Chapter 15 Trap Door
Trap door
I had decided to take a short nap after making sure the lamp was rotating smoothly.
Earlier, I had oiled its gears and performed its regular maintenance.
It’s not often I allow myself to sleep a bit in the middle of the night and not just at the crests of dusk and dawn.
Little Bird was relentless yesterday morning, squawking like a crying baby demanding food.
She’s been healing for a week now under our care.
She probably would be scavenging on her own at this point and is frustrated that she relies on us so much.
I can only imagine how Lir feels stuck here too. I don’t see him below and he must be getting a little shut-eye under the surface of the water.
After what must have been not more than twenty minutes I am awoken by a mechanical halting noise, a horrible screech and thud that could shake me awake from even my newly pleasant dreams. The light is still whirling and rotating smoothly at least, not any of its clock like gears are what is making the awful sound.
No, this sounded even larger than the behemoth of glass and metal in front of me.
My legs shake as I bolt up from my cot on the catwalk.
The sound is coming from beneath my feet.
Actually, it’s shaking the whole tower! Like a hammer is winding up and crashing back onto metal, missing its intended target though.
I can feel it in my teeth, shaking the one silver filling I have in my back molars.
I light a feeble candle, my flashlight is still open drying out from the last storm.
I walk slowly down the stairwell jumping a little bit with every thump.
At the front door I can hear Lir outside thrashing around. “What’s going on, Andrea!”
“Thats not you?” I say hoping he has the answer to this chaos.
“I can’t move this whole damn rock!” He yells and I slam the front door, blocking out his shouts so I have a second to think.
Well, he’s no help. He’s belly up on the rocks and pulls the door back open as he shouts over another booming thud.
The door knob shakes and fumbles for a split second before swinging back open in a crackling arc.
“You think a mere door could keep me out!”
Instead of trying to scream back at him over the noise, I ignore him while dusting my feet across the floor in rhythm with the horrible noises.
I had heard strange sounds from this floor before, but had always ignored them.
But now, we can’t ignore this. No one told me about anything below this lighthouse, but they also didn't tell me these were merman infested waters.
Crawling in the low light of the candle with my ear to the floor, down on the ground I search with all my senses in the barely lit room.
In the shadows my hand runs over Lir’s, but I bat them away.
Though he may think I'm being mean, I actually don't want him to get a splinter in his delicate webbing, I've already picked a few up myself.
I find the smallest seam running the wrong way across the grain of the floor.
I think I had noticed it before, but assumed it was a repair from a rotted board.
I claw at the edge trying to get it to lift with my stubby chewed off nails.
Without a word, Lir takes his webbed claw and easily catches it on the lip to lift its edge.
I look up to thank him but our faces are only inches apart, the flame lapping between us, dancing shapes into his eyes.
In the low light, I can only read his words on his lips. “For you, Andrea.”
“Thank you—”
The pounding drum beats now impossibly loud coming out of the trap door.
Another staircase continues below us, almost an exact copy of the one above, but instead into deep dark blackness.
I hand the candle holder off to him, wax dripping off of it from the vibrations around us.
A small drop down from the opening, the third step is slippery under my flailing feet as I attempt to slowly lower myself.
It looks as if the first two stairs had crumbled away some time ago.
He hands me the candle looking down from above, his hair cascading into the cellar following behind me, I follow it back to his brows which peak together in concern.
I stop to say something, but the horrible mechanical screech interrupts me and I instead begin the trek down the slippery stairs.
Seaweed and barnacles speckle them, and I cautiously sweep my feet over them to not trip.
The air is stale and cold. The candle light illuminates an oil lamp on the wall and I turn its rusted knob, luckily there’s still a bit of fuel left.
It still works thank God, because the draft winding up these stairs threatens my candle’s wick every step I take.
Up above I can still see Lir’s face in the trap door frame.
His eyes twin twinkling stars in the darkness above me that watch concerned as I step forward.
With the lamp dimly lighting the room I can now see the cause of the noise, a giant gear seized from barnacles growing between its spindles.
The sea must have seeped down here when we flooded the mudroom into a pool.
The seized gear is as tall as I am, but its accompanying part is winding back to slam into it again.
I really don’t want to hear that noise right next to my ear drum.
Quickly pulling a large lever behind the wheel at least slows the next round of bashing, but I'm not strong enough to pull it into the off position completely.
I pick up a piece of discarded rebar leaning against the wall and scrape off the organic growths and mollusks so that it can move freely.
The horrible pounding finally stops and returns to a loud hum with clicks every so often.
I push the speed back up again and unhook the wall lamp to survey the mysterious room.
I see the vastness of this space and some sort of machine that looks like, an engine?
No, perhaps a gigantic cross between a music box and a typewriter.
Huge rubber covered cords hang from the ceiling, all trailing to a large intricate antenna.
Probably what’s been causing all the radio interference and static.
Hearing that low hum, it almost feels alive and I suddenly feel like I'm encroaching on its space.
Whatever this is that’s down here, it was running smoothly before I showed up and I want really nothing to do with it. I peer up and see Lir looking down intently—not when I already have so much strangeness on my plate.
Returning the lantern to its home, I switch it out for my quickly fading candle.
I bat questions I have out of my mind. What is that thing?
Why did no one tell me about it? How could this sort of secret thing be here?
But, I really don't want to know. You know how people survive children-eating fairy stories? They move on and don't ask questions.
And the real truth washes over me of why I came here in the first place. Why I don't ask questions, why I ran away from my mother-in-law—I'm a coward after all.
Lir helps pull me up, his claws tearing a little bit into the fabric of my sleeve.
I’m feeling his true strength as he lifts me with just one arm.
That he could have easily torn up every one of these floorboards.
Torn me apart with it. So, I’m still trying to decide what kind of story this is…
horror, fable or just a complete delusion on my end.
He is perhaps the strangest dream of them all.
“What was it, Andrea? Some sort of beast?” His hands shift to my waist to pull me easier from the missing steps.
“Some human nonsense. It’ll be quiet now, I hope.” I look him up and down, this creature that slithered in from the tide pool to help me. “I am concerned about this other beast in here though.”
In the flickering candlelight I look at him, at his strong glistening form.
Out of the tide pool his full body is on display, if only barely visible in the dim flame.
He really could climb and drag himself up into my bed.
The front door frame is now splintered, with nails pulled out and the trim in need of repair from him just yanking it open.
I can’t help but sigh as I mentally add all that to my growing list of daily tasks. That’s tomorrow’s problem.
I should be afraid of him probably, but his eyes soften my timid prey heart.
Curtained by soft long curls like a sheep caught in a downpour, so much humanity between the angular ridges of his cheekbones.
So much tenderness resting between the bow of his lips…
I pull back, realizing I’m gawking at him.
Before he can whisper to me again, or look at me with his sparkling eyes—or even breath in my direction, I practically kick him out the door.
“Goodnight!”