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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
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  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
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Should I have attacked him? A noble man might say “no,” behave in a penitent fashion, and hope for the least of all possible reprimands. The question, then, is whether I am more noble or less for refusing to pretend I did not intend to harm him.

For I did intend to harm him. And why not? He intended to insult me. An eye for an eye, or so it’s been said. I will not quibble here, in my own papers, over whether or not a moral injury and a physical one can suitably correspond. I was justified. We’ll leave it at that.

Theodore Minton, youngest son of a haberdasher from someplace no one cares about, I’m certain, stood up in class and accused me of mortal sins. Even the least puritan left among us in the region can understand the offense I took. He attributed unto me sloth, saying he’d caught me sleepwalking in the halls between the chemistry lab and the biology department on Monday afternoon.

I was not present in these offices on Monday afternoon, and therefore could not possibly be guilty of this offense. I told him as much.

He insisted that he’d come to ask my help with regard to one of the upcoming assignments, and that I’d rebuffed him with violence—pushing him into a door, and sending him sprawling. Then, he asserted, he’d gone to seek the department head . . . to tell him what, I wonder? That he was a weakling and a coward, a feeble, frail, useless little twig of a not-quite-man who’d been bullied by a fellow almost old enough to be his father?

(Which of course, did not happen. As I have said. For I was not present.)

I haven’t the slightest notion of what went through the whelp’s mind when he made this claim in front of the classroom, God, and everyone else within hearing distance, but I will not tolerate disrespect.

He came too close; that is what happened. He put his face too near to mine, and his eyes were earnest—What an actor he must be! Perhaps science is the wrong discipline for him—and he tried to say that I had not been this way in the previous semester, when he’d taken the first round of my introductory biology course. Babbling, he said that everyone knew it, and no one understood it, but that he was taking his concerns to the top of the university’s administration if I did not resume my previous demeanor.

“What previous demeanor?” I demanded to know. Nothing has changed in my classrooms, except that each season the boys are stupider and the classes feel longer; those are the only differences.