Beneath the Waves

The Door

As it happens with most marriages these days, Ria's (because Maria sounded like someone's grandma) parents finally decided to throw in the towel. So with the split of course came a bunch of chores. Divided between the family members for maximum efficiency, Ria was in charge of the basement. The basement, might I add, where not a soul had set foot for probably 20 years. The basement that had been piled so high with 'important' stuff, that has been there since Ria's grandparents still lived in the house and her mom was just a little girl.

Sure they lived in the middle of nowhere, but the old farmhouse basement didn't also have to look like something out of a horror movie. Spiderwebs clung to almost every surface, and the dust, my god, there was probably more dust than oxygen down in there at this point. The house was less spooky-looking. Painted white with a light blue trim and shutters all around the house. They had one of those gigantic porches that went around the entire place as well. Very cute and inviting, not creepy at all.

Surrounded by thick forests of pine trees, green tips pointing to the sky, sat the Lawlers' little farm. They had a barn, painted the classic red, but had long since stopped farming anything. They just liked living away from the city. Close enough to get to if they needed something, but not so close as to be annoyed by the city sounds. The house had been in her family for generations. Long before her grandparents were even born. She didn't know quite how far back it went, but she knew it was just a piece of land when they bought it and that everything was 'built with their own damn hands'. Her ancestors came from Brazil, settling in the country somewhere in the 1800s. She wasn't sure why they came, or if the land had belonged to them from the very beginning.

She knew the place was old. Really really old. Ghosts in the attic, old. Though her life was hardly 'ghosts in the attic' interesting. She was just your average 23 year old. Just graduated, starting her first job as soon as summer came to an end. Nothing super strange or particularly noteworthy had ever happened in her life.

Her dark hair was up in a messy half-bun today, some parts not long enough to be tied up. Her clothes were already filthy from the the damn basement. Her dungarees, ripped at the knees, (of course something her mother just HAD to comment on) and her trusty docs were looking less than shiny, a layer of dust coating them. She wasn't a stranger to hard work. Her parents had always made her work for her allowance, whether it was taming the acres of grass surrounding the property or taking out the trash (it was a long walk to the end of their driveway). This basement cleansing still had her exhausted.

She had spent most of her day down there, she started with the boxes closest to the stairs, dividing things into piles of 'dad', 'mom', 'Ria' and also a trash pile, because goddamnit there was a lot of trash in here. This was going to take hours.

"Ria" her mom shouted coming down the stairs, "making any progress down here?"

"Yeah, I'm sorting shit into piles" she replied

"Language" her mother scolded, then "do you want to come up for lunch?"

Ria thought for a moment, and decided no (her stomach protested) "I'd rather just get everything done here and then eat, mom"

"Okay sweetie, let me know if you need anything" her mom said, already heading back up the stairs.

She walked back to her piles immediately and seriously got to work. She didn't want to be stuck here all day, she had plans with Chris (her girlfriend). Though she knew it sounded stupid to call someone the love of your life at 23, she knew it was true. She had known Chris since they were 7 years old, but their relationship only shifted into something more than friendship about 4 years ago... actually exactly 4 years ago to the day. Which is why they had plans. However, instead of daydreaming about her perfect girlfriend's blonde hair and beautiful green eyes, she snapped back to reality, dusty basement and all and got back to work.

After clearing out about 50% of the contents of the basement which mostly consisted of very carefully stacked boxes, she moved to the back of the basement to start on the REALLY old boxes. Moving a stack of boxes aside however, instead of wall, she came face to face with a boarded up door. Some of the wooden planks were starting to rot right off the nails used to keep the door blocked, so Ria made quick work of removing them all, which left her staring at a very old looking door. Dark wood stared back at her (oak she guessed), the hinges made of what looked like old hand-crafted iron. The wooden door had raised panels, but nothing too ornamental. It seemed to be a strong door, build to keep people out.

A thick lock with some kind of insignia hung on the door, the swingy part of the lock barely hanging on. Now this might deter some people, but (normal life up til now) Ria could not imagine something extremely strange happening or existing on the other side of that door. She grabbed the bolt cutters from a box of tools and opened the door. As the bolt cutters broke through the metal and the lock fell to the floor, the door creaked open and Ria could swear to god it was like that room breathed a sigh of relief. Foreboding signs pushed aside, Ria stepped over the threshold of the door and entered the room. The dust settled around her on the floor and it felt as if the room was alive. There was something about it. It didn't feel like part of the house, but rather like stepping into a different time.

Moving further into the room, she looked around. Everything inside looked... well... old. Very, very old. All she could see was very old junk. Stacks of papers and books.

So. Many. Books.

Some of them looked like journals, while others seemed to be books in various ancient languages. She recognized Hebrew and Aramaic (thank you ancient cultures class she took in uni) but most of the others seemed completely unfamiliar. She leafed through a few books that had images of mythical looking creatures strewn throughout.

The room was even dustier than the basement, it felt like she was breathing nothing but dust particles at this point. She walked through the room, dragging her finger through the accumulated dust on some of the shelves, wondering why there was a secret room in her ancestral home.

She wondered if her grandparents knew about this place, or maybe her great grandparents. Everything in here looked older than even them. As she walked through the room, a strange feeling came over her. It all felt sort of familiar. She shook it off as being some kind of deja vu and started toward a weird column in the center of the room. She dragged her finger though the cover of the dusty book on top of the column and caught about half of a title.

"Revelations of the deep," she whispered to herself, reading the title out loud. She wiped the cover, sending dust flying, to reveal the entire title. "Revelations of the Deep: The Family".

What did that even mean, she wondered. The family? What family?

She flicked through it, a mix of print, handwritten annotations and similar images to those in the other books staring back at her. She wondered if these were just fantasy novels that her old family members had collected. It wasn't until she saw what looked like bible verses that it became a bit weird.

It was while she was reading one of the bible verses that she felt a raised shape as her fingers moved over the back cover of the book. She turned it over slowly, and not in a million years would she have guessed that the raised shape on the back of the book would be her family crest.

"Oh my god," she breathed as she touched the crest, her fingers feeling the raised lines of her family history.

She was confused. What weird secrets was her family trying to hide in this room? More importantly, which of her living relatives even knew this existed?

She took a deep breath, and with her eyes closed she opened the book on the first page, deciding she should probably start from the beginning.

"Libro De Mari Monstrum" she whispered.

The bold gold letters cast a low hue across her face. She frowned.

"Monstrum... Monstrum...monster?" although Ria was no Latin expert, even she knew that did not sound good. In her limited knowledge of the dead language, she was pretty sure that the title read:

"Book of Sea Monsters".

"Sea Monsters. What the fu..."