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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. •   •   •
  8. •   •   •
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  11. •   •   •
  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
  22. •   •   •
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  24. •   •   •
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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
  44. •   •   •
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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. •   •   •
  73. •   •   •
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  84. Emma L. Borden
  85. •   •   •
  86. •   •   •
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  88. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  89. •   •   •
  90. •   •   •
  91. Lizzie Andrew Borden
  92. •   •   •
  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
  108. •   •   •
  109. DEPART, ALL ANIMALS WITHOUT BONES
  110. Emma L. Borden
  111. •   •   •
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  115. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  116. •   •   •
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  118. •   •   •
  119. Lizzie Andrew Borden
  120. •   •   •
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  130. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  131. Phillip Zollicoffer. Physalia Zollicoffris.
  132. •   •   •
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  135. •   •   •
  136. •   •   •
  137. Christoff Dane, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, Kingston
  138. •   •   •
  139. Emma L. Borden
  140. •   •   •
  141. •   •   •
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  143. •   •   •
  144. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  145. •   •   •
  146. •   •   •
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  149. •   •   •
  150. Emma L. Borden
  151. •   •   •
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  153. FAMILY SLAIN IN MAYFIELD
  154. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  155. •   •   •
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  165. Lizzie Andrew Borden
  166. •   •   •
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  176. Emma L. Borden
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  186. Owen Seabury, M.D.
  187. •   •   •
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  197. Lizzie Andrew Borden
  198. •   •   •
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  204. •   •   •
  205. Inspector Simon Wolf
  206. •   •   •

Hastily he scrambled, the long pianist fingers clawing at the floor. The nails breaking, splitting. The fingers bleeding, dragging themselves up and down against the table, which lay on its side and blocked his escape. He scuttled on the floor, half-blinded by the fluids that drained from his head.

He was trapped between the table and the cooker. Between me, and the precious few weapons at my disposal. (The devil and the deep blue sea.)

I braced myself behind the table, planting my shoulder and my knee against it. (My laboratory. My table. My sword, my shield.) I threw all my weight against it, and it scooted—not even a foot. Not even another foot, when I pushed it again.

But it was enough.

I forced Zollicoffer back against the cooker’s precipice, and past it, and over the edge.

Hip-first he splashed down, and the lye solution cascaded—eroding and consuming, sizzling against his skin. It splashed and frothed wildly as he wrestled to escape, but I was behind the table, pushing it atop him, hounding him, hiding from the worst of the deadly acid spray.

Even as he bathed in the cooker, he was not finished yet. With a burst of strength, he seized the table and broke it—more by accident than design, I think. He was flailing; these were his death throes.

(But they were formidable, violent throes, and I knew all too well that I might not survive them.)

Lye sloshed onto the floor, and spattered the room. Without the table’s protective barrier, I got spattered, too, though I scarcely felt it at first.

His hand seized my ankle, and he nearly pulled me into the cooker alongside him. But his energy waned. He only pulled me down, only to the edge, with those bony hands that had lost most of their skin—and were reduced to knuckles and tendons and twiggy phalanges exposed to the air.

He only brought me within kicking range.

I shoved my foot against his face and tried not to see how that face was melting, and how my foot scraped off a rag of skin from his forehead.

He released me. He leaned back, his mouth open to scream. His tongue withered, and writhed.

I dove for the cupboard door, refusing to look back—refusing to watch what I was doing—and I lifted it up, so I could close it down on top of him.

Or I tried to close it.

One of his arms and one leg refused to be contained, though the rest of his body thrashed in the cooker’s belly; still, even as it ate him alive, he sought to drown me, too, in the depths of the machine, if not in the ocean, where he would take Emma. Where somehow he’d taken Nance.

Where we all came from. Where we all were going.