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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
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I will with all haste reimburse you for any expense you may incur through the university, should you opt to assist me. Likewise, I shall send this missive by expedited courier from the contents of my own pockets—and anyone you send with a speedy response will surely be compensated in kind.

This is an emergency, Dane. But it is also an opportunity to do something great, to resolve a frightful mystery, and contribute to the annals of scientific knowledge. And on a more personal note, it might well save the lives of my neighbors and friends, who fall one by one to this sickness that I can’t thwart with my own limited, conventional devices.

If there is any aid you could lend me, I would be forever grateful. The whole town will be in your debt eternally, and I will see to it that should we succeed in our lifesaving interventions, the papers will give all credit and praise to you and your department. Fall River may serve as your case study, and you may build your department upon its salvation . . . or if not, then you may rest assured that no mention of your involvement will ever become known.

I would not ask you to gamble your reputation on my inconstant hunches. I am prepared to absorb all the risk, and all the guilt should I fail. I am only offering you the chance for public approval and, I should think, a fine endowment for your program—that your research may continue, better funded, with better equipment.

Please, Dane. I am begging you.

Send word with haste?

Sincerely,

Owen Seabury, M.D.

Fall River, Massachusetts

Phillip Zollicoffer. Physalia Zollicoffris.

MAY 1, 1894

Doctor E. A. Jackson is a slippery soul, but I’ll find him yet. I feel him, his general presence, his life pulsing somewhere yet to the south—but I knew that much already, so it might only be a psychosomatic sense (in addition to an address on a package) that draws me toward Fall River, origin of his missives.

To the origin of the sample.

•   •   •

For some weeks, the sample has been diminishing.

It was not my imagination, though that’s what I told myself at first. At first, what was there to mention? Precious little. An added space inside the jar where she lived, a greater presence of fluid and a lesser presence of her amorphous bulk. In time, I could see the sun’s rays through the glass if I held it to the light, so little of her remained.