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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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A hard, sharp shout of light—and I saw her, or I thought I did. More importantly, I believed I did—and I screamed her name at the top of my lungs, even though nothing could’ve heard me over the celestial furor, the thunder coming so fast, one roll after another. It’d come to sound like a low, magnificent hum not merely above me, but around me. Inside me.

I almost stopped hearing it.

I almost couldn’t hear my own voice, crying for Nance.

But she did. I’m certain she did—and I’m certain it was her, too. I saw her in silhouette, and then in a too-white flicker when she faced me, and her skin was as bright as a shark’s belly. Her face was flat and featureless, and it’s true that I was some distance away, but I could not make out so much as a pair of dark holes where her eyes must have been, or the horizontal slash of her mouth. She faced me, but didn’t see me. She was being erased.

I tried her name again, but this time the phantasm turned its head and vanished—or rather, when the next stroke of lightning cut the darkness a moment later, it was gone. She was gone.

I ran toward the spot where last I saw her; I was still carrying the axe, though I scarcely felt the weight of it. I felt only the wind, tearing at my dress and dragging at my hair; I felt only the misery and fear of knowing Nance was there, but not there.

I reached the edge of the street, and there was nowhere left to go except for the pier immediately before me, or onto the naked, jutting rocks that flanked it on either side. They clustered between the water and the sand, monuments of basalt and granite or whatever stony barriers the ocean best prefers when it throws up walls to keep us out.

I did not shriek for Nance again, because it was clear now that even if she caught my voice, even if she remembered her name and recognized it—and recognized me, and knew that I loved her—it was not enough to hold her here. My voice was not enough to make her stay.

I scanned the pier, the large rows of rocks that stood huddled like soldiers in poor formation. I checked the street behind me and the trees, houses, and merchant stalls back behind that.

Nothing. No one.

For all I knew, I was the only person alive in Fall River.