The Fall

by Bethany Griffin

  “You really are clever. I almost believe that you could get away from all of this.” He takes the parchment that I’m holding between my fingers. I watch you. “My mother wrote those. Over and over, for days on end. Hundreds of them. I still find them all through the house. It was terrifying. I think she forgot she had children. I was afraid for her and afraid of her. I suppose you know how that feels.”

  Father never speaks this much. My head throbs, and I am afraid that tomorrow I will not remember anything he has said, though I know his words are important. If only I could write them down.

  “The house is cruel to our daughters, especially the twins. As long as I live, I will never forgive the house for what it did to my sister.”

  He bows his head, and his shoulders shake a little, as if he is holding back sobs. I never knew my father had a sister.

  I reach up to the desk and grab a handful of the scraps. The ink flakes off and sticks to my fingers.

  “I need to tell you this now, Madeline, before I get sick again, before I forget. I’ve been thinking for so long, but it is very difficult for me to figure out the patterns, for me to understand the intent of the house. My mother was a favorite of the house, like you. She was one of the rare Usher children whose cradle rocked of its own accord, and who never ever left the safety of the house. It drove her mad, of course.

  “My mother isolated herself, stopped speaking to anyone, and wrote these messages all day. When we took her ink away, she wrote all of these . . . in her own blood.”

  I consider my fingertips, stained with what I believed was ink.

  “If you don’t fight the house, it will take you, more so than it has the rest of us. The house will never let you go.” A story flashes before my eyes. First, murdered children lying heaped on a great flat stone. Then an Usher girl with long blond hair, shackled to a wall. I blink, and the images are gone, erased by the house.

  Is Father trying to frighten me? The house protects us. Why would I want it to let me go? I try to understand his words, even as the world goes hazy around me.

  Father carries me downstairs and puts me in bed. I am surprised that he is strong enough to carry me. As he tucks me into bed, I reach up and kiss his cheek.

  83

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  Dr. Winston joins us as I guide Emily down the crumbling stone stairs, as if he had been invited on the tour. He keeps trying to take the lead, but I push past him. Emily is so entranced by the house that she doesn’t notice.

  “The stone in this older wing seems so solid, and yet it’s webbed with cracks.” She pulls back a tapestry, an artful depiction of a knight mounted on a horse, holding his own severed head. She runs her hand over the wall behind the tapestry, and tiny bits of stone rain down.

  “Can you take us to the crypt?” Dr. Winston asks. “Even I haven’t seen it yet. Only family members have access.” There is yearning in his tone, but what could be the harm in showing them? Emily will marvel at it. “Wait here.” I hurry to fetch the keys from Roderick’s room, and return to them.

  “The vault is through here.” I gesture toward a staircase, cut into stone, leading down.

  All three of us light torches at the bottom. There are no windows, of course, not this far underground. The walls glitter, reflecting the tongues of flame with a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.

  The door is thick, made of iron and sheathed in copper. The screech as it opens is the stuff of nightmares. The world shimmers for a moment, and I have to remind myself that I am stronger than my pain, that a pin dropping on a summer afternoon is only agony because I let myself succumb to it. I take deep, shuddering breaths. Emily squeezes my hand and takes one step forward. The floor is also covered with copper.

  The weight of a thousand Usher crimes presses down on me in this place.

  “The copper indicates that powder was once held here—combustible powder, as if for a cannon. That makes no sense.” Emily wrinkles her brow. “This house shows all evidence having once been a medieval fortress.” Her tone is accusatory, as if we are somehow tricking her, as if we have magically transported her to some other world where it’s historically appropriate for a medieval fortress to stand. She will make an excellent governess, and I have to suppress the urge to laugh.

  The young doctor holds up his torch. His eyes dart here and there, lingering on the slabs where the bodies were laid out, where bodies will be laid out in the future. Empty stone sarcophagi line the walls; some made for women, some men. A few are small.

  “The bodies are placed here for a few days, and then taken to the family’s burial ground,” he tells Emily.

  It is important that they think this is true. At least, it is important that the servants believe this, so as not to terrorize them. If the servants knew how many Ushers were buried under their feet, in the foundations of the house, they would be horrified.

  “Is this a gate?” he asks. “A door?”

  “There is another room past this one, but it has fallen into disrepair. The roof is caving.” I do not want them to go any farther. Don’t want him to go any farther. This is the heart of the house, and he is already far enough in its thrall.

  “Come.” I gesture for them to follow me back to the stairs.

  84

  MADELINE IS TWELVE

  “The spirit of the house—the consciousness of it—gets inside our heads. It sees through our eyes and feels what we feel, especially moments of extreme emotion, moments of passion. Or grief. It loves grief.”

  Father’s voice is feverish and high-pitched. He’s leaning close, mumbling. I listen closely. We are sitting beneath the large grandfather clock. Father says that repetitive noises distract the house, but I’m not sure we should be distracting it. Not sure I want to hear what Father is whispering.

  “The house never had a strong affinity with your mother. It loved her cruelty, but tired of her quickly. She came from far away and usurped another’s place. But you are everything the house wants, and that scares me. It should scare you as well. Mother sent Roderick away. If I can, I will do the same for you.”

  Terror washes over me.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I whisper. This is my home, this is where Roderick will return to me. I’m safe here.

  Father wraps his arms around me, pulling me close, but his arms don’t feel as safe as they should because he’s trembling so.

  “It wants to keep you close, to see what you see and feel what you feel. You’ve always had a sensitivity that Roderick lacks. You see the ghosts, hear the whispers. You are the love of the house. But ultimately, it wants you to bear a child. To continue the line. Since you and Roderick were born, it has mostly abandoned me, and it goads your mother to madness.”

  Is Father jealous? Is that what I hear in his voice?

  “I’ll take you away, Madeline. I promise,” he says.

  85

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  “I told the servants to bring us tea, and that it should be hot. Also, that the cakes should be fresh. I hope you don’t mind,” Emily says.

  I shake my head, charmed by the unfamiliar feminine routine, and sit across from her while she pours steaming tea into a delicate bone-china cup.

  “I thought we could chat.”

  The delicate cup wobbles as I consider. What do people chat about? The weather? The weather is gloomy, gray, relentlessly melancholy.

  “Victor tells me that you and your brother are very close.”

  I choke on the tea.

  “We were, as children. Now . . . he’s so far away.” This feels like a betrayal of Roderick, and yet it’s true.

  “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I envy you that relationship. It must be very special.”

  I take a bite of one of the little cakes. It’s too sweet.

  She puts her hand over mine. “Madeline, are you happy here?”

  If I wasn’t already on alert, I’d probably drop my teacup. Am I happy here? Am I happy? The teacup rattles against the sauce
r. It’s a somewhat rhythmic noise, enough to distract the house—or is it listening to our chat? Watching us through the eyes of birds embroidered on the wall hangings?

  “I would like to live my life in peace,” I say. “I would like to be happy.”

  She leans forward, as if ready to confide in me, but then lifts her teacup and takes a sip. Collecting her courage?

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

  She cocks her head to the side and takes a deep breath.

  “Since Victor has not proposed marriage and doesn’t seem likely to, I have to find a job, to pay my way. And I thought . . . we could live together, Madeline, find a tiny place in the city. It wouldn’t be like this place, but . . . it wouldn’t be haunted.”

  Is she sincere? Or is she just distracting herself from dreams of Dr. Winston? But she is watching me eagerly, waiting for my answer.

  “Unhaunted sounds perfect,” I say in a quiet voice.

  86

  MADELINE IS TWELVE

  My eyes burn. I am being blinded.

  “It’s too bright,” I cry, surprised by my voice. It is high-pitched, afraid.

  “Hush, Madeline.”

  Father is holding me, cradling me like a baby. Blinding light streams through an open window. The walls in this room are white. Where are we? I reach out my hand to touch the unfamiliar wall. It’s a sort of plaster.

  Allowing my fingers to rest against the wall, I feel . . . nothing. No emotion, no warmth. We are not in the House of Usher.

  “Where are we?”

  “I’m going to write to Roderick, at school,” Father says. “I’m going to tell him to meet us here.”

  I pull away from Father’s arms, put my feet on the floor. I’m wearing shiny black shoes. I click them, tap tap tap, against the unfamiliar floor.

  When I try to stand, my legs are wobbly.

  “I gave you some of your mother’s medicine,” Father says. “It was the only way I could take you away.”

  I look around, fearful, suddenly, that Mother is here.

  “She stayed at the house,” Father says. “She loves you, but she wanted to remain under the care of Dr. Paul.” I know that at least part of what he has just said was a lie.

  Hours pass. Father falls asleep while I sit in the corner, wrapped in all the blankets from the bed. Through the window I can hear the rhythmic sound of the sea. I do not find it soothing.

  87

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  It is a bright cold day, and I study us in the mirror. Emily is dark, and I am light. Her hair is dark and curly, and her eyes are lively. I am very still and solemn compared to her. My hair is so fair it is nearly silver. My eyes are violet. All of my winter wear, my coat, my hat, my gloves, are white. If it wasn’t for the red of my lips and the brightness of my eyes, I could blend right in with the snow and never be seen again.

  “Put on your hat,” she says. “Victor will never forgive me if I allow you to catch cold.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” I agree.

  The snow is deep. It hides the blighted earth around the house as we wait for the grooms to bring the horses from the stable and attach them to the sleigh. There are four white horses with bells on their harness.

  The sleigh has two bench seats, one in the front and one in the back. I start to climb into the back, but Dr. Winston stops me.

  “There’s enough room for all of us on one bench, Madeline.”

  “Yes, sit between us,” Emily says. “We can keep one another warm.”

  The doctor shakes the reigns, and the horses pull us out into the snow.

  “Your brother should be home soon for Christmas, shouldn’t he? I long to meet him again,” Emily says.

  The sleigh glides over the snow, up and down hills. Emily squeals and holds on to my arm. I understand the urge to scream, as we rise and fall, so quickly. My heart quickens, but I don’t want to cheapen this moment. The land looks so clean and fresh under the blanket of snow. So beautiful. And I am here with friends. Tonight, perhaps, we will drink cocoa, and they will tell me about their childhoods, about places they have visited, lives that are different than anything I’ve ever imagined.

  I wish this sleigh ride could last forever.

  “Victor!” Emily screams as we begin the descent down a rather sharp incline. “What is that?”

  It’s one of the white trees, fallen from where a forest once stood. Dr. Winston is already turning the sleigh, forcing the horses around the fallen log. But he’s not fast enough. The sleigh tips to the side, and I slide, falling into the snow. For a moment I lie stunned, but then I laugh, because the snow is soft, and nothing hurts.

  The young doctor is calling out and the horses are spooked, still running, dragging the overturned sleigh behind them.

  A figure on a black horse appears at the top of a hill. I’ve never seen the horse before, but there is no chance that I would not recognize the rider. He is holding a riding crop, though I don’t remember Roderick ever carrying one before. His face is so very, very white, but his cheeks are pink with the cold—and with rage.

  He rides down the hill, straight at Dr. Winston.

  “What are you doing?” he shouts. “Those horses haven’t been exercised in months, and they aren’t trained to pull a sleigh.”

  “I know how to handle horses.” Dr. Winston stares into Roderick’s face.

  “You are a fool, and if you had hurt Madeline, I would have killed you where you stand,” Roderick says in a low voice.

  There is a whimper behind us, oh, no—Emily! I turn toward her and gasp. She’s lying on the ground, and blood is staining the snow red.

  Dr. Winston rushes to her side.

  “You’d best be glad that isn’t Madeline,” Roderick says through gritted teeth. Yet even before he’s done saying it, he’s kneeling beside the girl, lifting her onto his black horse to take her back to the house.

  88

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  It is time for dinner, so all enmity must be forgotten. I dress carefully and go downstairs to stand in the great hall under the shriveled mistletoe. Roderick joins me.

  “When the sleigh tipped, I was terrified,” he admits. “If you’d been hurt . . .” His face is still pale, and I can feel his anguish. I struggle to understand why this experience was more traumatic for him than when I nearly drowned in the tarn.

  Emily comes downstairs, followed by Dr. Winston. Her bandage is only a shade paler than her forehead. She looks from Roderick to me. Her brows come together for a moment before she smiles a dazzling smile.

  “It’s amazing how alike you are,” she says.

  Roderick returns her smile. He obviously approves of her, even though he has always despised Dr. Winston.

  “How is your head?” he asks her politely.

  Since Roderick is talking to Emily, I take Dr. Winston by the arm as the servants usher us into the dining room.

  “And how are you feeling, Madeline?” he asks. His emphasis is upon the word “you.” Both Dr. Winston and Roderick somehow caring more about my well-being than Emily’s makes me uncomfortable.

  “Quite well,” I say, because I don’t want him fussing over me too much, not in front of Roderick.

  “You look well,” he says. “But maybe we should take a blood sample to be sure.” He stares across the room at my brother, who is taking his seat as we cross the room.

  Dr. Paul and Dr. Peridue come into the room. They look uncomfortable; their formal clothing is dusty and ill-fitting, remnants of the lives that they lived before they ended up here.

  The servants fill our goblets with wine.

  Dr. Paul rubs his hands together, eager for the first course. I lift my fork, examining a chunk of roasted meat in a heavy sauce. It tastes like sawdust. I rearrange the food on my plate so that it looks like I’ve eaten some of it. Dr. Winston watches me, but for once he’s not taking inventory of what I am eating.

  “Something is going to happen,” he whispers. “Can you feel
it?”

  I pretend not to hear him and turn to Roderick. He is dressed all in black, we both are, and he looks particularly handsome. Emily has been admiring him all evening. I hope he has not turned her head enough that she will abandon me so she doesn’t have to become a governess. Roderick is the heir to the Usher fortune, after all, even if I am the favorite of the house.

  The servants parade into the room with platters of food. As they put the next course on the table, every clock in the place begins to strike. It is an awful, discordant racket that echoes through the house and through my head.

  Dr. Peridue struggles to bring his watch from his pocket so that he can check the time. Twelve strikes sound, but it is certainly not midnight. When I last checked, it was ten past seven, though clocks in this house aren’t always accurate.

  The candles flicker out, one by one, and a loud creaking sounds from all around us, as if the room is rearranging itself. Roderick grasps my shoulder in the sudden darkness. At the same time, Dr. Winston’s hand brushes my side and then falls away.

  One of the servants drops a tureen of broth, and it shatters when it hits the floor.

  “Well, well,” Dr. Peridue begins in his raspy ancient voice, but the creaking continues. Something groans from above us, and with a sudden gust of air against my face, something falls.

  Dr. Winston yanks me back, out of my chair and toward him, but Roderick has already thrown himself protectively over me. All three of us topple to the floor.

  One candle lights, and then another, and soon we can see Dr. Paul lighting the candles on the sideboard. Emily steps around the three of us on the floor and moves to help him. The servants have disappeared.

  An enormous wooden ceiling beam has crushed the table.

  Roderick’s chair is shattered. If he had not flung himself at me, and if Dr. Winston had not reached for me, both of Roderick’s legs would have been broken. And then he would have had to remain here, as an invalid.