Maplecroft (33 page)

I
dredged my shoes out of the sandy muck one after another, hefting them up and forcing my feet forward. I braced my hands on the stones beside me, and I moved incrementally toward the ocean—even as the water level rose past my knees, to my thighs, to my hips—and I wondered if the tide was coming in, or if I was only making progress. I didn’t know, and couldn’t remember what the schedule was that day. The timetables would’ve been in the paper, but I hadn’t read it. It’d seemed such a small and unimportant thing, so irrelevant . . . but now I was wishing I’d taken a glance, so that I’d know for certain whether or not I was charging toward my death.

Nance was somewhere above and beyond me, and I was waist-deep in water, half swimming and half clambering past the last of the rocks before I knocked my leg against something like a step. Not a stair, exactly, but a place where the grade changed—and I could draw myself up out of the water.

Hand over hand, foot over foot, and soaked to the bone, I rose.

I dropped myself atop the nearest, flattest boulder and stayed there on all fours. I couldn’t imagine standing in that wind; I couldn’t stagger upright against the waves that hurtled around me, crashing and spraying, dousing me in splash after splash.

Open water was much closer now. I’d covered more ground than I’d thought, and most of the rocks were behind me. I was exhausted, but I didn’t notice it any more than I noticed the cold. I only felt it; I didn’t believe it. I didn’t let it stop me. I
scanned the water and the nearest rocks; she’d been moving so much faster. She must’ve gotten away from me. She must’ve made it to the water by now.

While I hunted, squinting against the night, that unearthly call continued, booming and banging, and I thought I sensed some rhythm to it. Not quite a drumbeat. Not quite a heartbeat. Something lower and not quite so fast. Some vibration, slowed down until it no longer hummed, but moaned instead.

(I
recalled some old lesson about the music of the spheres, about monks and their chants trying to re-create the tones of the universe—to sing the song of creation. This was not that. Or else it
was
, and I have misunderstood everything, for my whole life.)

Then
I saw her again.

Not a flash, but a prolonged, static moment wherein she did not move—she did not even appear to breathe—she stood like a statue, tall and beautiful as always. White as the moon, her hair as wet as mine, spilling down her shoulders and back. All of it whipped by the wind, like a flag on a pole.

I did not scream her name this time. She would not have heard a scream. I whispered instead, “Nance?”

And she turned to look at me, but I did not see her face. The wild ocean and the vivid black sky kept her shadowed, lit from behind, and blank, and again I was struck by the sensation that she was being erased in front of me. A stupid thing to feel, but there it was. That’s what I believed.

I gazed at her as if I could draw her back to me by sheer force of will.

She looked away. She did not whisper back.

She jumped. Neat as a sea lion. If she made a splash, I did not see it. I did not hear it. I heard only the ocean and the demented, incessant cry of whatever waited beneath it.

I leaped awkwardly to my feet and cast myself forward, sliding and fumbling, meeting so much resistance from the wind, the water, the rocks; but I reached the place where I’d seen her and I looked down, and saw nothing but the churning froth of the tide coming in, or going out. It was ink and inscrutable. I did not care whether it came or went.

I jumped, too.

If I couldn’t save her, then I couldn’t save anybody. And maybe it didn’t matter if I did. From exhaustion, or madness, or despair—I could not say—I threw myself into the open ocean.

Wherever she’d gone, I would go. Whatever strange god she now served, I would serve it, too. It could have me, too. It could have anything, as long as it would let us be together. If it wanted a soul, it could take mine. If it wanted a priestess or confidante, I would sing its worship until the end of time. If it wanted a meal, I would offer it my bones and beg it to stop there. I would plead and pray:
I will be your sacrifice. Just leave the rest of the town, the rest of the world . . . in peace.

I
hit the water hard, and hit something else while I was at it.

Another stone, a bit of driftwood? Perhaps one of the pilings, underneath the pier. I might’ve been close enough. I don’t know, but it stunned me. I tried to swim anyway, but the currents around me were erratic and powerful.

I kicked back and forth but found no purchase to anchor me; the water was too deep, and the waves were too insistent. They splashed over me. I dove beneath the surface and opened my eyes—which hurt, but told me nothing. I saw nothing at all,
so I flailed with my hands and legs, taking up as much room as I could. If only I could touch her . . . grab her, draw her back to me or at least let us go down together, if that’s what it came to. I would die alone for her, if that’s what needed to happen; but I’d rather die in her arms, if I could be granted that one final grace.

I spun and bobbed, taking air only when I had no other choice. I was never a strong swimmer, and I was already half-dead from the run, the rocks, and the waves. I could feel the last of my strength bleeding away, and except for the fact that I’d not found Nance, I could not force myself to care.

Under
the water the voice sounded different. The Leviathan cry was peculiarly clear, and it sounded like music played by a madman on an instrument found in hell.

Stars
sparkled across my vision. I did not know if my eyes were open or closed anymore. I could not tell the difference between water and sky. I felt nothing. No, that is not true. I felt despair, but even that was leaving me. At least the end was in sight. That was something, wasn’t it?

No.
That was not true, either. Nothing was.

A hand reached me—strong as iron, fingers tangled themselves in my hair and pulled me. It did not hurt. It felt like unfamiliar pressure; I was aware of it, but I didn’t understand it. I wondered if this was Nance, if she’d changed her mind and come back for me. But it wasn’t her hand. (I never really thought it was.)

A second hand joined the first and I was hauled out, bodily. Dredged from the deep like an insensate lobster, confused to find myself in the open air.

On the pier. On its very edge, after a short trip up a ladder
that I remember only vaguely . . . some lunge, some jerking pull, as I was brought up rung by rung. By force. I was dropped to the boards, and below them I heard the waves, swearing in thunderous rushes. They hadn’t quite been finished with me yet.

More’s the pity.

M
AY
7, 1894

They left me here. Abandoned without second thought, I should think.

Left behind at a full run, one of them after the other, chasing after that warped phantom of a girl who isn’t a girl anymore. It was plain as day that she wasn’t coming back; she would never be talked away from the edge of whatever precipice she’d found, even if she was talked away from the cooker, at the end.

I stood beside the stairs, still clinging to the rail for the strength to stand. This was not one of my good days, only a desperate day—where the last vestiges of endurance must be rallied and brought to arms. I could scarcely hold myself upright, and my lungs felt as if I’d been breathing fire.

In fact, I had only been breathing my own blood. I realized
this when a cough surprised me, sneaking up before I could pull a handkerchief from the pocket of my dress. I hacked and spit, and my eyes watered; and when they cleared again I saw blood across the floor, against the painted white of the banister, and splattered on the nearby divan. It was more blood than usual. Too much. Enough to remind me that this was not a strong day but a weak one, but it didn’t matter how I felt or what I wanted.

Especially not today.

Not when the town was under celestial assault, if the light show and the thunder were any indication . . . but no matter how hard I peered through the windows, I saw no sign of rain. All the water was staying in the ocean tonight, so there was one small mercy granted. At least I could see outside, for the night was uncannily bright—albeit loud—and at least I could stand upright, whether my body truly wanted to, or not.

I considered my father’s gun. In the cabinet, a handful of yards away.

I ought to get it, I decided.

It would be better than nothing, against whatever was likely to come—and something was definitely coming. We’d felt it for days, and now I knew it in my soul: Zollicoffer was imminent. Even if I couldn’t do the math to predict his route . . . the whole sky was shouting his arrival.

Maybe it was the noise, or the lightning, or just the timing that made every move feel so urgent, so necessary.

They were all small moves, the only motions I could manage, but I
did
manage them: one hand off the rail, one hand
on
the rail; use my free hand to grasp the divan; release the rail altogether, lean on the divan; make sure both feet follow, not just the one; hand over hand, foot beside foot, walk the length of the divan and then use one hand to grasp the low table beside it; steady self on
the table, which rocks a little from that one leg being not quite the right length; extend one foot to the middle of the floor, to the empty space between me and the liquor cabinet drawer where the gun rested these days; feel the edge of the rug’s hem with my toe, and stretch for it.

Not too fast, now.

Pause. Pull myself together.

Another coughing fit. I hung my head between my hands, and flung more blood, this time on the tilting table and onto the floor; only a little splash reached the divan.

This was a bad one. None of them were good, but this was very bad—one of the worst. I should’ve been in bed. I should have been sitting down at the very least.

I should rest on the floor and wait for my sister or the doctor to return. They would return, surely. Eventually.

But I was within perhaps ten feet of the cabinet, and the gun. I would feel less helpless with the gun, assuming I had the power to lift and wield it, when I barely had the power to lift and wield myself. And outside, a new sound urged me onward, reassuring me that this was a night when I could not afford to be helpless. It was not a keening, precisely . . . it was lower than that. I thought it must be louder than the thunder, though it seemed to come from farther away, from out in the ocean.

It was not the cry of any creature I’d ever heard, and anyway, what throat could produce such a bellow? Nothing smaller than Fall River itself. Nothing smaller than Boston, perhaps. It was as if a whole city screamed in pain or longing.

I
listened, but listening told me nothing—except that something huge cried out somewhere far away, and I heard it, and I didn’t know what it meant. I looked out the window. It was a
stupid gesture, for I rationally knew that I wouldn’t be able to see a great marauding monster rearing up out of the ocean—or anything of that sort, despite what damage had been done to rational knowledge these recent months. But I looked anyway, and I saw the sky still wild, the wind thrashing the trees. The light showing me the yard, the neighbors’ houses, the street outside which had only been paved last year.

The
man.

I
froze.

I’d say that our eyes locked, except that I couldn’t see his eyes. Everything about him was left in shadow, and I saw little to distinguish him. A hat, tall enough to be a little out of fashion. Shoulders that implied a good tailor with a fondness for sharp cuts. A cane in his left hand, or a stick of some sort. He didn’t lean on it. He held it, like it anchored him.

I wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my dress. I left a smudge of vivid crimson there—the kind of red you see when blood comes straight from the lungs. I know it means that I’m dying. That’s what it’s always meant.

I looked to the front door. Seabury had the good sense to close it and lock it as he left, trailing behind my sister. Maybe he had only abandoned me without a first thought, and spared me a second one after all. But how long would the lock hold? A few minutes? A few seconds?

I looked again to the cabinet, and the drawer where waited the gun.

I could reach it. I could use what willpower and effort I had left in my reserves to seize it and brandish it, probably before the man outside (it wasn’t a man, but you understand my
meaning) could reach the door, open it, and accost me in whatever gruesome fashion he undoubtedly had planned.

I
had seen the news articles. I had spoken to Seabury when he was flush with brandy, and sharing more than he intended about what was coming across the state, barreling down upon us like a train, only so much worse.

I
looked at the man (who wasn’t a man) and I waited for the lightning to flare just right, at the precise angle needed to see him more fully.

He did not move, and that flare did not come.

So it must have been by design—surely no accident—that the wonder-filled sky roared and complained, and illuminated the whole world except for the one man I most wished to see. (I know, I know. Not a man. But shaped like one.)

And if the weather itself worked against me . . . if he was the one who compelled the lightning (not lightning, but shaped like it) . . . what good would a single revolver be against that kind of might?

I was afraid to look away from the shadow on the lawn. If I looked away, he might vanish—only to reappear nearer. If I looked away, he could do anything. Be anything. Become anything. But not while I watched. So long as I fixed him with my gaze, he would not move; I felt it like a superstition. It was a fiction I invented on the spot, and when he moved . . . it wasn’t a grand motion, just an adjustment of his hand upon the head of the cane, but it shocked me.

It positively
undid
me.

It shouldn’t have. I know exactly how useless superstition is.

I whipped my eyes over to the cabinet again, and dismissed
the gun as being too much trouble. What good is a gun against something like him?

(It. This was no longer a
him
.)

“Zollicoffer.” I said his name, because the oldest stories of all make it clear that names have power. God named Adam, and Adam named the animals. This is how we know who has power over whom. Witches, warlocks, and servants of gods keep their names to themselves, lest they be used in magic against them.

Well, I didn’t give him his name, but I knew it. (Its name.)

“Zollicoffer,” I said again. “Come and get me, if that’s what you’re here for.”

He would come anyway, whether invited or not. I knew it as well as he did, but I’d made the challenge, and now the terms were mine. I would not die on any other.

I turned to the end of the divan, and shuffled down its length at a quicker pace than before. This threat was no theory, no potential hazard. Now this was a monster, and it was here. (He was here.) My chest ached, and it might have only been some morbid fancy on my part, but I swear I felt the blood sloshing back and forth in my lungs. Let it slosh, I thought. Just let me reach the cellar.

I’d never attempted the cellar stairs before.

It’d been too dangerous, too ludicrous to attempt it, which often made me sad and a bit jealous. Between the two of us, Lizzie was not the scientist; the vials, burners, and tubes were not her passion or pastime.
I
should have been the one to take the notes and watch the results. It should have been
me
, measuring carefully and plotting experiments. I would not have experimented with legend and lore. I would have put to bed her insistence on myth and mystery, and the nuggets of truth therein. She wasted her time looking for them. She crawled too far up her own
hypothesis, and could not be lured back to reality. She could not be lured up the stairs, or convinced to bring me down them.

Oh, she claimed that this was for the best, and besides, the experiments she performed were gruesome. So she said.

Her idea of gruesome and mine have never matched up very well. Zollicoffer outside could’ve told her that, and maybe—had the sample I sent him been a benign, smelly thing—he would’ve had the chance.

Not now. We were all out of chances.

But down in the cellar there were toxins and globulins, every bit as risky as any magic potion. Untried, untested, unstudied—except on ordinary men and women, ordinary animals through the university. So it showed some progress against tetanus. Fine. So these creatures seem to be infected with some weird strain of tetanus. All right. The connection was tenuous . . . more tenuous than I’d wanted to let Lizzie know, not while she still held out some hope for Nance. But we were past that now, and I had nothing else at my disposal with which to fight—nothing else with even the vague peddler’s promise of a weapon.

So when there is nothing left but magic, we start learning spells—and I’d rather take a chance on Seabury’s scientific spells than on Lizzie’s ancient songs.

My sister’s judgment could not be trusted. Nance was proof of that. Seabury’s behavior could not be trusted. His betrayal of my secret made that clear; but I might yet trust his training and his instincts. If not that, then perhaps I could trust his friend in Rhode Island. Perhaps I could trust a poison concocted by bright men in white coats, in clean, cold laboratories where things too small to see are grown and harvested.

These were the straws I grasped, one by one, all in a row. I followed them like bread crumbs.

Around the divan, to the stair rail again; along the wall, where I clung to the kitchen’s entryway; my breathing was wretched and forced; I fell to my hands and knees, and while I was down there I crawled because there was nothing I could use to pull myself up. I reached the cellar door and I turned the knob, and at that very moment I heard a knocking at the front door.

Such a peculiar pleasantry. Can’t imagine why he bothered. (Why it would’ve cared.)

I pushed the door open and nearly tumbled inward right down the stairs—a faster way down, to be sure, but not my goal. I caught myself, and it wasn’t so bad. I had been sitting on the floor to start with; now I was only sprawled across it, half on the cellar landing and half in the kitchen. I drew myself onward with my hands, to the edge of the landing and to the step beyond it. I turned on my hip and thigh, so that I faced the right direction. Should I fall, I could at least fall productively, and in a somewhat controlled fashion.

I pulled my feet over the edge, and felt for the next step; I grasped the handrail and gave it a tug, knowing it might not hold me. I went sideways, almost, using my bottom to catch myself. One step. Caught with my toes, my knees, my rear end. Another step, navigated painstakingly in the same way. A third. How many? Eleven more to go.

Another knock behind me, more impatient and less precise, less polite.

Let him knock.

I did not stop my downward progression, painful though it might have been. I coughed, and wiped with my arm. I spread more phlegm and gore before me; I dragged it after me, smeared it with my dress and my hands. Everywhere I went, everything I touched . . . I left it looking like the scene of a terrible crime.

When I thought about it that way, it was almost funny—or I almost thought so, in one moment of insane hilarity. I was creating my own murder evidence, wasn’t I? Just as well I make a big mess of it. It might be my last creative act.