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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
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“No,” one of them confirmed. “Not yet, and maybe not at all. But that ain’t up to us.”

But leaving us alone . . . that was an act within their authority, or so they concluded. They were kind enough to see themselves out, and I rose to quietly shut the door behind them. “They’ll stay out there,” I said to Ebenezer, as I joined him again at the table. “Watching the door, I’m sure—but if you’re quiet enough, they’ll never hear you speak.”

He agreed, and leaned forward. His large, chapped hands were still pressed to the table between us. In the cracks of his knuckles, blood was drying to the color of rust.

Quickly, he spit out the rest: “We went to the door together, and I told her we should wait, we should call for you, or for the police, because dear God in Heaven, we was in over our heads, you see?”

“Yes, I see.”

“But my wife, she said it was nonsense, and he was only a boy, and she pushed me aside. She was crying, so I think she was foolin’ herself, and she knew it good and well, but what could I do? What could I say? And if I sent for help, how could I explain there’s some . . . some machine holed up in the bedroom with the boy?”

He caught his breath, wiped his brow with the other sleeve. The cleaner one.

“So we didn’t do none of them things, and she opened the door . . . and then there was this stench, you hear? Something so awful, like nothing I’d ever smelled—or I’d never smelled something half so strong.” His attention snapped, and he was clear-eyed for a moment. “And I’ll have ye to know that I was one of the men who helped carve up that dead whale last summer, the one what beached up on the rocks. It’d been cooking in the sun, rotting in the water, and the smell was so bad, I thought I’d die—but I didn’t.” Then he said, “The smell in Matty’s room, it was worse than that.”

He paused, and for a moment he stared into space, at some indistinct spot just behind me. Then he found my eyes again, and corrected himself slightly. “When we opened that door, I thought of that whale’s innards, when Abe Scanton’s shovel pierced its stomach and everything the whale’d eaten for a week came splashing out, and it smelled like rot and belly acid, and Abe fainted dead away on the spot. Yeah,” he said with a nod. “The smell wasn’t quite the same, but it wasn’t quite different, neither.”