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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
  206. •   •   •

I remembered it was warm for April, the last time Lizzie and I went to the shore. It was windy but not uncomfortable, and we’d brought my wheeled chair, but I was walking a little, here and there, running my feet over the rocks in the rubber-soled slippers that help me keep my balance. I was holding Lizzie’s hand, and there’d been a smell . . . some strange stink from a tide pool, and inside the tide pool I’d found the dead thing. A dead thing like nothing I’d ever seen before, nor have I seen since.

“The ugly specimen . . . ,” I breathed, running my thumb along the paper. A stupid gesture. It wasn’t a genie’s lamp, and if I asked it for anything, it’d only give me more questions. “The one that smelled so awful. Lizzie, do you remember?”

“How could I forget?” She’d come up behind me, to read over my shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed. “You made me go home and get a jar to hold it. I thought you’d gone crackers, wanting to keep that awful thing—and then when you told me you’d send it to a colleague . . . I wondered how much you must hate him.”

“That’s right, and I believe you said as much. But I’ll have you to know that he loved it. He told me so, in a letter I received a few weeks later. He was fascinated with it, and he very much enjoyed inspecting and researching it. He’d come to suspect it was a rare kind of siphonophore, if I recall correctly.”

“A colonial creature?” Wolf asked with a lift of an eyebrow.

Mine lifted right back at him. It wasn’t a word I would’ve expected anyone unaffiliated with the field to know, off the top of the head. “That’s right. A collection of organisms, operating as a single creature. It truly was extraordinary, even for such an extraordinary breed.”

“It was disgusting,” Lizzie argued. “For days afterward, I could smell it on my hands.”

“It was science, and it was worth investigating.” And if no one else had been present, I might’ve quipped about the irony of an axe murderess being squeamish about a tide pool, but we were not alone and I restrained myself.

Doctor Seabury, who’d scarcely said a thing since making his introductions and apologies, raised an interesting question. “You said he sent you a letter, some kind of response. Is there any chance you possess it still?”

I shook my head. “Oh no. I destroy all such correspondence within a week or so, or someone might come and find me out.”

The inspector said, “That sounds like a shame.”