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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
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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. •   •   •
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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
  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. •   •   •

Hoarsely I screamed Nance’s name, and took a better grip on the axe, praying that I wouldn’t need it. I didn’t know if I could kill her, if it came to that. I didn’t know what I’d do when I found her, or what she would’ve done to herself.

What was calling her?

It must’ve been the stones, yes. Sealed in their box, and sometimes that wasn’t enough to keep even me from hearing them, and becoming enraptured. I’d learned the price of listening to them, and I knew how much I had to lose. Nance didn’t. Nance didn’t deserve to be in the middle of this.

The lights were on, down there. The glow seeped up from between the steps, which were only wood slat things—I’d never installed anything sturdier, feeling that it wasn’t worth the trouble. The glow was yellow, not the vivid white of the gas lamps, and I told myself that it didn’t mean anything. I mumbled as I descended, insisting that it could’ve been worse—it could’ve been green.

“Nance?” I called again, and my head still spun, for I was still half stuck in the dreams from which I’d been so rudely dragged. I forced myself to work against the drugs, planting my feet one in front of the other, going a tad more slowly, clutching the handrail as I went because I wasn’t sure I could get back up again, should I take another spill. My body already ached all over from the first one.

I heard her voice.

She murmured something, and I couldn’t hear it. One word, or one syllable anyway. It could’ve been anything, but it meant she was alive and that she was still capable of responding to me. My panic wasn’t entirely soothed, but such was my joy at hearing her that I took the last steps two at a time and almost fell again, but caught myself—using the axe as a cane to steady my balance upon my arrival.

“Nance, where are you? What have you done?”

My eyes answered both questions.

She’d found the cupboard in the floor. The stones themselves had told her where they were, and how to find them, and what they wanted.

She’d retrieved the box they were kept in, and now they were scattered around the ground, except for the one set in a necklace. It’d been Mrs. Borden’s. It was the necklace I’d taken, after she was dead. Now Nance wore it, and the sight filled me with misery.

She was lying beside the hole in the floor, cupboard opened and box exposed, emptied. Its contents scattered. Her breathing was shallow, too fast, not normal at all. Her eyes were glazed over, and she stared at the ceiling—where there was nothing to see.