The Fall (22 page)
Authors: Bethany Griffin
“What are you doing?” Dr. Paul is yelling. Dr. Winston drops his knife and dives after me, but I'm too quick; I dart out into the hallway.
I don't have my missive, or my suitcase, or my bread, and blood trails in uneven paths down my arm.
What I do have is a certain inner strength. Resolve. I'm not even sure where it's coming from. But I am neither confused nor afraid.
I run through the hall of portraits. Surely all of the Usher ancestors are frowning at me. Or maybe they want me to escape. Maybe they hated the house as surely as I do.
Down the staircase. I duck past the suit of armor, but it doesn't drop the ax today. Through the dark-paneled hall with all the weapons adorning the walls. Another staircase, ruined rooms at the front of the house . . . I'm charging through the front door. Not sneaking out the back.
Roderick's horses stamp in their stone stalls, and I feel sorry for them in their confinement.
I pause on the edge of the causeway. I could go back inside right now; no one would know that I had planned to escape. They would assume that I was running through the house because the young doctor was threatening me with a knife.
The bag of jewels is heavy around my neck. At least I have that.
I take the first step forward. The water of the tarn boils and churns. But I will not let it stop me. Two steps forward, three . . . the water is moving all around me, on both sides of the causeway. How big is the creature that dwells there?
I try to walk steadily, focusing on stepping carefully. Step four, step five, step six. The activity in the water stops abruptly. What is the creature preparing for? To grab me? To trip me with a slimy tentacle around my ankle?
With one more step, I will reach the shore. I don't look back at the House of Usher, because I know it will unnerve me too completely.
I walk toward the forest of dead trees.
It is not far now. If the servants are looking out the windows, they will see me, but there's no avoiding that. My boot is unlaced, but I wait until I'm hidden by the trees to tie it.
The forest is very dark. A thick layer of dead leaves covers the ground, leaving no visible path forward. Perhaps I should have followed the road, but I was afraid of being caught.
Something rustles in the underbrush, so without stopping, I carefully choose a stick; it is white as bone, and not very heavy. I grip it tightly and hold it before me as I go.
I walk through spiderwebs that cling to my hair, and mud so deep it coats my white boots and the hem of my dress. The trees here are deteriorating, rotting away. The part of me that loves plants hates this forest, because it is a slow graveyard for trees. Nothing else grows here, unless you count slimy green moss.
The farther I walk, the better I feel. According to my silver pocket watch, it's been two hours. I'm getting farther and farther from the house, and I feel fine. It is growing darker, but soon I will be through. Soon I will see the lights of the town.
I trudge into the dark night. There is no moon. Sometimes I see yellow eyes in the underbrush. A cacophony of crickets and frogs rises up all around. I can no longer tell what time it is, as it is too dark to see the face of my timepiece, and the night seems endless. In the distance is a tiny bit of light. The trees are getting thinner. Surely I am coming now to the edge of the forest. I will see homes, cottages, on the other side. I hurry toward it.
I trip over a decaying log, and skin my hand, but I barely stop, just dust it on my skirts and keep going. The sun is rising as I walk out onto a plain. My heart nearly stops. The House of Usher looms before me.
I stand, staring up at the house, sickened by the sight of it. Then I turn again to the forest. Which way did I go when I left the grounds before? I plan my route and walk back into the woods. Straight line.
Sometimes from my window I can see the distant lights of the village. It can't be that far.
Naked squirrels with distended bellies watch me with big eyes, dragging themselves along the branches of malevolent trees.
Everything on our land is sick and dying.
But I feel fine. I have twigs in my hair and my boots are caked with mud, and I'm tired, so tired, but I feel alive for the first time in ages.
Away from the house, I could grow old, read books. Maybe, if I had a house that was my own, I could have a puppy or a kitten.
I could be content.
Eventually a sort of bog stretches out in front of me. Fetid, green. I'm not sure how deep the water is and don't want to arrive in town stinking and covered with slime. I skirt the water, following a line of willows, testing the ground in front of me before I take each step.
Twice my boots disappear into the mud. The trees thin up ahead, and I hurry forward. Only to find myself standing in the shadow of the House of Usher.
I sink to the ground.
D
r. Peridue finds me sitting with my back against the house. Tiny pointed leaves from the vines I planted caress my cheeks.
He sees the mud caking my boots. His skeletal face changes for a moment, but I don't know how to interpret the expression. Sadness? Suppressed laughter? Disdain?
“Why would you try to leave the house, silly girl? The house is everything, and you are the key. I've spent my life keeping you safe. For the house.”
I would ask him what he means, but exhaustion is settling over me, and perhaps a fit that I'm no longer strong enough to fight off.
He asks something about bleeding, but I can't answer him. He wavers before my eyes.
When I wake, I am hooked to the doctors' machine. My arms are tied down with bandages made from ripped bedsheets. Red roses are embroidered among thorns. I can move my arms, but only a little.
The machine is pumping pumping pumping. The bellows puff air in and out. Something moves through miles of tubing, slow and sluggardly. It is my blood. I look down at my wrist. It is dripping; one drop after another falls into a wide pan below me, and then funnels into more tubing. It's all made from sheep's guts, I know, because I asked Dr. Winston once.
I dream that a rat is sitting on my chest, gnawing at the torn sheets that I'm tied with, but when I wake I am still bound. A crow watches me from the window. But I don't remember this room ever having a window.
Â
I drift in and out of consciousness. Dr. Winston is a shadow slumped in the corner. Does he know I'm awake? What are they doing to me? Is it the will of the house, or some other diabolical plan?
The pulsating sound of the machinery is a lullaby, but I don't want to sleep. Rage overwhelms me. I want to be aware, to see, to understand. And still the pumping, the slow drip of my blood, lull me into some sort of trance.
S
till in the doctors' lair, I struggle, and manage to sit up. The bandages are gone and the machinery is quiet. How long have I been trapped here?
“You mustn't try to leave again,” Dr. Peridue admonishes me.
“Is that why you confined me here?”
He laughs. “Child, we did no such thing.”
I gesture to the machine. It sits, a cold, metallic monstrosity at odds with the simple flowered wallpaper of this room. “I was tied down. You pumped out my blood,” I accuse.
His eyes caress the mechanism. “It's a thing of beauty, isn't it? I've been testing your blood since you were an infant.”
“To see what's wrong with me?” I ask. Or to break my will so that I don't try to escape again?
“To see how you are different. The Usher line is long and aristocratic. My own family has some Usher connections from long ago, distant relations, I believe. It draws us all, in the end. How could you ever want to abandon your heritage?”
This is the most the oldest doctor has ever spoken to me, and I wonder, seeing how frail he looks, if he is garrulous because he is dying, if he wants to impart something of his life to me, his last victim.
“So you were here for the house all along,” I say coldly. “Not for me, or my mother. Not to try to cure us.”
“It is all the same,” he says softly. “She shouldn't have sent your brother away. That must be what put such mad ideas into your head. That, and your father's foolishness. Leaving the house. We'll see that you stay here. Dr. Winston is feeling much more himself. We've spoken to him at length and he's been under pressure, but I've determined that he is stable. He will act as your keeper. And once a week, he will bring you back to this room.”
It is Dr. Peridue's turn to gesture to the machine. He reaches up to caress a nozzle. Though the movement is gentle, the gesture is a threat. He is threatening me with his machine, which even the house cannot control.
“T
he other doctors have assigned me the task of keeping track of you; therefore I am your keeper, Madeline. You are mine.”
They assigned this to him months ago, when I fainted at the edge of the property. Still, they seem to have left me with him.
Did I ever think that he was young and vibrant and attractive? He has aged in the last months. His eyes are ancient, and vacant as the windows of this house, and he wants to be with me every second of the day.
“I'm going for a walk,” I tell him.
He stands to go with me.
“You don't have to come,” I say.
But he moves to follow me.
“You can watch me from the windows,” I interrupt quickly, to stop him from telling me, once more, that he is my keeper. It is hateful, hearing it from him in his gloating voice. I must find a way to discover what happened to Emily. To get him to lose control again, in front of the other doctors. Not when we are alone. Never when we are alone.
“I always watch you from the windows,” he says. “Of course I do. I'm your keeper.”
Something falls from a shelf. A book of poetry that was a gift from Roderick. I can't tell if the house is displeased with me, or with Dr. Winston. Lately, when I place my hand on the woodwork, the emotions that seep into me are confusing. Inconsistent. As if the house is going mad, and where does that leave me?
I walk slowly across the room to get my cape and my scarf. It is chilly outside. Dr. Winston can't let anything go. “The old doctors want me with you every moment of the day. If you try to leave again, they will blame me.”
I wrap the cape tightly around my shoulders, more as protection against him than against any wind or chill in the air.
“Roderick will be coming home soon,” I tell him. We walk into the corridor. He puts his hand through my arm.
“Who is Roderick?” he asks.
I study him. He is walking carefully, as though trying to keep me from falling. But his odd question seems genuine enough. . . .
“Roderick,” I repeat, thinking he hasn't heard me clearly. He raises his eyebrows askance. “My brother.”
“You have no brother. You are an only child.”
He's toying with me, testing me. Trying to make me believe I'm mad, because only a mad girl would love him. He's the one who is crazy, I tell myself. But this strange taunting bothers me.
I try to turn the corner, but he pulls back, stopping me.
“This is my house,” I tell him. “You have to let me go.”
Why am I arguing with him? Why should I have to?
A dismal throbbing begins behind my eyes. I miss silence. I can't navigate my world with him constantly beside me, whispering lies.
“I need some fresh air.”
I walk away from him. The side door thumps closed behind me, and for a few moments, I am alone.
I
wake up in the dead of night, and I am alone. No matter how hard I try, I can't sense Roderick.
Dr. Winston's words echo in my head. “Dr. Peridue told me you were an only child.”
He said it with such conviction.
I know he was trying to push me over the edge, that he's constantly taunting me with madness, but knowing doesn't keep my heart from beating faster and faster.
Is Roderick pushing me out of his mind?
Spots dance before my eyes, no matter if they are opened or closed.
The world wavers.
Dr. Winston has been drugging me.
I
tell myself that I must have heard Dr. Winston wrong. Or that he was taunting me when he said he hurt Emily, like when he pretended that Roderick didn't exist. It must all be lies, designed to confuse me. Dr. Winston was with me when she rode away. She and I had plans together. She wouldn't have come back to meet with him. Would she?
When Dr. Peridue comes to my room to ask how I'm feeling, I begin to question Dr. Winston loudly, about Emily. If he loses control again, I want the other doctors near. I want them to see that they are wrong; he isn't better. He might stab me again, or worse. Unfortunately, he is in control of himself today.
“Have you heard from Emily?”
Dr. Winston smiles. “As if the house would let you leave with her now, to live in the city. How foolish.”
I go completely cold. How much does he really know? Every detail? How?
“She was your friend,” I insist. “Has she written to you? Contacted you?”
“No. She wasn't a true friend, though, was she? She took a set of silver candlesticks when she left. Put them in her bag, all wrapped up with her brown dress, the one that made her look exactly like a governess. And she hated this house. Thought it was haunted. And creepy, and dirty. She didn't see what we see.”
Dr. Peridue makes no comment of his own but holds out a cup. Something within bubbles and fizzes. I take it from him. The porcelain warms my hands. He nods to Dr. Winston and leaves the room.