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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
  138. •   •   •
  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. •   •   •

(As I’d fled the house, I wondered if I was making the wrong choice—picking the wrong sister to save, if I had to choose just one. What a terrible choice, not even spur of the moment. Not even a second to split, and I was forced to decide, regardless.

What was I to do?

Well, Lizzie ran, so I chased her. As useless and direct as a dog running after a cart, that’s what I did.)

•   •   •

The sky was positively screaming, announcing the mad doctor’s imminent visit . . . and the ocean howled it, too. I heard the water moaning, chanting a soulful tune. There was music to it, I swear. Music so slow and loud that it takes a long stretch of listening before you’d even recognize it as such. At first you’d think it was something like wind, roaring through a jagged cave. At first you’d think it might be a shout, offered over the ocean, its message garbled and lost. But if you listened, you’d know. Even if you didn’t listen, it’d occur to you eventually . . . you couldn’t escape it. You couldn’t not hear it.

I held Lizzie by the shoulders as she hacked up the last of everything she’d swallowed. “Do you hear me?” I asked.

She nodded without looking at me, her hair spilling down to the ground, tangled and wet. “Emma,” she said.

I was surprised. I’d expected her lover’s name first, but maybe she believed me when I said the girl was gone; or maybe she knew something I didn’t. Maybe she caught whatever she’d been chasing, and now she knew the loss for certain.

“Help me up,” she said.

I did.

She used both hands to smooth her hair away from her face. “My axe,” she said.

“I don’t know where it is. I’m sorry. I didn’t see where you dropped it.”

But she pointed, back at the ground near the edge of the rocks. Yes, there it was—the oft-polished blade glittered in the light of the frantic sky. “I need it,” she said, and she began to stagger toward it. Her strength was waning; small wonder, considering the mile-long run to the rocky shore, and her subsequent swim.

But she picked up speed as she stomped down the pier, her footsteps echoing loudly even against the thunder, and the cry of the ocean (if indeed it was the ocean, and not something worse). I followed her, not because I couldn’t outpace her—she was still weak from her ordeal, or weaker than usual, if I must degrade her strength—but because I was ready to catch her if she stumbled or fell. I’d saved her; now I had to protect her. Now I was responsible for her. Isn’t that the way of philosophy?