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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 should pull her out. That’s what I thought. I should lay her on the floor, roll her over and over, push the water from her lungs, and command her to breathe, breathe, goddammit. I should send immediately for Seabury, and order him to revive her if I could not, because there was no chance she was dead—it simply was not an option, for this motionless, cold, empty thing to be my Nance, who had come to an end in this manner.

I was shaking so hard that I could scarcely control myself, teeth audibly chattering though it was not so very cold. It was only the water that slipped between my toes. It was only the sight of Nance, calm at last, cocooned and finished.

I reached out with one quivering hand and touched the water’s edge, where one long lock of her hair had crept over the side of the tub, drawn there by some unseen, unfelt eddy, dangling damply.

I touched it.

Her eyes jerked toward me, and I screamed.

•   •   •

I screamed first with shock and then with hope, and the sound of it broke whatever spell I’d wound around myself, around her, the washroom, Maplecroft, Fall River.

I shoved my hands into the water and seized her, tried to haul her out in one fell swoop, but she was too heavy for that—even bone-dry, and even when she didn’t fight me, I didn’t know if I could lift her up over the side, but I tried—I flung my entire being into the effort. Bringing her up into the air, like a baptism.

She wanted the reverse. She fought me.

Her hands moved swift as minnows, shoving me back and shoving herself deeper. The whole tub rocked, heavy as it was. The whole room was soaked, and I was soaked, too. Nance writhed, demanding wordlessly to be left where she was, but I was not leaving her there. She was not drowning right in front of me.

•   •   •

No. She was not drowning.

Even in the violence and water that moved us both I could see it, how she wasn’t choking or bubbling, and she didn’t gasp or gurgle under the water. She simply did not breathe, and it didn’t bother her in the slightest as far as I could see.

Well, it bothered the hell out of me.

•   •   •

Emma’s bell was ringing, ringing, ringing, off in the background someplace, like the water had been dripping in the back of my awareness not five minutes previously. She was alive, then. I’d like to say that relief washed over me, but here while I’m being honest, the only thing that washed over me was the tepid bathwater that Nance splashed out in vast, violent arcs as she rallied her resistance.