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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’m not helpless. Not like she thinks. But I do need help, and I need a friend. I need my sister, and she feels more greatly needed by some tart she pulled off a stage and into her lap. They carried on like fools together, and now Lizzie carries on like a fool alone, while the girl languishes, transforms, and dies.

I hope she dies quickly.

Oh, that looks awful on paper! But it’s not the first time I’ve said it, and it’s still true. I hope she goes sooner rather than later, not entirely for selfish reasons—though I have those reasons in plentiful measure. I must also hope she passes in peace, and with speed. While there’s any dignity left.

That’s another conversation I must have with Lizzie, then. As soon as I can get her attention for five minutes. If the Problem comes for me, I want her to finish me with her axe before it ever comes to this. That’s what I want. I will write it down more formally, on some official-looking paper and present it to her, in case she needs the reminder.

Should the time come.

I hope it does not. But if it does, I don’t want to be the burden Nance is . . . not to Lizzie, and not to myself. I’m heavy enough on my sister’s life as it is. As she reminds me, daily, even without words.

•   •   •

And now Doctor Phillip Zollicoffer is coming here, for me.

That’s its own kind of burden, isn’t it? If I’m the lure that draws him, and he homes in on me like a pigeon, then the responsibility for this Problem is mine. It’s my burden, the only one I’m fit to bear, even if it proves to be the greatest yet . . . all because of that stupid sample. All because of our address, or at least our town—scrawled loosely on a package and sent upstate.

I wonder if Lizzie’s thought about it like that. I wonder if she blames me, and this neglect is how she penalizes me for bringing this down upon our heads. Who knows? She’s folded so tightly into her own box of sorrow that these things may well not have occurred to her.

I hope it hasn’t. I hope she’s only preoccupied, and not hateful. I don’t want her to hate me, like I hate her lover—as if I’m some interloper in need of constant care, and unable to contribute anything except chaos, by accident if not design. I want her to love me and comb my hair, and read the newspaper to me at night beside my bed, like she once did.

I want my sister back. Or maybe I only want Nance gone.

Either way, I’m a horrible person. I deserve whatever becomes of me.

•   •   •