Maplecroft (25 page)

Later,
after the strange little inspector had left us, I told it to the doctor, too.

He disagreed, bless him, but I couldn’t shake the sting of him knowing something so private, and sharing it.

“I only told him the truth,” he said, “because if he’s right—a spree killer is on his way to Fall River, and
you
are his intended target. You never know; the inspector might be in a position to help us, when the killer arrives. And if nothing else, we’re now one step ahead of the fiend. We’re waiting for him, and we won’t be surprised by him.”

“A killer,” I echoed. “Dear Doctor Zollicoffer. I can hardly imagine it. He was such a . . . an intense, and bookish fellow. How that translates to murdering madman, well, I’m at a loss. And all this over a sample, just some weird specimen I found on the beach.”

Lizzie’s feet clomped slowly down the stairs. She’d been up there, checking on Nance. I assumed there was no news on the girl’s condition, or else she would’ve told us about it. Instead, she pointed out something so obvious that it hadn’t yet sprung to my mind.

She said, “The specimen and the murders. The creatures who come, and the people in town who are likewise losing their battles with madness. They’re all connected. They’re all pieces in one large, awful puzzle.”

Seabury quickly agreed. “The deaths Wolf described had much in common with those I’ve seen in Fall River. We’d be daft if we ignored the possibility that they’re related.”

“But how?” Lizzie asked, with such exhaustion and desperation that my heart nearly broke for her.

“Perhaps the monsters are causing it . . . ?” Seabury suggested.

Lizzie didn’t think so. “We don’t know what we’re fighting, not really. The creatures that come around after dark . . . they must be a symptom of something, not a cause. I can’t shake that feeling, and I don’t think any of this new information contradicts the possibility.”

“Symptoms . . . ,” the doctor mused. “Yes. We may be thinking about this the wrong way, or . . . or I don’t know if there’s a
right
way, but we ought to think about it
another
way.”

My sister settled into the settee at the far end from Doctor Seabury. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I’ve tried everything, but all this time I’ve been fighting blind. The creatures and the murders—we can think of them as symptoms, pieces of a bigger whole, but at the moment I’ll be damned if I can figure out what that bigger whole might look like.”

Seabury held out his hands, using them to gesture while he talked—explaining on top of his explanations. He had an idea, and he was getting excited.

“Here at Maplecroft, you’ve been treating all this as if it were supernatural—and reasonably enough, might I add. There’s nothing natural about what’s occurring, but let us approach it as science. Or more particularly, let us call it
medicine
,” he said with emphasis. “If we were to examine this town as if it had contracted an illness, where would we begin? How would the first symptoms present themselves?”

Lizzie opened her eyes, and at first she stared off into the distance. Then she said, “Changes in behavior. Of ordinary people, I mean.”

“All right,” he said with something perilously akin to cheer. “One moment, let me find my way to some paper and a pencil . . .” And when these things were acquired, he used the coffee table for a writing desk. “Yes. So. Changes. Can you be more precise? I assume you didn’t wake up one morning and find yourself in need of an axe.”

Not his most delicate handling of a subject, but she didn’t seem to take it amiss. She only answered, “Sleeping more.”

“Sensitivity to light,” I added, recalling a day when our father screamed at me to close the curtains, for the sunlight was killing him. His wife had done similar, and by the time the end came ’round, we were all living in the dark.

He echoed me as he composed. Then he said, “Now, not everyone will have all these exact same symptoms. Nance did not, is that correct? She simply fell into the catatonic state?”

“She had . . .
some
symptoms,” Lizzie qualified. “She became obsessed with the basement, obsessed to distraction. She’d stare at the door so long, so hard, that it was as if she’d become a somnambulist overnight.”

“Father had taken to sleepwalking, too,” I pointed out. “I caught him once, in the middle of the night. I thought he was planning to jump out a window, and crawl for the ocean.” That might have been a strange way to phrase it, but it’s what sprang to mind.

“Somnambulism.” He added that to the list.

“Changes in diet,” Lizzie supplied. “That’s another one. No one cooked anything anymore. Only cold food. That part happened gradually. God, I wish I’d kept some sort of journal at the time. I could’ve traced this better, in retrospect.”

“You had no way of knowing,” he told her, without taking his eyes away from the growing list of issues. And when we
couldn’t think of anything else, he said, “Very well, let’s move on to the more demonstrable, physical symptoms in the afflicted. Tell me more about your parents.”

“The eyes,” Lizzie and I said at once, startling ourselves.

Then I amended the thought. “A certain dullness to them. A constantly dilated pupil . . . but then again, it’s as I said—we were living in the dark.”

“And eventually, they stopped blinking,” my sister concluded.

Seabury paused, his pencil hovering over the sheet. “Yes. I’ve seen that symptom, too. In Matthew,” he murmured. “I noticed it, but didn’t know what it meant.”

“And then the slowness comes . . . ,” Lizzie said as well. The closer we came to the details of death, the more quietly all of us spoke.

“Slowness,” he jotted.

I added, “Their skin—it changed, became paler. They took on a bloated appearance.”

He swallowed hard, licked his lower lip, and said, “I saw it. In your stepmother. Not in time to do anything about it, but I know precisely what you mean.”

“And toward the very end, they moved oddly,” Lizzie said. “Jerkily, like they had difficulty with their joints. It was different from the clumsiness of moving slowly, as if half asleep—this next stage, it was violent, almost. Their arms and legs shot out, knocking things over, breaking things, hitting things . . . hitting people. Sometimes Mrs. Borden would spasm so hard that her back would arch up, and it looked like she was trying to bend herself in half. Once I thought I heard a crack, as if her ribs would not withstand the strain.”

Her voice was fading, and her eyes were drifting . . . so I tried to bring her back, away from those last days, with another
detail, one I’d only just remembered. “But before that, there was all that . . . well,
spit
, Doctor. Like they couldn’t or wouldn’t swallow anymore.”

“Excessive saliva, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. All in all, I’d say it was as if they’d stopped paying attention to their bodies entirely.”

“Toward the end,” Lizzie went on, “they had trouble breathing. That wheezing noise . . . you must’ve heard it when you met the creature outside the other night. They make that sound, too. It’s a sound that scrapes against your very soul.”

She might have continued, but upstairs I heard Nance awaken and begin to moan.

There was a heavy thump, and a rattling sound, and a cry. Lizzie excused herself, but not before I saw the tears in her eyes.

The doctor and I gave one another pained looks, but without my sister we were out of things to talk about, so I pleaded exhaustion and asked him to see himself out. It was better that way. I would’ve only accused him, and been cross with him . . . for doing what he thought was best for us. But he shouldn’t have done it anyway, damn him.

He should’ve left it up to
me.

A
PRIL
29, 1894

The condition of Nance O’Neil is little changed as far as I can tell.

We keep watching her for signs of improvement, but all I see are signs of fever and delirium, and a grown woman who must be managed like a babe. Her hostess cares for her accordingly. Dutifully. Lovingly, I might suggest, but I’ll suggest nothing further. It’s no business of mine.

Speaking of cases—Inspector Wolf has retired to Boston, or to somewhere else; I’m not sure. He took his leave, at any rate, with a vow to remain in strict correspondence through telegrams, as necessary. He wishes to summon a force from his home district, or at least rouse a few curious, courageous men to keep watch over the house where the women reside. There’s really no telling who would
show up, should he provide such protection. I still don’t even know what kind of inspector he really is.

And anyway, how he’ll manage all of this without undoing Emma’s carefully constructed alias, I do not know. He promised to try, and I must trust him to do his best. He’s a man of principle—I’m confident enough to declare that much.

But if any men
can
be persuaded to come, what bizarre misfortune will await them? Will they see any of the creatures? Engage them? Fight them? Or will these poor fellows fall prey to them, or to the sickness which must (I will henceforth assume) accompany their presence? Should we issue them all axes when they arrive on the property, with vague instructions like “Keep these close, and you’ll know when to use them”?

Maplecroft will have much explaining to do, and precious little credibility to stand upon while doing so. It is a precarious position in which these women live, and I wish I could be more help to them both. To all three, now that Nance is tied up in the situation—as completely as I am, if not more so.

I think, though the ladies resist the idea, that having a protective guard outside would be a good thing for everyone. If this professor is coming, with bizarre murders on his mind, then at least they would have some first line of defense. Other than me, that is. For it’s not as if I can simply move in, and camp out in a spare bedroom.

Or is it? I’m not sure.

It may come to that, eventually. I’d be willing, if they’d be willing to have me. This house of mine has gone cold, filthy, and quiet these last few months. I miss my wife. I miss the cat we used to keep, the one that disappeared a few weeks after its mistress died. I miss having a fire in the hearth, one that I did not start myself, at the end of a long day.

But is this enough reason to impose on the Maplecroft women? Probably not.

Still, I feel that we are getting closer, together—the three of us, making progress on this terrible affliction that seems to be spread farther and wider than I’d previously expected. At the northern end of the state there have been other cases, as I described . . . and the incidents are closing in on us. Coming at us from above and below, or from the north and from the ocean beside us, too—crushing us in the middle.

Here’s
a stray thought, one that’s been jangling around between my ears: What does this all have to do with the water?

The sample Emma sent Doctor Zollicoffer . . . it came from the ocean. And now he seems to be coming
back
toward the ocean, back to the place from whence it originated. Back to Fall River, and to the woman who picked it off the rocks and mailed it to him.

What if this is some sort of homecoming for the poor deranged fool?

Or a more horrible question still: What if he is not deranged? What if he knows precisely what he intends, and is bent toward it with precision and malice, and (what is reported to be) a keen intellect?

Surely, I am asking the wrong questions. No one could commit such acts of atrocity and still be deemed sane, regardless of his apparent clarity. But I’m finding my way toward the
right
questions.

Maybe. I think.

Courtesy of the Maplecroft crew, as I’m coming to think of us collectively . . . I have compiled a list of symptoms and cross-referenced them with my own notes, from the cases I’ve seen about town. I’ve also noted that in my recollections of these
cases (in the previous weeks) one could almost make the case that my own mind has been slipping, too.

I worry myself, when I read those entries. I sound like a man on a precipice.

But no longer. I am returned, restored, and ready to solve this mystery. I hope we can solve it in time to save Nance, or if not her, then the rest of the town. Maybe the rest of the world, for all I know.

We must at least
begin
with Nance.

She’s within easy reach, being held and cared for by my only full and knowing allies, and if she
does
continue to deteriorate, well, I’ll have a firsthand case study that will ultimately surpass the usefulness of the Bordens, and their sad demises. At the risk of sounding morbid, they fell victim to the ailment and became violent, and eventually were killed . . . but all the while, Lizzie had no inkling that it was anything other than an isolated case. She told me herself that she hadn’t paid close enough attention (a fault that makes two of us, I fear), and hadn’t recorded their downfall in any useful fashion. With nothing to rely on but her memory, several years old at this point, the details have become muddled and the progress unclear.

But now we have Nance, and
she
will be my subject. I do not mean to suggest I’d experiment on the poor dear. That’s not my intention at all; but I have no earthly idea how to treat her—and I can only cross my fingers that I’ll stumble across some pattern of symptoms that might give me insight into her condition.

If I can figure out what’s wrong with her, I can devise a system to address the problem.

I say that as if it’s fact. I know it isn’t. People die from known causes every day, and this isn’t merely an unknown cause—it might be a supernatural one. Little wonder the Maplecroft ladies have discovered so little with any certainty.

I
now describe the general progression of symptoms, compiled from my own notes previously recorded, and from a conversation with the ladies last night. Below is a general flow, not a positive timeline of events. Different people manifest the symptoms in different orders, though the general arc seems more or less the same across the board.

1. Distraction, accompanied by obsession.

2. A change in appetite, followed by a significant decline thereof.

3. Skin takes on a strange pallor, bloated appearance.

4. Dilated pupils, and the cessation of blinking.

5. Excess saliva, sometimes accompanied by digestive issues.

6. Fever (Sometimes. This one is by no means consistent.)

7. Slowness of movement, speech.

8. Cessation of talking, except certain words or phrases, which are repeated at length.

9. Difficulty controlling the limbs and joints, resulting in jerky, violent movements.

10. Difficulty breathing, resulting in a distinctive rasping sound.

11. Full-fledged madness, manifesting in self-harm or harm to others.

Lizbeth suggests that it’s possible . . . God help us . . . that the final stage in this affliction might be a transformation into the wretched, twisted, shuddering, glass-toothed creatures that have been making themselves known at Maplecroft. But I’ll not
yet write that down in the list of symptoms, because I have my doubts. The anatomy was all wrong—not merely a warping of human physiology, but a different form altogether, some different species. It’s always possible that I’m off the mark, but I think not.

Whatever these things are, I am positive they’re related to the Fall River Madness; but I don’t think they are victims of any illness, supernatural or otherwise. More likely, they’re a vector.

Lizbeth does not seem to think so, but she’s not a medical professional—she’s a research enthusiast, coming at the problem with Bibles, tomes, and texts of ancient magic. I do not record this to demean her efforts, for she’s accomplished such great things that I dare not call her an amateur—indeed, if there’s any expert on earth with regard to this Problem, it’s her.

But I wish she’d confided in me sooner. I wish she’d invited some third party to lend perspective, or at least approach the matter from another angle or two. We might have saved some of those who’ve fallen. Or then again, we might not. And to be clear, I understand why it’s taken her this long to admit someone into her strange little circle. It took great courage—and no small measure of Emma’s prompting, I suspect—for her to do so.

So, we’ve become a team late in the game, but now we’re coming at the Problem as a united front. We must make the best of it. We must pool our resources—Lizbeth’s copious research, and my education—and find some set of overlapping details, some recognizable pattern, however peculiar or unlikely.

We must save Nance O’Neil, and then Maplecroft, and then Fall River. Then Massachusetts, and the nation, and the world if it should come to that, and I fear that it
might
. The thought is so huge, it makes me choke. But if I choke, and the ladies are overcome by
the terrible professor on his insane, inhuman errands . . . what hope is left?