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Back Maplecroft
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. •   •   •

“What do you want?” I asked him, knowing how little the answer meant. He would take what he wanted. He’d fight for it, or he’d charm it free. He stood and spoke and moved like a man (or something else) that knew he’d have his way eventually.

“I came here to visit my friend and colleague, the inestimable Doctor Jackson. Much to my sincere pleasure, I have found her . . . though I admit, I’m a bit stung. She could have told me the truth, and I would not have cared. Things might have gone differently, but by no means badly.” He returned his attention to her. He wasn’t really speaking to me when he continued.

“Once, I was a lonely man, and I looked forward to your letters. I might have appreciated them all the more, had I known they came from someone as beautiful . . .” He reached out and touched her tousled, bloodied hair, streaked with the wisps of silver. He caressed it almost lovingly. “And only a few years my senior . . . not more than a handful, I shouldn’t think. Not scandalous in the slightest.

“But now you see, things are different. Not perfectly different, but different all the same. I believed that you and I shared the same goals. I thought we understood one another. Mother implied as much.” He added that last part beneath his breath. He had doubts, and I was glad. Not everything was set in stone or water.

Not yet.

I pressed at his doubts, feeling for their edges. “I don’t know who your mother is, and neither does Emma.”

“You’re not as wrong as you think. Not so incorrect as you fear.”

•   •   •

(He was right, I think. I knew more than I understood. I knew when he spoke of his Mother that he meant the howling, hungry thing out in the ocean with a voice like chains grinding together, hauling something heavy out of the tide. Hers was the voice of salvage, of dredging. Of something larger and more terrible than a mountain, drawn out of the water foot by foot, by this thing in front of me. I knew Who She was. I knew that’s Who called him. That’s Who was calling us, calling for Her children. But I was not Her child. Emma was not Her child, either. Nor the doctor, nor anyone else in Fall River, so help me God.)

•   •   •

Louder, I complained, “That doesn’t make any sense.” I wanted his attention returned to me. I needed to take his eyes off my sister, to draw his attention elsewhere. He was creeping so very close . . . hovering in the very air she breathed. Close enough to kiss her.

“Sense is relative.”