A House at the Bottom of a Lake

32

Inside, swimming apart, then together, Amelia vanished behind a partially opened door. James paused to shine his light under the pool table, into the corners, the murky blackness falling in, rolling in, whenever he drew the light away. Amelia saw it, saw the darkness at bay, saw the darkness return, by the flickering, anxious movements of James’s light. James saw it, too, saw the edges of the dark like physical planes, touchable down here, always down here. He saw it gripping the beam of Amelia’s light like black hands, black lips, swallowing.

The darkness was present, even when it was lit.

Through the study, the lounges, the library, the kitchen, where James had gotten scared by the pepper shaker. Into the Florida room, walls of glass looking out into the murky depths, fish swimming past, through their wavering beams, fish no more colorful than the water, than the dull rippling grays and blacks, blending in, not wanting to be seen, not wanting to be met. Flecks of mud floating like dust above a dirt road, unseen footsteps bringing it up, bringing it to life. James and Amelia paused here, pressing their beams to the glass, feeling small in size, in comparison with the boundaryless body of the mountains, the lake, the house.

They once imagined gardens of their own growing in that lifeless mud; colorless flowers swaying in the under-waves.

Were these dreams still possible? Was everything possible now?

They swam on, swerving through the halls, avoiding lamps, dressers, swimming up over couches, diving below chandeliers and lightbulbs alike. At the basement door, Amelia paused and looked James in the eye. She shone the light on her own face and mouthed the word sauna. And though James hadn’t thought about it himself since they saw it, he knew what door she was referring to. The closed wooden door by the indoor pool. The one room they hadn’t checked in the house. Would they find the object of their search there? A towel around its waist, sweat pouring from its impossible brow?

Behind the basement door and well below it, a swimming pool sat in complete darkness, its water somehow untangled from the water of the lake. Maybe they’d find it there. Wading waiting, waiting wading.

“Sauna,” James said and Amelia pushed open the basement door. James followed her into the darkness. He followed her down the stairs, hearing in his memory the things she’d recently said. He used her words to battle through the rising curtain of bad feelings, the idea that they shouldn’t be here, that this wasn’t just love anymore.

This was danger.

But the elixir of being inside the house again made it easier to shove these fears aside.

Down the stone steps they swam, beneath the low-hanging support beams, until their flashlights revealed the rippling water below. It flowed in the opposite direction of the water they swam in, as if the ghost of a second moon orbited the pool, causing a second tide.

Just past the pool, Amelia shone her light upon the smooth wood door of the sauna.

James thought of Potscrubber. He couldn’t help it.

Amelia placed a hand on the sauna door.

James gripped her wrist. When she turned to face him, he saw the obsession in her eyes.

Jerry, he remembered saying, as the walls of Potscrubber trembled on their own, there’s another one on your shoulder.

“Be careful,” James said. But it came out unintelligible. A useless warning. One he wasn’t adhering to himself.

And yet Amelia must have read his lips, for she responded in kind.

“Of course.”

Then she smiled and gave him that same thumbs-up. This time without shame.

Here we go, she seemed to say. Where we’ve been going all along.

She pushed gently on the wood and the door opened.

They entered the sauna, and their lights revealed empty wooden benches. A cold stove.

But James felt hot.

He shone the light upon the stove, convinced it had to be on after all, sure that the sauna was functioning, inexplicably, like everything else in the house. He looked over his shoulder in time to see the door slowly swinging closed, like every other door, riding the unseen undulations at the bottom of the lake. But this time it felt different. It looked different, too.

Deliberate? James thought. But it was not a question, rather an elusive word finally found.

Someone is closing the door. We’re going to boil to death in here.

His mask began to fog.

Fear?

Heat?

He grabbed Amelia by the arm and swam toward the closing door, dragging her until she swam on her own, James leading the way now, his palm against the wood, pressing back, pushing hard, expecting resistance, and finding none.

The door swung open, easily. James shone his light behind it.

Nobody.

Nothing.

Not here.

But somebody.

Upstairs.

James and Amelia looked up together, to the familiar sound of the ceiling creaking.

A thudding above. Sluggish.

Deliberate.

Had it tried to trap them? And would it try to again?

They followed the sound with their eyes, treading above the pool, then the tiles bordering the pool, as the wide creaking steps drifted farther from them, heading, it seemed, to the basement door.

Without hesitation, Amelia swam toward it. Toward the approaching sound.

At first, James couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. Whatever was in this house was approaching, was near, and though they had agreed to greet it, James found that when the moment was upon him, the agreement seemed insane. Frozen with indecision, he watched her grow smaller. His fear expanded. And even then, as Amelia went to the sound, to the beat of his horror, he didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to float here, tread by the sauna alone. James went to her, to catch her, to catch up, aware of the open space behind him, the growing space.

Ahead, Amelia vanished, up the stairs.

We should introduce ourselves.

And so she was.

James entered the stone corridor of stairs, felt the pressure of the growing space behind him. His arms and legs tingled, like when a child races up from the basement, sure that something wet, something old, was seconds away from taking hold of his ankle.

Come back, James, it would say, the words as bloated as its face. Stay a little longer.

Oh, the feeling that something was near, was closing in, would grab him and drag him flailing back to the sauna where this time the door would close, the door would lock, where James would boil to death, screaming inside his mask, boiling, burning, blistering.

The growing space.

He swam up the stairs and it felt like running uphill, the resistance, the fatigue, the impatience of a nightmare. Amelia was out of range, out of sight. He called to her, but his words were a series of useless bubbles that popped against the interior of the mask in rhythm with the elongated thuds from the ceiling.

The ceiling.

The ceiling.

Where the creaks continued. Where the sound of wide steps went on.

James reached the top of the stairs and crashed through the door. The thudding went on, the steps, pounding in his head, pounding in his bones; the beat of dead skins stretched taut across steel drums made from the body of a battered canoe.

He reached out, into the darkness, hoping to find her, to pull Amelia away from whatever made that sound, whatever was coming, whatever she wanted so desperately to meet.

We went crazy, James thought. We went crazy in love.

The thought was clear, defined, despite the frantic ramble around him. He shone his light manic throughout the room. To the two doors, two exits, both partially open. To the chairs and the cushions that did not float above them. To the end table and the ashtray that did not float above it. To the shelves where books in impossible condition did not succumb to the laws of nature. To the ceiling where solid wood beams did not wither to chips.

No Amelia.

Not here.

But the beat, still drumming, went on.

James swam toward one of the doors.

Stopped. (The water rushed past him.)

Turned. (The water turned with him.)

Swam toward the other.

Stopped. (The water rushed past him.)

Turned. (The water turned with him.)

Where was it coming from? Where was Amelia? How close was she to meeting the monster?

Had she met it already?

Movement behind and James turned once more, quick, shining his light on the portrait, the still life hanging on the wall. He recoiled from the face it made, the table-edge mouth and the curtains for hair. The plums for eyes and the life in their stare.

The canvas rippled, sending an expression across the painting.

The purple eyes seemed to focus. The mouth bulged out toward him.

James dropped his flashlight.

He flipped toward the floor, reaching for the light as it sank.

Sank.

Sank.

Connected with the floor.

Went black.

Black.

Black.

Something touched him.

Wet canvas? The pulp of rotten fruit?

James reached the carpeted floor and curled up, hands high, protecting him from anything in the room.

(The bulging painting, coming to life, leaving the wall behind.)

Amelia!

Amelia who was somewhere else in the house, intentionally approaching the danger.

Amelia!

Amelia who went to meet whatever was responsible for the drum-thudding, thud-drumming of his heart.

“Amelia! Help!”

He was floating now, floating toward the bay window, fast enough, it seemed, to break it, powerful enough to crash through the glass, to be sent spiraling out into the lake, zero gravity, spinning, farther from the house, farther from (everything) Amelia.

“Amelia!”

He’d seen the table-edge mouth parting. Before the world went black. He’d seen the plum eyes registering his presence in the room. Before the world went black.

I’m not gonna make it, James thought. I’m not gonna make it OUT OF THIS HOUSE.

Fixed with fright, curled into a ball and free-floating near the ceiling of the lounge, James understood it was the most scared he’d ever been in his life. And while he always dreamed he’d perform with honor if ever he was this afraid, he’d underestimated how afraid this was.

And yet what came next was the only thing that could have left him more frightened than he already was.

It was the scariest thing that could happen inside a house underwater, a house at the bottom of a lake.

The lights came on.

Not the flashlight.

The house lights.

The lights in the ceiling. The lights in the halls. The lights on every window and wall.

The lights came on.

And James saw.

James saw the room, bathed, exposed. Saw the vibrant, breathing color of the house.

In the bay window he saw himself reflected. Curled up, floating, scared.

Exposed.

The lights are on.

The lamp on the end table was on.

On.

A burning bulb.

Electricity.

Running.

Underwater.

On.