Chapters (206)
- Praise for Maplecroft
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- THESE ARE THE THINGS AN EARTHQUAKE BRINGS
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- A DOCTOR, A LAWYER, A MERCHANT, A CHIEF
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- Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- BE SURE YOUR SINS WILL FIND YOU OUT
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- I CROSS THE MAGPIE, THE MAGPIE CROSSES ME
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- Nance O’Neil
- THIS KNOT I KNIT, THIS KNOT I TIE
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- AND IF YOU HAVE A HORSE WITH ONE WHITE LEG . . .
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- THE WORST IS TO BE JUDGED WITHOUT HOPE
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- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- BUT NETTLE SHANT HAVE NOTHING
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- CUT THEM ON FRIDAY, YOU CUT THEM FOR SORROW
- Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
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- HAPPY IS THE CORPSE THAT THE RAIN SHINES ON
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- A DWELLING PLACE OF JACKALS, THE DESOLATION FOREVER
- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- Nance O’Neil
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- Emma L. Borden
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- Owen Seabury, M.D.
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- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- RIGHT CHEEK, LEFT CHEEK—WHY DO YOU BURN?
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- Aaron B. Stewart, Fire Chief, Farthington, Mass.
- Emma L. Borden
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- Gerald Macintyre, Telegraph Clerk, Western Union
- Owen Seabury, M.D.
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- Physalia, Z. University I Was Not Now
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- DEPART, ALL ANIMALS WITHOUT BONES
- Emma L. Borden
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- Owen Seabury, M.D.
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- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- Owen Seabury, M.D.
- Phillip Zollicoffer. Physalia Zollicoffris.
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- Christoff Dane, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, Kingston
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- Emma L. Borden
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- Owen Seabury, M.D.
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- Emma L. Borden
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- FAMILY SLAIN IN MAYFIELD
- Owen Seabury, M.D.
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- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- Emma L. Borden
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- Owen Seabury, M.D.
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- Lizzie Andrew Borden
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- Inspector Simon Wolf
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The joy that had positively flooded my heart . . . now evaporated with her prettily phrased petition. I believe my face might’ve gone all but green. “Dearest, no,” I said slowly. “There’s nothing romantic about the cellar at all.”
“Just dust and wine and bugs, or so you’d have me think. Show me,” she insisted, and it wasn’t just another whine. It bore all the hallmarks of a demand.
I was running out of ways to defer the exploration, and I knew it, and it was awful because every excuse was a lie—but a lie that might save her life, or her soul. “Darling, I’m not even sure where the key is right now. Off the top of my head . . . it might be in the odds-and-ends basket by the back door . . .”
“No,” she said with steel in her eyes. “I already checked.”
“You . . . you checked? You went looking for the key?”
“I found several keys, stashed here and there. In drawers, and atop tables. None of them fit this lock.”
The key was safely around my neck, as always. But the fact that she’d gone looking for it chilled me to my core. “Why are you so determined to see it?”
“Because you’re so determined to keep it from me. It must be terribly interesting, if you’re so certain I shouldn’t go anywhere near it.”
“Rather the opposite,” I said with a shrug, wandering to the sink and placing my hands along the cool enamel surface. I reached for the teakettle in order to have something to do, some meaningless task to distract myself—but she took it away and set it down on the counter.
“So it’s a dull, safe, unremarkable place?”
“Entirely.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to,” I said, digging in my heels. I’m at least as stubborn as she is, after all. “I don’t like going down there. It’s damp and cold, and all the wood is eaten up by rot. Every time I descend the stairs, I’m halfway convinced they’ll shatter out from under me. Mildew and mold, all the way through.”
“Doesn’t sound very safe to me.”
“Oh, stop it. You know what I mean.” I moved away from her again, and she followed me again—staying very close to me, her eyes never leaving my face. I hated it, because it meant she’d been touched by the things down there, or called by them, and I was no longer dealing merely with a woman I adored but who could be a tad insistent.
I was confronted by a woman who’d acquired a compulsion.