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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
  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. •   •   •

(Where did she keep it? Was it the same one . . . ?)

She wielded it easily, lightly. She carried it swinging like a baseball bat, only with more poetry to it. It was a frightening thing to watch, this small shadow of billowing gray fabric and sprawling, wild hair splaying out behind her, the axe held at the ready with both hands, poised and prepared.

I could scarcely take my eyes off her, but then again, I could scarcely see anything except the motion of her running around the side of that magnificent house . . . and as I brought up the rear I felt like a noisy, stumbling brute in her wake. She moved so quietly, you see—so practiced. She so beautifully disturbed the darkness, all flapping shape in gray and white. Like an owl. With that kind of grace and silence.

But she did not outpace me. I could not let her, for without her, what would guide me? The moon offered no assistance, and I knew that behind the house, the cream and yellow fog that shifted and swirled would lose even the lamps that colored it.

I did not call her name. She must’ve known I was on her heels, for she must’ve heard me; and by then I wondered if her stealth wasn’t imperiled by my noisily added presence, but it was too late then. I’d left the other two women in the house, neither one of them able to defend herself worth a damn—and there was always the chance that Nance might rise up and prove a danger to anyone in her vicinity.

I tried to eject the thought from my mind.

Lizbeth had done so, and I knew—I believed, and from the bottom of my heart—that she was better versed in this awful matter than I was. What smattering of a dilettante’s investigation I’d performed would hardly stand up to the knowledge of a woman who apparently had built and kept a laboratory in her cellar.

My experience could not hold a candle to a woman who’d seen this long before I had, and who’d already been compelled to kill because of it.

She rounded the house’s back corner, and a few seconds later I did the same. And then I could hear it, though I’d not noticed any sounds from inside the house—for all that Lizbeth and Emma had clearly caught it. Yes, there it was . . . the slap, slap, slap of what sounded like hands. The exploratory clap of someone feeling about for entry.