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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. •   •   •

We crawled primordial from the water, our grand-ancestors times a million generations; we escaped the tides, the sharks, and the leviathans of the deep, only to find ourselves on land—where we became the things we’d sought to escape, and we invented gods to blame. Not gods of the ocean, for we’d been to the ocean, and seen that the water was empty of the divine. Not gods of the earth, for we have walked upon the dirt, and we are alone here.

So we install our gods in the sky, because we haven’t yet eliminated the firmament as a possibility.

Next, I suppose, we’ll send them into space—where I expect they will live a very long time indeed, for it shall take us another million generations of descendants to reach them, and learn that they are projections of light and story, cast into the heavens by us alone. And we will be alone again (unless by then, we discover some more distant place in which to hide our image).

Over and over again, we lift God out of our reach. Over and over, push Him beyond our grasp, yet still we stretch out our fingers and seek to touch Him.

But find nothing.

•   •   •

If Nance had gone to the ocean, I would go to the ocean, too.

I would chase her there, to the shore. To the pier, I supposed—though why I would leap to this conclusion, I do not know. Call it instinct, or call it that bond that joins humans when they have shared flesh, and held one another’s bones. Call it dumb luck if you like.

If there are no gods, there should be luck, at least.

And if there are gods after all, perhaps we should not struggle so hard to get their attention, if this is the attention they would lavish upon us.

•   •   •

To the shore, then.

I ran the whole way, clutching my axe by the middle of its handle to keep it from swinging; I pushed my feet forward, running below the ever-churning, ever-rolling, ever-noisy sky and wondering if there would be any rain at all—for none had fallen yet. No sprinkles, no deluge. Only the whisper-sharp tang of lightning, that scorched electrical smell that comes before a strike.

But none of the lightning touched me. It only showed me the way, all the way down to the water where the pier was located, and where the Hamilton family once had a shop, and where I would push my sister in her wheeled chair, so that she could climb out and sit or lie on the rocks and warm her body on the sunnier days. Pretending we were taking a holiday someplace nice, where no one knew who we were. Chatting about the tide pools. Poking sticks into holes in the sand, and finding strange samples there—specimens to discuss or to send by post to monsters in other towns.