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Chapters (206)
  1. Praise for Maplecroft
  2. Title page
  3. Copyright page
  4. Contents
  5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  6. THESE ARE THE THINGS AN EARTHQUAKE BRINGS
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  12. A DOCTOR, A LAWYER, A MERCHANT, A CHIEF
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  20. Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
  21. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  26. BE SURE YOUR SINS WILL FIND YOU OUT
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  29. I CROSS THE MAGPIE, THE MAGPIE CROSSES ME
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  31. Nance O’Neil
  32. THIS KNOT I KNIT, THIS KNOT I TIE
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  37. AND IF YOU HAVE A HORSE WITH ONE WHITE LEG . . .
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  43. THE WORST IS TO BE JUDGED WITHOUT HOPE
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  46. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  53. BUT NETTLE SHANT HAVE NOTHING
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  55. CUT THEM ON FRIDAY, YOU CUT THEM FOR SORROW
  56. Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
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  62. HAPPY IS THE CORPSE THAT THE RAIN SHINES ON
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  67. A DWELLING PLACE OF JACKALS, THE DESOLATION FOREVER
  68. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  71. Nance O’Neil
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  84. Emma L. Borden
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  88. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  91. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  93. RIGHT CHEEK, LEFT CHEEK—WHY DO YOU BURN?
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  101. Aaron B. Stewart, Fire Chief, Farthington, Mass.
  102. Emma L. Borden
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  104. Gerald Macintyre, Telegraph Clerk, Western Union
  105. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  107. Physalia, Z. University I Was Not Now
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  109. DEPART, ALL ANIMALS WITHOUT BONES
  110. Emma L. Borden
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  115. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  119. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  130. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  131. Phillip Zollicoffer. Physalia Zollicoffris.
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  137. Christoff Dane, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, Kingston
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  139. Emma L. Borden
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  144. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  150. Emma L. Borden
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  153. FAMILY SLAIN IN MAYFIELD
  154. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  165. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  176. Emma L. Borden
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  186. Owen Seabury, M.D.
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  197. Lizzie Andrew Borden
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  205. Inspector Simon Wolf
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If I’m not careful, I’ll go mad. If I’m not careful, worse things yet may occur. So I remain careful, and I take my notes when I take my tea, and I brew coffee strong enough to keep my eyes wide-open as I make my rounds.

And I will record the things that I’ve seen, even if they seem trivial and unrelated. I do not know what relates to what, so everything must be mentioned and cataloged. Everything must be seen and remembered.

It’s all written down. Not here, but in the patient folders.

Mr. Wells has developed a strange pattern of moles on his back, veritably overnight. Not shingles, not pustules, but moles with a spreading pattern, not unlike a swirl, a whirlpool, a twist of water. At first he swore that it itched and ached, but his wife confided that he’s getting worse, and he’s begun talking to the pattern and listening for a response. At night she hears something, it sounds warm and wet, and it smells like brine and seaweed in the sun.

Miss Fox’s parents insist she’s been feverish for two days, but when I visited she was clammy and cold, and her eyes would scarcely focus. She insisted she’s fine, and wants to go back to school. I suggested another two days of bed rest. Something is amiss. Her mother says she won’t stay in bed, but wanders the house at night, tapping her hands against the windows as if blindly feeling her way around the rooms, and when she walks in her sleep she whispers, “Out, out, out . . .” until they force her back to bed.

They’ve forced her back to bed, and lashed her foot to the post like a hobbled horse. (Like Matthew, before he went mad and murderous.)

Mrs. Williams lives around the corner from the Hamiltons’ store and she’s called for the police twice in the last week, confident that there’s someone moving around inside the shop, someone trying to break down the walls and come through the building itself, trying to get out, out, out. Last night she was found on her front lawn, beneath the big oak in the yard, covered in blood. She stood in her nightdress, muttering about how she’d opened everything, she’d broken the windows and it could get out now, couldn’t it? It would quit asking her now, wouldn’t it?

I treated her cuts, and when I cleaned them I saw they were sliced in patterns, not the ordinary patterns of a window’s shattered shards, but in horizontal lines, back and forth, very deep. It didn’t match her story, but what could I say? Still she spouted nonsense, unless it wasn’t nonsense. I gave her an opiate and sent her to sleep at her sister’s house, at the other side of town.

There’s more.