The Fall

  Walking through the examination room at night makes me shiver, but the room with the huge machine is worse. I stare up at the valves, the pumping mechanisms. What is it?

  I feel Dr. Winston behind me, even before his hands touch my shoulders.

  “Madeline,” he murmurs. “Madeline Usher.” I turn so that we are facing each other. I want to see his face.

  “I’m here,” I say, raising my chin to look him in the eye.

  “I can’t believe it,” he says. “Six months I’ve been here, waiting for this moment.”

  He has been waiting; I’ve seen it in his demeanor. I understand waiting. But what he’s been waiting for isn’t me. He’s falling in love with the house.

  “I wish you’d come before,” I say. When I still trusted the house. Because I can never trust it now, and while he’s in its thrall, I can never trust him. Does that matter? How important is trust? At this moment, I am not alone, and the house isn’t watching, and Dr. Winston’s eyes gleam.

  “I’m here now.” He drops one hand from my shoulder to my waist. He doesn’t know that this can never be.

  I have been alone for so long.

  His closeness is intoxicating.

  “The house will never let us be together,” I say.

  “We’re safe here.” He glances to the machine.

  I laugh. “The House of Usher is far more devious than that. It only allows this thing to work because it doesn’t truly care what the doctors are doing. If it sees me going into this room repeatedly, if it sees me going in with you . . .”

  “You are the chosen of the house,” he says reverently.

  A splash of cold water? A slap in the face? This is why he wants me. He leans closer. “If the house is aware . . . we must make every moment count.”

  I put up my hand to stop him, even as he bends in for a kiss. He wants the house’s love, not mine. But he takes my hand, pressing his lips to my palm. “You are so delicate.” He traces the veins, his fingers caressing down my wrist. Every moment we spend here is a dangerous act of rebellion.

  Right now he can deny the inclinations of the house. But for how long?

  58

  MADELINE IS THIRTEEN

  Cassandra paces in front of my door. It is propped, as always, with a book, but less open than it used to be; I can’t have Cassandra roaming the halls at night. She knocked over a candelabra, spilled hot wax across the floor of one corridor, and singed one of the rugs.

  She could’ve burned down the house. At least that’s what Miss Billingsly said, full of housekeeperly indignation. As if the house could so easily be destroyed.

  Curious, I edge my candle closer to the curtain. A gentle breath of air extinguishes it. No, the house cannot be burned down.

  Fear of accidents isn’t the real reason I keep Cassandra confined. Since the day outside when she seemed to change, when she ran through the ghostly mist creatures and returned to me with gold eyes, I’ve been afraid. Of my own dog. I lie in bed, and the house whispers that I must be cautious.

  And so she paces, and I wonder if I should reach out to her. The house murmurs. Care for the dog but never forget the house. Is Cassandra simply a distraction? Is she somehow in league with the house?

  She gives a little low growl in her throat. A ghost floats by the doorway, pausing for half a second, then drifting down the hall.

  If only I could be certain who to trust. My instincts aren’t enough.

  59

  MADELINE IS SIXTEEN

  Cassandra is missing.

  The door to my room is closed tightly, but she is not inside. I woke up last night in Roderick’s bed. I must have walked in my sleep. Usually Cassandra stops me, puts herself between me and anything dangerous, licks my face to wake me. But she didn’t wake me, and when I return to my room, she isn’t there.

  A maid passes, bringing up my tray.

  “You aren’t supposed to skip meals, miss,” she calls after me. “The doctors say it isn’t good for you.”

  I ignore her and call for Cassandra, hating the fear in my voice. Surely if someone has seen her, they will tell me.

  Dr. Winston is standing in the hallway, talking to one of the serving girls.

  “Madeline,” he calls, even though he is supposed to call me Miss Usher. I put my hand on his arm, and he turns so quickly that we are standing closer than I meant, too close. The maid looks upset. Jealous? I don’t care.

  “It’s Cassandra. I can’t find her.”

  “I’ll help you look,” he says at once.

  “Outside,” I say, though I’m not sure why.

  I hurry toward my garden. Cassandra and I have spent countless hours there. To the left of my garden, there is a small clearing, and a great crack in the earth, a sort of fissure.

  And Cassandra is lodged half in and half out of the crack.

  When she sees me, she whimpers and fights harder to dig her way out, shaking her head from side to side, then lets out one fierce bark. She’s lodged so tightly that she can barely move. The earth has fallen in around her.

  I scream, and dive forward, working to dig her out with my hands.

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Dr. Winston is saying. “There is something unnatural about that fissure. I don’t think you should make it bigger.”

  “I don’t have any choice. Help me.”

  He is right about the fissure. I’m troubled by the fact that the fur around Cassandra’s face is now white rather than gray. But that doesn’t mean that I will leave her trapped here a second longer than I have to.

  I turn toward him, and he sighs. Then he shrugs and thrusts his own hands into the dry earth to help me dig.

  The sun is not bright, but still, I’m sweating by the time we’ve widened the crack so that she can squirm her way out. She gives herself a shake, and bits of debris rain down on us. Then she sits and looks at me, wagging her tail. For once she does not bare her teeth at Dr. Winston. Maybe she is getting used to him.

  60

  FROM THE DIARY OF LISBETH USHER

  The anniversary of Honoria’s death approaches, and I find myself missing her. I am no longer the child I was when I entered the House of Usher. I sit with Mr. Usher’s mad sister. I don’t know what I want. Mother told me I wanted Mr. Usher.

  Now Mother is gone.

  It all happened so quickly. She came down with a fever, and then they were burying her. Gone.

  I feel so alone.

  It is worse for my younger sister. She adored Mother, of course, and even Honoria was nice to her.

  And now that the wedding is over, I realize how cursed I am. It is worse than I ever imagined. I went to Mr. Usher and demanded answers.

  “Tell me everything you know about the curse,” I begged him.

  “You are too young,” he replied.

  “Too young to fall victim to a curse, or too young to hear the details of the curse? What is happening to me?”

  He looked sad.

  “Sit down,” he said. He put his quill on the table, where it lay ignored, with black ink bleeding from the tip.

  “There is a plague on this house, a malady.”

  “What will happen if I die?” I asked him.

  “Then the curse will pass to your sister, as Honoria passed it to you.” I knew this, but hearing it confirmed made my heart heavy with foreboding.

  Why did Mother bring us to this place?

  61

  MADELINE IS SIXTEEN

  We’re in the room with the machine. A second meeting, furtive and exciting. Dr. Winston’s eyes are all alight.

  “It is my life’s work to care for you,” he says. “Your symptoms have slowed, you are nearly healthy! You look beautiful, radiant. There is a place, only a few days from here, a spa, with restorative waters. I could do the same for you. My own mother used to go there, when she was ill. She said the mineral waters were lovely.”

  “Where is your mother now?” I ask.

  “Dead,” he says, “but that has nothing to
do with us.”

  It doesn’t give me much hope in the benefits of the waters, though.

  He keeps talking. I like to listen to him talk of curing me.

  Yet when Dr. Winston turns his attention to me, I imagine that I could be like other girls, enthralled by a man. It’s dangerous to pretend—I could start to believe—but I can’t seem to stop.

  Even Lisbeth Usher was happy and got her fairy-tale wedding, in the end.

  62

  MADELINE IS SIXTEEN

  Roderick is home for the holidays. He’s been here for one day, and we’ve already managed to fight. He didn’t like the way Dr. Winston was whispering to me. Didn’t like that Dr. Winston sits by my bed as I’m going to sleep.

  “He’s protecting me from the house,” I tell Roderick.

  “Is that what he tells you? He feeds on your superstitions? How can you listen, how can you believe . . .” It’s the same old litany. Only I’ve changed in the months since he poisoned me. I am stronger now.

  “You don’t believe anything!” I find myself screaming in Roderick’s face. “Do you think I’m a liar? Do you think I’m crazy?”

  He shakes his head, as if my outburst has only saddened him. I don’t know how to make him see, and I’m so exhausted by trying. Filled with the energy of my anger, I storm away. Let him sit alone and laugh to himself about my superstitions. He leaves soon, and I don’t care. At least Dr. Winston knows that the house is watching. Roderick is as oblivious as a child.

  “Madeline?”

  Roderick is following me.

  I stomp down the hallway, feeling great satisfaction in the sound my feet make, the way my footsteps reverberate through the house. I turn the corner and see a familiar suit of armor. Everything goes slow and fuzzy. How could I have been so stupid as to walk this way, to revisit this place?

  My brother is right behind me.

  I see the gauntlet open; this time it is clear. The hand releases; the battle-ax falls. I feel the cold of the blade grazing my cheek.

  But before it can bite into me, I fall backward, as Cassandra leaps over me. The handle of the battle-ax is in her mouth. She twists her body, desperately trying to avoid flying down the stairs, but then she is gone, tumbling, falling.

  63

  MADELINE IS SIXTEEN

  Cassandra is broken. The old doctor shakes his head; he is secretly happy. Dr. Paul puts his hands on her fur. I almost push them away. I don’t like him touching her.

  “She has a broken rib,” he says.

  Cassandra whines and stares up into my face, searching for something. She is so good and so loyal.

  “Give her this for the pain,” Dr. Paul continues, handing me a vial. “And keep her still. She’s going to be fine.”

  Dr. Peridue frowns. Is it because Dr. Paul is helping me—or is he giving me a vial of poison, planning to rid them of the annoyance that Cassandra causes?

  They leave together. They hate being summoned from their tower. When I come to them, they have the power. Cassandra lets out a little yelp. They still have the power.

  I consider the vial. Will it relieve her pain, or will it kill her? Trust or mistrust? I don’t know what to do.

  64

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF LISBETH USHER

  Today I stood on the widow’s walk, thinking of Honoria and how she never showed any emotion, and how she stood up here and jumped. Did she know something that I don’t know? Even with the horrors of the cures, why was death more appealing than life?

  I didn’t care for Honoria. Now I wonder if the house had something to do with this. It sets us against one another. I see it happening.

  My younger sister wants Mr. Usher.

  So I went to him and told him, if she is the one you want, then lift this curse from me and let me go.

  But he said he would not. He said that the curse always visits the house’s heir, but it falls harder on his intended. Because we are married, I’ll go mad first. He smiled when he said it. I asked about his sister. Was her madness some other sort? But as always, he ignored the question. He will not speak of his sister. Or mine.

  65

  MADELINE IS THIRTEEN

  I came across a creature in the woods today. And a gravestone. The grave was covered with dead leaves and other debris from the forest.

  I was farther from the house than usual, collecting gardening implements. We used to have a gardener, but his cottage has been abandoned, and the very walls are falling away. A shed stands near the old cottage, with some useful gardening implements inside. I don’t feel it is wrong for me to take them. To use them.

  On my way back from it, distracted by my plans for the garden, I wasn’t watching where I stepped, and I rammed right into the hidden gravestone.

  I cried out and fell forward, holding my bruised shin. Something slithered through the dead leaves toward me. Cassandra growled deep in her throat and leaped in front of me.

  I grabbed a stick and scrambled back. The creature was larger than any snake I’d ever seen, even in the long grass that borders the woods.

  I held the stick before me, unsure if I should prod at it, or if I should run. My leg was trembling, and a trickle of blood ran down it. The doctors say I bruise and bleed easily.

  The forest blurred, and I could feel a hyperesthetic spell beginning. Suddenly I could see through Roderick’s eyes, feel what he was feeling, which was not unusual. What was unusual was that I couldn’t separate my emotions from his, couldn’t bring my consciousness back to the forest. I heard Cassandra bark once, and that was all. I was strolling as Roderick through the city streets, talking with his school friend, laughing, as all the while I struggled to separate myself. To return to being Madeline.

  When I woke, my head was resting on Cassandra’s back in a patch of green. No dead leaves were in sight; it was as if a strong wind had blown them away. There was no place for a creature to hide. Nothing to crunch underfoot as I struggled to my feet and staggered back to the house.

  Cassandra pranced beside me, proud of herself, and I knew, beyond a doubt, that I could trust her. Whether or not she had come from the house, her heart was mine.

  66

  MADELINE IS SIXTEEN

  Doctor Winston stands in my doorway holding a box.

  “It is a gift,” he says. “It came by courier, from your brother.”

  I do not know why I feel disappointed. Did I really think that Dr. Winston had gone to the trouble to bring me a present for my birthday?

  The box is wrapped with a thick gold cord.

  I take it with trembling hands, praying that this note won’t say Roderick isn’t coming home tomorrow. He must be here for our birthday.

  “Let me help you,” Dr. Winston says, putting his hands over mine. His nails are clean, but broken from digging Cassandra out of the hillside, and that makes me like him even more than I did before.

  It doesn’t seem to appease Cassandra, though. She growls as he pushes himself close to me, whatever warmth she felt toward him forgotten.

  The string unravels, leaving the box exposed and ready to be opened, but he doesn’t step back or take his hands from mine.

  “I stay here for you, not the house,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking. I know you fear that since I can hear the house, I must be your enemy. But I’m not.”

  When I first met him, I desperately wanted to kiss him. That feeling returns. He’s close enough, and I don’t think he would object.

  Unlike Roderick, he believes the house is sentient, though he seems half in love with it, and that is dangerous. Unless he comes to see the evil intentions, as I have.

  I lift the lid from the box. Inside is a ruby necklace, heavy and ornate. Dr. Winston lifts it to my throat. I don’t know what Roderick was thinking. It’s far too heavy and ornate; it makes my neck look too thin, too fragile.

  In the mirror, the rubies are a red gash against my throat.

  “It suits you,” the doctor says. He hooks the necklace and puts his hands on my shoulde
rs.

  Cassandra growls, deep in her throat, and she brushes against me as she stands, but before I can turn to admonish her for being a rude dog, Dr. Winston kisses me.

  For a moment, all my anxiety is swept away by the feeling of his mouth against mine. I twine my hand into his hair, surprised that it’s rough and a little coarse.

  He presses against me, and I allow him to maneuver me toward my bed. Perhaps he did not fasten it properly, or perhaps the clasp was broken, but as we move, the heavy necklace crashes to the floor. We break apart, both bending to retrieve it.

  Dr. Winston’s face is wide open and earnest.

  “There are so many things I want to tell you. No one else knows, or believes. I wasn’t sure if I could trust you, but now . . . ,” he’s saying.

  There is a slip of paper on the floor. It must have fallen from the gift box.

  I love you, it says. R.

  I pick it up.

  Dr. Winston seems fascinated by the movement.

  I fold the note and put it on the table beside my bed. He puts the necklace over it, like a jewel-encrusted paperweight.

  Raising my face to his, I wait for him to kiss me again, my entire being focused. I don’t want to hear about the house, not now. I want this moment to be between the two of us, only. With this kiss, maybe he could release me from the part of the curse that Roderick and I don’t speak of.

  But the kiss never comes.

  When I open my eyes, I see shock written across his face. Between us, the wooden floor of my bedroom has split, in absolute silence, with a wide, jagged crack.

  Dr. Winston backs away from me, his eyes filled with fear. I stare at the floor, testing it to see if it is stable. When Cassandra relaxes, I know he’s gone, though the splintered rent in my floor remains.

  The necklace lies abandoned on my bedside table.