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So, into the yawning abyss the brave soul descended. The stairs moaned. Once below, the dank air seeped into the adventurer’s bones as she journeyed across the dirt floor surrounded by stone walls. What was her quest? Checking the sump pump or the oil tank, or gathering something from a storage shelf: a tool, a bin of decorations. During her journeys below, I remember sitting at the dining room table, my little brother in a high chair, his eyes round as saucers as we watched Mom close the door behind her. Another rule: the cellar door could not be left open. For practical reasons such as cold drafts and safety purposes. Safety purposes. Exactly. Keep the demons below. I thought—and frequently—my young writer’s mind going wild with stories. I only went down cellar a few times, and I never completed a task so quick. Covered in goosebumps and a chill gripping my spine, I dashed back up the stairs to the land above. I made it out alive! The relief was palpable. What was I afraid of? Cellar demons nabbing me. Ghosts. The undead. Bones reaching from the dirt floor. Over the years, my parents did find some artifacts: antique
spoons and jugs. Maybe the spooky stuff is still waiting to be found. 😉 Now, I am the mom who must journey down cellar. With a concrete rather than dirt floor, my Victorian’s basement is not as eerie as the one I grew up with. Yet, apprehension still clutches my spine. That feeling of something lurking in the shadows. Beneath a cross-hatched window that lets in dingy light, there’s a dirt crawl space probably once used to store coal. And that’s the thing. Victorian cellars were made for practical reasons: storing root vegetables or coal for heating. They were not used for lounge areas or home gyms. But the creepy feeling they elicit is undeniable, and a terror of what lurks in basements is a common fear people have expressed for centuries. So much so that it has become a classic trope: terrible secrets buried in basements. Cellars: practical storage or demon lairs?
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