Usher's Passing by Robert R. McCammon Page A

"Don't you dare mention that name in this house! Lord knows, your father would have a fit if he heard it!"
    "Well, it's true!" Boone insisted. He grinned at Rix, rubbing his hands together. "When are you gonna write somethin' about us, Rixy? That's about what I'd expect of you next."
    From the corner of his eye, Rix saw his mother blanch. He responded with a smug smile of his own. "You know, brother Boone, that might be a fine idea. I could write a book about the Ushers. The history of the family. How about that, Mom?"
    She opened her mouth to reply, then abruptly clapped it shut. She sprayed the air again, and Rix smelled the new, almost overpowering stench that had crept in under the doors.
    "It's so hard," Margaret said as she followed the mist around the room, "to keep an older house fresh and clean. When a house reaches a certain age, it starts to fall to pieces. I've always cared about keeping a good house." She stopped spraying; it was clear the disinfectant wasn't strong enough. "My mother raised me to care," she said proudly.
    Rix had delayed the moment as long as possible. "I'd better go up and see him now," he said resignedly.
    "No, not yet!" Margaret clutched his hand, a tight false smile across her mouth. "Let's sit down here together, both my fine boys. Cass is making a Welsh pie for you. She knows how much you like them."
    "Mom, I have to go upstairs."
    "He's probably sleeping. Mrs. Reynolds says he needs his sleep. Let's sit down and talk about pleasant things, all right?"
    "Oh, let him go on upstairs, Momma," Boone said silkily, watching Rix. "After he sees what Daddy looks like, he can go write himself another one of those horror—"
    "You shut your mouth!" Margaret whirled toward him. "You're a cruel boy, Boone Usher! At least your brother wants to pay his respects to Walen, which is more than you'll do!" Boone looked away from his mother's wrath, and muttered something under his breath.
    Rix said, "I'd better go up." Tears glinted like tiny diamonds in his mother's eyes, and he reached out to touch her cheek.
    "Don't," she said, quickly pulling her head back. "You'll muss my hair."
    He slowly withdrew his hand. It never changes here, he thought. They draw you in some way or another, and then they try to crush the feelings out of you, like stepping on a bug. He shook his head and walked past her, out of the living room and along the hallway to the central staircase. It wound upward to bedrooms and parlors that had been used by Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and a score of government and Pentagon luminaries, both famous and infamous.
    As he climbed the stairs, dread at seeing his father gnawed at his insides. He didn't know what to expect. Why did Walen want to see him, he wondered. The old man hated him for leaving Usherland, and Rix despised what Usher Armaments stood for. What could they possibly have to talk about now?
    On the second floor, the smell of decay was stronger. He passed by his old room without pausing to look inside. Brightly colored flowers and greenery were placed in crystal vases all along the corridor, in a vain attempt to mask the stench. Moody oil paintings—including War Clouds by Victor Hallmark, After the Battle by Rutledge Taylorson, and Blood on the Snow by George H. Nivens—lined the walls as testimonial to Walen Usher's bleak taste in art. At the end of the corridor, another staircase ascended to a single white door—the Gatehouse's Quiet Room.
    Rix stood at the foot of the stairs, gathering his courage. The odor of decomposition drifted around him, a foul miasma. Nothing that smelled like that, Rix thought, could still be alive.
    The last time Rix had seen his father, Walen Usher had been the tall, ramrod-straight figure of authority that Rix knew from his childhood. Age had done nothing to diminish the power of his gaze or the strength of his voice, and his rugged, rough-hewn features might have been those of a man in his early forties except for swirls of