The Fall

by Bethany Griffin

  I twist, dislodging my skirts, and scoot forward. Within a few feet, the tunnel opens to empty space. I fall, landing on my feet with a painful thud.

  “Roderick,” I call to warn him, but he’s already sliding down, so I dive to the side. Not fast enough. He mostly lands on top of me. At least he holds up the torch with both hands, protecting us and our only source of light.

  As it is, the light from the torch barely dissipates the murkiness of this space. Roderick walks around the perimeter of the room, running his hands over the walls. I stand in the same place where I fell and watch him. The walls here are made of overlapping metal plates, and in the center of the room is a large, square stone.

  As Roderick moves, the torchlight shifts, illuminating the openings of other tunnels, all around us. For a second I see red eyes staring in, but when I blink, they are gone.

  “Roderick?” I move closer to him, and to the light.

  “The air feels different in this spot.” The oppressive atmosphere of the chamber makes his voice thin and reedy. “I see a door.”

  Roderick holds up the torch, examining an iron door set in the stone wall. When he pushes, it screeches forward a few inches. He turns sideways to slide through, and I do the same.

  Now we are truly in the vault—where dead Ushers are observed, and then put to rest, deep under the house. Entombed in solid stone.

  I put out my hand to touch a stone sarcophagus, but my fingers are covered with greenish dirt. I pull back, hiding my hand in my skirts—as if there is anyone here to care about touching sacred objects with filthy hands.

  “I dare you to get in one,” Roderick whispers.

  All day, he has had more bravado than me. Being the brave twin is my only claim to any sort of importance in this house, where Mother loves Roderick best and Father spends most of his waking hours wandering through the rooms staring at nothing, ignoring us both.

  “That one.” Roderick points at a grim-looking box that sits up on a trestle. Made of some sort of ceramic, the surface is cool to touch. Before I can lose my nerve, I take a deep breath and climb in. Sliding my legs beneath the half-open lid is the hardest part, until I feel the pillow touch my hair. The entire coffin is lined with velvet, and a moldy scent rises around me.

  Ignoring the smell, I soak in the horror of lying in a coffin. Roderick steps back, and the darkness startles me. But I savor the power. If I can be strong enough to control my fear, then I can do anything.

  “Let me try, Madeline.” He wants to have strength too, and how can I blame him? Fear is a hateful thing.

  I climb out and take the torch.

  “Look.” Roderick lets out a little laugh. “I’m dead. I’m a dead Usher, lying in my coffin.” He folds his hands over his chest and lies back. Seeing him in that position terrifies me in a way that lying in the coffin myself did not.

  “Shut the lid,” he commands. I shake my head. We are good at sensing each other’s feelings, so he will know how much the thought scares me. But he looks at me with his liquid eyes, smiling, proving that he is far from dead. The lid makes a loud grating sound as I slide it forward and he disappears.

  “Madeline?” He calls out almost instantly, his voice muffled. “That’s enough, let me out.” And I feel his fear.

  I grip the lid with my free hand, but it won’t budge.

  10

  MADELINE IS FIFTEEN

  My feet make no sound as I slip from my bedroom into the corridor. Cassandra follows. I thought I heard Roderick in the corridor, but he is very obviously in his room. Even from here, I can hear the sounds of his breathing. Roderick’s door isn’t fully closed. Though he ignores the power of the house, he knows instinctively not to be trapped inside any of the rooms. I brush my hand against his door as I pass, pulling away quickly so the house can’t urge me to go in.

  The moon shines through the window at the end of the hallway, nebulous and green. Forgetting to be watchful, forgetting fear, I approach it. The windows here at the front of the house overlook the roiling waters of the tarn. I lean on the ledge below the arched window.

  A black curtain billows into my face. Silk slides against steel as the curtain unravels from the rod, pushing me to the thick carpet that muffled my footsteps moments ago. The cloth molds to my face, pressing into my mouth as I gasp, trying to draw enough air to scream. I tear at the fabric, but it wraps around my hands until they too are caught up in it.

  I can’t move, I can’t breathe.

  A growl reverberates through the hallway, and the cloth pulls away from my face. Cassandra’s paws are pressed against my rib cage, and she’s tearing the curtain away with her teeth. She’s saved me. From the house.

  The house knows that I was prepared to confide my fears, my discoveries, to Roderick. That I’m no longer eager to please it, that I know its true nature. That I’m learning more every day.

  I sob, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. I spit the last bits of fabric onto the floor. Unconcerned, my dog licks my chin. Laughing, cruel faces of my ancestors watch us from the dismal works of art that line the wall.

  Cursed Ushers. Did they manage to keep the house happy? Or did they live their lives in fear? The house rewards cruelty. It loves darkness and despair and death.

  And I am its favorite.

  Shuddering, I put my hands over my face. The house is angry. Roderick tends to provoke it, with his disbelief, his constant departures. But this attack was directed at me. Was it yet another warning, or was Roderick supposed to rush out of his room and save me? Would that have happened if I had managed to scream? And what would have happened then?

  He is here for three more nights. Only three nights. Somehow, I must keep both of us safe.

  I put my arms around Cassandra and let her pull me back to the safety of my bedchamber.

  11

  MADELINE IS NINE

  Roderick screams from inside the coffin. “Madeline, Madeline, Madeline!”

  Terrified, I prop the torch on a pile of stones and rush back to the sarcophagus, to Roderick’s muffled panic. Using both hands, I try to pull the lid back, but it still won’t move.

  “Madeline!” He calls my name again and again. Tears blur my vision, making it even harder to see in the murk of the crypt. I reposition myself and heave with all my strength, but nothing happens. Desperately, I run my hands over the lid, trying to find a latch or a handle.

  “I’m going to get you out,” I promise. “I’ll save you.”

  The torch sputters.

  The ceiling creaks.

  I try not to let Roderick’s fear overwhelm me. The house led us here. Surely it won’t let us die here.

  Behind me, the iron gate slides open with a loud grating sound. I grab the torch and spin. Father stands on the threshold. His hair is wild and his eyes unfocused. Maniacal. Is he in the middle of one of his fits?

  “Father?” My voice wavers.

  He is holding his own torch, which he hands to me, and then he leans over the sarcophagus.

  “Roderick is inside?” It isn’t really a question. If he can hear anything, he can hear Roderick screaming, but I answer anyway.

  “Yes. Please get him out, please.”

  “There’s a latch on the side.” Father is feeling the stone, searching with his delicate musician’s fingers. “I know it’s here.” He finds it. The lid makes a terrible sound as it slides back.

  Roderick throws himself forward, eyes wide and frightened. I lean in to embrace him and help him out, but I have a torch in each hand. So I have to watch as Father pulls Roderick into his arms and attempts to soothe him. Jealousy twists inside me. I should have been the one to save Roderick. But then I hear the house murmuring. It knows that I was brave. That I am stronger than Roderick. The house loves me.

  12

  MADELINE IS FIFTEEN

  Seated in an armchair before a brick fireplace, in the tower occupied by the doctors, I ignore the fire crackling behind me, except to vaguely appreciate the warmth.

  Roderick fumbl
es with the buttons on his white shirt. Our eyes meet, and he freezes, his fingers on the last shiny button. I drop my gaze to my lap, and after a noticeable pause, his shirt falls to the floor. He’s teasing the doctors. He’ll let them examine him, but he won’t act as if any of this is more than a silly joke designed to waste his time.

  “Good, good,” Dr. Peridue says, writing something in his ledger. Father invited him first, years ago, to study, and perhaps cure, Mother’s illness. Dr. Paul came later, repeating Peridue’s original promises, but then Father got sick. Neither of them could be saved, despite the doctor’s assurances.

  Dr. Peridue appealed to Father’s pride in the Usher lineage, saying how he wanted to study us, to learn all he can about our ancient aristocratic diseases. But the doctors stayed because of Mother’s desperation for some way to escape the curse.

  “Your father was extremely healthy in his youth,” Dr. Paul remarks.

  With sudden vividness I remember Father convulsing on the floor, foaming at the mouth, when Roderick and I were very young.

  “Perhaps you will be lucky, like your father,” he tells Roderick, then the doctors’ eyes shift over to me. Not so lucky. Not so healthy.

  Roderick puts out his arm, and both doctors hover, preparing the silver needle, greedy for his blood. He is not usually so compliant; there are shadows under his eyes.

  “Didn’t you sleep well?” My voice startles everyone, even me.

  “No,” he says. “I dreamed unsavory dreams. I dreamed of suffocation.”

  Dr. Paul hands Roderick his shirt. “No reason to fear suffocation. Your lungs are as healthy as the rest of you.”

  So far, Roderick’s mind seems unaffected too. At least most of the time. Mother was right, all those years ago. Sending Roderick away has staved off the illness.

  “Let’s walk outside,” Roderick says, ignoring the doctors. “I’m chilled.”

  I doubt it will be warmer outside, but maybe we can stroll far enough away that the house can’t hear us. Maybe . . .

  “I want to see your garden,” Roderick says. “It’s the only thing, besides you, that I really miss when I’m away.”

  We slip through the dark corridors and out a side door.

  “Hold still, Madeline,” Roderick says. “What are these?” He’s brushed some dark fibers out of my hair. From the curtains.

  I sweep them away. Hoping he can’t read me right now. If I tell him what happened, he’ll assume I had a fit. He’ll think I’m a danger to myself and shouldn’t be allowed to carry candles through the hallway. He refuses to see the real danger.

  “Oh, look.” I step forward. Before us is a gnarled elm tree holding a swing, placed here for some long-ago Usher child. It’s dangled bravely there for years and years.

  “I always hated this thing,” Roderick says.

  I turn toward him, surprised.

  “I could never swing high enough. Not like you.”

  Arranging my skirts, I sit on the twisted wooden seat.

  “Father showed me how to swing. He used to push us, remember?”

  “Yes, but you’d lose yourself, entranced in one of your stories. Smiling to yourself, though nothing I could see was amusing. . . .”

  I start to laugh, but he stops me.

  “You were still as a statue, and yet you went higher than me. As if someone I couldn’t see was pushing you. It scared me, Madeline.”

  A shivery feeling travels from my carefully laced boots all the way up the back of my neck. I do remember swinging and laughing with the joy of it. Wasn’t it Father who used to push me? It was so long ago. . . . Cassandra nudges a fallen tree curiously. I stand. I will not swing today, even though I love the way the wind tussles my hair.

  Roderick laughs, giving the swing a disdainful nudge. “I had quite an imagination, didn’t I? Always afraid.”

  As we walk away, the swing glides through the air, much higher than should have been possible with his push.

  I do not point it out to Roderick.

  He’s horrified by this place, by the things he cannot explain.

  And yet he leaves me here.

  At this thought, he turns, his eyes wide and surprised. He’s sensed my resentment, through the bond we share, but he won’t acknowledge it. He can’t, not when he’s already thinking of leaving. He pretends he can’t hear my thoughts, feel my feelings.

  I push the hurt away. I am the one the house speaks to, the one the house flirted with, the one the house won’t let go. Father once told me that the house needs me most of all, and this pleased me. I was happy to be loved. Father was hunched over, we were pressed in the alcove by the grandfather clock, and he whispered, forcing out the words. He meant for me to be terrified; his fingers, when he brushed my hair from my eyes, were clammy with sweat. Foolishly, I was not afraid.

  No matter how hard I try, I can’t recall his exact words. Just the intensity of his gaze. The house wants Roderick, but it wants me more. Most of all, it wants us here, together.

  The garden wall is crumbling.

  For the first time in my life I don’t just want to go with Roderick; I think I have to get away.

  Roderick paces back and forth. He reaches up to touch the leaves that cling to decaying branches. One of them falls to the ground. It might have dangled there, suspended between life and death, for longer than we’ve been alive.

  Roderick is in a strange mood. This is not the time to tell him about my growing fears. He will return soon. Our birthday is only a few weeks away, in March, that odd time between true winter and the green burst of spring. I will read further, learn the secrets of the house. Find proof, so that he doesn’t think I’m being silly and superstitious. If that doesn’t work, I will try to be logical, try to convince him that even if he does not believe the house is watching us, that things here are amiss.

  Roderick laughs as the wind blows old autumn leaves down from the overhanging eaves of the house, and they scatter about us like dismal confetti.

  13

  MADELINE IS NINE

  Mother plaits my hair into two long, shining braids. Roderick is gone—the coach took him two weeks ago—but I am living with my loneliness.

  “I want to walk in the garden,” I tell her. One of her black curtains has been swept aside, and the sun is shining through the window.

  “You shouldn’t speak of such things,” she says in a low voice, pulling my hair.

  I shrink away from her voice and her hands. I don’t ask why. Either she will tell me, or she won’t. Asking won’t have any effect. She stops braiding and stares toward the window, lost someplace between memory and madness.

  “You will make the house jealous,” she hisses. “With your silly talk of sunshine and gardens.”

  The house shouldn’t be jealous. I love it and will always return to it. She ties my left braid with a ribbon to match my rose-colored dress. We are reflected in her mirror, mother and daughter, so very alike.

  I shiver.

  A vase of delicate white lilies stands beside her bed. A gift from Father, they certainly did not come from our grounds. But I know I can find flowers of my own in the overgrowth of weeds that surrounds the house.

  “I’m going to walk in the garden.” I sound defiant, and I like that.

  Mother pushes me away. “Your voice makes my head throb. Go somewhere else to play.” She puts her hand up to her forehead and closes her eyes. She is so beautiful I can’t help admiring her, hoping that she will love me someday.

  “Close the curtains before you go.”

  I jump to obey, smoothing the fabric over the window, and then tiptoe out of the darkened room, still determined to spend this glorious autumn morning outside.

  Skipping down the hallway, I enjoy the sound of my shoes against the wood floor. When I get outside, the wind will be ruffling the dead leaves, and I will hunt for flowers. I step down the dark stairway.

  Thud.

  A heavy battle-ax is buried in the wall beside me. My cheek stings where it grazed my
face. I twist to face the suit of armor at the top of the stairs. Its gauntleted hand opens and closes, empty.

  If I had taken one more step, if I had skipped any faster, the steel blade would be buried in my head instead of paneling. Ghosts rush up and down the hall, so dense that for a moment I cannot see.

  I press my hands against the wall. It is cold to the touch, as chilly as the floor of my bedroom in January. Cold means anger. The house is jealous. Without meaning to, I put my hand to my cheek.

  I imagine that I am a statue, concentrating on my breathing. I blink over and over, holding back tears. My fingers come away from my cheek stained with blood. The house hurt me. My legs give out, and I collapse to the floor in a heap of skirts and anxiety.

  The planks of the floor grow unnaturally warm. I place my hands in my lap. I should have listened to Mother. The house was not trying to hurt me. No. It’s so big, it lacks finesse. It wants me to stay close, so it can protect me. I sit completely still, showing the house that I do not plan to leave it, not now, not ever. The blade of the ax quivers back and forth. I do not move. I sit, watching the axe. Letting the house know that I trust it.

  14

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF LISBETH USHER

  My young sister is in the garden, swinging on the garden swing. I will be strong. If I let this curse have the best of me, then it will fall to her. When I have my fits, she kisses my forehead. I don’t tell her that even the touch of her lips is horrifying to me, everything is horrifying. I just close my eyes and wish the days of my life away.

  Hyperesthetic fits. I fall, as if dead, in a trance, though I’m unbearably aware of everything that happens around me. My hearing becomes sharper. Light burns my eyes. The touch of a blanket is torture.

  When the fits last more than a few hours, I lose consciousness. It’s a mercy to be freed from the agony.