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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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As for the prayers, I suppose they can’t hurt. I’ve never found much good in them, I’ll confess that here, though I keep such thoughts private when in public company. Who would confide in a physician who claimed no affiliation with God? I still must feed myself, and keep my house. I still need my patients. But too many people believe with too much conviction in what amounts to, at best, a superstition.

I’ve seen science change a patient’s diagnosis, but I’ve never heard a prayer that changed God’s mind about a damn thing.

Lizzie Andrew Borden

APRIL 13, 1894

Emma bared a bit of her soul to the doctor, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

I suppose if she must unburden herself to someone other than me, she’s chosen wisely; better Seabury than the postman, or the grocer’s delivery boy.

She insists she told him nothing that would give him any real insight into our research, and she only said that yes, our family had fallen ill before they fell to the axe. She told him this much, and furthermore suggested that he speak with me. Really, I suspect, her motives are twofold: one, she’d prefer to have him come around more frequently, even if it requires his involvement in our secret activities; and two, she thinks we may have information that could be of great help to one another.

She swears that the latter is her true desire. If I brought up the former, she’d deny it with such vehemence as to harm herself with the effort. So I restrain myself.

But she might have a point.

Apparently one of the boys in town has come down with something like our father and Mrs. Borden, and that’s a troubling development indeed. I’ve seen hints of that sickness, here and there about town, but nothing so fully formed. A paleness in the face of a man on the street. A slowness in the speech of a woman at the store, on the rare occasions I venture out. It worries me deeply, but until the doctor mentioned this new case, I’d seen no progression like the one that so upended our lives two years ago. It was as if whatever poisoned us had stopped with us. Or else it was otherwise spread so thin that nothing truly tragic resulted from any further contact with . . . with whatever it was.

Whatever those green stones are. The ones in the leaded box under the house.

Matthew Granger, the sick boy. He collects ocean glass and sea baubles for a barrel inside the shop’s main door. The connection is an obvious one, and easy to make. He’s picked up something more dangerous than glass, and it’s made him into . . . into whatever he’s becoming.

Or however it works.