Authors: Bethany Griffin
It isn't a library, exactly. In the Usher library, the shelves are so high that a ladder is required to reach the ones on the top. This room has no shelves.
This is just a room filled with heaps and heaps of books.
I walk through, coughing a bit, running my hands over the covers.
The only piece of furniture in the room is a dainty writing desk with carved legs, roses and serpents carved onto every surface. In some places, the books are stacked from floor to ceiling. The desk stands before the window, and light from outside illumines the thickness of the air in here. My lungs feel like they've been roasted.
The surface of the desk is covered with scraps of parchment. I read the first.
I love you.
I've seen one exactly like this before, down to the ornate L in love. I pick up another.
I know you.
A third slip of paper also says
I love you.
The next one:
I watch you.
Dozens of scraps of parchment are scattered over the desk.
I love you, I know you, I need you.
Out of all of the scraps, only one says
I watch you.
“W
hat should we do today?” Emily asks. I sit on her trunk and watch while she arranges her hair with pins. “The days here tend to run together, don't they? It's because the sun never really comes out from behind the clouds, I think.”
I'm not sure what to suggest to entertain her. What would she find amusing?
“What do you usually do for fun?” I ask.
“We went visiting, mostly. Where I grew up, there were several families that had manors. Victor, Dr. Winston, lived a few miles from my cousin's house, where I grew up. We would visit for tea parties, picnics, things like that.”
A spider runs across the vanity table, and she grimaces. “My cousin goes to school with your brother. In fact, that's where Victor heard about you.”
“Heard about me?”
“Your brother was visiting my cousin on one of their school holidays, and he mentioned this house and the doctors who lived here. After that, Victor wanted to do his apprenticeship here. He's very interested in this sort of thing; he wants so much to cure you. And he loves old houses.”
She shares the same vitality as Roderick's friend. His friendliness. As though she is a small ray of sunshine breaking through the house's gloom.
“This is a very unique house, isn't it?” She pats her hair one last time and turns away from the mirror.
“Oh, yes.” It is so strange for a new person to be here. “Would you like a tour?”
“A tour of the house?” she asks breathlessly. “I would adore that. I've been exploring a bit on my own.” She takes a final look at her reflection in the mirror, then picks up her white gloves and puts them on. It upsets her when patches of dust appear on her clothing, or when the lace at the cuffs of her dresses deteriorates during the night.
“Yesterday I went to the chapel. It's quite lovely, though the woodwork is simply falling to pieces. The stained-glass windows are glorious. I was walking around to the back, and I found what appeared to be a priest's hole. Only, as far as I know, the house is altogether too new, built too recently for that sort of thing. And priests were never persecuted here.”
I smooth my skirts and stand up, unwilling to show my ignorance by asking what she means.
“And there was a drawbridge at one time, wasn't there? Is it possible that this house was moved here, from someplace else? Someplace older?”
Yes. Roderick and I read about it in one of the old books. The books that she could read. I could ask for her help. Would she want to read about the house? To help me discover the secrets. How long would we have until the house realizes what we are doing and tries to stop us?
I think of my mad grandmother, abandoning Father and his sister, writing all those messages.
I love you. I need you. I watch you.
I don't believe the house loves any of us, but I know it watches.
F
ather finds me lying on the book-covered floor, crying. I don't know how long I've been here. He picks me up, murmurs my name.
“Didn't your mother tell you not to come up here?” he asks.
There are so many places that I'm not allowed to go.
The pain is terrible. I want him to put me to bed. Why does my head throb so violently?
“Madeline?”
“Why won't the letters stay still?” I ask him in a whisper. “I look at them, and they move . . .”
“Do they? Were you trying to read? Ah, my poor little girl. It's part of the Usher curse. My mother also had difficulty reading. This was her room.”
He holds me in his lap, on the floor in front of the desk. I show him the piece of paper that says
I watch you.
“My mother, your grandmother, brought all these books up here, made us send away for them, but she couldn't read them. She was convinced that the truth was in one of these books, and the tragedy was, she couldn't even look for it. She left me and my twin sister alone. We were only children. Maybe the truth is here. We'll never know.”
Father sees the pocket watch, which had dropped to a dreary-hued rug.
“What's this?”
“I like the way it sounds.”
I can read his face well enough to see that he knows why I took it. A smile hovers at his lips.
“You really are clever. I almost believe that you could get away from all of this.” He takes the parchment that I'm holding between my fingers.
I watch you.
“My mother wrote those. Over and over, for days on end. Hundreds of them. I still find them all through the house. It was terrifying. I think she forgot she had children. I was afraid for her and afraid of her. I suppose you know how that feels.”
Father never speaks this much. My head throbs, and I am afraid that tomorrow I will not remember anything he has said, though I know his words are important. If only I could write them down.
“The house is cruel to our daughters, especially the twins. As long as I live, I will never forgive the house for what it did to my sister.”
He bows his head, and his shoulders shake a little, as if he is holding back sobs. I never knew my father had a sister.
I reach up to the desk and grab a handful of the scraps. The ink flakes off and sticks to my fingers.
“I need to tell you this now, Madeline, before I get sick again, before I forget. I've been thinking for so long, but it is very difficult for me to figure out the patterns, for me to understand the intent of the house. My mother was a favorite of the house, like you. She was one of the rare Usher children whose cradle rocked of its own accord, and who never ever left the safety of the house. It drove her mad, of course.
“My mother isolated herself, stopped speaking to anyone, and wrote these messages all day. When we took her ink away, she wrote all of these . . . in her own blood.”
I consider my fingertips, stained with what I believed was ink.
“If you don't fight the house, it will take you, more so than it has the rest of us. The house will never let you go.” A story flashes before my eyes. First, murdered children lying heaped on a great flat stone. Then an Usher girl with long blond hair, shackled to a wall. I blink, and the images are gone, erased by the house.
Is Father trying to frighten me? The house protects us. Why would I want it to let me go? I try to understand his words, even as the world goes hazy around me.
Father carries me downstairs and puts me in bed. I am surprised that he is strong enough to carry me. As he tucks me into bed, I reach up and kiss his cheek.
D
r. Winston joins us as I guide Emily down the crumbling stone stairs, as if he had been invited on the tour. He keeps trying to take the lead, but I push past him. Emily is so entranced by the house that she doesn't notice.
“The stone in this older wing seems so solid, and yet it's webbed with cracks.” She pulls back a tapestry, an artful depiction of a knight mounted on a horse, holding his own severed head. She runs her hand over the wall behind the tapestry, and tiny bits of stone rain down.
“Can you take us to the crypt?” Dr. Winston asks. “Even I haven't seen it yet. Only family members have access.” There is yearning in his tone, but what could be the harm in showing them? Emily will marvel at it. “Wait here.” I hurry to fetch the keys from Roderick's room, and return to them.
“The vault is through here.” I gesture toward a staircase, cut into stone, leading down.
All three of us light torches at the bottom. There are no windows, of course, not this far underground. The walls glitter, reflecting the tongues of flame with a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.
The door is thick, made of iron and sheathed in copper. The screech as it opens is the stuff of nightmares. The world shimmers for a moment, and I have to remind myself that I am stronger than my pain, that a pin dropping on a summer afternoon is only agony because I let myself succumb to it. I take deep, shuddering breaths. Emily squeezes my hand and takes one step forward. The floor is also covered with copper.
The weight of a thousand Usher crimes presses down on me in this place.
“The copper indicates that powder was once held hereâcombustible powder, as if for a cannon. That makes no sense.” Emily wrinkles her brow. “This house shows all evidence having once been a medieval fortress.” Her tone is accusatory, as if we are somehow tricking her, as if we have magically transported her to some other world where it's historically appropriate for a medieval fortress to stand. She will make an excellent governess, and I have to suppress the urge to laugh.
The young doctor holds up his torch. His eyes dart here and there, lingering on the slabs where the bodies were laid out, where bodies will be laid out in the future. Empty stone sarcophagi line the walls; some made for women, some men. A few are small.
“The bodies are placed here for a few days, and then taken to the family's burial ground,” he tells Emily.
It is important that they think this is true. At least, it is important that the servants believe this, so as not to terrorize them. If the servants knew how many Ushers were buried under their feet, in the foundations of the house, they would be horrified.
“Is this a gate?” he asks. “A door?”
“There is another room past this one, but it has fallen into disrepair. The roof is caving.” I do not want them to go any farther. Don't want
him
to go any farther. This is the heart of the house, and he is already far enough in its thrall.
“Come.” I gesture for them to follow me back to the stairs.
“T
he spirit of the houseâthe consciousness of itâgets inside our heads. It sees through our eyes and feels what we feel, especially moments of extreme emotion, moments of passion. Or grief. It loves grief.”
Father's voice is feverish and high-pitched. He's leaning close, mumbling. I listen closely. We are sitting beneath the large grandfather clock. Father says that repetitive noises distract the house, but I'm not sure we should be distracting it. Not sure I want to hear what Father is whispering.
“The house never had a strong affinity with your mother. It loved her cruelty, but tired of her quickly. She came from far away and usurped another's place. But you are everything the house wants, and that scares me. It should scare you as well. Mother sent Roderick away. If I can, I will do the same for you.”
Terror washes over me.
“I don't want to leave,” I whisper. This is my home, this is where Roderick will return to me. I'm safe here.
Father wraps his arms around me, pulling me close, but his arms don't feel as safe as they should because he's trembling so.
“It wants to keep you close, to see what you see and feel what you feel. You've always had a sensitivity that Roderick lacks. You see the ghosts, hear the whispers. You are the love of the house. But ultimately, it wants you to bear a child. To continue the line. Since you and Roderick were born, it has mostly abandoned me, and it goads your mother to madness.”
Is Father jealous? Is that what I hear in his voice?
“I'll take you away, Madeline. I promise,” he says.
“I
told the servants to bring us tea, and that it should be hot. Also, that the cakes should be fresh. I hope you don't mind,” Emily says.
I shake my head, charmed by the unfamiliar feminine routine, and sit across from her while she pours steaming tea into a delicate bone-china cup.
“I thought we could chat.”
The delicate cup wobbles as I consider. What do people chat about? The weather? The weather is gloomy, gray, relentlessly melancholy.
“Victor tells me that you and your brother are very close.”
I choke on the tea.
“We were, as children. Now . . . he's so far away.” This feels like a betrayal of Roderick, and yet it's true.
“I don't have any brothers or sisters. I envy you that relationship. It must be very special.”
I take a bite of one of the little cakes. It's too sweet.
She puts her hand over mine. “Madeline, are you happy here?”
If I wasn't already on alert, I'd probably drop my teacup. Am I happy here? Am I happy? The teacup rattles against the saucer. It's a somewhat rhythmic noise, enough to distract the houseâor is it listening to our chat? Watching us through the eyes of birds embroidered on the wall hangings?