Then she heard it, too.
A ceiling creak. The unmistakable sound of footsteps above.
Like everything else in the house, the sound was distorted, the creaking was expanded to twice its natural width, and the feet Amelia imagined on the floor upstairs were not ones she wanted to see.
Then, laughter. Cackles moved easily through the house, as if each syllable could swim.
James shook his head no.
It was the breaking point, the only thing more impossible than the existence of the house, than the items that clung to the counters, the walls, the floors.
They’d agreed never to ask how or why.
But neither had thought to ask who?
James grabbed Amelia by the wrist. He pulled her out from above the dining room table, into the hall, then the foyer, as the creaking continued above them, perhaps approaching the stairs.
And the androgynous laughter continued, too. Thick globules of sexless cheer.
Out through the half front door, James no longer pulled Amelia as she passed him, swimming fast, without their lights, climbing toward the surface of the lake.
Near the surface, James thought he heard a different kind of creaking. The unmistakable rasp of a (crypt) front door opening for the first time in forever.
He didn’t look to the windows they passed. He didn’t look down.
They broke the surface far from the raft, far from the roof, and swam for the logs fast.
Hurry, James thought, sensing something rising from below.
Amelia reached the raft first and she quickly pulled herself up.
James was seconds behind her. As his feet exited the water, a bubble burst behind him, a deep, tarred sound, and James told himself it was only (laughter followed you up!) a fish.
He tore his mask from his face. Amelia’s mask already lay on the logs beside her.
“There’s somebody in there,” James said, pointing a shaking finger at the roof. Then he was on his knees, pulling the canoe to the raft.
“There’s somebody in there,” Amelia repeated, standing, staring into the water, leaning away from it, away from the house.
She stood that way, rooted, for as long as it took James to untie the canoe. She wiped the water from her pale skin. As if the droplets were alive.
“Come on,” James said.
They were both afraid.
For the first time.
Afraid of the house.
“What do we do?’ Amelia asked, still staring into the deep, to the roof of the house.
“We go,” James said. “We go now.”
28
A week.
A week without the house.
A fine, sunny, summer week. A perfect week to spend on a lake. Any lake.
But no.
Not the third lake and not the house.
For a week.
And counting.
Over the course of those seven days, James simply couldn’t stop thinking about the house. When he took a shower he thought of the swimming pool in the basement. When he mowed the lawn he thought of the seaweed swaying outside the bay windows. When he walked the halls of his own home he felt a deep desire to bound, astronautlike, floating toward his bedroom. He wanted to tap the doors and watch them swing slowly inward. He missed the dreaminess, the impossibility. Even the fear.
A week.
A week without Amelia, too.
What happened? They’d lost their (minds?) virginity. They’d made love inside the house. Shouldn’t they be celebrating? Shouldn’t they be laughing about it? Shouldn’t they be talking?
Yes, he knew they should be. The event should have brought them closer. Hell, the very night after they’d made love they should’ve gone to a diner, held each other in a booth, ordered too much or too little, as James ran his fingers through her drying auburn hair. But every time he went to text or call her he heard the creaking from above, the sound of somebody else in the house.
He couldn’t get that elongated laughter out of his head.
He knew that Amelia had to be feeling the same way. About everything. Why else wouldn’t she have called? And what did she feel worse about: the footsteps…or the sex?
James sat in a plastic chair on his back porch at night. Mom and Dad were asleep. It was impossible not to recall Amelia in the first silly suit, walking like a clumsy astronaut in the yard. He felt a tugging at his heart and he knew it was love. Knew it because so many people had felt it before him. This, he knew, was heartbreak.
Why not just call each other? Why not just text?
Because this isn’t just heartbreak. There’s the house to think about, too.
Other feelings, outside forces, fears. These were the enemies of a good thing. These were the problems people faced.
Fears.
James was scared. All day he was scared. All day he heard the creaking above, the slow thuds of something coming down a set of stairs. The sound of a half door creaking open behind him.
If they’d had their flashlights on their way up to the raft, what might James have seen below him in the beam?
He shifted uneasily on the porch chair. He sat forward and ran his fingers through his hair. He felt like he fucked something up. Like he’d crushed a delicate object.
Everything was going so well. They’d made love in the house! How much more memorable could it get?
It’s the house, man. She’s not texting you ’cause she’s trying to stay away from the house.
James kicked at an empty cooler beside him on the porch. Then he kicked at it again. Then he got up and kicked it once more, halfway across the yard. He followed it, and kicked it again.
WHAT HAPPENED?
He knelt beside the cooler with a mind to tear the thing apart, then stopped.
Call her. She’s angry, too.
He got up and crossed the yard. His phone was sitting on the barbecue. He grabbed it and called, without planning what he’d say, without thinking that by calling her he might be pointing them both toward the house.
And that laughter. Do you remember it? Remember how it followed you up out of the water? How it splashed?
Ringing. Ringing. Ringing.
His heart hammered and he felt light-headed and he knew, quite suddenly, exactly what he was going to say.
“Hello?”
Amelia’s voice. Amelia awake.
“Amelia. I love you. Everything’s fine. We’re both scared. But let’s be scared together. Let’s—”
“Got you! I’m not here. Leave a message, sucka!”
Fuck.
He set his phone back on the barbecue. Then kicked the barbecue hard.
An animal moved in the evergreens bordering his yard and James looked into the darkness, wished he had a flashlight, wished he was exploring an impossibly furnished darkness instead.
He picked up his phone and took it inside. It was dark, but not dark enough. Quiet, but not the good kind, not the kind of quiet that included waves, water washing over you.
A week.
James entered his bedroom. He didn’t turn on the light. He didn’t clear the scuba masks and flippers from his bed. He flopped onto the mattress, facedown, and stared into the darkness of his pillow for a few minutes.
He wondered if this was the moment in which he was supposed to move on. Like the songs said. A man with a broken heart was supposed to move on. Sometimes things just got too complicated. Something unwanted was added to something wanted and blew the whole thing apart.
Fear.
Fear of the house. Fear of the stretched laughter. Fear of what they’d done together. Fear of who lived there.
Who?
He rolled onto his back, set the phone on the windowsill above his head, crossed his arms over his chest, and drifted.
&nbs
p; Drifted like they’d once drifted on a canoe. Amelia and James. Anxious, laughing, exploring, falling in love.
Maybe Amelia had already moved on. That was okay if she had. It meant she was smarter than him. Saw something scary and stepped aside. Isn’t that what everybody was taught to do?
Hear a scary sound in a house…leave the house.
Drifting.
Floating in a banged-up canoe on a dangerous third lake. No signs along the shoreline out there, no warning for swimmers:
NO SWIMMING:
A HOUSE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE
A house you’ll wanna explore. A house you’ll wanna call home.
James dreamed of the pepper shaker. He was knifing its base and when Amelia appeared behind him to tell him about the basement door, she was crying.
What is it? James asked in cartoon bubbles.
You ruined it, she answered. You ruined it by asking how. Why did you ask how? Why did you ask anything at all when everything was so good?
I’m sorry, James said, reaching out for her in the dark water. I didn’t mean to do it!
Amelia drifted, back into the shadows, crying, shaking her head no. It’s ruined it’s ruined, we’re scared now, don’t you see we’re scared?
Amelia!
Amelia was gone. Swallowed by the kitchen shadows.
But someone remained. A formless figure, vague as melted wax.
Who are you? James asked.
A face without features emerged from the wallpaper. No eyes, only folds, more wrinkles than his bedsheets, skin grayer than what was under the green paint of the canoe.
It’s just a fish, James said. You’re just a fish!
Wide watery eyes. Fat boxer lips.
A woman? No. A man?
Please.
And a dress. What color? Couldn’t tell. A fish in a dress? No fish. A woman?
No woman.
Amelia, James screamed, but the bloated body, stuffed into a dress too small, was stepping out of the shadows, lips flapping in the unseen waves in the kitchen.
Amelia!
Lipstick. Heels. Fat, wrinkled knees. Couldn’t stand in the heels. Didn’t know it wasn’t walking right. Thought it was gorgeous. Thought it was—
AMELIA!
Chapped fingers took James’s hands, tugging, flirtatious, toward the dining room, toward the first time, toward sex.
James pulled back but he couldn’t extricate his fingers. Like the pepper shaker on the kitchen counter. Held there. Stuck there.
How?
And that laughter again. Bass drums made of taffy.
James closed his eyes in his dream and screamed because he could still see it, could still see the (man, woman, makes no difference down here) fish-thing drawing him to it, and closed his eyes within his eyes and screamed again.
And woke.
Woke in his bedroom.
Wet.
Wet dream?
No.
He sat up and pressed his palms to the blanket beneath him.
Not wet.
Soaked.
When he pulled his hands from the blanket he saw his arms were wet. He turned his head quick and water fell from his brow. His hair was flattened to his brow. His bedroom, his things…
James wiped water from his eyes and saw.
Three inches of water on the carpeted floor. Books and figurines that should’ve been on the dresser, were on the dresser, were now on the floor.
A shipwreck, James thought.
A sunken bedroom.
Underwater overnight.
“Mom! Dad!”
Water everywhere. Dripping from the ceiling, dripping down the walls. On the windowsill, his phone sat in a puddle.
James leapt from his bed and splashed onto the floor. He lost his footing and fell, into the water, three inches deep. Warm water. He was used to it. As if he’d spent the night (the summer) in it.
He scrambled and grabbed his phone from the windowsill.
He called Amelia.
“Hello?”
Voicemail.
Where was she? Where was she?
Crazed, he sloshed out of his bedroom. In the hall he peered back in. He felt something he knew shouldn’t be happy to feel. It was relief. Relief that it was all still happening.
The impossibilities.
The magic.
He called Amelia again.
No response.
Water everywhere in his bedroom. But no water in the hall. No water anywhere else.
Only his bedroom. Submerged overnight. While he was sleeping.
Sunk.
James was awake. Wide awake.
What happened here?
Fear.
A deeper fear. A new fear. No longer just afraid of the house. The house was over there. Underwater. But this…his bedroom was miles from the lake…this was his parents’ home. This was bad. This was putting other people in danger. How could he keep this a secret?
This was bad.
James hurried out of the house. The sunny morning frightened him. Too bright. Too exposed. Too normal.
He tried to calm down. He breathed. The sun dried his shorts, his shirt, his hair. He called Dad on his cellphone.
Dad answered.
“You all right, James?”
“No. There was a…did there…did a pipe break or something?”
“What do you mean?”
“My room is soaking wet.”
“Your bedroom?”
“Yeah. Soaking wet, Dad.”
“Anywhere else in the house?”
“No. Just my room. What do you think it was?”
“I know what it was. A water main.”
“How do you know that’s what it was? How do you know that?”
Fear in his voice. New fear. Scared of everything.
“What else could it have been?” Dad said. Then he half chuckled. James thought of laughter rising like bubbles in a lake. “It didn’t rain last night.”
What else could it have been, James? What else?
“Okay. What do I do?”
“Nothing. I’ll send Dana.”
“Okay. What should I…I shouldn’t go back in there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…in the house. I should probably wait for Dana?”
Dad laughed.
“It’s not going to kill you, James. It’s a water main. But wait wherever you want. I’ll send Dana and she’ll fix it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You all right, James?”
“Yeah, just…” fear in his voice fear in his blood, “…kinda freaky to wake up that way.”
“I imagine so. Anything ruined?”
“No. I mean…nothing important. Just…I don’t know.”
“Well, check it out. You don’t wanna lose everything.”
“Okay, Dad. Yes. Thank you.”
They hung up.
James looked up to the blue sky. Down to the dry, green grass.
You don’t wanna lose everything.
But he had. He’d lost everything.
The house.
Amelia.
Everything.
And yet…was it still going on?
The house? Amelia? Everything?
By the time Dana pulled her work van into the drive, James was sitting cross-legged at the end of the driveway. Dana would later tell James’s dad that it was like pulling up on someone sitting on a raft, tethered to a house. As if James wanted to get away, but was afraid of being lost at sea.
29
Stocking the shelves at Darlene’s, Amelia knew better than to try and push the house out of her mind. There was no use fighting it. She was obsessed, an
d if there was one thing her mother had taught her about obsession it was, Even when you don’t you do.
In the week since they left the third lake, Amelia did. She did think about the cool water lapping against the wood of the raft. She did think about how good it felt to be on that raft, James’s eyes traveling up and down her body like the flowery fountain in the front of the Chinese restaurant in town. Up and down. Over and over. His interest recycled with every revolution. She missed it. She missed the logs beneath her bare feet, the superhero feeling of slipping into the wet suit for the first time each day, the shine of the mountains framing the third lake. She missed the sun, the sounds, the sensations.
But most of all, she missed the house.
Marcy spoke over the grocery store’s loudspeaker:
“There’s been a spill of boogers in aisle three. Amelia? Can you take care of that?”
Amelia tried to smile. It was hard. The store was empty and Marcy was trying to help. She knew Amelia was going through something, but she didn’t know exactly what.
Even now, crestfallen, scared, confused, Amelia didn’t talk about the house.
Or the noise upstairs.
A week.
A week without smoke could drive a smoker mad. A week without family could change a man.
Amelia felt changed. Different. Afraid.
“Amelia?”
Stocking rice in aisle three, Amelia turned to see Marcy, twirling the ends of her hair until she’d made two handlebars extending far from her head. She chomped her gum like a dog.
“Do I look like one big mustache?”
Amelia tried to smile. It was hard.
Seeing Marcy’s hair unnaturally fanned out like that made her think of her own in the mirrors of the house.
“Are you really okay, Amelia?”
Amelia looked down to her hands and saw she was holding a box of cereal. In the rice aisle. How’d that get here?
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been in this aisle for close to ten minutes. And you’re stocking wrong.”
The cereal doesn’t belong here, Amelia. And you don’t belong in the house.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll get it together, Marcy.”
“Is it because you’re in love?”
At the mention of the word, Amelia could see James, mid-flight, diving into the water above the roof.
A House at the Bottom of a Lake Page 9