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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
  7. •   •   •
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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
  27. •   •   •
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  29. I CROSS THE MAGPIE, THE MAGPIE CROSSES ME
  30. •   •   •
  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
  57. •   •   •
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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
  69. •   •   •
  70. •   •   •
  71. Nance O’Neil
  72. •   •   •
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  84. Emma L. Borden
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  88. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  89. •   •   •
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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
  103. •   •   •
  104. Gerald Macintyre, Telegraph Clerk, Western Union
  105. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  106. •   •   •
  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
  138. •   •   •
  139. Emma L. Borden
  140. •   •   •
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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. •   •   •

It’d been too dangerous, too ludicrous to attempt it, which often made me sad and a bit jealous. Between the two of us, Lizzie was not the scientist; the vials, burners, and tubes were not her passion or pastime. I should have been the one to take the notes and watch the results. It should have been me, measuring carefully and plotting experiments. I would not have experimented with legend and lore. I would have put to bed her insistence on myth and mystery, and the nuggets of truth therein. She wasted her time looking for them. She crawled too far up her own hypothesis, and could not be lured back to reality. She could not be lured up the stairs, or convinced to bring me down them.

Oh, she claimed that this was for the best, and besides, the experiments she performed were gruesome. So she said.

Her idea of gruesome and mine have never matched up very well. Zollicoffer outside could’ve told her that, and maybe—had the sample I sent him been a benign, smelly thing—he would’ve had the chance.

Not now. We were all out of chances.

But down in the cellar there were toxins and globulins, every bit as risky as any magic potion. Untried, untested, unstudied—except on ordinary men and women, ordinary animals through the university. So it showed some progress against tetanus. Fine. So these creatures seem to be infected with some weird strain of tetanus. All right. The connection was tenuous . . . more tenuous than I’d wanted to let Lizzie know, not while she still held out some hope for Nance. But we were past that now, and I had nothing else at my disposal with which to fight—nothing else with even the vague peddler’s promise of a weapon.

So when there is nothing left but magic, we start learning spells—and I’d rather take a chance on Seabury’s scientific spells than on Lizzie’s ancient songs.

My sister’s judgment could not be trusted. Nance was proof of that. Seabury’s behavior could not be trusted. His betrayal of my secret made that clear; but I might yet trust his training and his instincts. If not that, then perhaps I could trust his friend in Rhode Island. Perhaps I could trust a poison concocted by bright men in white coats, in clean, cold laboratories where things too small to see are grown and harvested.

These were the straws I grasped, one by one, all in a row. I followed them like bread crumbs.