Chapter Text
They buried Roderick and Madeline Usher side by side, as far from the cabin as they dared. Buried the coffins, at least. Madeline’s remained empty, a fact which made Will uneasy as they scraped dirt over the graves, marked them with sticks and dusted off their hands as if the problem was unequivocally solved.
He wasn’t the only one with doubts: over the next week Berenice jumped at every creak of the floorboards, and Lenore insisted on sleeping in the attic, convinced that the ghosts had not been swept out as thoroughly as they hoped.
“I don’t like that we haven’t found Madeline,” She whispered as they sat before the hearth, picking at the third meal of charred deer meat in as many days. “What if she’s still alive?”
Duke snorted. “Alive or not, she’s long gone from these woods.”
“How would we know? We’re strangers here. Maybe she never left.”
“Can we stop talking about the creepy dead people?” Ada snapped, slamming her bowl down. “I hate this place enough already.”
“S’all bullshit,” Montresor mumbled around the toothpick in his mouth. “Ghosts, demons, god.”
“I thought staunch atheists were supposed to die first in horror movies,” said Berenice.
“We could never be so lucky,” grumbled Duke.
The toothpick cracked as Montresor’s jaw clenched. Duke did not rescind his comment, returning the glare and raising an eyebrow in derision. Will glanced nervously between them, at the threat of a fight crackling like the static they used to create with sweaters and balloons.
“None of that stuff helps us get home, anyway.” He added, hasty.
It didn’t quite kill the tension—if anything, Montresor’s ire was simply redirected to Will as he huffed, spitting the toothpick out. For a moment Will wasn’t sure what had his friend so displeased, but the answer soon hit with its own electric clarity: Monty did not want to go home. Monty would have hopped a train in Seattle, perhaps hitchhiked his way down the west coast by now, had his plans of escape not gone down with the plane.
Though…he’d escaped in a way, Will supposed. They all had. Thoroughly vanished, scrubbed from the flight path, the competition, the classes they would have otherwise attended. Empty seats, empty cereal bowls. Empty graves, if they were gone long enough. How long had Madeline been gone?
“I’ve got it!” Declared Eulalie, abandoning her perch on the windowsill and marching to the center of the room. “We should have a seance!”
“A seance?” Prospero echoed, frowning.
“Yes! It’s a way to communicate with spirits, usually through a medium.”
“I’m aware of the concept, just…isn’t that a bit…childish?”
“I don’t think so,” said Eulalie. “If there are ghosts here, they might be able to help us.” When this earned no reaction beyond a few eye rolls, she added, “We don’t have much else to do.”
No one argued. Survival had been a time consuming endeavor at first, but they’d reached a stasis that left afternoons long and maddening, insatiable hunger filling the hours with its emptiness.
“Fine,” sighed Annabel. “A seance, tonight, in the attic. If only to stave off the boredom.”
That was how Will found himself scavenging for candles. He’d amassed a grand total of twenty-three by the end of an hour, some new and slender and others burnt to stubs, all tucked into the pockets of his ratty overalls until they overflowed. The excess he balanced somewhat precariously in the crook of one elbow as he reached for the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet, fingers scraping over nothing. At this point he doubted there was a single nook or cranny he’d left untouched—even the cobweb-threaded rafters of the attic had been subject to his scrutiny. They would have made for an odd place to stash candles, but he figured the Ushers had been odd people. He rocked back on his heels and turned to the window, which presented him a view of Montresor standing in front of the meat shack, his silhouette fuzzy through the layers of dirt and condensation. The door to the shack was open, and though Will could not see inside it, he knew the deer was strung up there, raw and red and slit open throat to tail.
He recalled the only time he’d seen Monty cry, when they found that stray dog in the churchyard, blood and froth crusting its mouth. Monty had fed the poor thing scraps of stolen communion bread for months, while the pastor complained of a creature tracking dirt on the steps and digging by the tombstones. Apparently rat poison made an adequate substitute for Jesus, if one needed to cleanse a spot of filth in a pinch. The body was cold and buzzing with flies by the time they discovered it, and Monty did not shout or sob, but his eyes had glittered like spilled ink. He was lucky Berenice had volunteered herself as the butcher before his pride landed him a role he would despise.
Just as Will began to imagine that it was a block of ice separating them, rather than glass, Montresor broke from his trance and hefted the axe over one shoulder, marching off into the woods. Will’s reflection was all that remained in the window, cloudy and gray. Indistinct, as if he might be washed off with the dust. And yet—there was something about his face that was wrong enough to demand attention, something Will struggled to name until he realized abruptly that the reflection did not blink. On cue his eyes began to ache, reminding him that he had not slept particularly well since the crash. Most nights he entertained himself by counting each brush of wind, every restless movement from his bandmates. He still had not worked up the courage to ask where Montresor had gone that first evening, when he disappeared for several hours and slipped back into place as though he had never left at all.
“Will?”
Will’s forehead throbbed where it smacked into the glass.
“Huh?” He stumbled, flailing to stabilize the candles on instinct. His fingers closed on empty air. Eulalie called his name again.
“Will, are you alright?”
He turned out his pockets, patting himself down, only to look up and find the candles arranged on the counter in a perfect circle. Had he done that? He had only meant to rest his eyes.
“Y-yeah,” He mumbled, dragging a hand down his face. “Tired, I guess.”
The floorboards creaked and Eulalie appeared at his side.
“Oh, lovely!” She clapped, taking notice of the candles. “I knew there would be enough. We’re setting up in the attic, though.”
For a long moment his mind was preoccupied, spooling over the oddity of his reflection and the candles that had managed to escape his arms and pockets without his notice. He flailed to respond when Eulalie blinked at him expectantly. “Right. Yeah, ‘course, I was just. Well, making sure there were enough, like you said.”
Eulalie did not press further, scooping up half the candles and leaving the rest for him to gather as she spun toward the pantry.
“I was thinking,” She said once Will hauled himself into the attic after her, candles rolling across the floor where he dropped them unceremoniously. “There are these strange marks in the wood. Perhaps we arrange the candles on those?”
Indeed, several symbols were etched into the floor—Will counted nine upon a glance, similar but not identical, and not following any particular pattern. They looked a bit like the spikes on a pulse monitor.
“I don’t see why not.” He shrugged, setting one of the taller candles on the nearest carving, this one vaguely M-shaped.
“Bee and I saw marks in the trees too, the other day. One by the lake, another near that stump with all the moss.” Eulalie pointed to the corresponding symbols, then set candles on each of them. “I think they’re some sort of map. Trail blazes.”
“Should we be keeping track of them? Y’know, in case…” Will abruptly realized he wasn’t sure what he meant to suggest; trail blazes or not, it was unlikely the symbols could lead them to civilization. Unless they were a code, a warning, not a map at all.
“Probably. I’m no cartographer, but depending on how long we’re stuck here…” She frowned, glancing briefly at the round window bordered by wood grain and tattered yellow wallpaper. “Duke and Pluto have been going out farther every time. Not far enough to get lost, yet. They haven’t seen game in days.”
“I could try,” Will mumbled. “To draw a map. I’m good at visualizing things, I think.”
“Okay,” Eulalie tipped the last candle into place, dusted off her skirt and grinned. “I’ll describe it to you.”
“Oh, uh—now?” She was already halfway down the ladder.
“We’ve got a few hours ‘till nightfall.”
By the time Will caught up, Eulalie was in the living room rummaging through a galaxy-patterned backpack. He crouched by his own duffle bags, fishing out his notebook and a pencil the same moment she stood triumphantly, a shimmering object dangling from her fingers.
“What’s that?”
“A pendulum,” said Eulalie, bringing it closer. An amethyst, filed to a point and fastened to a long silver chain. “It will help us speak to the ghosts.”
“How…does that work, exactly?”
She allowed the chain to unspool from her fingers until the amethyst hung between them. “You ask yes or no questions, and the spirits will answer with circles for yes, stillness for no.”
“And the spirits move it, not the person holding the pendulum?” Will couldn’t help asking. He believed in ghosts halfway, with the same lukewarm conviction he allotted most things. Suspending himself by ribbons, waiting for a hand to spin him one direction or the other. There was always a person to do the swaying, the translating, the editing, to mold something abstract into steadfast shapes.
“That’s why the medium should be someone trustworthy.”
“Not me, I guess.”
“No. I was going to ask Lenore.”
Monty would have scoffed at that, insisted that Lenore was several cards short of a full deck and that Eulalie was no better. Will bit his tongue before saying as much. He began flipping through the notebook in search of a blank page, hasty fingers smearing graphite.
“You write?” Eulalie asked, tapping one of the entries.
Will did his best to cover the words with his sleeves.
“Y-yeah. It’s…like a journal, I guess. Helps to make sense of…” He gestured vaguely at the cabin. “…this.”
“I understand.” Eulalie nudged his shoulder, grinning. “You might have a bestseller in your hands, once we get back. The masses love a good survival epic.”
Will laughed along with her. He’d have to scrub away his fingerprints, first. He wasn’t sure there was much of a story to tell. More accurately, this was a book of confessions, words he should have taken to a priest or a god instead of lined paper. Slowly he withdrew his hands, keeping the journal tilted away from Eulalie until he found a place where the paper was thick enough that his secrets did not spill out.
“Where was the symbol, again?”
She began recounting a walk through the forest, drawing curves and bends in the air with her arms, which he turned to scratchy pencil strokes. The lakeshore took shape, then the scruffy pines surrounding it, and finally the fat cottonwood with a pulse gouged into its trunk. Each time he brushed eraser dust to the floor, Will glanced out the window, hoping that Montresor would reappear.
“What are you looking for?”
“Er…” Nothing, he wanted to say, but that would have been a humiliatingly obvious lie. Eulalie had only asked so he’d be forced to say it aloud. “Monty.”
“Figures,” She sighed. “It’ll be a while. You may as well quit waiting.”
“I just…I worry he won’t come back.”
“Would that be so bad?” A scoff, mostly in jest, though with some thread of truth. Montresor had given his peers no shortage of reasons to want him gone. “You aren’t so awful, like him. When you’re apart, you aren’t much like him at all.”
“We write our G’s the same,” Will mumbled. “Monty and I. I’ve stolen other things from him too.”
“What sorts of things?” Eulalie asked after staring at him much too long.
“The rips in his jeans. Tabs from his soda cans. His untrustworthy-ness.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. I think you’d be better off.”
“I know,” said Will.
“He’s not a good friend.”
I know.
“Sure he is.” Too defensive. Like this was scripture, rehearsed over and over. “You just don’t understand.”
Montresor had arrived in Salem, Virginia exactly three days before Pentecost. Newcomers were rarely bold enough to sit in the front pews, but Montresor and his mother blazed into service that Sunday as if they owned the holy ground they walked on. Tongues of flame with gold-spun hair, dressed in matching vermillion, heat prickling the air they stirred. Will imagined they had crawled their way out of an illuminated manuscript, trading ochre and cinnabar for flesh and bone.
Most of the congregation was not dressed in red—Will certainly wasn’t, given that he barely had three shirts total that were nice enough for the eyes of God. He was not sure if the pastor even acknowledged the holiday. He did not remember a single word after Montresor entered the sanctuary.
Once the pastor gave his benediction and sent the flock on their way, Montresor’s mother had wasted no time introducing herself to the clergy, both hands fastened to her son’s shoulders as she did. Montresor’s eyes were restless, meeting Will’s only for a split second before returning to the stained glass. Will watched him all of the next Sunday, and the one after that, holding his eyes a little longer each time.
He did not meet Montresor properly until weeks later, when a storm tore through the valley, splitting trees and toppling power lines. Runoff gushed from culverts into the swollen creek, turned the dirt floor of the storage shed to a swamp. Will had followed Sallie and Johnny there, urged by the promise of company and a night on the town if he could pinch a few of the beers Mr. Wilson kept separate from the rest of the produce.
They had taken the bottles from his hands, locked Will up and ran. He told himself they didn’t mean for him to be washed away by the flood. It hadn’t been raining quite so hard, at the time. Mud splashed up into his boots as he strained against the door, digging trenches with his heels.
Montresor did not give a warning when he kicked his way through from the other side. The whole shed shuddered, the door slammed open and Will was knocked to the ground, wondering if it was lightning that had hit him. He’d looked up to instead find the flaming-tongue Pentecost boy, thoroughly drenched yet burning wilder than before.
Will learned three things, then:
Montresor was from Texas.
Montresor did not believe in God.
Montresor wanted to go home.
It took him far too long to realize Eulalie was still talking.
“Bee insists the Fair Folk aren’t real, but I won’t stop believing in them just because she said so.” She repeated. “You don’t have to listen to everything he says.”
“I don’t,” said Will. “Not everything.”
Eulalie squinted at him, unconvinced.
“Why…” He hesitated. “Why do you believe in fairies?”
“The same reason people believe in god, I suppose. It’s nice to feel less alone.”
God had never made Will feel any less alone. Nor had his parents, his thirteen siblings. Only Monty.
“Sometimes I like to imagine I am a changeling,” Eulalie went on. “A strange creature in human skin, switched at birth with a real child. And that’s why I never feel quite right.”
“I…don’t always feel quite right either,” Will admitted.
The sun was setting now, bleeding orange and red through the glass, turning dust motes to sparks.
He stared at the journal for a long while after Eulalie disappeared, apparently to procure a concoction of dirt and deer blood. Not strictly necessary for communication across the veil, but more fun, she claimed.
The other survivors began to spill in with the light, first Ada and Morella giggling, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders. Duke and Pluto, exhausted and empty-handed. Berenice and Prospero, supporting Lenore as she limped over the threshold. Montresor trailed a few paces behind Annabel, wiping sweat with the hem of his shirt, ribs exposed and sharp as rain gutters.
“The hell is that s’posed to be?”
Will realized first that he had been staring, second that Montresor was referring to the notebook still open on his lap.
“A map,” He shrugged. “Have you found symbols in the trees?”
“No,” Monty wrinkled his nose. “Haven’t gone lookin’, and I don’t plan on it.”
Eualie was directing everyone to the attic while eagerly explaining the rules of the seance, and she paused to toss a box of matches in Will’s direction. “The ghosts await!”
“Sure they do,” Montresor grumbled, miming a loose screw at his temple.
It took Will nine tries to get a single match to light—both sides of the box had been scraped to near uselessness—and by then nearly all the candles were lit anyway. He watched the flame eat down the stick, wood curling black. He meant to hold it to the final wick, at least blow it out before it burned too low, but he remained motionless until the heat bit at his fingertips. The match fell, and Eulalie stomped on it immediately.
“Careful,” she said. “This place is old.”
Will shoved the rest of the matches into her hands.
Most everyone had gathered in the circle now, passing around the bowl of blood, earth and whatever else, smearing it in crosses on their foreheads as Eulalie had instructed. Lenore sat at the window, fidgeting with the pendulum while Berenice blindfolded her. When the bowl was presented to Morella, she peered into it warily.
“It’s just a game,” said Ada. “You don’t have to play.”
“We’re not meant to interfere with the occult.”
“I doubt we’ll interfere with much of anything,” Ada rolled her eyes. Morella frowned and slid the bowl to Duke without touching it.
The concoction eventually landed before Montresor, who grimaced but copied the others without further complaint. Rather than pass the bowl on, he dipped his thumb in again and reached for Will’s face, their knees knocking as he turned.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” Montresor recited, and smudged the cross into Will’s skin too. He pulled away, grinning. “Always wanted to be the one sayin’ that.”
“You’d be a shit preacher,” Will muttered after a long moment in which his tongue refused to work. A dangerous preacher, more like.
“Better than you.”
Eulalie saved him from the need to reply. “Spirits that reside in this place. May only what is safe and welcome enter here.” Her voice was the vibration of a bell, cold and clear. “We offer this pendulum as your instrument, that you might commune with us.”
Lenore lifted her arm, amethyst glinting red in the dim light. A hush fell over the circle.
“Now,” said Eulalie, clasping her hands. “We ask our questions.”
The candles shivered, and it was as if they were all huddled inside a lantern, the house acting as their cage.
“Oh, great spirit. Our dearest deceased Roderick Usher,” Duke spoke in a booming cadence, something like a sermon—or a mockery of one. “Tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Is Dean Merry secretly a squid?”
That prompted several snickers, though Pluto hid his under a cough when Eulalie frowned.
“Real questions.”
Duke had the decency to look apologetic, mumbling a “sorry” before clearing his throat. “Er—how’s this. Had we made it to the competition, would we have won?”
Eyes flew expectantly to the pendulum dangling from Lenore’s fingertips.
It did not move. No.
Unanimous groans and protests rose from the group in retaliation.
“Now that’s bullshit,” said Berenice.
“May Apollo smite the judges and curse their bloodlines.”
Ada raised her hand once the chorus of boos had died down. “Are Ms. Poppet and Nurse Dolly having an affair?”
The pendulum began to spin. Yes. This time: squeals and cackles and I-told-you-so’s.
“Did Arthur really stage a mutiny on a cruise ship?”
No.
“Are Ligeia and Rowena hooking up with the same guy?”
Yes.
Will nudged Montresor, who had yet to speak. “Any burning questions?”
“Plenty,” Montresor grunted. “Just none worth askin’ a fake ghost.”
Will thought of his journal. Of how badly Montresor wanted to disappear.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Me too.”
“Will we be stuck out here forever?” Asked Pluto.
No.
That brought out wobbly smiles of relief, hesitant but hopeful.
“Are we really speaking to Roderick Usher?”
Still no movement. Less encouraging.
“Can you help us?” Eulalie’s tone was serious, now.
No.
Grins slipped into frowns and Will’s heart sank to the floorboards.
“What about Madeline. Is Madeline Usher alive?”
For a moment, the pendulum did not stir. Then it was spinning, drawing one loop and another, over and over. A figure eight.
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Berenice, pitched high, wary.
“I don’t know,” said Eulalie.
“Maybe Roderick doesn’t know either?”
“Is…” Morella swallowed as though the question were something lodged in her throat. “Is Madeline still here?”
The chaos unfolded rapidly, then, like a shower of needles from a dying tree. Branches creaked outside and a breeze rattled the window.
Before the pendulum could answer, Montresor began to cough.
Sharp, hacking gasps as though he’d swallowed something much larger than himself.
“Monty?” Will shook his friend. “Monty, are you alright?”
Montresor did not acknowledge him, clawing at his throat with trembling fingers.
He doubled over, spit flying from his lips, each exhale more violent than the last.
Just when Will thought Montresor might vomit, the candles flared, flames shooting toward the ceiling in impossible, perfect beams of light. There were shrieks and a frantic scrambling of shoes as everyone fought to put distance between themselves and the fiery cage. Montresor crawled to its center, mumbling in a low rasp.
“The fuck is wrong with him?” Pluto shouted.
“Knock it off, this isn’t funny,” said Prospero. The others looked on in shock, cowering against the cabin walls.
Before he could think better of it, Will stepped between the candles and tried to haul Montresor upright.
“No, don’t…” Montresor croaked. “I ain’t. I’m not.” His eyes were unfocused and his skin was hot to the touch.
“I think he’s possessed,” said Eulalie, bewildered.
“Oh, wonderful,” Berenice threw up her hands. “Well? Does anyone have salt?”
“Why the hell would we have salt?”
“I imagine it’s more common than holy water—”
“He’s wearing a crucifix and it’s not doing shit, what makes you think—”
“You need me…you’ve always needed me.” Montresor’s babbling was threaded with laughter.
“What do you mean?” Eulalie asked, stepping closer. “Are you Madeline?”
“Do not encourage him!” Duke snapped.
Will had given up on dragging Monty away from the fire and instead had him wrapped in something like an embrace, keeping the other boy’s arms pinned to his sides as he writhed. Ragged fingernails tore into Will’s skin and he held Monty tighter still.
“Stop this at once,” said Annabel. Will suspected this was meant to be an order, but it hardly came out as a statement.
Montresor stilled by a fraction and whispered, “I’ve forgotten the words.”
“What words?” Asked Will. He could feel the curve of Monty’s spine, his rattling breath, his fickle heartbeat. Too sharp, too shallow, too fast.
“Our father, who art in heaven,” Montresor mumbled, and the prayer was wrong in his mouth, blurring and sticking together.
“Hallowed be thy name?” Will guessed. “Monty, you’re not making any sense—”
Montresor resumed his thrashing, fiercer than before. He twisted, raking a hand across Will’s face, and the sting was enough to make Will reel. Heat brushed his flailing arms as Montresor tackled him, distorted shadows rippling cruel and feral in the candlelight. Montresor’s hands closed over Will’s throat and his thighs dug into Will’s ribs, crushing the air from his body.
“Monty? Monty, s-stop!”
His screams cracked under Montresor’s fingers, syllables pressed into coarse sand.
“Can’t you see it’s me?”
He wasn’t sure why those were the words he chose, why he thought they’d make Montresor snap from his trance. If anything, Montresor’s grip tightened, lips curling into a deeper snarl. Will’s feet scrabbled against the floorboards. He tried to pry Montresor’s hands away from his neck, pushing at his wrists, his shoulders, everywhere he could reach. The weight on his chest was such that he could no longer speak, his breath hardly more than the scrape of dead grass. Montresor did not falter with any sort of recognition. There was an eclipse where his eyes ought to have been.
Somewhere, beneath the panic, deep in his husk of burning skin, Will felt that this wasn’t such a terrible place to die. At the very least, it would be deserved. And it would be hard to forget.
The attic turned to molasses at its edges, roof bending inward in syrupy swirls.
It was beginning to fuzz out entirely when Lenore and Prospero dove between the strings of flame, their combined strength enough to pin Montresor down. Will was left sputtering, coughing ragged gasps.
Montresor fought valiantly still and screamed—it was the drawn out wail of a dying creature, ringing in Will’s ears as everything suddenly became too much. Too much air rushing into his lungs, too much empty space where Montresor had been, too many shouts traded back and forth while the others rushed to put candles out. Amidst the chaos, he hardly noticed the trapdoor fly open.
Morella climbed into the attic, a bible clutched tight in her white-knuckled hands. From his vantage point on the floor, Will could see her knees buckle as she crept toward Montresor, though she caught herself and pressed on.
“The power of Christ compels you,” she cried.
“Oh for fuck’s sake—”
Morella’s voice rose in volume and confidence. “Begone Satan, the power of Christ compels you!”
“He doesn’t look particularly compelled,” hissed Ada.
Montresor continued to scream, though now it sounded a bit like screeching laughter, and he strained against Lenore and Prospero. Morella trembled so violently it seemed the bible would slip through her fingers. Instead, she drew back and flung it at Montresor.
It smacked him square in the face and fell in his lap.
“OW!” Montresor yelped, the sustained note of his cry immediately severed. “The fuck was that for?”
His chest was heaving but his eyes were whole again, merely twitchy and disoriented. Angry, when they glared up at Morella, shocked when they found Will. And then he said Will’s name, softer than he ever had before, as though he were the one whose voice had been squeezed to rough shards.
In an instant the attic was plunged into green-tinged darkness, smoke curling toward the roof as the candles flickered out. All Will could hear from that moment on was his own rasping inhale and exhale, the murmurs around him fizzing away until it was as though they were spoken through a can and string. Prospero knelt beside him and brought a gloved hand to his throat, and he must have asked something that Will could not answer. Morella stood stock-still, eyes unblinking, hands still outstretched.
Lenore was shouting at Montresor, no longer restraining him physically but holding him down with a look of pure contempt. He seemed to lack the energy or awareness to argue, hands limp against the bible, hair spilling over his face.
When he glanced at Will, it was with the same unreadable stare they’d held across church pews, graveyards, classrooms, one that always lingered a bit too long.
Will was first to look away, shifting his head so that all he could see was the overturned candles and the symbols beneath them.