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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
  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
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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. •   •   •
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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. •   •   •

“The toxins,” I told her. “Use the toxins against the professor.”

“You still think it will help?”

“It can’t hurt to try,” I insisted, my chest burning from the running and talking in tandem. This was what old age felt like. Old age and death: remembering how it felt to run without pain and the tightening lungs, but unable to do so anymore.

“The globulins . . . they worked on Nance.” She nodded, but not to me. Still facing forward, toward the house, toward our fate—whatever it might turn out to be. “She did not go mad. She awoke. She did not kill us all.”

A rather loose definition of success, but she wasn’t wrong—and given the circumstances, I’d cling to anything, even a margin so slim as that one. Perhaps someone would make it out alive.

“But the toxins, not the globulins, they are . . .” I struggled to catch my breath. “Deadly. To us, maybe to them.”

“I know. You told me.”

I honestly could not recall having done so. I remembered thinking about telling her, and sorting out the facts, and working to assemble the loose pieces of this terrible puzzle. I remembered telling Emma. Or I thought I remembered. I might well have been wrong.

I am slipping.

The thought whisked through my mind. My feet were still sound. My footing was sound. The ground was not wet, for it had not actually rained at all—the sky’s noisy protests be damned, it was only the squishing of my wet socks in wet shoes. I was running, and we were nearly upon Maplecroft, and my legs felt weak but I was still upright, still determined. But I was slipping all the same, and cursed to be aware of it. A stupider man might not have noticed. Someone more inclined to self-deception might never have considered it.

Regardless, there it was. A loosening grasp on sanity. One finger at a time giving up, letting go.

But I had no time to confront it, not then and there, when the house loomed up out of the darkness before us.

I say “loomed” as if it were a monster, and it wasn’t; but the jagged, pretty, gingerbready shape loomed despite itself. A large, lovely place, broad and welcoming. A beautiful house, shrouded in darkness . . . and then, in flashes of light that wasn’t lightning—illuminated and awful. The brilliant flickers showed the whole thing in stark shadow, black against white, and then the reverse . . . so quickly that the impression was burned on my retinas, making the effect all the stranger, every time I blinked.

“Doctor!” The word was strong and sharp, fired like a bullet.

Immediately, I knew why.

I announced, “I see them!” For I saw them, and it was enough to stop my hammering heart.