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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. •   •   •

She had to be out there somewhere. I ignored Emma, who did her best to get my attention, wondering what was going on; I saw her standing by the landing in the foyer, holding the stair rail for support. Amazing how she can stand, walk, and even yell when she feels motivated enough. Amazing how that’s always when I’m in the middle of something important.

I left her where she was.

The doctor could fill her in, or help her out, or whatever it was she required on that occasion. I had problems of my own. I had to go find Nance.

I grabbed my axe as I dashed out the door, and I carried it around the side of the house in the dark—no, in the intermittent light, flashed from above, cracking the clouds apart like eggs.

It was almost enough to see quite clearly, tumbling from corner to corner across the sky. Flickering, sometimes, unlike the flash one automatically thinks of when one considers lightning. Farther south, I think they call it “heat lightning,” though what that means—and what difference there might be—I haven’t any idea.

Behind the house I went, determined to see if the cellar door had been breached, and to double-check that I had not been distracted by madness downstairs—but no. It remained stubbornly affixed, and locked from within as I knew it must be.

My heart no longer beat; it clenched and unclenched behind my ribs, so tightly, so forcefully, that I almost felt I couldn’t breathe.

Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Not just the hot-sparkle chasing and crashing of the light in the clouds, or the roll of thunder—one minute hesitant and shaky, the next a clattering godlike gong that shook the whole town. No, not just that. Everything.

Nance was gone, and I had to find her.

My lover was alive again, running again. Moving and speaking, as I’d begun to fear I’d never see again. She was herself again, if somewhat changed—not hideously, no. Not like the other people so afflicted with the sickness and insanity. No, she was still her own beautiful self: tall and strong, capable and kind, quick and funny, and sharp and loving.

I stood still and panted, making some halfhearted effort to stop gasping and start breathing normally, despite the cinch of my undergarments objecting to every deeply drawn lungful of air. Where was there to go? Fall River sat between the ocean and the woods.

Between the two, she’d go find the ocean.

I knew it in my soul, and the knowing made me weak with dread. It’s as Emma and her Darwinian colleagues suggest, isn’t it? All life emerging, cell by cell, fin to foot, from the ocean—to form a bipedal ape that walks and talks and breathes, and creates poetry and cities and gods.

•   •   •

Can it be that ugly and easy?