Authors: Bethany Griffin
The Fall (26 page)
R
oderick has forgiven me, but he still doesn't believe, and in a way, that is worse than his anger. It's early evening, and we're walking together near the edge of the gardens. I search for signs of Dr. Winston, unsure whether any of the burrows under the house tunnel up to the Usher grounds or just go down and down and down.
“I nearly brought you home a puppy.” Roderick interrupts my dark thoughts. “I've thought about it for a long time, but I was afraid of your displeasure.”
“Good,” I say, dropping his arm. “I don't want a puppy.” Cassandra can never be replaced. I think of the dark recesses of the house, of hungry eyes watching. Of Cassandra coming from inside the walls. Father was right. No pets. When the house is destroyed, I might consider such a thing.
“You are so often alone.”
“You're home now.”
He takes my arm again. His hand is reassuring, so I don't pull away.
“It wouldn't necessarily end in tragedy.”
It would, but I can't tell him what I'm planning.
“I worry for you.” He wraps my cloak tighter around my shoulders. Have I traded Winston for a new keeper? No. It's just that he's finally all mine. I give myself one week to enjoy this victory and to regain my strength.
“Would you like to go back?” I ask. We've avoided my garden; it's tainted now, the burial place of my friend. But we can't stay inside all the time.
“No. I'd like to go all the way to the forest, the cursed bog, the cursed tarn, the cursed house. . . . It's all cursed.”
“All save the two of us?” Perhaps I'm testing him, perhaps teasing.
He pushes his hair back from his face. “Oh, we're cursed.”
I don't say anything. It's the first time he's acknowledged our looming fate.
He pivots toward me. “Don't you ever think of fighting it?” he asks.
Anger washes over me. What does he think I've been doing all these long years? What does he think I was doing last night? Yes, I was seduced by the house as a child, but I am fighting. I think of the sledgehammer in the vault. Perhaps a week is too long to wait.
T
he parlor is nearly unrecognizable. Workmen carry in couches, rugs, tapestries, tables, shelves, books. Roderick has decided that we will move into the apartments shared by our parents. He stands in the center of the activity, rubbing his hands together.
I touch the velvet of a new fainting couch. Step lightly across a new rug, something deep and Oriental. Elegant, expensive things. I don't want to touch anything. My fingertips feel tainted, as if the dust of all my fears in the house has accumulated on them, so they are not suited for any of Roderick's new things.
“It's going to be marvelous,” he says. “We'll replace the woodwork, and the curtains and even the flooring. This is hideous.” He taps his foot against the dark planks. The house responds with a hollow sound. “Oh, yes, new flooring. When this part of the house is finished, we can move on to the other parts. We can make the House of Usher into what it once was. What it was meant to be.” Is the house listening? Surely it is pleased by his attention. Distracted from what I tried to do. From my plans.
I touch a bauble that he's bought for one of the end tables. It is so unusual to see something without dust, something fresh and new. What is the house thinking? It is hiding from me, more and more since my threats in the vault.
“This is lovely,” I say. I hope against hope that tomorrow he is not disappointed.
His smile is like the sun, brilliant and fierce.
Five workmen struggle under the weight of an enormous candelabra. They climb up on ladders and attach it to the fretted ceiling. Roderick is as proud as if he had designed the room, the ceiling, and the candelabra himself.
“Wait until you see what I have for your new bedroom.”
His excitement is infectious, but I'm unsure about leaving the room of my childhood. Unsure about the new bed he has bought for me, the delicate pink bedspread, the silk sheets, and the lovely new dresses.
A loud crash makes both of us jump. I keep looking over my shoulder for Dr. Winston. For a demented suit of armor or a descending ceiling beam. But it was only the workmen dropping a trunk the size of a coffin. I settle closer to Roderick. Dr. Winston knows the house well, but even if he is still alive, he is not our greatest threat. Let the house think that I have been subdued. That I am willing to live here, forever, with Roderick.
He reads aloud a few pages from
The Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm
, which has always been one of our favorites. The servants bring us dinner, looking around at all the new furnishings, their eyes big as the platters they are serving us from.
“I told them that the tasteless stuff they've been serving is no good. I'll hire a cook from the city to prepare something less bland.”
“I asked the cook to leave out the spices,” I whisper as Roderick breaks off a piece of bread and hands it to me. It is slightly sweet and dripping butter.
After dinner we sit together, and he reads aloud until it is very late. The clock in the hallway keeps striking. If it doesn't right itself, Roderick will surely replace it with a new one. He's put flowers in a vase on the table. They remind me uncomfortably of Mother, with her imported flowers.
“It's your bedroom now,” he reminds me as I glance toward her door.
The last thing I want is to sleep in a room where Mother slept. Still, if Dr. Winston is lurking about, he won't expect to find us here. I can go back to my old rooms and bring whatever I like; it's just that it doesn't seem right to bring the moldering remnants of my childhood into these rooms with shiny new furnishings.
I
wake to the sound of sobbing. A ghost? Some miserable Usher ghost that is attached to this set of rooms? I ease the door open, fearful of what I will find.
Roderick.
The window he had the servants clean yesterday is still free of grime, and he is bathed by morning light.
The roses have wilted. Black petals lie all around the base of the table. The curtains at the window are tattered and covered with streaks of green mold. A metal spring has pierced the covering of the fine new couch, and the velvet is faded, thin in spots, as if ghosts have sat there all night, every night, for a thousand years, drinking tea and mocking us. The rugs are frayed and worn, faded. The candelabra hangs askew, in need of polishing.
Roderick's hands are pressed to his face. Tears drip through his delicate fingers, and his shoulders shake.
I reach out to him, but he won't let me touch him.
“Did you know this would happen?” The accusation in his voice freezes me.
“I was afraid,” I whisper. “But I thought maybe this time things would be different. Maybe the house would be so pleased to have us both here that it would allow things to be nice for a while.”
I hoped the house would let us have this, to try to lull me into submission. I wanted a few nice days before everything fell apart.
R
oderick left the house. I nearly followed but thought he could use some time on his own. An hour passed. Then two. Now he's back; his face is flushed from his exertion outside. He slams the door.
“I won't live here,” he says.
This could be the answer to the problem of getting him out of the house. Except, from his tone and stance, I don't believe him.
“Where else could you go?” I ask as calmly as I can.
“I have someone . . . there's someone . . .” He has trouble spitting it out. I don't say anything. It is not my responsibility to help him. “I am in love. We could live together in the city.”
He starts to say more, but I touch his arm.
“Not here,” I whisper.
“What?” He pulls away, determined not to get close enough to hear me.
The lights dim, and the room shimmers around us. The temperature dips. A picture falls from the wall and clatters, and a sharp tile falls, hitting Roderick's forehead. The air in the room grows heavy, like atmospheric dank air that pushes you to the ground and will not let you rise. It's difficult to move, even to raise my head. His hand covers most of his face, and blood flows through his fingers.
I feel a terrible emotion. Pleasure. Finally he will see. His lack of belief has pained me for the last time.
The mirror above the fireplace goes dark. I avert my eyes, struggling to put my sleeve up to his forehead to staunch the blood, standing on my toes. The two of us being this close will appease the house, I hope. I pray.
“Madeline,” he whispers, and I can feel his fear. The same fear that crippled him as a boy. And finally I understand that he is not strong enough to withstand the darkness that is the house, the consciousness of it.
“I am driven to the brink of insanity,” he whispers.
The warm blood seeps down through my sleeve where I hold it against his head.
The floor ripples under our feet.
“Outside,” I whisper. We must get out. Now. But he doesn't move.
“I hear the house now,” he says. “It fills my mind.” The way he looks at me reminds me of when we were children. He's vulnerable. But I can't fix this for him. “It fills my mind with you. I should not think of you. I don't want this, Madeline.”
“I know,” I tell him, looking into his eyes, trying to be calm for both of us.
I start to pull away, but the house groans and the floor shifts sharply beneath us; the air of the room compresses. We stumble. And Roderick's lips touch mine.
The house sighs. My mind opens to his, and I know how my lips feel to him at the same time that I feel his lips against mine.
“No.” I push him away. I will not let the house win, let it turn our bond into a curse.
His hand grips my arm above my elbow. We stare at each other. My shock mirrors his. This must never happen again.
I start to say that, but then he screams and falls to the floor, holding his head. The blood is forgotten, a superficial scratch. He has finally come into his Usher heritage.
E
very day I search the house for any sign of Dr. Winston. I question the servants and the other doctors. Finally I go to the vault. Everything is as we left it, including the sledgehammer. A chill passes through me as I consider it. I could end the house right now. End all the misery.
From one of the passages above, I hear one of the maids laugh. Not derisive, but a true mirthful laugh. And Roderick is resting upstairs. Other people live in this house besides me. I have to lay my plans carefully, to save the servantsâthough as Usher descendants, they might try to stop me if they knew.
A
week has passed with no sign of Dr. Winston. My shoulder is nearly healed. I must devise a plan to get Roderick and the servants away from the house.
Roderick is painting. At least that's what he calls it. He stares at the palette for hours on end, contemplating slate blue, indigo, perhaps charcoal gray. Only occasionally does he put the brush against the canvas, but when he does, the images he creates are amazing and powerful.
I walk into the studio. He looks up from his current painting and stares at me for a moment.
“I never noticed how beautiful your teeth are,” he says.
I don't answer. He doesn't expect me to.
“You should always wear black dresses. Somber colors make your hair glow.”
I don't tell him that I found a strand of white this morning. As always, I avoid telling Roderick anything too serious.
Dust has settled around his slippered feet. He is fading; sometimes I can almost see through him. He stares out the window, into some world that only he can see.
Roderick is here to stay. He fully believes that the house is watching us and that we are cursed.
I have what I wanted.
It is bitter.
D
earest Roderick,
I've left school now, officially. Graduated. Father is sending me on tour, to travel for a few months before I take over the family business and estate. I'd hoped to visit you, but you haven't written.
Noah
W
hatever reprieve I had, whatever sense of fleeting wellness Roderick returned, is gone. Even the softest fabric exacerbates the sensitivity of my skin. All of my dresses bruise me. I feel raw. This is a new curse, this deep pain. Even if I find the strength to lift the sledgehammer, will I be able to swing it? And the house . . . the house wants a child. Mine and Roderick's. After our kiss, it is hopeful. Waiting. It doesn't care if I die, as long as I have a baby before I succumb, so the Usher line continues.
Roderick has begun painting images of my death. First he painted me broken at the bottom of the staircase, and then dead on the flagstones of the courtyard.
But I won't die that way. No matter how the house threatens me.
Roderick continues to deteriorate.
I lift a spoonful of soup to his mouth. Most of it splashes back, another stain on his white shirt. I keep trying, hopeful that I can get a little nourishment into him. He turns away, muttering. Poor Roderick. The house whispers that this is my fault. That if we accept our fate, the curse will be lifted. At least until the next generation of Usher children are born.
