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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
  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 Emma was alive, yes. And that was good, a good thing to know, there in the back of my awareness. I would not worry about her. I had more pressing problems. Frantic, coiling, flailing problems, for Nance was running out of water and there was less and less for her to cling to, barely a foot’s worth to hold her, and she was determined to remain there.

Her foot shot out for the handle and to my great surprise, she grazed it—and water burbled out from the tap.

“No!” I shrieked at her, reached one arm over and wrenched it off.

Her hands pushed against my face, not clawing exactly but not showing any tender gentleness, either. I blocked them, left and right. I used my hands to stop hers, and to hold her wrists when I could catch them—but it was like grasping buttered eels, and I was getting tired.

At first I thought that she was getting stronger, drawing some resilience from our struggles, as if it fed her to fight me; then in a moment’s instinct . . . some weird little snap of connection, I had an idea: I reached for the drain plug and pulled it.

She shrieked, there under what water remained. I could barely hear it, just a wet warble that could’ve come from the middle of the ocean. I halfway thought that her cry would become an earsplitting wail when the water was gone, like that liquid buffer was all that stood between me and her wrath.

She twisted in the tub, feeling for the drain, trying to cover it with her feet, her hands, her shoulders; but I pulled her back, away, and when the water spilled down it wound itself in a circle, and then it was gone, and she wasn’t shrieking anymore.

She was gasping, but not for air. She was gasping for water—I could see it in her eyes, where there was terror if not recognition. Bathwater gushed in coughed-up waves over her chin, down her cheeks, into her hair, and her body convulsed as I ripped it from the tub.

(Not a baptism but a birth, and a terrible birth at that.)

She fell on top of me, knocking the wind from my lungs, but only briefly. I locked my arms around her and rolled until I was atop her, able to pin her in place and holler her name, over and over, demanding that she look at me and remember me, and understand that I loved her and was calling for her. I had to call louder than whatever else was calling her; I had to make myself heard over this maelstrom in the washroom, in her head, in my house.

I do not know if she heard me or not.