Authors: Bethany Griffin
“Roderick . . .”
“Houses cannot feel things. It is not a malignant beast; it's an old house that needs repair.”
“And if I don't agree, will you kill me?”
He drags me in front of him, keeping the knife pressed to my throat and the other arm around my waist. He's over a head taller than me now. We are close together. I am acutely aware of the blood pumping through my veins, and aware that I am no longer afraid. We are two halves of a whole. He would never hurt me.
In a blur, everything changes.
The wood floor shifts under our feet and we fall, both of us. The knife clatters against the flagstones, and blood drips after it.
“Madeline.” Roderick looks stricken as I put a hand to my neck. He pulls me onto his lap and examines the cut. “I'm sorry, so sorry, you know I would never hurt you. I tripped,” he whispers.
I'm lying in Roderick's arms. The knife is on the floor, and I see blood on his white shirt, but I feel nothing. The house wanted this, but I don't know why.
“The house isn't haunted,” he says. “But I am.”
S
hadows swirl around me and Roderick, as if my room were full of candles, all of them casting light and shadow on the wall. But we have no candles. Roderick pulls my blankets to his chin.
“Tell me a story,” he whispers.
I reach out into the atmosphere and grab the first one that I can. It isn't pretty.
“Once there were three ancient families who lived on an inlet. All were noble families with castles, and they became rich by stopping ships and making them pay a toll. But eventually other shipping routes opened, and the families were forced to gain sustenance from the land.
“The land was barren and rocky, and could not provide for three families.
“So one lord of the straits, Archibald Usher, invited the others to a feast, and as they sat at his table, he slaughtered them, one by one. He gave them poison that immobilized them. Then he caught a drop of blood from each of them, in a great gold goblet, and drank it, like the lords did in those days, tying his health to the prosperity of the land.
“But before he reached the last of his former friends, she used her final moments to curse him. She cursed him with a short tragic life, with a line that would never enjoy the spoils of his crimes, and with never being able to leave his castle for any extended time, so that he would never enjoy the homes of his slaughtered friends.
“In the end, he drank her blood, as well as the blood of her children, and he sealed his fate.”
Roderick and I consider each other from our opposite sides of the bed.
“Was that true?” Roderick asks.
“I don't know.” This simple, small question, this suggestion that he might be willing to believe, is enough to make me happy. And the fearfulness of the tale lifts for a few minutes, until I fall asleep and dream of murdered children.
T
he knife
was
poisoned. Not by Roderick, but by some long-ago Usher, or the enemy of some long-ago Usher. Around me, the house tremors and convulses, shaking so violently that I'm afraid the ancient stones are going to crumble. As I lie in bed, the house overwhelms me, its emotions different than they have been since I was a childâbolstering, supportive. Despite the attacks and my growing fears, it doesn't want to lose me. And I don't want to die, so we are in agreement.
Several of the maids give notice. Madmen in the attics followed by earthquakes are too much for the faint of heart. It was best for Roderick to go, both because of his fears and because the house is wroth with him. And perhaps because I'm too afraid to test our bond. What if I had asked him to stay, after he nearly killed me, and he still walked away?
Dr. Winston sits beside my bed every day. He holds my hand while the doctors cleanse my blood by pumping out the old and purifying it and then putting it back into me. It goes in cold, making me shudder.
“You can return to your garden soon,” Dr. Winston tells me. Spring is passing quickly. Cassandra thumps her tail on the floor, and I resolve to get out of bed soon. To be strong for her, and for myself.
47
F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
L
ISBETH
U
SHER
I
knew this day would come. Mr. Usher has proposed marriage to me. He isn't young, being several years older than Honoria was at her death, maybe twenty-five, but many girls marry men who are older.
I'm afraid because if I marry him, I attach myself to this place and this curse forever. But we have agreed to help each other break the curse. We sit in the library, reading and reading. Accounts of the history of the family and the house. Snippets of information about horrible ancestors, murderers, plague, and of course, the curse. Most upsetting is the story of Archibald Usher, who built the house, and whose battle-ax hangs over the entranceway. According to the legend, he used a great gold goblet to catch the blood of his victims.
We search the dusty shelves of the library. Together. He touches my shoulder sometimes, touches my hand as I turn the pages of the book. He is gentle and kind.
If we were married, then perhaps I would not be so frightened at night, when the house seems more powerful and the curse wraps itself around me and caresses me before it strangles me.
I distract myself with stories of the past. Sneaking down to the secret places below the house. Mr. Usher does not approve. He wants to avoid the darkest places, but I know we can't ignore the crypt. The curse originated on those very foundation stones. Our ancestors walked here. When I go into the vault, all the history of the House of Usher presses down on me, filling me with power to face the future.
“M
adeline,” Dr. Winston says, pressing a packet of crushed herbs into my hand. I'm supposed to empty the packet into my tea to help me sleep. “Meet me in the hall of portraits. In an hour. When I'm done mixing and measuring medicines for the other doctors.”
His voice is much warmer than when he talks to the older doctors. With them he is cold and detached. With me, he is . . . attentive.
I wait in the hallway, so I don't lose track of time. Some hours, like the ones in the middle of the night, seem to last forever, while others flow so quickly there seems to be no interval between meals, no time between sunrise and sunset.
How will the house react to meeting him here, away from the doctors' tower and all of their clicking, clanking machinery? In my bedchamber, he won't allow his eyes to linger on me like he did when he asked me to meet him.
“I
t's daytime, isn't it?” I ask the housekeeper, peering out the door into the semidarkness. Cassandra pulls me toward the door and whines.
I know it is midmorning, but there is no evidence that the sun still exists, and the landscape is mottled with clumps of fog. I look to the housekeeper, seeking her advice. Should I let Cassandra go out into this midday twilight?
“When the fog is this thick, you can get lost in it, and wander into another world,” she warns.
Would another world be better or worse than this one?
Then she is back to her duties, ignoring me. None of the servants wish to hear me speak, but the housekeeper is particularly superstitious. I've heard the whispers. She believes I am ill luck incarnate, which is why she won't meet my eyes. The servants think the curse revolves around me, not the house. They fear my misfortune will somehow rub off on them, that my very presence in the same room could destroy whatever good fortune they've got left. And if they live here, they aren't very fortunate.
Gathering my nerve, I pull the door open, and Cassandra bounds outside. I named her after a doomed prophetess that Roderick told me about, an ignored twin, left behind, who could see the future.
Cassandra's been pent up inside for too long, and she leaps into a run, bypassing the garden. I take a few tentative steps away from the house. For a moment she's ambling along, and then she's gone, through a patch of mist . . . to nothing. I cry out and follow, but the cold hits me in the face. It's cold even for February, and as I try to catch my breath, I catch sight of a shape in the mist. I step forward, straining my eyes, and then I see a creature, partially obscured by the fog. I can't tell what it is; the mist is too thick.
At a bark from behind me, I turn, relieved to see Cassandra bounding toward me.
The housekeeper is standing in the doorway, holding a lantern up above her head. The lantern is losing its battle with this unnatural darkness, but it illuminates the harsh stone of the house above her, smooth except for one great fissure.
A wide crack starts at the kitchen doorway and goes upward, but it's impossible to guess how far in this gloom. A fit of trembling overtakes me. My breath comes short and pained, as if this damage to the house is my own injury.
Cassandra whines, and I look at her. She ambles toward me, and something about her is different. Her eyes have changed. They are no longer puppy eyes, but instead golden and wolflike.
I step back. I don't know how I know, but Cassandra is part of this place. Then she puts her nose into my hand and makes a snuffling sound. It's something she has always done, and I kneel so that I can put my arms around her. Still, I don't look directly into her eyes, because I'm afraid of what I might see.
We walk into the kitchen. The housekeeper is back at work. The lantern, still lit, sits on the table.
“Should've gotten yourself a cat,” she says. “Not an oversized devil dog.”
I
pace the portrait hallway, tired of waiting for Dr. Winston to join me.
“Madeline!” He bounds down the stairs. “I thought you could take me on a tour of the house.”
I return his smile. The house is oddly silent, no creaking or groaning. I can't tell what it thinks of this idea.
“It's all so fascinating isn't it?” He gestures to the portraits lining the hall. “It must be amazing to be part of such an old family, so much history. . . .”
Some silly part of me wishes that he would look at me with the same attention he is giving to these Ushers, long dead and gone.
“I've heard the servants speak of the vault,” he says. “Do you think we could go there?”
“I don't have the keys,” I say, which is not a lie. The keys are in Roderick's room. I'm not supposed to use them. And the vault is only for family. I still shudder remembering how Roderick closed himself into the coffin and Father had to let him out. I would prefer to take Dr. Winston to the library or one of the formal parlors.
From off in my bedroom, Cassandra howls. She's probably scratching at the door, frightening the servants.
“I should go get her before she breaks something,” I say.
Dr. Winston falls into step beside me. “Such a large dog,” he says. “And an unusual breed. Wherever did you find her?”
I smile to myself and say nothing. He wouldn't believe me, even if I told him.
T
oday is Christmas Day, and I am utterly and completely alone. Mother and Father are gone. Roderick is visiting the home of his school friend. He writes that he will come home before the new year, and we can celebrate together. The servants hung mistletoe in the main hall. It withered and died before morning. They replaced it a few times and then gave up. It is an unusually cold winter.
My eyes are dry; there is no point in pitying myself. I am alive; there is hope.
Dr. Paul came to my room to take some blood before he and Dr. Peridue left for the city, where they will visit pubs and make merry.
Even though it makes me feel more alone, I am glad that they are gone.
I sit in the study where my father used to try to write letters. Stirring the last embers of the fire, I hear something through the wall. A muffled snuffling.
I go still, trying to contain all of my own sounds, even my breath. What could it be? I slip to the door. Should I summon a servant? I know the sounds of the house, even the terribly strange ones, but this is unfamiliar. Cowering in the doorway, I prepare to run.
Laughter floats up from downstairs. The servants are drinking wine from the wine cellar. There is no one to stop them. No deterrent except their own fear. Last year one of them went down for a cask of something and was locked in. No one realized he was gone for nearly a week. Since then, they've been terrified of the cellars. As they should be. Though not enough to keep them from their holiday merriment, it seems.
A low cry raises the hairs at the nape of my neck. It's a harsh sound, like something frightened, something in pain. I step gingerly back into the room, running my hands over the wall. The scratching from within is only growing louder. I hurry back to the hallway and enter the next room, thinking perhaps someone is on the other side of the wall, playing some trick on me.
It is empty. But the scratching and snuffling and crying from within the wall is getting more insistent.
I pick up the poker that lies before the fireplace, and hold it, balancing the weight of it across my hands. Another cry. I prod the wall with the poker. It is paneled, but like most of the wood in the house, it is rotting. I punch a hole in the wall, and then another. There is a sharp yelp.
Pulling at the paneling, I'm careful not to put my hand completely inside. If the sounds are coming from a mouse or a rat, I don't want to inadvertently touch it. But a rat would not make those sounds, ones that make my heart contract with fear that an animal might be in pain.