Madeline Usher's Tale

Chapter Twelve

“There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother.”

                                                                         Chapter Twelve

I opened my eyes to complete blackness.

            My first thought was, “This is Hell. Roderick really murdered me.”

            It took me a few minutes to realize I wasn’t dead. I was in fact very much alive.

            I thought at first I had gone blind. I even thought I was lying down in my bed until I tried to sit up and found myself knocking my head against a hard surface only a few inches from where I lay. Pushing my hands straight in front of me, I felt the hard surface. It was rough and grainy. I concluded the surface was wood after I felt something stick me in the finger. My hands trailed the top of my enclosure, then felt along the sides and then to where I lay. Down the entire length of my body I felt a cushion.

            I had not panicked once for the first few minutes of being awake.

            But now I started to scream. I realized I was in a coffin.

            I screamed and screamed for hours, maybe even a whole day after I opened my eyes. I kicked and shoved against the coffin lid, but it didn’t budge. My only source of light came from a round hole, perhaps the size of a large coin, in the upper left and right of the coffin. Roderick had spared me, at least, by providing oxygen.

            Roderick was forever lost to the Usher family curse. There was no going back for him and I didn’t know if I could ever forgive him for what he had done then and now. I spent a long time trying to pick at his brain to discover why he had resorted to placing me in this coffin. He had a plan, but what that plan was I didn’t know.

            I thought about Matthew. I thought about our night together. I thought about how happy I was. But then I thought about the prospect of his dead body. There was no way Roderick let him live. But why poison me if he had killed Matthew?

Unless…unless Matthew wasn’t dead. What if Roderick faked my death in order to trick Matthew? Matthew would think I was dead and then return to the city. I racked my brain for answers, trying to think as Roderick would. Roderick had said, “This is the only way you’ll stay.” I’d continue to live at Usher Manor if Matthew continued to think I was dead because, if I was alive, he’d have reason to try and rescue me. If I were dead he couldn’t take me away.

Roderick was no fool. I’d known that for years. He had thought long and hard about what he was going to do and he succeeded.

Time became a zone of nothingness. Time no longer existed in my coffin. I had no idea when I was awake or sleeping. Had I only be lying here for a few minutes? A few hours? A few days?

I tried to keep track of time at one point. I counted out every second of a minute. By the time I had counted out fifteen minutes, I lost track and had to start over. I reached an hour eventually, but next thing I knew, I had awoken. I had fallen asleep amidst my counting.

Time was forever gone. It ticked away and all I did was stare upwards into the darkness. I started to scream when I thought spiders were crawling all over my body. But it wasn’t spiders—only the fabric of my dress shifting.