“So it’s a family thing?” Nina asked. “Not the Nazi thing; the physics-god-monsters from other dimensions thing.”
“I suppose so,” Richard scoffed with a taste of embarrassment. “You have to concede it is a fascinating concept, as nightmarish as it is.” Gretchen nodded in agreement, scrutinizing Richard’s hands as he explained. “It has connotations to the legend of the Library of Forbidden Books.” Nina gasped at the familiarity of the phrase.
As before, a waft of reeking putrefaction floated up through the house and Nina commented to her guests.
“Excuse the smell. I have not been able to find a pond or old swimming pool around here that could be responsible for the foul stench, but I’ll get that sorted out this week,” Nina apologized, but Richard looked at her with careless abandon.
“That’s the well, Nina.”
Gretchen exhaled an involuntary groan at the sound of it, and Nina could feel her skin crawling.
“The well,” she repeated. “Like, the well, you know, the well that naturally appears on the grounds here… ”
Richard could hear Nina’s sarcasm escalating, so he clarified the statement, which did nothing to make the idea less creepy.
“Yes, Nina. There is a large well under the house. It has always been here, even when my grandfather moved in. It is all written in his journal, and some of it he mentioned to my father when he was a young boy. You didn’t know?” Richard asked in his usual collected assumption that drove the fiery Nina mad.
“Umm, no, Richard. I did not know there was a well under my house,” she accentuated in frustration, looking at Gretchen with astonished disbelief.
“I myself have only heard of it, of course, but naturally my grandfather spoke about it a few times. I wonder, would you mind awfully if we go and see it?” he asked politely, leaving Nina no reason to refuse.
“Of course we can, but I will put this on the table right now, that the idea of a giant water hole under my house does not sit well with my fragile courage,” she said, and evoked a tiny snigger from both her accomplices.
“Get your flashlight,” Gretchen told Nina, as she gave hers to Richard. “We’re going Lara Croft tomb raiding, guys!”
“I’m glad you find it so exciting!” Nina marveled at her friend’s enthusiasm. “But I’m sure it’s not a tomb, and do we even know where it is?”
“From the tales, it is right under your bedroom, Nina, where the attic’s west wall ends,” Richard informed her.
“And now it gets even more creepy,” Nina announced to the amusement of the other two.
“Don’t worry, doll. We will protect you against those foul North Sea guppies!” Gretchen jested with a mocking tone of courage in her best cartoon voice.
Nina was not amused by her two companions, but she had to concede, the evening was filled with fun and intellectual banter and that made their presence quite welcome.
“Indeed. We should take our fishing poles down there. Imagine what a wealth the tide brings in every day,” Richard smiled. It was a full smile meant to cheer Nina, but all it instilled was a terror filled image of man-eating mermaids and plagues of slugs.
“Hope you two can swim,” Nina mumbled behind them, her teasing threat ineffective.
Down in the pantry of her kitchen, they located the trap door to the dark basement space that was still just composed of rock. It had never been renovated to accommodate living or storage space, so there was nothing but an uneven moist rock surface as floor and some old rope and rusted cabinets gathering spider webs down there.
With the flashlight casting its faint beam, the three moved forward deeper into the vast darkness, choking on the rotten wetness that assaulted their sense of smell.
“Oh, God, I’m going to puke,” Nina complained, but Gretchen and Richard did not respond, too curious to stop now.
“Be careful,” Gretchen said, “we can’t see when this rock floor falls into the well. Or does the well have stone fencing?”
“I don’t know,” Richard replied, from the cold, stinking blackness ahead of them, “I’ve never been here before. All I know is what I heard from my grandfather.”
“It’s probably not that big, because I don’t see any sign of a well yet,” Nina said, scanning the faint visibility in the beam of her flashlight. “No protruding wall anywhere.”
“There won’t be one,” Richard replied plainly. “That is why they call it the ‘mouth.’”
“Oh, Christ! Just what I needed to hear. Thank you, Richard,” Nina moaned. Gretchen looked back at her with a rather unsettled face.
“That does sound bloody scary to me too, doll.”
Chapter 17
The sound of lapping water became evident as they progressed, Gretchen and Nina now holding hands.
“We must be close,” Richard announced with a restrained zeal owing to his reserved nature. By his measure he was hollering like a teenage girl at a rock concert.
Nina and Gretchen crept up behind him, cowering for whatever was ahead, spurred on only by their unbridled, morbid curiosity. His tall frame was way too thin to protect them against anything substantial, but at least he’d be between them and whatever lived in the mouth.
Down here the hissing of the ocean’s rushing waters was louder than up in the house where it was almost inaudible. Nina worried about the tide coming in and swallowing up her house’s foundations, but then again, the house was still standing after decades, so she assumed it was not an obstacle she needed be concerned about now.
The ambient sounds of the basement changed suddenly. Instead of the trickle of water and the rush of deep-moving currents, the dripping made way for a monstrous sucking sound. Gradually the hideous depth of the inhaling roar grew louder. Like a slurping giant, the large perimeter of the mouth uttered a watery sigh that ricocheted against the underside of the house.
“I found it, ladies,” Richard said matter-of-factly and turned to see the two women virtually kneeling in embrace. Clearly they were terrified of the gaping well and its inhuman gulping.
“Come now,” he consoled, “it is just a body of water caught under the rock formation the house is built on. Think of it as a rock pool.”
Nina and Gretchen rose to their feet, reluctant to face the scary pond of foaming water.
“What if the water rises?” Nina asked.
“It won’t. What you hear is the influx and receding of the current. The surface never rises or falls; like a water table it stays constant with fluctuations underneath,” he explained, keeping his tone as unyielding as the subject of his elucidation.
“You know, I never thought a boring tone of voice would be so damn comforting,” Nina whispered to her friend, who had to giggle.
“Agreed!” Gretchen whispered back as their uncertain steps brought them closer to the mouth.
When Nina and Gretchen peered over the edge of the jagged gray stone to the well below, an icy grip of terror grasped them. The water was black, so frigid that it’s frozen temperature emanated from the dark hole. Knowing that the sound came from the exchange of water by means of the current did not make it any better to stare at the onyx glint of the mouth.
“Ladies, I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to finally behold what had always just been a legend in my family!” Richard raved, sounding more lively in one sentence than he had all night. “This is such a privilege, Dr. Gould!”
“You’re welcome, Richard,” Nina smiled, content that she could be the benefactor of a lifelong dream. Gretchen grinned, patting her on the shoulder while Richard shone his flashlight beam into the water, inspecting it in silence.