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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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That’s our punishment, I guess. Since they couldn’t convict my sister, and they couldn’t banish us to memory. Since she went free, and we stayed here. They will ignore us . . . and in that way, they get what they want. They get to behave as if nothing ever happened.

To hell with Fall River.

Things happened.

And things are happening still, so many things that even the blind, bored, petty, avoidant people of this godforsaken little burg are being forced to sit up and notice. This time they cannot blame any strangeness on my sister.

They might blame it on me, if they knew how—but they’d be wrong.

In part. I summoned Zollicoffer with the sample; that’s my cross to bear, and I’ll carry it with these withered shoulders because apparently I have no choice. It was an accident, a simple act of friendliness that somehow warped into one of evil summoning, and I do not understand how. But I understand and accept my place in this otherworldly passion play.

Likewise, I do not understand what happened to Abigail and our father. They changed before the sample was sent, and before anyone else began to show signs of the creeping madness and violence. They were the first to go insane, and the first to become deadly and turn on their loved ones.

Father was, anyway. Abigail didn’t care about us one way or another, so it could scarcely be argued that she “turned” on us. But the sentiment stands.

Lizzie believes it has to do with that pendant Father gave her for their anniversary that year, a few months before their deaths. The pendant is under our floorboards now, under our house; I think it first came from a pretty bit of sea glass Abigail found while down at the shore one day.

Or maybe I’m only filling in that part. Maybe I never knew, and I only want to apply some symmetry to the horror. Let us say that it all came from the sea: the glass pendant, the sample, the creatures with the needle-glass teeth that hound Maplecroft when the air is right and the call goes out. My sister holds to her speculations, that the monsters are transformed people, or they rise from the earth. She hasn’t gone so far as to suggest that they fall from the sky, but she’s curiously averse to admitting the obvious: They come from the ocean, too.

The webbed fingers, translucent eyes and skin. The teeth that remind me not of sharks or piranhas, but those you’ll find in the mouths of Lophiiformes. Yes, it’s very much like the anglerfishes and their kind—a jumble of pins and needles, protruding more than they’re concealed.