The Fall (9 page)
Authors: Bethany Griffin
“It's just the wind. It makes this old place creak. I hear a sound like footsteps limping back and forth nearly every night.”
He watches me intently. I don't understand the look in his eyes.
“I'm surprised to see you running,” he says. “With color in your cheeks, you almost look healthy.” Of course, the intense look is that of a doctor examining a patient. “I have theories,” he continues. “Ideas for a cure. We can't allow a beautiful girl like you to fade away.”
His compliment takes me by surprise. I hope he thinks the flush on my cheeks is from running.
“What are you reading?” I ask, gesturing to the dropped book. But even then he doesn't take his eyes off me.
“
The Belphegor.
I found it in your library.”
“I hope you are enjoying it.”
“Oh, I am.” He leans forward, smiling. “Madeline . . .”
Like the servants, he is supposed to call me Miss Usher. His familiarity is not as inappropriate as the way he's watching me. He straightens his shirt, but his hair is still such a mess.
“I was hoping you would walk with me in your garden. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon?”
The thought of sharing my garden fills me with excitement. I feel myself lighting up from within, and I smile; he returns it.
Perhaps he mistakes my smile, because he reaches out, as if to touch me. I step back, but I don't run. Maybe just a bit of the smile is for him, rather than the garden.
“I'm sorry,” he begins, but I never hear what he's sorry for, because a familiar voice calls for me from downstairs. Roderick.
D
r. Winston and I race to the entrance hall, where we are caught up in the commotion of Roderick's arrival. The servants line up to greet him, but he barely notices. The school sent him home unexpectedly; he is ill.
He staggers up the stairs.
“Madeline,” he says. “I'm so glad to see you, so glad to be home.” Mother once said that Roderick wouldn't return to me. That I would fade away. But here he is. Ill, but when you are ill, there is no place you'd rather be than your own home. Or so I've heard. I've only been away once, with Father, and I did, quite desperately, wish to return home when my fits overwhelmed me. Dr. Winston joins the other doctors in hurrying Roderick to his room.
“You must stay away from him,” Dr. Peridue admonishes as I try to follow my brother. “He may be contagious.”
I wait until I hear them leave, muttering about whether it is safe to bring up Roderick's belongings that were left downstairs. Then I slip into his room and sit beside the bed to watch over him. He has a tendency to kick off his blankets during the night, and I don't want him to be chilled. Sleeping Roderick reminds me of childhood, of warmth and security.
When morning comes, I'm still beside his bed, ready to coax him to drink some tea. He holds my wrist as if he's afraid that I will leave him, even though he is the one who always leaves.
“I'm missing my exams,” he says. I can't tell if he's happy or sad about this.
“What are exams?” I ask, trying to imagine the great mystery that is school.
“Tests of your knowledge.” It is Dr. Winston who answers, not Roderick. He's standing in the doorway with his doctor's bag.
“Who are you?” Roderick asks. His voice is not friendly.
“I'm Dr. Winston. Dr. Peridue asked me to come see how you are feeling today. If you could remove your shirt . . .”
Roderick sits up, but he doesn't take off his shirt. He studies the doctor as he approaches the bed.
“Have we met before?”
I wait for Dr. Winston to say no; this is the first time Roderick has been home since he arrived. But then, perhaps Roderick has seen him through my eyes, the way I've seen his school friend.
“Yes,” Dr. Winston says, toying with his stethoscope. “We have met before.”
F
ather sits at one end of the table, and Mother at the other. They are far from us, and from each other, but Roderick and I are near the center of the table, close enough to whisper together. Close enough to giggle, though nothing is really funny. The servants bring course after course to the table, but none of us eats more than a few spoonfuls.
Before us is a lovely centerpieceâMother's favorite poisonous flowers, holly, poinsettia, and something else with large red blossoms.
Mother smiles at Roderick. “Your new jacket looks very nice,” she says. He beams back, and when I look to the other end of the table, Father is also smiling.
Usher ancestors watch us with serious faces, hands placed menacingly inside dinner jackets that are not so unlike the new one Roderick is wearing.
“Go on,” Father tells the servants. “Go to the kitchens and have something to make you merry. We can serve our own soup.”
Mother frowns slightly at that. I almost don't see it, but Roderick kicks me beneath the table. He's about to truly start giggling, and his mirth is infectious. We rarely eat in the dining room, except on special occasions.
T
he servants are in a tizzy. The doctors gather in corners, and even Roderick, though he can barely get out of bed, is oddly thrilled.
The body of a madman has been discovered in the attics. He was in the nursery, caught and strangled in the rope covered with fluttering paper flowers, decorations devised by some long-dead, long-forgotten Usher children. It wasn't the house settling when I heard those footsteps in the attic. Running away from them was wise, but my face flushes when I remember rushing into Dr. Winston's chamber.
The madman must have crept through one of the side doors and lived up there. Perhaps he had been there for years. My explorations may have disturbed him, and somehow he strangled himself, in that place where generations of Usher children were hidden away.
The servants are spooked, though this is obviously their fault for leaving doors unlocked. Miss Billingsly, the housekeeper, has given notice. She says her heart can't handle this job for another day.
They brought the man's body downstairs and put him in the parlor. No one knows what to do with him. I imagine that there are still stars and moons twined around his throat.
“I want to see him,” I tell Roderick. We are in the parlor, and despite being sick, he's playing lord of the manor.
When I explored the attics, this lunatic must have been watching me. Following me. I want to look upon his face, but Roderick doesn't think it's a good idea.
He's still recovering from his illness and is very frail. A heavy blanket rests across his lap to protect him from the slightest chill. I'm not sure how he's managing to appear to be overbearing. I put my hands on my hips and narrow my eyes.
“Let the servants take care of it, Madeline. That's what they're here for.”
“But I want to see him. How often do you get to look at a dead man?”
He shakes his head. A boy from his school died of fever last month, which is why Roderick was sent home to recuperate from his own fever. For a moment I feel bad, as if my curiosity is morbid, unladylike.
“But this is extraordinary and strange,” I say, thinking of the books he's always reading. “It's something of an adventure.”
“It isn't an adventure. It's petrifying, and such happenings fuel your superstitions. I would fire all of the servants for allowing this to happen, if I thought I could find new ones.”
Roderick reaches up to touch my face.
“You could've been in danger.”
I wonder, suddenly, how they knew the man was mad, when he was dead before they found the body.
“Yes. But not from some madman.” My voice quivers. I lean down to whisper to Roderick. “I am in danger every day that I'm in this house.”
“The house.” His voice is flat, annoyed. “Madeline, stop. You're becoming as obsessed as Mother was.”
“It's more dangerous than some madman.” Whose lilting footsteps sounded so oddly familiar.
T
hough the ground is frozen and dusted lightly with snow, Roderick and I pull on ugly woolen coats that the servants have found somewhere, and go outside.
Roderick stops at the wall that surrounds the herb garden and scrapes together enough snow to make a ball, and then he throws it directly at me.
I gasp as the cold hits my face, some of it sliding into the recesses of the shapeless coat.
“I'm sorry,” he says. “I suppose that's the sort of thing one does to a schoolmate, not a sisterâ” But I've scraped together my own snowball, and lob it at him. He throws up his hands in mock surrender, and I chase him, uncaring that the servants are watching through the kitchen window and that Mother would find fault with our lack of dignity. We run until we are both doubled over, laughing. Our breath fills the air with wisps of condensation, like ghosts, except outside.
The house casts a long shadow over everything, but the light through the windows is warm. I see Father limping past the parlor window. Pulling the curtains so Mother can rest, and I'm glad to be away from the house, even for a few moments.
“I thought you were going to cry, when I first hit you with that snowball,” Roderick admits.
“Iceball, you mean,” I put my hand to my cheek, which is most certainly bruised. “Don't forget, I'm the oldest,” I say. And the bravest. I don't say that part aloud, because I don't have to. I'm the one who stayed home.
“I wish you could come to school with me,” Roderick says. “You're more fun than any of the others. Even though you are a girl.”
“Come with me,” I say, and pull him along to a wide-open space where bits of grass peek up through the fine layer of snow.
“This is where I'm going to plant my garden,” I tell him. “It's all mine.”
I lie down, solemnly moving my arms and legs in unison, to create a snow angel. Roderick throws himself down beside me.
“I could help you,” Roderick says. “When I am home for the summer.”
Part of me wants to say no, that the garden is mine, and mine alone, but instead I watch him climb to his feet and dust the snow from his jacket, and then I reach out my hand. He helps me to my feet, and we step away, looking back to the snow angels. Side by side, identical.
T
oday is March fifteenth. Our birthday. Roderick is still home, sad because his illness keeps his school friend from inviting him for a visit. He's so disappointed that I am almost sorry for him, even though I'm thrilled that he's been allowed to stay through our birthday. We celebrate quietly. The servants only remember when Roderick arrives with fanfare, announcing that it is our birthday.
This year there is no cake with candles. I'm glad. Growing older is ominous when you are an Usher. The house is more determined than ever to control us. Live through us. Is this what happened to our parents when they were coming of age?
We are sitting alone, in the chapel.
“Roderick, what happened to Father?” I ask, considering a crack in the stained-glass window. He waits so long to speak that I turn back to him.
He raises his eyebrows. They are so pale that you almost can't see them. Mine are darker.
“I don't remember him dying. He was here, and then he was gone. . . .” I falter.
“You don't remember the funeral?”
I shake my head. Ashamed.
“There were red roses all throughout the lower floors, and it was unbearably hot here in the chapel. You were holding my hand. An organist came and played the old pipe organ. It was beautiful, but then one of the pipes fell. . . .”
“Roderick . . .” My voice fades, frozen by sudden fear. “That was Mother's funeral.”
“No . . .” His brow furrows.
“When the pipe fell, it knocked over the roses. Hundreds of them, remember?”
Mother once said that the reason the Usher family donates so much money to charity is so that someone will send flowers when they die. We are silent for a long time, considering Mother's funeral.
“At Mother's funeral, there was a poem. . . .”
“Yes, one of the doctors read it. Dr. Paul, I think. He liked Mother.”
Dr. Paul stayed because of Mother. Since she died, he only smiles when he is taking blood.
“As I remember, there was the funeral with the poem, and all the flowers, and another one with the pipe organ, and flowers. . . .”
“They were the same, Roderick. A long ceremony. And we were by ourselves, remember?”
We sit in the chapel and watch the sun dissolve, red as blood, on the stones of our ancient home.
“One day maybe I will disappear,” I say softly, but Roderick doesn't hear me.
W
hile most of the ghosts in the house are misty and ephemeral, sometimes you can see a waistcoat, or a petticoat, and sometimes you can make out facial expressions. In the red parlor, I often spot the ghost of a child wearing a dilapidated sailor suit.
I haven't spoken to anyone, not Mother, or Father, or any of the servants, in days, so maybe it isn't odd that the little spirit is so appealing. I've brought the chessboard with me, in some sort of optimistic hope that the boy might be able to do what his compatriots can't, and move the pieces around.
“Hello,” I say, smiling. I reach out my hand slowly, and then, as he turns his face toward me, freeze. His attention chills me, but still I press on.