A House at the Bottom of a Lake

33

Amelia placed both hands on the basement door and pushed hard, too excited to stop, following the thudding steps she’d heard overhead. James was still below, she knew, but he must be coming. She didn’t mean to leave him behind, but the steps led her here, into the lounge. This was exactly where they were leading, two points converging, herself and the steps, to meet (at last) here in the lounge.

But when she got there, her light showed her that she was alone.

“Hello?”

The two syllables collapsed flat in the mask.

Then she heard the creaking again from outside the lounge and Amelia understood that she’d just arrived a little late was all.

Whoever she was supposed to meet was simply ahead of her.

Deeper into the house.

Amelia swam, hurriedly, toward the door to her left. She thought James must be close. He’d know to follow her. He’d find the lounge empty and follow her and either way, no matter what he did, she had to get moving, had to catch up with whoever was still moving ahead.

She passed through the door as it swayed shut. But whoever had been in this adjacent room was now in the next.

The steps told her so.

Amelia followed.

Her flashlight flickered and she knew that it was dying. Knew that it would go out, go black if she didn’t get up to the raft and change the batteries. And yet there was a part of her that believed it would go black even if the batteries were new.

You’re in bigger hands than your own, she thought, without knowing (or caring) exactly what this meant to her.

The thudding continued. Growing dimmer.

She followed her dying beam from room to room, avoiding the objects of each, until it felt like a dance, an intentional movement, between herself and the other. Because the light was dimming, she could no longer see the corners, not seven feet in front of her mask. And the house, it seemed, was growing darker, dimming, a purposeful setting of a mood.

Into the kitchen, over the first marble island, then close to the kitchen floor, then up past a window in quadrants. All of this in flickering pieces, graying sights, near darkness.

Soon she couldn’t tell what room she was in, what thresholds she crossed.

And yet she continued, pursuing the source of those steps, until, at last, she saw the foot of the stairs ahead.

The light dimmed.

She treaded above the bottom step, listening for the other.

Where had it gone?

Up?

A creaking on the stairs told her how close she was, but her light showed her no form.

She should wait for James, she thought. Wait for more light. Wait.

But she couldn’t.

She swam up the stairs, above them, rising to the second floor, following the creaking of the wood, the creaking of the old house, the thud-drumming, drum-thudding of bare wet feet sloshing up the steps.

Halfway up the stairs her flashlight died.

Darkness.

Complete darkness in the house.

For the first time, Amelia experienced the house as it was without her and James, as it stood at night, how it was before they arrived.

She was guided by the creaking, and she understood she was at the top of the stairs, entering the hall, the long hall with a single swaying door at its far end, a door she could hear opening ahead.

She swam, into the darkness, deeper into the throat of the second story, her hands straight out, ready to connect.

Amelia thought she could hear fabric in the darkness, tugged on, sliding off the smooth curved shoulder of a wooden hanger.

She released her flashlight. Useless now.

And though she couldn’t see it, she could sense it sinking, sinking, until it hardly nicked the second-story floor, contact as slight as a brush.

And then the lights came on.

Not the meager beam of her flashlight, no.

The house lights came on.

Amelia stopped swimming (the water rushed past her), not meaning to, but overwhelmed by it, astonished, seeing for the first time the hall walls in detail, the exact colors, lines, and dimensions of the house.

Floating, breathless, she looked over her shoulder to the top of the stairs. She saw the runner was red, bright red, the color of exaggerated blood. Light came from downstairs and she understood, clearly, that the second-story hall wasn’t the only place lit up.

The house. The entire house.

She positioned herself so that she was facing the door at the end of the hall again.

Staring ahead, treading, Amelia smiled as much as her mask would allow.

She knew why the lights came on. She hadn’t asked why, she hadn’t let herself do that, but she understood.

It was an offering. A welcoming.

A greeting.

She swam.

She reached the door. She saw the details of the door, smudge marks (wax?) where other fingers (not your own!) had opened the door before her.

Amelia entered the dressing room. She saw the color red as it came floating toward her. She ducked, allowing the red fabric to pass over her, the red dress, a curtain parting to reveal the stage, the space before the opened wardrobe doors.

A woman.

No.

A form.

Naked.

How old?

Couldn’t see its face; its back was to Amelia.

No.

Could see its face. Reflected in a mirror hanging inside the wardrobe door.

No face.

Amelia floated toward the thing, propelled by unseen waves.

Wax.

The word felt silly, a foolish way to describe what stood before her and yet, it did look made of wax.

Like when you melt wax and then dip it in water.

No face. No hair. No bones. Only undefined mounds of pink, thick molds of galvanized spit.

Yet it was moving, raising (a wax stump) an arm, raising it in such a way that Amelia understood it had to be facing her after all, that the expressionless bumps and folds were its face.

Amelia cried out. She tried to stop her forward motion.

But the unseen waves propelled her.

How old?

Forever.

How old?

Never.

The shapeless thing raised its lumped arm high enough for Amelia to see that it held (no hands) a black dress. As though Amelia had entered, had violated the privacy of someone getting dressed.

It can’t see you, Amelia thought, with sudden clarity. Turn around, Amelia! It doesn’t know you’re here!

Amelia recalled the dining room. Reheard the creaking, the stretched (wax) footsteps from above.

It heard us. Couldn’t see us. Heard us.

The thing slid the billowing black fabric over its formless arms. Amelia imagined it in bed, asleep, as she and James lost their virginity below. She imagined it rising from its bed after hearing what sounded like love somewhere in the house.

We should introduce ourselves.

Yes. Still. Do it.

Because not to do it meant to leave the house and not come back.

Amelia floated toward it.

Yes, she thought. Tell it you’re here. Tell it you live here now, too.

When she was within reach, Amelia touched the thing’s shoulder.

“I’m Amelia,” she said. “Who are—”

And the lights went out.

Everywhere.

In the staggering darkness, Amelia reached for the wardrobe but found nothing there. She lowered herself, stretching a flipper to the floor, but found nothing there.

She swam lower, deeper, but found nothing there.

And yet… a light far beneath her. A single small light, rising, growing larger, coming toward her until she understood that she was the object of that light, the very thing being sought.

Where are the stairs? Where is the floor?

The beam revealed (it’s gone, all of it, gone) nothing.

No walls. No wood. No rugs, no windows, no chairs.

No more.

As James’s light grew larger, brighter, Amelia looked everywhere for a sign of the house. A sign of the thing that lived there.

No more.

When James reached her, Amelia took his light and swam, spun, trying to find the house, their clubhouse, (their Potscrubber, James thought) their home.

When she trained the light back on James he was shaking his head no.

It’s gone, he mouthed.

And it was.

Gone.

Just two teenagers now, swimming in the center of a very dark lake.

The house. No more.