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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
  30. •   •   •
  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
  57. •   •   •
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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
  69. •   •   •
  70. •   •   •
  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
  103. •   •   •
  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
  138. •   •   •
  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
  206. •   •   •

But the bell rang and rang and rang, with all of Emma’s strength, and I was compelled to answer it.

I tried to rise out of the covers, and I stumbled, falling to all fours. My head was swimming. I was swimming, my arms and legs made of some slippery, uncertain substance. Still stuck in the dream, they were. That’s where I was swimming, I guess, wherever the world was made of silk sheets and quiet.

I forced myself to climb up, using the bed itself for support. And I realized then what I should’ve noticed immediately: Nance wasn’t there. Her side of the bed was empty, and when I placed a hand on the indentation her body had made in the comforter, I found no warmth to suggest she’d only just left me.

And then it all fell into place.

My wobbly brain, my sleep growing longer by the night. Her fixation with the cellar door, all talk of lovers’ bargains aside. Lies, and treachery. She’s been drugging me, testing the dose to see what would send me deepest to sleep, and keep me there longest. She’s been waiting for us to move Emma back upstairs, so that Emma wouldn’t catch her by accident, or see her as she slipped downstairs to the door.

Perhaps oddly, I understood all of these things even before I noticed that the key was gone.

Sometimes it’s funny, the way the mind works. How it assembles the minor pieces before the major ones arrive, solving the mystery in reverse, before all the clues are provided. It could’ve been the drugs—whatever she’d used against me. Some syrup or serum. Something that hid the big things but let me see the little ones.

I slapped my hand against my chest, where the cellar key usually hung on its chain. No, it wouldn’t be there. It’d be on the dresser. I stumbled to the dresser, my feet still refusing to cooperate with me, not fully. I felt a moment’s jolt of relief, even as Emma’s bell still rang, because there it was—the chain with the attendant key I always wore against my breasts.

Then I picked it up.

I examined it, squeezing it to reassure myself that all was well. But all was not well. Emma was still ringing. Her wrists must’ve been about to fall off. It must’ve been exhausting, the ringing all this time. But still I ignored it, not quite alert enough to attend to more than one thing at a time. The key in my fist. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t the cellar key, but some clever replacement, originally fitting the lock to God knew what. God knew where she’d found it.

God knew what she’d done.