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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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“There were ropes on the bed, untied and hanging by the posts. He was aloft, sir, yes. But nothing kept him there that I could see,” he vowed, his eyes haunted but deadly earnest. “It was all so unnatural, you know? I reached for my wife and tried to draw her away from him, but she weren’t having none of it. She fought me, and fought for him.” He said the last part with a cough and a grimace.

He continued. “Then Matty, he . . . he put a hand down and grabbed her by the hair, and he pulled her up to meet him—and she was screaming and shouting, and I was screaming and shouting, and Matty was making that noise, that same awful noise. I’ll never forget it. Never forget it. Couldn’t stand to hear it.” He shook his head again, trying to shake the sound out of it, like water from his ear.

My voice shook as hard as Ebenezer’s hands. “He lifted her up?”

“He lifted her up.” He was back to that whisper, rising and falling as the sharing became too much for him. “Picked her right up off her feet, and her hair started swaying, like Matthew’s, like she was underwater. She was gasping, coughing, thrashing about—just like she would if you held her head in a tub, you see? So I ran—into the next room, and I fished around under the bed for my gun. It’s a hunting gun, that’s all. A fowler’s gun,” he clarified. “And I never shot nothing with it but birds for the table—I swear it to you.

“And I didn’t think . . .” He folded and unfolded his fingers, lacing them together, pulling them apart. “I didn’t think I was gonna shoot Matty, or nothing like that. I thought I’d threaten him, maybe, and that’d get through to him.

“But by the time I’d got the gun and come back, Felicity wasn’t moving. She was hanging there limp beside him, his hands tangled up in her hair, holding her up, and her feet dangling above the sheets. So I hollered at him. I told him I’d shoot! I told him, Doctor! And he didn’t do a thing. It was like he hadn’t heard me at all, and I thought he’d hurt Felicity somehow, so I couldn’t just stand there doing nothing. So I shot him. I shot him, and he let go of her hair, and she fell to the floor. And I shot him again, and he fell a little lower. Then I had to either reload or tend to Felicity.”

“So you tended to your wife.”

“I tried! I tried pulling her out of that room, where everything was sopping wet, and I didn’t know where all the water came from, and it all smelled so bad, Doctor, you have to believe me . . .”