expecting (and hoping) to find shoes, evidence of someone having once lived here, like the floating dresses in the room upstairs.

But there were no shoes.

There were stairs.

Amelia treaded for half a minute, the word basement playing in her mind. The word impossible, too, as the house (our house) was situated firmly in the muddy muck of the very bottom of the lake.

Finally, she swam toward the stairs, head down, her flippers clipping a lightbulb’s string above. But before fully diving into the subterranean level of the house, she stopped.

James.

She found him in the kitchen looking as if he’d seen a flesh-and-blood chef crawl into the oven and close the door. She convinced him to follow her.

Minutes later, treading above the staircase that, an hour before, neither of them had known existed, James thought the same two words Amelia had.

Basement.

Impossible.

But a third word worried him most.

Trapped.

As if, by swimming below, they wouldn’t have only the lake above them.

They’d have the house, too.

Amelia swam first, head down. He watched her flippers vanish beyond the reach of his beam, into the throat of the stairwell.

Then he followed.