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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
  69. •   •   •
  70. •   •   •
  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
  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. •   •   •

Some days I am afraid. Some days I feel weak. Nothing is really untrue anymore, much as nothing really makes sense. Seabury can go on and on about his patterns, and I don’t think he’s strictly mistaken; but likewise, he surely is not strictly correct. He tries to engage me with his theories, and I try to listen. It’s not that I don’t understand them; it’s that I find his efforts toward companionship difficult to reconcile, given his betrayal, and now his trust—as if I’m some partner. Or no, that’s not it. Not exactly. He does not view me as a peer. He treats me like a student, and I have little patience for it.

He would not have shown such casual, well-meaning disrespect to E. A. Jackson. No, of course not. That’s why I guarded my other name, my other self so closely. And there you see the fissure between us now.

He thinks he’s mending a fence, but he’s digging a trench.

•   •   •

I let him inoculate me against tetanus, because it seemed to make him happy. He wants so badly to help, and we all so badly need the help, that it would’ve been silly to refuse. Just like it was silly for Lizzie to initially fight about dosing Nance with the tetani samples. It was ridiculous of her, given how long and loudly she’s complained about having no action to take, no hopeful means of bringing her lover back around.

But eventually Lizzie acquiesced, and from the sounds of things, there’s been some slight, barely perceptible change in the right direction for our bed-bound guest. An improvement in her respiration, a decline in the fever that has left her sweating through the sheets, soaking great yellow stains down to the mattress.

But for all we know, these are only the signs of an imminent end.

We can’t really control her—that much has been established. We tie her to the bed, but at night, when no one watches, she frees herself and wanders down to the cellar, or throws herself into the tub, or whatever else her somnambulistic brain finds appropriate. Now, I suppose, we insist upon the ties for the insurance of having done so, should anyone learn of our plight and ask us why we didn’t do anything.

Well, we did. That’s what we’ll tell them. We tried everything. And we stuck to it, even when it didn’t really work. The times, they were desperate indeed.

But I doubt anyone will ever inquire.

•   •   •

We’ve proceeded this far into darkness largely because no one wants to be seen talking to us, or visiting us, or otherwise providing any ordinary human interaction. We’re starved for it, prevented from it except for our new old friend the doctor—whose presence no longer gives me any joy at all—and we’ve been starved for years.