The Fall Read online

  DEDICATION

  To Noel, who loves creepy things, and who is nine right now,

  like Madeline at the beginning of this story

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 2 - Madeline Is Nine

  Chapter 3 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 4 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 5 - Madeline Is Nine

  Chapter 6 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 7 - Madeline Is Nine

  Chapter 8 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 9 - Madeline Is Nine

  Chapter 10 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 11 - Madeline Is Nine

  Chapter 12 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 13 - Madeline Is Nine

  Chapter 14 - From the Journal of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 15 - Madeline Is Ten

  Chapter 16 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 17 - Madeline Is Ten

  Chapter 18 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 19 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 20 - Madeline Is Ten

  Chapter 21 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 22 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 23 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 24 - Madeline Is Ten

  Chapter 25 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 26 - Madeline Is Eleven

  Chapter 27 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 28 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 29 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 30 - Madeline Is Eleven

  Chapter 31 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 32 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 33 - Madeline Is Eleven

  Chapter 34 - Madeline Is Fifteen

  Chapter 35 - Madeline Is Eleven

  Chapter 36 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 37 - Madeline Is Ten

  Chapter 38 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 39 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 40 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 41 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 42 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 43 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 44 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 45 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 46 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 47 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 48 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 49 - Madeline Is Fourteen

  Chapter 50 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 51 - Madeline Is Thirteen

  Chapter 52 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 53 - Madeline Is Thirteen

  Chapter 54 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 55 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 56 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 57 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 58 - Madeline Is Thirteen

  Chapter 59 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 60 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 61 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 62 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 63 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 64 - From the Journal of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 65 - Madeline Is Thirteen

  Chapter 66 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 67 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 68 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 69 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 70 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 71 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 72 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 73 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 74 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 75 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 76 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 77 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 78 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 79 - Madeline Is Sixteen

  Chapter 80 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 81 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 82 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 83 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 84 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 85 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 86 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 87 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 88 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 89 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 90 - From the Diary of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 91 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 92 - Madeline Is Twelve

  Chapter 93 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 94 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 95 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 96 - From the Journal of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 97 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 98 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 99 - From the Journal of Lisbeth Usher

  Chapter 100 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 101 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 102 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 103 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 104 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 105 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 106 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 107 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 108 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 109 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 110 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 111 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 112 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 113 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 114 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 115 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 116 - Madeline Is Seventeen

  Chapter 117 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 118 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 119 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 120 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 121 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 122 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 123 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 124 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 125 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 126 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 127 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 128 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 129 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 132 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 133 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 134 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 135 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 136 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 137 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 138 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 139 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 140 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 141 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 142 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 143 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 144 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 145 - Madeline Is Eighteen

  Chapter 146 - Madeline Is Nineteen

  Chapter 147

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  MADELINE IS EIGHTEEN

  The first thing I notice is that my blanket is gone. The last of my nightly rituals is to pull it all the way to my chin, and it never falls away, no matter what nightmares I wrestle before I wake.

  But something else is wrong; I try to move, and though I don’t seem to be paralyzed, my arms are pinned tightly to my sides. My brain is slow; the horror saturates me gradually. I struggle, twist to the left, and
free one arm.

  Reaching up, my trembling hand gets only a few inches before my fingers touch cool stone. I blink. My lashes spider-touch my cheeks, and then that touch is gone, so my eyes must be open. The dull, compressed darkness is so absolute that I cannot see my shaking hand, even as I bend my elbow and press my fingers against my right eye, and then my left—gently, very gently—to make certain both still rest in their sockets.

  My eyes are intact. But the relief dissipates as I recognize the shape of my prison, the feel of the thin padding beneath me, the slope of the cool stone. The plush lining . . .

  This darkness is the darkness of a coffin.

  Not any coffin. A stone sarcophagus. Perhaps even one I’ve been in before, years ago, on a dare.

  I’ve been buried, but I’m not dead. I’m not dead. I can’t breathe. What is that sound? Is someone here? No, it’s me, crying and using precious air . . .

  Tremors shake my entire body, but the box I’m in does not shift at all.

  I must be in the vault, held in place by solid stone. Beneath the house. The dead of my family press around me. We’re entombed by marble shot through with a vein of pink, a rare and costly stone, thick enough to keep the waters of the tarn from seeping down into the crypt.

  Panic claws at me. But I cannot succumb to it; I cannot fall into one of my fits. Not now.

  The house is heavy and filled with hate. I slow my breath and relax my arms. The lace at my sleeve is rough against my wrist, and suddenly I realize what I’m wearing. A dress that I hid deep in the recesses of my wardrobe, praying never to see it again. The lace at the neck is stiff and scratchy. Tight. When I move my hand, the pearl buttons at the sleeves press into the sensitive skin of my inner arm, likely to bruise. I should have burned the dress. I would have, had I known that I would be buried in it. Buried.

  Claustrophobia sets in. The not-so-gentle cousin of madness.

  One of my arms is still pinned tightly down. The freed one rests, trembling, on the silk of the dress, which I know is white, though I can’t see it. No part of me is not touching the accursed fabric. Tears wet my cheeks. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe.

  I claw at the collar. The box is so tight that my elbow hits the side each time I move.

  The lace catches my fingernails and one of them breaks, the pain bitter and sharp.

  Blood, trickles down from my fingertips and I am choking on bits of the desiccated dress and the coarse dry velvet of the coffin’s lining with every inhale. This small space is so very hot. I cough as velvet particles line my throat.

  Only the ring on my finger remains cool. The ring I always wear, given to me by my brother, Roderick, as a token of his love.

  It’s very heavy.

  My hair has been pinned tightly against my head.

  My eyes burn. I check once again to make sure that they are intact.

  I hear panting and know that the sound, animalistic, desperate, is coming from me.

  Who chose this dress?

  Who put my hair up?

  Was it done lovingly?

  I throw back my head and scream. Somewhere in the house above, there is one who hears me. The one who buried me alive.

  2

  MADELINE IS NINE

  Wind and rain, lightning and thunder, a storm throws itself against the House of Usher, rattling every window, including mine. Thunder pounds the earth and the house groans.

  Carefully, I carry out my bedtime rituals. Without them, I would never sleep.

  I pad across my room to the heavy wooden door. Through the floor I can feel the house breathing. I position a thick book to keep the door from swinging more than half open.

  My candle flickers. I must have the door positioned correctly before it goes out.

  Taking two steps back, I survey the room. The half-open door still feels . . . wrong. I adjust it, nudging the book with my foot. It creaks, louder than a door should when moved so slightly. I rest my hand against the wood—too long, because feelings seep into me that are not my own.

  The house wants me to open the door. To put the book back on the bureau, to straighten the rug. The house hates closed doors.

  But completely open doors are as terrifying as being closed in with . . . whatever might find its way into my room. There are things, living and dead, creeping through these halls, and I’d rather they ignore me while I sleep, as they do during the day. The house will protect me, but I feel safer with the book holding the door in place.

  Lightning flashes as I turn, illuminating the empty corridor, and my path back to my four-poster bed. Outside, the trees are lashed by wind and rain. I blow out the candle and pull the quilt to my chin.

  And now, I listen. The clock in the hallway ticks away the minutes. It will chime, either at midnight, or upon the hour of its choosing. A sound patters in the hallway. Pat pat pitter pat, coming closer, ever closer, stopping before my doorway, and then pat pat pat over the threshold and into my room.

  I don’t dare breathe. I lie as still as possible, straining my eyes against the darkness. A slight shape approaches, slinking through the gloom. A flash of lightning reveals the solemn face of my brother. His silver-white hair gleams as the unnatural green-white light fades. Thunder crashes, and we both jump.

  Roderick crawls up into my bed; he is shaking.

  “The storm?” I whisper.

  “Yes,” he whispers back.

  Roderick is afraid of nearly everything.

  I put my arms around him, trying to stop his trembling, but instead it infects me, and we sit there propped up among the pillows, shuddering together.

  “Roderick, it’s only a storm,” I whisper.

  His eyes accuse me of lying. Nothing here is just anything. This is not just a house. We have never been simply children. We are Ushers.

  The storm makes my hair crackle. Lightning flashes again, tingeing the entire world green. The house is so huge around us, and we are so small. But we’re together.

  “The house is unsettled,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t want to hear about the house. It frightens him more than anything else, and he likes to pretend he’s brave. He can’t tell, the way I can, that the house is protecting us, from the storm, from the ghosts. From everything.

  “Tell me a story,” Roderick begs, snuggling down into my blankets.

  I close my eyes. The stories are part of this place; they flutter around me like moths, dark and bloated, the size of my father’s hand. Some are like visions, the events unfolding as they might in a dream. Some are tales that I have heard and remember, the ones that Father tells sometimes. Which will the house give me tonight?

  “Once on a windy night.” I try the words out, testing them to see if they feel right. A gust of wind makes my windowpane shake. Roderick edges even closer. His thin, birdlike bones jut into my side. He nestles into my pillow, nudging me over, even though he knows I like to be in the exact center of the bed.

  “There was a beautiful maiden with golden hair who was lovely as the sunrise.” He reaches out and touches my hair, which is not golden; it’s silver-gilt, like his. “But the maiden walked outside in the dead of winter and caught cold and died. In the nearby forest lived a hermit, who was old and ugly and gnarled as the root of a tree. He wanted to capture the maiden’s ghost, which was said to linger, pining for her lost love, the brave knight Ethelred, who slept every night by her tomb.

  “While brave Ethelred was sleeping, the hermit crept up and cut off a lock of the knight’s hair to use as bait and placed it in an urn made of clay mixed with blood, and set the urn out on the cold sand where the sea pounded the shore.”

  I stop to take a breath, and to listen. The wind is hitting the house in a rhythmic manner, much like the sea in the story. Somehow the story, though dreamlike, insubstantial, is more real than this cold, dark bedroom.

  “For nearly a year the hermit sat, night after night, on the beach, in the cold, waiting. Finally, he saw the ghostly form of the maiden. When she came near the urn, th
ere was a flash of light.” Outside lightning strikes, illuminating my brother’s narrow, huge-eyed face. His frail body no longer trembles, and his fascination warms me. We are both immersed in this story, at one with the house.

  “The ghostly maiden curled up like a wisp of smoke around the lock of hair. The hermit slammed the lid on the urn and took her to his hovel.

  “Brave Ethelred came to the hermit’s home and beat upon the door.”

  We hear a rapping sound, and Roderick shoots up in bed. His eyes are wild.

  “The wind must have blown a shutter loose, and it is hitting the side of the house.” I take his hand. He sinks slowly back down beside me.

  “What happened next, Madeline?” he asks.

  “The hermit would not let Ethelred in, so he lifted his mace and hit the door, and then stuck his gauntleted hand in through the hole and began to rip and tear all asunder, so that the noise echoed through the forest.”

  I pause, listening for the ripping of wood. Instead Roderick throws back his head, and he screams until I fear his throat will be torn apart.

  I wrap my arms around him.

  “Be still, Roderick, be still,” I beg, but he keeps screaming. Desperate to calm him, I press the blankets up against his face to try to stifle his voice.

  Our mother glides into the room. Her hair is long, pure white against her nightdress. She shines in the lightning as Roderick did, and is more graceful than even a ghost. I can’t take my eyes from her.

  When she reaches my bed, she slaps me hard enough that my head hits the headboard.

  My eyes burn, but I don’t say anything as she scoops my brother into her arms and carries him away. The house whispers to me, louder in my ears than the storm outside.

  I lie in the center of my bed, listening to the crash of thunder, and to the splintering of wood, which comforts me. The house is caught up in the story too.

  3

  MADELINE IS FIFTEEN

  On the lower level of the great Usher library, which spans three glorious tiers of disintegrating books, is a glass case holding a butterfly collection compiled years ago by my mother and her sisters. I often find myself here, drawn by the library but bewildered by my inability to unlock the knowledge in the books.

  The butterflies are distorted by the rounded glass. I stand before the case, my fingers dislodging years’ worth of dust, just looking, wondering. I was like these specimens, trapped by my mother’s cruelty. Is there a pin through my middle? What words would be on the parchment identifying me?