The Fall

by Bethany Griffin

  “You could take some things with you to sell, in the city,” Emily suggests. “When we leave.”

  I laugh. “It would fall to dust.” At least that’s what happens when maids steal our candlesticks. “Roderick says that we can buy things, but that our wealth is tied to the house, somehow.”

  “Still, there must be some way. The Usher family supports a good many charities,” Emily says. “You are quite well known for extravagant generosity. Your family gives money to various orchestras. They pay the upkeep on an entire cemetery. A hospital. Why can’t their philanthropy support us?”

  I wonder if she’s asking because she doesn’t want to become a governess. It is a precarious way to live.

  “I don’t want to leave you here,” she says. “It doesn’t seem . . . safe. But I don’t have the means to find a place for us to live. The world can be unkind to young women on their own.”

  She is completely sincere, but I fear if Dr. Winston stops fussing over me and beckons to her, she’ll return to him.

  “Since you believe so completely that you must be sedated, I think that would be best. But first we must set up the accounts. . . .”

  She believes more than Roderick. She at least thinks the house is haunted, that it affects me and makes me strange.

  “But what about the consciousness?” She keeps coming back to that. “It must want something.”

  “It wants to control us. And for the family line to continue.” I don’t explain how far that control goes, how the two are linked. She doesn’t need to know everything.

  “But why? Why would a house want that?”

  “Because we’ve lived here all these years?”

  “Still, it isn’t like it’s grown fond of you; it isn’t gentle or kind to you. It uses the Ushers like a nasty old grandfather trying to preserve his family’s preeminence. Pulling strings and forcing miserable progeny into situations to prosper the family.”

  A nasty old grandfather? I would laugh at her choice of words, except that they ring true. If I wasn’t remembering a story, an image that haunts my dreams. Dead children laid out on a flat stone, like the one in the room beyond the vault.

  Emily shakes her head and goes back to flipping through her books. Making her plans. But all of a sudden, I’m afraid. She seems to believe the curse, but does she understand how deep it goes? How much a part of me it is?

  Does she believe that once we’re away from the House of Usher that I will behave like a normal girl? That I will be a normal girl? Do I believe it? I let her set up the fake charity so that we will have money. I let her collect gold and silver from throughout the house; I don’t care if she converts it to cash in the city.

  I ignore my fear. With her help, the key to leaving may well be within my grasp. . . .

  98

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  All I ever do is watch people leave.

  We watch Emily ride away from the window at the front of the house. It’s snowing, so I’m glad she has the fur muff to keep her hands warm, but I’m sorry to see her go, even if I will be joining her soon.

  She carries several letters with my signature, others that I’ve forged with Roderick’s name. A small fortune. She will rent a cottage and send for me. Before that happens, I have to find a way to leave. I have to harness the power that allowed me to fight down that fit, and use it. To remember how Father managed to take me away. Or perhaps the hint I need can be found in the last pages of Lisbeth’s journal. Hope wells up—what I think might be optimism. Perhaps its own form of madness.

  It’s nearly spring, and this is perhaps the last of the snow.

  “It’ll be better now,” Dr. Winston says from behind me. “Now that she’s gone. We can spend more time together. In the room upstairs, with the machines . . .”

  I put my hands against the window, feeling the cold seep through the glass. The house wants me to step away from him, and for once I agree. He’s standing too close.

  “It’ll be better with her gone,” he repeats.

  “She reminded me of other places, of cities and places far away.”

  “You don’t need to think of other places,” he says.

  He puts his arms around me.

  I step back, away from him, out of his arms.

  “Madeline?”

  It would be so easy to pretend to love him, even if he does want to watch me die. We are here alone. He is the only one who shows any interest in me. He offers a sort of companionship. A secondary plan, if Emily fails me. And I am still intrigued by kissing. It would be easy to pretend. He doesn’t ever look into my eyes. He would never know.

  But I would know.

  “That isn’t what I want.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  His jaw clenches. He is not accustomed to rejection.

  “Emily is very fortunate, that you care for her so much.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. His hands are strong, and he’s gripping so tightly that my shoulders feel small.

  Through the window we can barely see Emily, riding through the light snow. She’s wearing a red coat over her white dress.

  99

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF LISBETH USHER

  Yesterday I died.

  Or at least that’s what everyone believed. I fell into a deep trance, and the servants, believing me dead, put me in my best gown and brought me downstairs. They lit candles around me and put coins on my eyes.

  It was like my other trances, but different, more complete. I lost consciousness, and the servants couldn’t tell that I was still breathing.

  Mr. Usher was away, though he returned as soon as he could, perhaps ready to celebrate his release from our marriage. I ask too many questions, am too inconvenient.

  Now I sit in my bed, weak, shaking.

  He wishes he hadn’t married me. He loves my sister. I knew when it happened, when the curse passed.

  While I was lying there, I forced the presence of the house out of my mind. I have not heard it since.

  I will not stay here. I cannot. I am no longer a part of this thing.

  100

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  I place the last pages of Lisbeth Usher carefully in the lacquered box. The lid is made of mosaic tiles. Looking at it confuses my eyes, and I know that such things confound the house.

  A piece of paper falls to the floor. I pick it up. Unfold it slowly. What message is Lisbeth imparting to me?

  My heart sinks; it is nothing but scribbling. She has written her name over and over. Elisabeth Rose Usher. My middle name is Rose. And then I see something odd. Elisabeth Rose Usher. Daughter of Emmaline, sister of Honoria and Annabel.

  My mother’s name was Annabel. That doesn’t mean anything; it’s a common name. This is nearly too much reading for me. My mind whirls round and round, like water swirling downward. At the bottom of the page it says Elisabeth Rose Usher, beloved of Charles Usher.

  Charles was my father’s name.

  All this time I’ve been imagining that Lisbeth lived decades ago, perhaps a hundred years before me—when all along, she was just one generation away. She was my aunt, my mother’s older sister. She isn’t here. She must have escaped, and she could still be alive.

  I think about my parents. My mother’s bitterness. Lisbeth didn’t save her, as she promised. Mother was always so bitter, hating the house, and her life, and the malady that came on her when she was only six years old. Hating me for being the first child, the cursed one. There is no point loving the one who is cursed, is there?

  And Father, he was always the gentle one. Poor Father, who disappeared . . .

  I remember him taking me to the widow’s walk, warning me never to consider jumping. Like his Honoria, I am somber.

  101

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  I read by the light of the window, though the bars cast narrow shadows across my book. When I opened it, hundreds of slips of paper fell to the floor. I love you. I watch you. I need you. Messages from the house? To the hou
se? They are written in her blood, and so many of them must mean something. That she sat with this book in front of her for many hours?

  It’s a volume about ghosts and curses. Perhaps, out of everything my grandmother collected, this might be the most useful. The accounts of hauntings are vague, and I skim them, since our ghosts are so feeble and useless. But an entire chapter is devoted to curse origins.

  I remember the story of our ancestor, the slaughter. When I close my eyes, I can feel his maliciousness. Archibald Usher. His consciousness is the consciousness of the house, the nastiness that watches and seeps in through the cracks.

  And I remember something that Emily said. “The house isn’t exactly proud, is it? It doesn’t seem to maintain itself.” We were in my garden, looking up at one of the many smaller cracks. “Doesn’t care about beauty or dignity, though it could have both. What does the house value? What does it protect?”

  And I think of the depths below the house. The vault, and the room with the wide flat stone. Only Ushers are supposed to go there. I remember how Roderick and I found the hidden door and made our way there when we were quite small. We were distracted by the crypt, by the horror of the sarcophagi, but that wasn’t what the house was trying to show us.

  The house is so huge, and has held its secrets for so long. I need Emily to write, to say that she’s found a place and that I can join her. I need to get away from here. Away from these horrors. The carefully wound clock in my pocket ticks as the minutes pass. I feel, suddenly, as if time is running out for me.

  102

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  She isn’t coming back. Emily. It has been weeks. She hasn’t written, like she promised. Hasn’t contacted me with an address, hasn’t sent a coach.

  I will not let this latest abandonment destroy me. And I won’t stay here with Dr. Winston.

  I make my plans carefully. It would be better if I could be sedated. But that isn’t possible, because I have no one to help me. Since I will be alone, I must not collapse. I must be strong. I must push the house out of my mind. If Lisbeth Usher accomplished it long ago, then I can too.

  I am leaving.

  I write a note in bold black letters. It says:

  My name is Madeline Usher. If I am incapacitated, please take me to an inn or an officer of the law. I beg of you, do not take me back to the House of Usher.

  I will pin it to my coat as I walk away from the house.

  I collect gold coins and pieces of jewelry. Emily took an entire suitcase full, but plenty of riches are lying around, and I never showed her the treasure trove of jewels in Mother’s room. I destroy Mother’s necklaces, rip out the gemstones, and put them in a little bag with a drawstring, which I hang around my neck.

  I place as much gold as I can reasonably lift into a bag and fold a spare dress over the coins. Then I wrap some bread in a cloth napkin and place it in the bag as well.

  Whenever the house tries to invade my thoughts, I push it away. Grandmother’s books say you must invite spirits in. The house has been with me since I was born, but I did not invite it. I listened, but I won’t anymore.

  My preparations are made, and the house has not responded.

  Nothing. I feel nothing. It makes me nervous.

  This morning I have an examination with the doctors. I must go; otherwise they will know the moment I go missing. If I leave later, then no one will notice my absence for hours. I leave my bag just inside the door of my bedroom.

  When I reach the doctors’ rooms, Dr. Winston tells me to undress, but I refuse.

  “Today should just be a quick examination,” I tell him, holding my chin high.

  He scowls. “I’ll take blood,” he says.

  I need all my energy today, but I give him my arm obediently.

  He lays the needle on a table and picks up a small knife.

  “This will be faster,” he says. “More efficient.” He caresses me gently with the blade behind my ear, then on my cheek before finally placing it against my forearm. The blade is cold against my skin.

  “This blade is perfect for you, Madeline.”

  So, he is no longer content to wait to see me die.

  “The house is telling me to do things. I don’t want to kill you. I never wanted to kill you. I want you to love me. It’s not the same knife I used on Emily.”

  I freeze. I am always still when the doctors are poking at me, but now I might as well be dead. I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

  That he used on Emily? She didn’t abandon me. . . .

  I rear back away from him, but he knows what he’s doing. The knife opens my flesh, but the cut is so shallow, there’s barely any blood.

  I throw back my head and scream for Dr. Paul and Dr. Peridue. Footsteps pound in the hall.

  “What are you doing?” Dr. Paul is yelling. Dr. Winston drops his knife and dives after me, but I’m too quick; I dart out into the hallway.

  I don’t have my missive, or my suitcase, or my bread, and blood trails in uneven paths down my arm.

  What I do have is a certain inner strength. Resolve. I’m not even sure where it’s coming from. But I am neither confused nor afraid.

  I run through the hall of portraits. Surely all of the Usher ancestors are frowning at me. Or maybe they want me to escape. Maybe they hated the house as surely as I do.

  Down the staircase. I duck past the suit of armor, but it doesn’t drop the ax today. Through the dark-paneled hall with all the weapons adorning the walls. Another staircase, ruined rooms at the front of the house . . . I’m charging through the front door. Not sneaking out the back.

  Roderick’s horses stamp in their stone stalls, and I feel sorry for them in their confinement.

  I pause on the edge of the causeway. I could go back inside right now; no one would know that I had planned to escape. They would assume that I was running through the house because the young doctor was threatening me with a knife.

  The bag of jewels is heavy around my neck. At least I have that.

  I take the first step forward. The water of the tarn boils and churns. But I will not let it stop me. Two steps forward, three . . . the water is moving all around me, on both sides of the causeway. How big is the creature that dwells there?

  I try to walk steadily, focusing on stepping carefully. Step four, step five, step six. The activity in the water stops abruptly. What is the creature preparing for? To grab me? To trip me with a slimy tentacle around my ankle?

  With one more step, I will reach the shore. I don’t look back at the House of Usher, because I know it will unnerve me too completely.

  I walk toward the forest of dead trees.

  It is not far now. If the servants are looking out the windows, they will see me, but there’s no avoiding that. My boot is unlaced, but I wait until I’m hidden by the trees to tie it.

  The forest is very dark. A thick layer of dead leaves covers the ground, leaving no visible path forward. Perhaps I should have followed the road, but I was afraid of being caught.

  Something rustles in the underbrush, so without stopping, I carefully choose a stick; it is white as bone, and not very heavy. I grip it tightly and hold it before me as I go.

  I walk through spiderwebs that cling to my hair, and mud so deep it coats my white boots and the hem of my dress. The trees here are deteriorating, rotting away. The part of me that loves plants hates this forest, because it is a slow graveyard for trees. Nothing else grows here, unless you count slimy green moss.

  The farther I walk, the better I feel. According to my silver pocket watch, it’s been two hours. I’m getting farther and farther from the house, and I feel fine. It is growing darker, but soon I will be through. Soon I will see the lights of the town.

  I trudge into the dark night. There is no moon. Sometimes I see yellow eyes in the underbrush. A cacophony of crickets and frogs rises up all around. I can no longer tell what time it is, as it is too dark to see the face of my timepiece, and the night seems endless. In the distance is a tiny bit o
f light. The trees are getting thinner. Surely I am coming now to the edge of the forest. I will see homes, cottages, on the other side. I hurry toward it.

  I trip over a decaying log, and skin my hand, but I barely stop, just dust it on my skirts and keep going. The sun is rising as I walk out onto a plain. My heart nearly stops. The House of Usher looms before me.

  I stand, staring up at the house, sickened by the sight of it. Then I turn again to the forest. Which way did I go when I left the grounds before? I plan my route and walk back into the woods. Straight line.

  Sometimes from my window I can see the distant lights of the village. It can’t be that far.

  Naked squirrels with distended bellies watch me with big eyes, dragging themselves along the branches of malevolent trees.

  Everything on our land is sick and dying.

  But I feel fine. I have twigs in my hair and my boots are caked with mud, and I’m tired, so tired, but I feel alive for the first time in ages.

  Away from the house, I could grow old, read books. Maybe, if I had a house that was my own, I could have a puppy or a kitten.

  I could be content.

  Eventually a sort of bog stretches out in front of me. Fetid, green. I’m not sure how deep the water is and don’t want to arrive in town stinking and covered with slime. I skirt the water, following a line of willows, testing the ground in front of me before I take each step.

  Twice my boots disappear into the mud. The trees thin up ahead, and I hurry forward. Only to find myself standing in the shadow of the House of Usher.

  I sink to the ground.

  103

  MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN

  Dr. Peridue finds me sitting with my back against the house. Tiny pointed leaves from the vines I planted caress my cheeks.

  He sees the mud caking my boots. His skeletal face changes for a moment, but I don’t know how to interpret the expression. Sadness? Suppressed laughter? Disdain?