Beneath the Lake Read online

Aspiring reporter Julia Llewellyn hopes the voyage back to New York on the Titanic will give her plenty of material for a story that the editor of her hometown paper won’t be able to refuse, even though he normally only lets her report on ladies’ luncheons and charity meetings. When Julia spots a crate being loaded on board marked with the words “Extreme Danger – Do Not Open,” she thinks she has a lead on a great story, one that will get her name on the front page. Right away rumors start to swirl about the artifact in the crate, and of the curse that follows it.

  Even though Julia doesn’t believe in curses, she knows it will make a good story, if told the right way. But once she meets the young assistant surgeon on board, Ned Endicott, she has to work at keeping her mind on collecting the facts, not on spending her time hoping she will run into him. As the voyage gets underway, strange incidents give rise to whispers of a mystery animal stalking the unwary, and Julia finds the story growing more dangerous than she ever dreamed, with herself and Ned right in the middle of it.

  Read the first few pages:

  One

  I don’t know how my great-grandmother would feel about letting the world see this story. She never spoke of her experiences on the Titanic. When we asked, she would just say the past will haunt you if you let even one memory open a door. And yet, she wrote this and saved it among various legal papers relating to her estate. She had to have known someone would find it. With these pages was also an envelope that contained only a small piece of broken porcelain, blue-gray in color. I don’t know what it means, but I don’t think the story should be hidden away any longer.-Amanda Mills, April 15, 2012

  Julia just could not think of another word for dazzling. She had already used the word to describe the jewelry on the women coming aboard via the first class gangplank, but she wanted to find a way to convey the heady feeling of the whole atmosphere of the ship itself, the gleaming woodwork, the scent of lemon polish mingled with the fragrance of the rose bouquets every other woman seemed to carry, and the crowds of excited passengers. It seemed as if the entire world knew even before the voyage that the Titanic was one of the two largest ships ever built, so she wanted to give the readers of the Jefferson City Times a bit of the feeling of actually being there, experiencing it with her.

  Of course, that meant she had to assume she could get Mr. Elliott to print her article, but she’d worry about that problem when she got home. He was always telling her to add in more color and details, though the details in her articles were never quite the ones he wanted. Now Julia, you need to describe the menu at Mrs. White’s luncheon, he would say. Not the fact that the gathering was disrupted by Mrs. White’s muddy dog jumping on Miss Reardon’s lap. Human interest, that’s what you need.

  Should she use stunning? Astounding? Incredible? No. One word wouldn’t suffice. Frustrated, she tapped her pencil on the railing, trying to will some words into her head that she could put into her notebook. A horn blasting down below caught her attention. Near the rear of the ship, a car, followed by a truck, crept along the dock honking to clear a path, though the area was mostly clear this close to departure. A cart horse pulling a wagon full of mail bags neighed and threw its head back at the noise. The driver shouted “Pipe down!” at the car, like he was scolding a noisy animal. When the two vehicles came level with the cargo gangway, they stopped and several men got out, including one in a rumpled brown suit with a notebook in his hand. A reporter? Her interest sparked, Julia watched him move away from the others and turn to face them, acting almost as if he had just happened to be on the dock.

  Another man emerged from the car, so tall he had to unfold himself getting out, putting on his hat once he was upright. He cut quite a figure, his suit white and spotless, more suited to the tropics than the gray and damp of an English morning in April. The truck driver went around to the back of the truck and opened up the gate. Four men jumped out, two climbing up to unfasten a wooden ramp that had been lashed to the roof of the truck.

  “Here now, what’s being loaded on?” the man in the brown suit asked in a very loud voice, so loud that others on the dock turned to look.

  The tall man didn’t answer at first. “Careful there. Careful!” he said to the men from the truck who were struggling to carry a large crate covered with a black cloth down the ramp. Once it was on the ground, the tall man faced the questioner. By now, Julia noted, a small crowd had gathered.

  “It’s a very rare and valuable statue, my good man, destined for the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. as my gift, once I’ve displayed it during a special lecture in New York.”

  “And you are?” the man asked.

  “William R. Samuelson of London and New York, when I’m not on an expedition.”

  “Just a statue?” A grubby boy with shaggy curly hair escaping from his cap came out of the crowd and edged up to the crate, putting out a hand to touch it and then drawing it back. “Is it a statue of one of them naked lady from the ancient times?” he asked. “I heard about those.”

  The whole crowd laughed.

  “And where did you hear a thing like that, young man?” Mr. Samuelson asked, clapping the boy on the shoulder.

  “My da worked as a museum guard. He seen them himself.” The boy nodded his head vigorously as if to convince everyone else. “I swear.”

  “I believe you,” Mr. Samuelson said, “but this statue is not of a woman at all.” He raised his voice so that it carried down the dock. “It’s a statue that is a perfect replica of the rare blue tiger. We found this incredible object in a remote ruin in China. We don’t know who made it, but it is most likely thousands of years old.”

  “A blue tiger? There’s no such thing!” the boy scoffed.

  “On the contrary, they do exist.” Mr. Samuelson patted the crate. “I myself have spoken to an American missionary who saw a living blue tiger himself, not two years ago. Who could be a more reliable witness than a man of the cloth?” The man paused and looked around, as if daring someone to disagree with him. When no one did, he continued, “This gentleman said in addition to the black stripes, the animal was colored a shade of blue gray like the color of the open sea.” Samuelson swept his arm in the general direction of the ocean. “And the statue in this crate is exactly the same. It’s quite breathtakingly beautiful.”

  Julia’s mind whirled. She had always liked the unusual, and the combination of a rare-colored tiger and an ancient artifact was fascinating.

   “Is it true it’s cursed?” The question came from the man in the brown suit. “I heard rumors about it after it arrived in London. About a mysterious death of a guard in a warehouse where it was stored.” A murmur rose from the crowd.

  From behind Julia, she heard a snorting sound and then a man said. “I can’t believe young Samuelson! His father would be turning in his grave.” When she turned to find the source of the voice, she saw an elderly man with a cane standing next to a young officer. The officer caught her glance and smiled, a smile that could only be described as dazzling, the perfect word for a smile that matched his dazzling blue eyes. Julia felt the heat rise in her face and turned away so the officer wouldn’t see her go bright red, trying to concentrate on Mr. Samuelson instead.

  Mr. Samuelson raised his hands as if to get the crowd’s attention, though everyone was waiting for his next words. “We all know curses aren’t real,” he said. “Just because the locals believed it held a spirit of great evil doesn’t mean we civilized people believe such a notion. I’m sure all the strange things that have happened since we found the statue have a rational explanation. Now, if you will excuse me, we have to get this on board or both it and I will be left behind.”

  As he tipped his hat to the group, a workman next to the crate moved and the black covering on it slipped off. Large letters painted in red covered the crate in several places, all reading: “Extreme Danger – Do Not Open.” A chain with a heavy padlock encircled it. The workmen hastened to cover it up again, Mr. Samuelson dashing about as they did, making sure no sectio
n of the crate was visible.

  “Mister!” the boy called out. “I thought you said it was a statue! What’s so dangerous about it?”

  continued…

  If you enjoyed this story, the rest of the novella is available for ebooks. 30,000 words in length.

  Find out more about Dee at https://deegarretson.com