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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. •   •   •

I slipped and stumbled, for my shoes were not made to prance across boulders wet with tide and the ocean spray. I was not dressed for beachcombing or swimming; I was not ready to fight the slick stones for handholds, so I crawled gracelessly across them, between them, through them—always toward Nance, who was moving toward the waves.

I lost my footing, or my handing. I lost something, anyway.

I tumbled down into a small valley, a damp, sandy stretch between two stones, and the spot was filled with water up to my knees. My feet sank and struggled, and I shoved my hands against the boulders on either side of me. I dragged myself forward.

The sky above me still flickered violently with the lightning that never struck, and only scattered.

I had no idea where I was, or how I’d find my way past the rocks and out to the open water. I didn’t know where Nance was, and she was my guiding light. Perhaps I’d die down there between the stones, and turn up bleached and dead when the waves went back out again.

It would not have been the worst of all outcomes.

But that wasn’t what happened.

•   •   •

I dredged my shoes out of the sandy muck one after another, hefting them up and forcing my feet forward. I braced my hands on the stones beside me, and I moved incrementally toward the ocean—even as the water level rose past my knees, to my thighs, to my hips—and I wondered if the tide was coming in, or if I was only making progress. I didn’t know, and couldn’t remember what the schedule was that day. The timetables would’ve been in the paper, but I hadn’t read it. It’d seemed such a small and unimportant thing, so irrelevant . . . but now I was wishing I’d taken a glance, so that I’d know for certain whether or not I was charging toward my death.

Nance was somewhere above and beyond me, and I was waist-deep in water, half swimming and half clambering past the last of the rocks before I knocked my leg against something like a step. Not a stair, exactly, but a place where the grade changed—and I could draw myself up out of the water.

Hand over hand, foot over foot, and soaked to the bone, I rose.

I dropped myself atop the nearest, flattest boulder and stayed there on all fours. I couldn’t imagine standing in that wind; I couldn’t stagger upright against the waves that hurtled around me, crashing and spraying, dousing me in splash after splash.