Authors: Bethany Griffin
He takes my hand to help me up, and we walk to an area a bit away from the house, where grass actually grows. The dead forest is behind us, but here a few brave saplings have put down roots, and springy moss carpets the ground.
He spreads a blanket, decorated with great yellow-and-orange flowers, over the earth and gestures for me to sit. I tell myself not to trust him, that I can't trust anyone, but I will listen to what he has to say.
“I know how you love flowers,” he says.
He puts the hamper between us. We are beneath a ridge of earth, a mound, where something might have been buried long ago, but it's been disturbed by the most recent earthquakes.
Above us, the earth juts out, and the roots of one of the saplings are exposed. We are not far from the area where we found Cassandra, when she was stuck within the earth. I don't say anything about it. It hurts to speak of her.
“This place is so odd,” he says. “What do you think was buried there? Why do you think the grass only grows here? Fascinating.” He is always saying this about every aspect of the house. The house mesmerizes him. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. In his mind, how completely am I connected to the house? Can he separate the things that fascinate him? In the time that he's been here, he's changed.
He reaches up and touches an exposed root.
The hillside is scarred, a long, jagged line, raised above the earth, partially hidden by the shadow of the house.
“The servants say that this crack is a fissure between the land of the living and the land of the dead,” he says.
The Usher land is prone to earthquakes. Sometimes, at night, mist rises all about the house, from fissures in the earth. But at this moment, the sunlight is warm and soothing.
“The servants are overly superstitious,” I reply.
He hands me a goblet filled with wine and gestures for me to drink. I am supposed to drink red wine every day, to fortify me for the weekly blood-letting sessions.
Before I lost Cassandra, before our ill-fated kiss, he whispered about understanding me. About hearing the house. Can I trust him, even a tiny bit?
T
here is a commotion at the front of the house, and for a brief moment I hope that Roderick has returned, but it is not him. It is a hired carriage with a distraught young woman.
The servants step back, allowing me to approach her.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she says. “I thought this house was abandoned. I thought . . . well, it was silly.” She puts her hand on my arm and says in a conspiratorial whisper, “I thought it was a haunted house.”
A shiver passes through me.
Dr. Winston comes out the door, and we share a look across the courtyard. Then he frowns as the girl sees him. “Victor!” she cries, and throws herself into his arms. He looks, for a moment, as if he will drop her. But instead he stands holding her awkwardly, as if he doesn't know what to do as she laughs and cries in his arms.
I take two steps back up the staircase.
“Miss Usher.” He looks up at me. “This is Miss Emily Burnett, a friend of mine. I hope you won't mind if she stays the night. It's getting dark. . . .”
“Of course not,” I say.
The girl regards me with a half smile, as if reconsidering her friendliness. But I liked her smile and her openness when she put her hand on my arm. No one here is open. We guard our thoughts and feelings as if they are treasure, precious and likely to be stolen away at any time.
She looks like the city, with her black-heeled boots and her red coat with black trim. She wears a small black hat at a jaunty angle, accenting her sharp blue eyes, and a fur muff that hangs from a string around her neck. What life does she live? What cold does she hide her hands from?
The older doctors shake their heads from the top of the stairs.
They have the power to send Dr. Winston away. Even the servants defer to Dr. Peridue, as if he is master of the house. He has an aristocratic manner, bossy and self-assured, and he has lived here the longest, though he is in such poor health. His hair is coming out in clumps, and his teeth are yellow. Dr. Paul will probably take control soon.
But I am mistress of this house, whatever they think. I sweep over to the stairs and nod to one of the maids. “Tell the cook to be sure supper is sent up to our guest. Put her in one of the guest rooms on the main floor.” I'd rather she sleep closer to me than to the young, handsome doctor.
I retire upstairs, and then try one of my childhood tricks, slipping down a back stairway to listen to them talk.
“You've been here for an eternity, Victor. Isn't it time to move on?” she says to him. “You could set up your own practice,” she suggests. “We could get married.”
Married, move on? I grip the bannister. And leave me with just the old doctors, with no one who understands my plight? Though perhaps it would be best for him to leave. The house has been affecting him.
“I'm living with no expenses here. I will force these old fools to publish their findings. People love to read about ancient families, about curses and eccentricities. The others won't live long enough to enjoy the profit, but I will. We will.”
“It's so dismal here. I can't believe you want to stay.”
“It's no darker than a country house in January.”
“This is September, Victor. It isn't supposed to be this dark in September.”
I don't like the way she says his name.
“Once I'm rich, we can leave here, and I can pay my debts and live the way I wish to live.”
“I was happy when you said you wanted to be a country doctor.”
Her voice is full of longing. She loves him.
“I will never get a chance like this again, to study such a strange illness, an ancient family. I can't leave.”
“But this placeâ”
“Did you see her? She's so fascinating, and the house. No, I can't leave. Not yet.”
But perhaps he can be talked into leaving, particularly if his patient is prepared to go with him.
77
F
ROM THE
D
IARY OF
L
ISBETH
U
SHER
I
cannot leave her. Mr. Usher's sister. I can walk away from my own sister, giddy with plans to usurp me and marry the master of the house, intent on ignoring the horror of the curse.
I visit her every day but only just learned her name. Madeline. My sister laughed; he told her the name when he wouldn't tell me. As if this is some sort of victory. “Perhaps I'll name my first child after her,” she said through her laughter.
I have failed. My younger sister has become a monster. And the girl who is called a monster, the one chained in the attics? I cannot leave her behind.
Tonight. I've packed a small bag and stolen the key from the gold chain. We will go tonight.
M
iss Burnett sits with me in the parlor. She didn't come down for breakfast, so the servants have brought a selection of tea cakes and desserts, which she is nibbling upon. The maids huddle in the doorway, watching us, until I wave my hand and they disperse back to their duties.
“It must be odd to have three physicians watching over you night and day,” Miss Burnett says. “It must make you feel very special.”
Or very sick, I think. But I don't say it. I have never had a female friend, and it's nice that she seems so genuinely interested in me and my life.
“If Victor is determined to stay here, then maybe I will too. He says . . . he has suggested . . .” She looks down at her boots. For a girl who barged into an old mansion, she seems hesitant. “That you might like to learn, like your brother. Victor says you didn't go to school, and since I have no offers of marriage, I'm going to have to earn my way. Teaching children. I could practice. You could tell me if you already know what I'm teaching, and if I'm doing a good job.”
I want very much to be intelligent and educated like she is, like Roderick. But what I must learn about is this place, and myself. Father couldn't take me away, but Roderick comes and goes at will. What is the difference? Why do I hear the house, why have I always heard it, when Roderick does not?
“Miss Usher could only have very short lessons,” Dr. Winston says from the doorway. “I don't want her to be overtired.”
“You can stay as long as you want,” I say, ignoring Dr. Winston's sudden bossiness. Still, the offer makes me feel shy. I'm not used to making decisions that affect other people. “And I would be happy for you to practice teaching, Miss Burnett. There are so many things that I don't know.”
“That's wonderful,” she says. “But please call me Emily.”
We smile at each other. Sunlight streams through the window behind me. She reaches out to touch my hair.
“It's so beautiful,” she comments. “I don't think I've ever seen hair exactly that color. Maybe on a very young child.” She picks up a tea cake and nibbles on it. “This is a very interesting house. We must be friends, I insist on it.”
She smiles easily, and I envy her worldly manner. Perhaps we could be friends. Perhaps.
T
wo maids stand together at the base of the stairway, whispering. When I enter the room, one of them giggles loudly, covering her mouth with her hand. Arm in arm, they scamper away. I turn to Emily. Is that how friends behave?
She seems to think so, because she steps near, wanting me to share confidences.
“It must be so delightful to have a brother,” she muses. “Are any of his friends handsome?”
“Oh, yes,” I say, but of course she knows. She's teasing me. Roderick's friend is her relative, a cousin. She knows him much better than I do.
“Who are you thinking of?” Her voice goes low, and her eyes are bright and inquisitive.
I'm too surprised by her curiosity to answer.
“Tell me! Your eyes went soft and your cheeks so pink . . . you're in love!”
“No,” I say. “No.” I don't even know what love feels like. But she won't leave it alone.
“This is so exciting!”
“What's exciting?”
We both jump. Dr. Winston has crept up behind us. Emily pours him a cup of tea. He's still waiting for an answer, but she doesn't tell him. Maybe I was right to trust her with this.
She puts her hand on his arm and smiles up into his eyes.
“I think Madeline is in love.”
“That can't be true,” he says. Then he gives me an evil smile. “I won't believe that Madeline is in love.”
“Look at her, she's blushing.”
I sit stiffly. She keeps touching him, drawing his attention to her. I could never be so flirtatious.
“I've found that when you are in love, you cannot stop thinking about the other person. You can't live without them. You believe their happiness is more important than your own. Is that how you feel, Madeline?” Dr. Winston asks.
I consider this carefully and then shake my head.
“Then perhaps you should find someone else. Maybe he isn't worthy of your devotion.”
“There isn't anyone else,” I say. “But just because you love someone, it doesn't mean you can't say no to them.”
“Or yes to someone else.”
The way he's looking at me makes me nervous.
“You two are so serious all of a sudden.” Emily laughs. I turn back to her, this girl who has offered me something I've never had before. Friendship.
Deep within the house, I feel something rumble.
I
'm exploring, looking for something interesting to show Roderick when he returns from school. A suit of armor stands beside the stairway that leads directly upstairs from the corridor where our bedrooms are located. There's a groove in the balustrade. I run my fingers over it, and then look up at the battle-ax that the armor is holding. The size of the indention looks to be the same size as the blade, as if it might have slipped from the metal gauntlets. A frightening thought.
I consider pushing the armor back, to allow for a safer space, but something keeps me from touching it. My gold pocket watch ticks away the time, hanging from a ribbon that I threaded around my wrist.
A dark rug runs up the center of the stairway. Some steps are more worn than others. Maybe the last Ushers who used this staircase regularly skipped certain steps, the way Roderick and I always do on the stairs leading to our chambers. This thought makes me feel less afraid, closer to Roderick.
I peer around the corner and see that this hallway is not so much different than my own. Dark woodwork, brooding oil paintings, a few tattered curtains covering the windows at the far end of the passage. I'm only one floor above my parents' rooms, but it feels very far away. Isolated.
The first room is empty. Was it a bedchamber? A sitting room? Impossible to tell. There is a door within the room, so I leave the hallway and open it, peering through the gloom.
Another room and another inner door. Five rooms into the labyrinth of interconnected rooms, fear seeps into me through the bare floor, and I come to a door that is closed. The light from the few windows is nothing more than a memory, and I'm glad I have a candle.
My explorations have already taken me far from my usual path, and I am getting tired. Almost certainly one of the servants has left a platter in my room, broth, perhaps. My stomach rumbles.
I push myself forward. One more room. Maybe there will be something interesting inside that I can show Roderick when he returns.
The door creaks open a few inches and then stops. It's gray inside, rather than pitch black, so there must be a window. I push aside a stack of books and walk over the threshold, into a room filled with books.