67
MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN
Should I feel different today? Does anyone actually feel different on their birthday? I pace back and forth, waiting for Roderick. He should have arrived hours ago, and I am agitated and excited. I have a new dress. One that hasn’t had time to fade to the sickly weathered gray of the others. It doesn’t matter what color they were when they were placed in there—red, pink, yellow, they all fade within a fortnight.
But this one is different. It’s midnight black, like a raven’s wing, and it has not faded. I will wear it to dinner tonight, with my new necklace.
On the first night after Roderick comes home, the servants always lay out dinner, course after course, in the dining room, so that we can eat among the cobwebs and ghosts. Then, after that first unexplained evening, they return to the habit of delivering our trays of food to the parlor, like they have since our parents died.
Tonight I will put up my hair like a lady and walk down the staircase with him. We will play make-believe. Tonight will be special.
The clock in the hallway chimes and startles me.
Roderick should be here already.
Cassandra follows me, swatting pieces of heavy mahogany furniture with her tail.
I tell myself there is no reason to worry. Roderick has probably set out late.
I lead Cassandra through the unused rooms at the front of the house to the arched entranceway. A ceiling beam is lying on the floor, splintered into a million pieces. Cassandra sniffs it and whines, nudging me forward.
Over the years, the causeway has shifted. It used to lead to the drawbridge, another affectation of the crazy Ushers. The rusting chains that held the door still hang, thicker than my arm, along with the remains of the pulleys. New stonework was put in, halfheartedly, to replace that larger door.
Roderick generally enters through a side door the servants use for bringing in food and supplies. But today is special, and his arrival should be grander.
I touch the ancient drawbridge. The planks stain my hands black. I force the door open, using my shoulder and all of my weight. Though smaller than the original, it is still twice as tall as me, and wide enough to allow multiple horses through. To my left is a stabling area where the black coach is housed, as well as Roderick’s white horses. I have never been allowed to ride. It’s too dangerous if a fit comes on.
The door opens with a hideous and painful screech, and Cassandra and I walk outside into late-afternoon sunlight. When the drawbridge was taken down, the causeway was extended.
The smell from the tarn hits me when I step outside, gagging me. It’s only the smell of water, I tell myself. Fetid water, but still, it shouldn’t affect me so strongly. Cassandra and I make our way across the causeway. Halfway across, the combination of bright sunlight and the smell forces me to my knees. With my hands pressed to my stomach, I close my eyes and try to stay calm. This is not a safe place for a fit.
I stare into the water, willing myself to be well. Either I will go back and wait for Roderick in the house, or I will cross the causeway and wait for him in the shade of the white trees. I cannot stay here.
The water is dark, tinged with gray. It reflects the sunlight rather than absorbing it. As I stare into it, I see something looking back at me. Eyes. Great empty eyes. It’s something ancient and monstrous, something I’ve never even dreamed of. I look away, pretending to have seen nothing. The water, that lusterless water that doesn’t move even in the worst of storms, ripples once and then composes itself, once again a mirror reflecting the house.
Looking forward, I take in the blighted forest, a series of dead white trees, standing until the next storm knocks more down. It stretches for miles and miles surrounding our property.
The causeway is paved with flat stones, but the earth underneath has settled, and the walkway is uneven. I tread carefully. Cassandra follows me, her fur bristling.
As I walk, the path seems to extend and stretch forever. Longer than it was when I took my first step. The tarn remains unruffled at the surface, but I can hear, all around me, the sound of slithering.
A vision hits me harder than any hyperesthetic spell I’ve ever suffered. I’ve been pulled in to Roderick’s mind. He’s riding, and something has spooked his horse. I can feel the movement, feel Roderick frantically holding on. I hear his laughter, quick and high-pitched; he’s enjoying this, and yet terrified. And then he’s flying forward, and I, on my knees, am falling with him. I fall without even the presence of mind to stretch out my arms to catch myself. Not that I could catch myself, because I’m not going to land on solid earth.
I plunge into the tarn, and sink farther under water than I’ve ever been. I don’t move, frozen by surprise and fear. I’ve lived here my entire life and never touched this fetid water. It burns my skin, acidic. It flows into my nostrils, seeks entrance to my mouth, pushing and pushing. It moves, oily, over me.
I twist my neck, looking in the direction that I think is up, and there is light coming through the gloom. I should be struggling, but my dress is so wet and so heavy, and I’m sinking deeper and deeper into a complacent bed of silt.
Images flash before my eyes: Roderick on horseback, approaching the house; the doctors, cursing the loss of my body as a specimen for their experiments; Cassandra, howling over and over, long, mournful cries as if her heart is breaking. Cassandra’s grief finally shakes me from my apathy, and I thrash my arms.
Something wraps itself around my ankle. A seaweed or fungus, perhaps? It twines, silky smooth, up my leg, and as I attempt to propel myself, the hold tightens. The water shimmers around me as I fight my way to the surface, and my wet dress clings to my legs, so very heavy, but I ignore the weight; if I think about it, if I let the horror sink in, I’ll never reach the surface. Something is living, something lives in the tarn, and it is here with me now, and it wants me.
“Madeline, Madeline!” Someone—Roderick—is yelling my name.
I break through the surface, the shore only feet away; it is barren and rocky. The water is too foul for anything to grow near it. It is oily on my skin. I fight toward the shore, but then the thing wrapped around my ankle yanks me back toward the center of the tarn. I try to cry out but choke on a mouthful of bitterness as I’m pulled under.
I feel rather than see the splash as Cassandra jumps in, and I twist toward her, struggling with direction. Everything in the water feels distorted, wrong. But Cassandra finds me; she is warm and strong. I wrap my arms around her as she pulls me to the surface. Even this foulness does not lessen the warmth, the comfort of her body in my arms.
I try to kick, fighting again with my skirts and the thing that still has hold of my ankle. It twines around and around both of my legs, spiraling to my waist. Half immobilized, my only chance is Cassandra. She struggles, yanking me back.
I gasp for one breath before I am pulled under again. Whatever has hold of me is soft and pliable. My hands move through it, yet it is alive . . . it wants to devour me.
It slithers over my skin, and I know this is what fouls the water.
I try to keep my eyes open, but the water burns, and I can’t see anything, and I’m choking.
And then Cassandra is pressed against me again. She can’t bite the creature, because it is so gelatinous. She twists away from me and dives directly into the mass of the creature.
For a moment the pressure eases and I’m able to kick again, and I lash out with my arms and legs, trying to disengage, trying to find my way. Where is the surface?
There’s one more slither over my torso, one more attempt by the creature to hold me, and then I’m free and doing my best to swim.
I fight my way back to sunlight and heave myself onto the side of the tarn. Roderick is there, grabbing me, holding me.
“Madeline, Madeline, Madeline,” he says over and over. I dry my eyes on his tunic and turn back to the tarn.
Cassandra surges up out of the water once, and I dive toward her, but Roderick won’t let me go.
“You aren’t going back in there,” he says.
I turn on him, hitting him with my fists, twisting away from him, but my dress is soaked and heavy with water and slime, and he’s too strong.
Cassandra doesn’t come to the surface again.
The servants watch us through the windows.
Roderick takes off his coat and wraps it around my shoulders.
“I saw you falling,” I whisper, because my throat is on fire. Will I die from all the foul water I swallowed? My lips are swollen and bleeding.
“I fell from my horse, an accident. If I’d gotten here earlier—” His voice breaks. He rubs my shoulders, strokes my hair.
“Cassandra?”
“She’s gone, Madeline.”
I shudder. “She saved me. I should have saved her, at least tried . . .”
“You were in no shape to save anything. Cassandra . . . she sacrificed herself to save you.”
Sacrifice.
I taste the word. It is as terrible as the stinking water that is running down my back.
68
MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN
They serve our birthday dinner in the dining room. Roderick complains the beef is too rare. I take a few sips of broth to appease him.
“I’m only here for three nights,” he says. “As always, I had to get special permission to leave school for your birthday.”
Our birthday. I sit across from him, wearing my black dress and the ruby necklace. It was his birthday gift, after all. One of the smaller rubies is missing. My neck is raw and scraped to bleeding from a jagged place, a bit of gold that has come loose. Roderick doesn’t notice.
An evil thought occurs to me, creeps into my mind and won’t go away. How long did Roderick stand at the edge of the tarn, watching me? Was he too afraid to intervene? Could he have done more?
I try to force the questions away, but they creep back in.
I can’t cry.
Everywhere, my skin is red and raw, with raised red bumps. As I dressed for dinner, a clump of my hair fell out. The penalty for letting the water of the tarn touch my skin. Roderick’s hands are blistered where he pulled me from the water. And held me against my will.
“I am sorry, Madeline. I know you loved that dog,” Roderick says, but he does not sound sorry enough.
He was jealous of my love for Cassandra, and now she is gone. But his friend, the one who he cares about so deeply, is still very much alive. Luring Roderick away from the house, and keeping him from truly seeing what is happening here.
69
MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN
Roderick wants some sort of fanfare because he’s here. But I don’t have the energy. He only spent one night, instead of the three he had planned, and now he’s saddling his horse, as if he can’t wait to get away. He mutters something about spending some time out of doors, shooting and riding, and that he’ll return to see that I’m well before he goes back to school, but I’m not sure what he means. With Cassandra gone, how could I ever be well? And by the time I turn to ask him, he’s already gone.
I had hoped for so many things with this visit, and this birthday. Not least of all, I wanted to try to make him understand how dangerous the situation is, here in the house.
I thought that we would find the right time together, that he would be focused on me for once, and he would really listen, perhaps find it in his heart to believe a bit. . . . But he saw what happened in the tarn. He had to see something, but he won’t accept it.
The hooves of Roderick’s horse clatter as he crosses the causeway. I am alone.
The house is isolating me.
I pace beside the tarn. I throw stones into it. I walk the entire periphery of that sullen, motionless body of water. Someone, perhaps Father, once told me that the depth of the tarn is exactly the same as the height of the house. Things like that used to interest me.
The water is serene and still. Unruffled. There is no indication that anything lives beneath the surface. And there has been no sign of a dog’s drowned body. Cassandra is gone. Her absence is ever-present, doubling me over with the agony of loss.
A part of me wants to fight, but then the hopelessness takes over. Standing beside the tarn, the house looms over me. The great trees surrounding the property cast twisted shadows. I am so small, one Usher in an unending line, all captives of the house. How can I fight? I’ve lost Cassandra. The young doctor stepped away from me, after the kiss in my bedchamber when the house made its intentions clear. He’s afraid, and I don’t blame him.
The only thing the house didn’t take was Roderick. He just left. He turned and rode away.
70
MADELINE IS SEVENTEEN
Roderick is on the property. I saw him through the window, prowling along the distant tree line. It could have been anyone, except for the silvery-blond hair. And of course I’d know him anywhere. So he must be riding and shooting on the nearby moors. I take a dark cloak from his closet, one that belonged to Father.
I only go outside to walk the grounds and work in my garden, and I have only rarely left the shadow of the house, even with Cassandra at my side. At the edge of the Usher land is a platform where the coach stops once a day. The servants use it when they visit their families or go to the nearest village, and the doctors have equipment delivered by coach. I’ve been there once before, or else dreamed that I was there.
Roderick was walking in that direction, though I’m not sure why he was walking. When he left, he was riding, so he has his horse somewhere on the property.
I stop in the hallway, not afraid, just gathering my strength.
The chambermaids are in the left parlor talking about me, and I let their gossip distract me from my uneasiness.
“Poor girl,” one of them says.
“It’s creepy, if you ask me.” The other girl sneezes from the dust. “Whenever I see her, I think she’s a ghost.”
“The doctors scare me worse than hearing ghosts.”
“Not me. Nothing scares me worse than ghosts. And this house is full of spooks. Look at that, have you ever seen paneling just crumble away like that?”
“Termites?”
“Nah, they won’t come here, any more than mice. Just spiders and rats in the House of Usher.”
I wrap Father’s dark cloak around my shoulders and stare down the hall, past the room where they are chattering. Their voices fade. The doorway is a frame. The sun is shining on the other side. I can step through to a different world.
I put one foot gingerly in front of the other, as I travel from the shadow of the house to the edge of the trees.
A river of sludge runs through the forest, not quite a stream, more seeping mud with a bit of flowing water. I step over it carefully and keep going. I can see the sunlight through the trees up ahead. A forest of saplings has grown up in the space between the lawn and the mighty trees that line the periphery of the Usher estate.
The air feels different here; it is more difficult for me to breathe.
This is what it was like when Father took me away. I think. The memories are jumbled. Sometimes it seems that we were gone for weeks, living in a rented room by the sea. That Father hired a lady to care for me.
Looking back, I am far enough to see the entirety of the house, the multilayered roof, the additions, the tower that should be lovely to the eyes but only serves to highlight the ungainliness of the rest of the house, crouching over the tarn. I’m too numb for the horror of it to have much effect on me. This way leads to Roderick, I tell myself—but suddenly I am afraid.
I pick my way through the trees, though the saplings and other undergrowth make going slow. A natural barrier hemming in the Usher land. I’m surprised when I get through the trees and feel the warmth of the sun. Ahead of me is the long platform where servants and visitors meet the carriage.
Roderick and his hateful friend are standing on the platform. I study them from the shadow of the forest.
The other boy is perhaps a year older than us. He is tall, bu
t not so tall as my brother, and he looks sturdy and strong. It is Roderick’s roommate. Roderick has spoken of him so often that I dreamed of him once, and I’ve seen him through Roderick’s eyes. I have despised this unknown boy for years. But as he laughs, my hatred evaporates.
I admire his easy demeanor and his smile that is not tainted by ghosts and mystery. He is . . . refreshing, like a summer wind that blows away cobwebs and disease. With an unexpected burst of emotion, I discover that I would like to be the one whose company he enjoys. I feel as if an abyss is opening at my feet. Of course Roderick chose this strange boy over me.
The sickly spring sun bounces off Roderick’s dark glasses. He wears them to avoid headaches from the sun. Before he disappeared from our lives, Father could not even endure candlelight.
Roderick’s horse neighs and stamps, and Roderick soothes it. I realize that the one he’s brought isn’t the horse he usually takes to school. His friend is obviously waiting for the coach, and Roderick must be going back to the house, at least to swap out horses, perhaps to rest a night before he officially goes back to school.
Walking back across the platform, Roderick trips over a loose board. He catches himself, awkwardly, and his friend throws back his head, and I see his white teeth flash and his eyes crinkle.
If it had been me mocking his clumsiness, Roderick would have turned surly, but not so with this friend. They clasp hands, in the way that boys do, and clap each other on the back. For a moment I think that they are going to embrace.
Then, unexpectedly enough to make me gasp, Roderick claps his friend on the back once again, and swings up into the saddle.
He’s riding back toward the house and will expect me to be there. If I ran . . . I could take the more direct path through the woods and beat him. But I don’t.
Roderick’s friend paces across the platform, full of energy. His vitality is mesmerizing. I take a step toward him, pulled in by something that I can’t explain, and he sees me.
“Hello?” he calls.
My heart stops. I edge closer to the platform.
The Fall Page 11
