The Fall (24 page)
Authors: Bethany Griffin
Dr. Paul sees the bruises.
“Unsuitable,” he says.
“It's difficult to find a trained physician who will come to this sort of place,” Dr. Peridue says.
“Better someone untrained than someone vicious,” Dr. Paul says.
For the first time in my life, I feel a flush of warmth toward Dr. Paul. At least he sees that something is wrong, even if he won't do anything more than mention it to Dr. Peridue.
I
write a letter to Roderick. I tell him how much better I've been feeling, that I look forward to our eighteenth birthday. I try to keep track of the days, to count them down, but my calendar keeps disappearing. I do not tell Roderick the things that I truly want to say. If he wants to know how I feel, all he has to do is heed that constant connection between us.
Dr. Winston watches me, shaking his head because he doesn't want me to tax myself by writing. He smiles slyly to himself.
I don't expect Roderick to ever get any letter that I write with Dr. Winston watching, so it doesn't matter what words I put on the paper, and I won't beg him to return. I won't make myself pathetic. I'm the brave twin, after all.
Sometime later, I find a letter on my bureau. How long it's been there, I couldn't say. The tone is distant. He says that he's sorry, but he won't be home for our birthday. What else was I to expect? Darkness closes in.
A
gain the doctors whisper to one another, as I stand, vulnerable, before them.
“Did you expect her to stay a child forever?” Dr. Peridue asks. His voice is gentle, and he might seem grandfatherly if he weren't so gaunt and ghoulish.
They aren't watching Dr. Winston, but I see his face flush.
He meets my eyes, and there is a sort of anger in his gaze, as if he truly hates me.
I raise my eyebrows, challenging him, but his response isn't what I expected. His eyes dart away. I see that he's been biting at his fingernails and that he's lost some hair.
When I shiver, Dr. Paul wraps a blanket around my shoulders.
“There, there. This old house is drafty,” he says. But he isn't covering me because of the cold. He's never cared about that before. He's shielding me from Dr. Winston, all the while watching, trying to remember everything so he can write it in his ledger later.
“Give me your arm,” Dr. Paul says, and he sticks the needle into my flesh.
“She's so white, it's as if she has no pigmentation at all,” Dr. Peridue remarks.
I can't tear my eyes away as the blood wells up. It is so very red, dark and luscious, the color of a rose. Spots dance before my eyes. I'm their prisoner as well as the house's. Anger wells up, much like the blood from my arm. Not for much longer. When it all comes down, I'll try to find a way to get the servants out of the house, but the doctors can die, for all I care.
T
oday, we are eighteen years old.
I sit alone at the window. It's covered with a curtain of ivy, which I planted at the base of the house with my own hands. It's grown more quickly than I would have thought possible. Thriving, as each arm takes root in the cracks of the walls. A breath of wind caresses me.
The clatter of hooves wakes me from my reverie. It could be the post, but we received a packet of letters only a week ago. It could be a wanderer, a beggar, or a holy man, though they tend to avoid this place unless they are truly insane.
I brush the ivy away from the window gently. The clattering hooves belong to a white horse. The rider is wearing a hat, pulled down and covering his hair. It doesn't matter; I know him. My heart soars. Roderick didn't abandon meâhis letter must have been a ruse, to try to trick me. To surprise me.
I consider running downstairs to meet him, but that might disappoint him. He craves this surprise, so difficult to achieve with a bond like ours.
The white horse charges across the causeway.
Still, it worries me how our bond has been strained lately. Like my inability to sense the moods of the house. Is Roderick pushing me out of his head, or am I somehow pushing him from mineâor is this an unexpected byproduct of growing up?
“Madeline,” he calls from the great hall. “Madeline!” How undignified for the lord of the manor. I smile.
I descend the staircase, carefully.
He picks me up and spins me around.
“You knew,” he says, guessing.
“Only just a moment ago.” Before that, his abandonment had plunged me into near despair, but I don't tell him that. Not now.
“I have a gift for you.”
“A ring?” I ask, because suddenly our exchange seems familiar, tinged with déjà vu.
“A ring,” he agrees, “and a promise. I'm home to stay.”
Can it be true? Will he really stay? And how will I destroy the house if Roderick is here?
“Happy birthday,” he says, and kisses my forehead.
R
oderick and I are lying on the floor of the drawing room. We are reflected in the great baroque mirror that covers the interior wall. The top of my head meets the top of his head, and we create a straight line. He has let his hair grow out a little, and our hair, twined together against the black rug, sparkles. It's impossible to tell which is his and which is mine.
Roderick points up, re-creating a childhood game in which we find shapes amid the wreckage of the once-beautiful plaster ceiling. A great crack like a bolt of lightning runs from one side to the other. Others run outward from that one, and more from each crack. The plaster hangs in strips. Roderick generally avoids looking at such things; he hates the dilapidation of the house. Will he really stay here?
“I won't be going back to school,” he says.
A year ago, I would have been rejoicing, but even if I didn't have dangerous plans, his voice is thick with pain. I touch him lightly, and he sighs.
“I am in disgrace. They are sending a letter to our parents.” He gives a strangled laugh.
“Why?” I whisper the question. Because even though I see bits and pieces of his life, I still want him to tell me. To explain.
In the great mirror, I see his brow furrow.
“My friend and I . . . there were rumors that caused the other boys to turn against us. And then someone saw something that they misinterpreted. I am taking the blame for everything, Madeline. My future is here, and his future is out in the world, where this sort of accusation can ruin a person.”
Despite our bond, he believes he is guarding his secrets, just giving me enough to understand his pain, but pictures slide in front of my eyes. Visions. I see everything. I grip his hands tighter. He is my brother and I will love him, regardless.
“It is difficult. My old acquaintances scorn me. I cannot even write to him. He has to pretend to hate me.”
“I'm sorry, Roderick.” I truly am, because even though he will be staying home, he is heartbroken.
“Look, to the left of the crack that looks like a lightning bolt, what does that resemble?” he asks.
“A horse,” I lie. It looks like a puppy, and that reminds me of Cassandra, and my chest tightens, as if this is a new grief.
“No, over a little, does that look like a clock? Under the holes that are like eyes . . .”
Holes through which the house watches us.
Something falls, drips down from a crack in the ceiling and lands on my face. I wrench my hands away from Roderick's grasp. The liquid runs from my cheekbone to my ear, and at the same time, toward my mouth. I twist my head to divert it.
“Madeline!” Roderick pulls off his shirt and uses it to wipe the substance away. I stumble to my feet and across the room to a basin of water, scrubbing, tearing at my skin. It's a brownish substance, like old blood, or infection. The smell is enough to start one of my fits.
“It's on your dress,” he says. I feel his fingers, his long, slender, clever fingers, unbuttoning the back of my dress. I am rubbing desperately at my face, and I don't stop him from undressing me. Whatever fell from the ceiling filled me with such horror that I want even the smallest droplet removed. I will burn this dress.
Roderick's shirt lies abandoned on the floor. My dress falls from my shoulders.
At the same time, I look up to see Dr. Winston's reflection in the mirror . He is watching us from the open door.
“I heard the good news that Mr. Roderick is home to stay,” he says.
I
've slowly been searching the house. Today I will comb through the attic. Looking for my dead friend. It doesn't seem real. And yet where better to hide a dead body than a place where a live man was lost for weeks, or perhaps longer.
I stand amid the discards of long-dead children, touching things with my too-sensitive fingertips. The dolls with their glass eyes; the drum, which is too far gone, too deteriorated to use to distract the house. A tiny broken tea set that reminds me of summers in the sun, sitting in my garden, and Emily insisting the servants bring hot, fresh tea.
In a chest large enough to fit a body, I find wooden blocks and an army of wooden soldiers. Moving a rectangular building block, I catch sight of a bit of lace. Oh, no. Reaching out curious fingers, I touch it. Perhaps it is a doll, or a doll's dress. Perhaps. It is white, like a wedding dress.
During the winter I had white coats made, white dresses, to imitate Emily, who was so stylish. I thought she was so worldly, with her fur-lined caps over her dark hair and the muff that kept her hands warm. And she reached out to me in friendship. I should have found some way to save her.
Gingerly, I shift another block. For a moment, I fear that I might see her face staring up at me. But no, there is only the dress, complete with pearl buttons on the sleeves. Blocks rain down on the wood floor as I pull the dress from the chest.
It is pristine, and untouched by the thick dust that covers everything else in these quiet, haunted rooms.
“Madeline?” Dr. Winston has crept up behind me.
I turn, clutching the dress to my chest. There is no way to hide what I have found.
“Yes?”
“What do you have?”
He is standing in the doorway of the room with the manacles. And I fear, for a moment, that he will strap me down, that he will say it is for my own good, and that when Roderick returns to the house, that he will shake his head sadly and agree.
He's blocking the stairway, and if I run, he will catch me. The way he watches, I feel like prey, and my blood runs cold. Or maybe that's the mood of the house, seeping through the very boards beneath my feet.
I am so afraid that I nearly collapse onto the floor. Where is Roderick?
I cannot see Dr. Winston's eyes, but I know that they are turning purplish, a purple film over his dark eyes, like a cataract.
“It's my dress,” I stammer. “My favorite. I've been looking for it everywhere.”
He takes three steps forward. Three steps too close. Why didn't I at least try to run? I'm frozen now.
“It's beautiful,” he says.
“I know. That's why I was searching for it.” How small my voice sounds. Good. He'll think I'm weak and unsure.
“You should put it on.” A smile plays at the corner of his mouth.
“Yes. Tomorrow. I'll wear it tomorrow.” I take a step back, measuring the distance from where I'm standing to the stairs.
“Why not now?” We stare at each other. “If you treasure the dress so, and you just found it, you should be excited to put it on. To wear it. We'll have tea.”
He's taunting me, but at the same time his eyes are completely mad. How can I tell him no?
“Of course,” I say. “You bring the tea. I will put on the dress.”
“You may need my help,” he says. “It has many pearl buttons down the back, does it not? Twenty-four of them.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Please help me.” Where is Roderick?
I let my colorless dress fall down around my ankles. I do not move to cover myself, but he responds as if I had. Laughing.
“You don't have to cover yourself. I've seen you too many times to count.”
And it's true. All of the doctors have. But his eyes, moving over me now, make my skin crawl. Twenty-four pearl buttons. Tears run down my cheeks. I'm terrified, but also calculating. Let him see me as helpless
I pull it on quickly. The fabric is beautiful, heavy, with a silk sheen. The pearls at the sleeves are cool against my skin. He fastens the bottom button, just above the small of my back, and then leans in, taking forever to button each one. I hold myself impossibly still.
When I destroy the house, I'll be sure he's inside.
The dress fits perfectly, but the collar is stiff and starchy. It chokes me.
“You are beautiful,” Dr. Winston says. He stands looking at me for a long time, his smile stretching across his face. “Sit down,” he says. “We are going to have tea. You and me,” he adds. “No Roderick.” As if Roderick would ever agree to have tea with him.
And that's when the nurseries begin to waver around me.
I
'm drowning. I can see the surface . . . but it's so far away. My brain feels wrong, woozy and unsure. I've been ill again. I need to wake up, but I can't quite . . .
The doctor's white face is above me. Dr. Winston. I try to focus on him, to let his presence lead me back to consciousness, but his expression is so odd. So sad. Am I dying? Is he mourning my death?