Roderick for the past six months has turned away from me, his twin sister, almost completely. I sometime see him staring at me, in a somber and dark way, but he says nothing and shuts himself off in his rooms. I hear his sad music drifting through the hallways. We have ceased to dine together so I find myself eating a solitary meal every night in the great hall.
Roderick and I, who were once so close we couldn’t imagine being apart, who played together incessantly as children, are now no better than strangers.
I remember how wretched I was when he was briefly sent away to school. I at least had my governess and my parents then, though soon after both mater and pater died. Roderick came home from school then, permanently, and he was such a comfort to me. We sat together for hours and he told me of his adventures in what seemed to me, who had never strayed from the House of Usher, magical tales of a far off land. He spoke of one particular friend: how grand, how great this fellow was! How they larked about and sat under willow trees between classes. I wanted so to meet this friend and I even ventured to entertain some girlish romantic ideas that he would come to visit and would find both brother and sister equally worthy.
I think back now with wonder. How happy I was, comparative to now. Yet variety and sunlight and travel did not fall to my share. Yet how I relished everyday and felt animated and alive. Now that I am so wretched, so forgotten, so ill, I wish that I had once had a stronger drive to leave my family home and seek my fortune elsewhere.
For now I am oppressed by many things. I am ill, there can be no denial. I cannot keep most foods down and when I do eat, the dishes always taste so strange and metallic. I have withered and shrunk. I am now more shadow than woman.
I am tired most of the day and I can only find the strength to wander at dawn and dusk, slowly and I am ready to rest at a moment’s notice. My brother, perhaps, has distanced himself because he sees me wasting away both in body and spirit. Perhaps he loves me too well for that.
He is a solicitous as a good brother should be, of course. He had brought in two doctors: one from the town and another, Dr. Strong, from someplace farther. I must confess, though I do not complain openly, that I do not like Dr. Strong. He looks at me so strangely and piercingly. Invariably, I always worsen when he visits so that now I shrink from the mere mention of his name.
Roderick, poor fellow, is really no better than me. Perhaps he sickens out of sympathy. I wish I could be sure. I wish he would talk frankly to me once again, instead of just saying “poor, poor Madeline” under his breath, as if I were already dead.
But no, I am ungrateful. If he cannot be a solace to me as I would wish, I must not complain. I have not long, I fear. Roderick has finally written to his school boy friend but I fear, alas, my days of romance are over. I, a pale reflection of myself, older than 100 years in weary spirit, will never taste of that kind of companionship. I await only the chilly embrace of Death. Perhaps in the next world I will understand why I was here and why I led such a singularly narrow, pointless life.
Roderick has been to see me and he has brought me a special elixir to drink. It has a bitter taste but I consume it all because he actually sits beside my bed and pats my hair sadly. Ah, his touch! His eyes are more feverish than usual tonight and there is the strangest gleam of a smile about this lips that I cannot account for but which chills me.
“My friend is here, Madeline. Perhaps you can come to greet him in my rooms when you feel stronger. He has a great desire to see you, my dear sister.”
I cannot answer him as I feel a strange numbness and lethargy spread over me. What was in that elixir? The swift effect and Roderick’s unholy, lingering smile makes me suddenly frightened. Roderick leans in to plant a chaste kiss on my forehead and thus he leaves quickly.
I have not the energy to follow and question him. To speak my fears to him. I feel the room sway and I concentrate as much as I can on staying awake. I must tell someone. What a fool I’ve been!
But it is too late. Too late but to name my slayer before I perish.
I know not how but I stand. I go slowly, like a sleepwalker, to the window and open the shutters. The cool night air revives me somewhat. Holding onto the wall for support, I find I can walk and I head towards Roderick’s bedroom. But more and more, I feel detached from my surroundings. More and more I feel I am walking the path to the next world. I see Roderick’s bed and his tapestries. I am aware of the hot fire to my left, but my sight has dimmed and I have no will left but to go back to my bed, to lay and sleep the endless sleep. For what good is vengeance to me now…
Darkness.
I dream that Roderick’s friend stands above me, admiring my beauty. But he is sad. So sad.
I am aware of the soreness of my back and of strange smells: cloying and close. I think I open my eyes but it is so completely dark that I must still have them shut.
Dear God! My eyes are open…am I blind? I reach out only to rudely bang my knuckles on a ceiling but a few inches above me. The bed I lay on is as hard as rock. I shift but find I have not the room to sit up. What on earth has happened? why am I close confined? In the darkness I map out the small space, my fingers find a latch and crevices: I push with all of my might but the lid is too firmly screwed down.
Horrors! He has buried me alive!
I scream and the sounds echo sharply and pain my ears but I do not stop. I kick and pound and I feel wet blood flow and I hear the cracking of my bones.
No. No. It cannot be. He cannot have done this. To me, his sister, why? I shriek the word “why” to the heavens. I feel the fissure in the wall of the mansion shudder.
Roderick, who can hear the smallest mouse scurrying in the kitchen, can hear me, I know.
Yet hours pass and then more. The pain of thirst begins to assail me, my tongue swells till I can scream no more but still I pound.
Roderick has killed me, killed me all along. I was never ill. Dr. Strong, the false man he sent for after my own doctor asked too many questions. Dr. Strong did your dirty work, you wicked man, but why? You loved me once, of that I am sure.
Broken, bruised, bewildered, I felt a surge of energy from deep inside me, from some wild part of my being I never knew existed. I drank in my rage and felt renewed.
I laughed and once I laughed, I could not leave off laughing.
Roderick, you pathetic fool, so afraid of life, so afraid of me. Roderick who fancied himself akin to the house: who waited for some terrible event to happen to him, to make him feel fully alive, to answer the ecstasy of fear he allowed himself to fall into.
Roderick could wait no longer for the horrors to consume him. Roderick made that horror happen and I was the sacrifice on the altar of his obsession. Was ever man so completely without pity? The most horrible deed will have been done by him, finally, and he thought to free himself of his madness by it.
But still I go on and still he can hear me. He begins to suspect that he has only increased the fear and not eradicated it. That he has doubled and re-doubled it, much as the tarn reflects the house and makes it hideous.
I hope he hears me. I hope he hears his own fate.
After day six, and no weakening of my limbs, I have just about pushed the lid up: only one more mighty push and it will fall off. I think of his smile: that last smile and with inhuman glee I shove the lid to go crashing and breaking on the floor.
Oh, he heard that all right. I am coming, brother, dear, dear brother. I shall end your suffering, like a good sister should…..
Roderick…Roderick……
lisadeecanada 