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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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At this time, there is no further, formal word on her condition, or the state of the investigation; but officials are recommending that all citizens in the region should keep watch for strangers, and take reasonable precautions to guard themselves during this unusual time of creative violence, perpetrated against innocents.

Owen Seabury, M.D.

MAY 7, 1894

Nance is gone, but I’ll explain this part first: I found the newspaper article in an envelope, stuck inside my door with a brief telegram—explaining that it’d been sent via express, courtesy of Inspector Wolf. I don’t know how he knew about it so soon, much less how he got it to me with such alacrity (all the way from Boston), but here it is, and here the monster comes. Ready or not, as the children say.

Mayfield. That’s not five miles out. He’s drawn this near, and he’ll draw nearer still. He could walk the distance in a short afternoon. One must assume that he will do so.

Assuming it, and being able to plan against it . . . those are different things.

I’ve been terribly busy as it is, for let’s take off the rosy glasses—Fall River is going to hell, one man at a time. One woman. One child. Mad and sick and dead, with anyone caught in the middle babbling to the authorities and being sent away. People are finally beginning to talk in earnest, sensing a pattern beyond the sensational Hamilton deaths—the most sensational in town since Lizzie Borden took her axe and inspired schoolyard rope-skipping—but there’s too little and too late, and this is a fine show of both.

I’ve heard talk of calling in the government for assistance, but what help could soldiers be? Then we’d have armed murderous madmen in our streets, as opposed to the armed murderous madmen who stay in their homes or fling themselves into the ocean.

Chatter goes around regarding some plague, unidentified and untreatable; and there are worries that specialists from the city will be called for, and we shall all be trapped in our homes, as in older times, when people knew nothing of cholera or anything bubonic. There are whispers that men in masks and official jackets will patrol the streets, and the calls of yesteryear, “Bring out your dead!” will ring through the town. We shall all be cut off, from our loved ones and the rest of the world alike. We shall die alone and in infamy, victims of things we do not understand and cannot fight. Fall River will go down in history as a place where people die in awful, unexplained ways. It’ll be a ghost town in a year. The government will burn it to the ground as a public health hazard.

Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

•   •   •

So anyway, there’s talk.