Authors: Bethany Griffin
There's one more slither over my torso, one more attempt by the creature to hold me, and then I'm free and doing my best to swim.
I fight my way back to sunlight and heave myself onto the side of the tarn. Roderick is there, grabbing me, holding me.
“Madeline, Madeline, Madeline,” he says over and over. I dry my eyes on his tunic and turn back to the tarn.
Cassandra surges up out of the water once, and I dive toward her, but Roderick won't let me go.
“You aren't going back in there,” he says.
I turn on him, hitting him with my fists, twisting away from him, but my dress is soaked and heavy with water and slime, and he's too strong.
Cassandra doesn't come to the surface again.
The servants watch us through the windows.
Roderick takes off his coat and wraps it around my shoulders.
“I saw you falling,” I whisper, because my throat is on fire. Will I die from all the foul water I swallowed? My lips are swollen and bleeding.
“I fell from my horse, an accident. If I'd gotten here earlierâ” His voice breaks. He rubs my shoulders, strokes my hair.
“Cassandra?”
“She's gone, Madeline.”
I shudder. “She saved me. I should have saved her, at least tried . . .”
“You were in no shape to save anything. Cassandra . . . she sacrificed herself to save you.”
Sacrifice.
I taste the word. It is as terrible as the stinking water that is running down my back.
T
hey serve our birthday dinner in the dining room. Roderick complains the beef is too rare. I take a few sips of broth to appease him.
“I'm only here for three nights,” he says. “As always, I had to get special permission to leave school for your birthday.”
Our
birthday. I sit across from him, wearing my black dress and the ruby necklace. It was his birthday gift, after all. One of the smaller rubies is missing. My neck is raw and scraped to bleeding from a jagged place, a bit of gold that has come loose. Roderick doesn't notice.
An evil thought occurs to me, creeps into my mind and won't go away. How long did Roderick stand at the edge of the tarn, watching me? Was he too afraid to intervene? Could he have done more?
I try to force the questions away, but they creep back in.
I can't cry.
Everywhere, my skin is red and raw, with raised red bumps. As I dressed for dinner, a clump of my hair fell out. The penalty for letting the water of the tarn touch my skin. Roderick's hands are blistered where he pulled me from the water. And held me against my will.
“I am sorry, Madeline. I know you loved that dog,” Roderick says, but he does not sound sorry enough.
He was jealous of my love for Cassandra, and now she is gone. But his friend, the one who he cares about so deeply, is still very much alive. Luring Roderick away from the house, and keeping him from truly seeing what is happening here.
R
oderick wants some sort of fanfare because he's here. But I don't have the energy. He only spent one night, instead of the three he had planned, and now he's saddling his horse, as if he can't wait to get away. He mutters something about spending some time out of doors, shooting and riding, and that he'll return to see that I'm well before he goes back to school, but I'm not sure what he means. With Cassandra gone, how could I ever be well? And by the time I turn to ask him, he's already gone.
I had hoped for so many things with this visit, and this birthday. Not least of all, I wanted to try to make him understand how dangerous the situation is, here in the house.
I thought that we would find the right time together, that he would be focused on me for once, and he would really listen, perhaps find it in his heart to believe a bit. . . . But he saw what happened in the tarn. He had to see something, but he won't accept it.
The hooves of Roderick's horse clatter as he crosses the causeway. I am alone.
The house is isolating me.
I pace beside the tarn. I throw stones into it. I walk the entire periphery of that sullen, motionless body of water. Someone, perhaps Father, once told me that the depth of the tarn is exactly the same as the height of the house. Things like that used to interest me.
The water is serene and still. Unruffled. There is no indication that anything lives beneath the surface. And there has been no sign of a dog's drowned body. Cassandra is gone. Her absence is ever-present, doubling me over with the agony of loss.
A part of me wants to fight, but then the hopelessness takes over. Standing beside the tarn, the house looms over me. The great trees surrounding the property cast twisted shadows. I am so small, one Usher in an unending line, all captives of the house. How can I fight? I've lost Cassandra. The young doctor stepped away from me, after the kiss in my bedchamber when the house made its intentions clear. He's afraid, and I don't blame him.
The only thing the house didn't take was Roderick. He just left. He turned and rode away.
R
oderick is on the property. I saw him through the window, prowling along the distant tree line. It could have been anyone, except for the silvery-blond hair. And of course I'd know him anywhere. So he must be riding and shooting on the nearby moors. I take a dark cloak from his closet, one that belonged to Father.
I only go outside to walk the grounds and work in my garden, and I have only rarely left the shadow of the house, even with Cassandra at my side. At the edge of the Usher land is a platform where the coach stops once a day. The servants use it when they visit their families or go to the nearest village, and the doctors have equipment delivered by coach. I've been there once before, or else dreamed that I was there.
Roderick was walking in that direction, though I'm not sure why he was walking. When he left, he was riding, so he has his horse somewhere on the property.
I stop in the hallway, not afraid, just gathering my strength.
The chambermaids are in the left parlor talking about me, and I let their gossip distract me from my uneasiness.
“Poor girl,” one of them says.
“It's creepy, if you ask me.” The other girl sneezes from the dust. “Whenever I see her, I think she's a ghost.”
“The doctors scare me worse than hearing ghosts.”
“Not me. Nothing scares me worse than ghosts. And this house is full of spooks. Look at that, have you ever seen paneling just crumble away like that?”
“Termites?”
“Nah, they won't come here, any more than mice. Just spiders and rats in the House of Usher.”
I wrap Father's dark cloak around my shoulders and stare down the hall, past the room where they are chattering. Their voices fade. The doorway is a frame. The sun is shining on the other side. I can step through to a different world.
I put one foot gingerly in front of the other, as I travel from the shadow of the house to the edge of the trees.
A river of sludge runs through the forest, not quite a stream, more seeping mud with a bit of flowing water. I step over it carefully and keep going. I can see the sunlight through the trees up ahead. A forest of saplings has grown up in the space between the lawn and the mighty trees that line the periphery of the Usher estate.
The air feels different here; it is more difficult for me to breathe.
This is what it was like when Father took me away. I think. The memories are jumbled. Sometimes it seems that we were gone for weeks, living in a rented room by the sea. That Father hired a lady to care for me.
Looking back, I am far enough to see the entirety of the house, the multilayered roof, the additions, the tower that should be lovely to the eyes but only serves to highlight the ungainliness of the rest of the house, crouching over the tarn. I'm too numb for the horror of it to have much effect on me. This way leads to Roderick, I tell myselfâbut suddenly I am afraid.
I pick my way through the trees, though the saplings and other undergrowth make going slow. A natural barrier hemming in the Usher land. I'm surprised when I get through the trees and feel the warmth of the sun. Ahead of me is the long platform where servants and visitors meet the carriage.
Roderick and his hateful friend are standing on the platform. I study them from the shadow of the forest.
The other boy is perhaps a year older than us. He is tall, but not so tall as my brother, and he looks sturdy and strong. It is Roderick's roommate. Roderick has spoken of him so often that I dreamed of him once, and I've seen him through Roderick's eyes. I have despised this unknown boy for years. But as he laughs, my hatred evaporates.
I admire his easy demeanor and his smile that is not tainted by ghosts and mystery. He is . . . refreshing, like a summer wind that blows away cobwebs and disease. With an unexpected burst of emotion, I discover that I would like to be the one whose company he enjoys. I feel as if an abyss is opening at my feet. Of course Roderick chose this strange boy over me.
The sickly spring sun bounces off Roderick's dark glasses. He wears them to avoid headaches from the sun. Before he disappeared from our lives, Father could not even endure candlelight.
Roderick's horse neighs and stamps, and Roderick soothes it. I realize that the one he's brought isn't the horse he usually takes to school. His friend is obviously waiting for the coach, and Roderick must be going back to the house, at least to swap out horses, perhaps to rest a night before he officially goes back to school.
Walking back across the platform, Roderick trips over a loose board. He catches himself, awkwardly, and his friend throws back his head, and I see his white teeth flash and his eyes crinkle.
If it had been me mocking his clumsiness, Roderick would have turned surly, but not so with this friend. They clasp hands, in the way that boys do, and clap each other on the back. For a moment I think that they are going to embrace.
Then, unexpectedly enough to make me gasp, Roderick claps his friend on the back once again, and swings up into the saddle.
He's riding back toward the house and will expect me to be there. If I ran . . . I could take the more direct path through the woods and beat him. But I don't.
Roderick's friend paces across the platform, full of energy. His vitality is mesmerizing. I take a step toward him, pulled in by something that I can't explain, and he sees me.
“Hello?” he calls.
My heart stops. I edge closer to the platform.
“Hello,” he says. “Are you waiting for the coach?”
I shake my head. “I'm just walking,” I say. The sun, usually so reticent in these parts, comes out.
He's looking at me too intently for politeness. Does he recognize me?
I feel myself blushing at his attention.
“There isn't anything around here for miles, you know,” he says. And then he blushes in return. “Or . . . I guess there must be something. You live here, I suppose?”
I nod.
“Would you like to sit with me and rest for a moment?”
He reaches out to help me up the steps. The tips of my boots are muddy. I try to hide them under my skirts.
What temerity I have, to sit beside this magnificent creature in the afternoon sunlight. Am I mad?
“They say this area is inhabited by enchanted creatures. Are you a pixie?” His eyes are bright and curious. His tone is light. Flirtatious, perhaps?
I laugh. “I wish I were magical, but I'm just a girl taking a walk.”
His forehead creases. “A young lady shouldn't walk alone. What if someone came along . . .”
I nearly laugh again. No one in these parts would harm me. There is safety in being cursed. But his concern makes my heart feel odd, like it's beating in circles.
“It's safe,” I say. “For me.”
“Speaking of young women who are alone in the world,” he says quickly, “I'm concerned about the reputation of a local family. A kinswoman of mine is on her way to the House of Usher. She plans to offer her services as a governess. . . .”
A governess? At the House of Usher?
“My friend lives there. Roderick Usher.”
I shrug. “No one knows much about the Ushers.”
“That's what I'm given to understand. Roderick says they haven't hired a governess, so I suspect she's going there on a fool's errand, to confront a young man she's fallen in love with.”
My heart stops for a moment. Does he mean Roderick? Is that why Roderick is always visiting his friend's home, wanting to stay the summer with him? Not for him, but for this kinswoman?
“It's a doctor who cares for the young lady of the house. An unsavory character.”
I'm not sure if this is better or worse. He must mean Dr. Winston. But the doctor's regard is for the house, with a bit left over for me. Where does another girl fit into this? And what does he mean by unsavory?
“It's good of you to keep me company. I've never been to this part of the country. My friend left school to visit his sister, and I followed him. He'd invited me to the house, to meet her, but when my coach arrived yesterday, he said the visit was impossible, so we fished in one of the lakes and then camped here on the moor. We slept under the stars. It was glorious, except for the smell.”
He means the smell from the tarn. On clear nights it carries. Sometimes, when there is fog, the moisture settles on your skin, and so does the heavy scent of it.
He is still speaking. I watch the way his mouth moves. Repeating himself, he says, “It's kind of you to keep me company.”
“You'll miss your friend.” I find it hard to say the word “friend.” It chokes me.
“I always do,” he says.