Maplecroft

by Cherie Priest

  He is kind, then. But he is not close.

  I am close. And I will be the partner that she wants. The partner she needs.

  Soon I’ll know the truth for myself. Tonight, when everyone’s asleep. I didn’t have time this past evening, for a dose of Mrs. Winslow’s sleeping draught didn’t maintain quite enough hold over Lizbeth.

  • • •

  I’ve not found evidence that Lizbeth is prone to drinking such draughts, to the point of developing a tolerance for them—though of course Emma keeps some around in the drawers beside her bed. She also keeps a great, heavy handgun, but I assume that’s for protection. One thing my lover has confessed easily enough, without wheedling, bribing, or bargains is this: After her trial, there were threats by the score and she chose to arm the household. The threats were not against Emma, no, but Emma lives here, too—and she’s as dependent as a toddling child, I swear. No great surprise she keeps painkillers, sleeping draughts, and weapons, but I can’t imagine that most days she has the strength to lift any of them unassisted.

  So Lizbeth has access to such things. Some nights, I’m sure she’s indulged in something stronger and more fortifying than anything she may pull from her dead father’s liquor cabinet; otherwise, how can she sleep at all? The world has left her high-strung, wound tight. It’s left her defensive, a one-woman fortress with an axe by the door. I’ve seen the axe. Or I’ve seen an axe, here and there around the house. A defensive measure, I’m certain—if a grisly one.

  I don’t care; I sleep just fine knowing it’s here, and knowing she’s here, and that she knows how to wield it. I don’t believe she ever wielded it against her parents, but I admit, sometimes it gives me a strange tingle to see it, or touch it. Just in case I’m wrong.

  • • •

  So in summary, Lizbeth might well be prone to downing soothing syrups like Mrs. Winslow’s on occasion. Maybe she helps herself to Emma’s. Maybe she keeps a stash of her own, hidden away. Regardless, I know she takes them—because the drops I administered should’ve produced a longer result.

  Maybe that’s what’s in the cellar?

  Some people take great shame in confessing that their bodies need chemicals. She doesn’t seem the sort, but she does keep secrets—so how can I say? How can I know?

  Well, I can go take a look. That’s how.

  • • •

  I checked all the obvious places where a woman might stash a key: all the drawers, cabinets, ledges, tables, and bookcases. (My God, Emma keeps some strange books. At least, I assume they’re Emma’s. She’s the one with the fondness for biology journals, but how some of these things are related to biology, I’m not sure . . . The connection seems tenuous at best.) I checked under beds and under sinks, beneath flowerpots and inside the dead father’s leftover shrine to distilled spirits. I wonder if they’ve restocked it since his death. Some of the bottles look old. None of them look like they’ve been lately opened. The wool felt that lines the shelves has gone light with a coating of dust.

  I’m answering my own question, I think.

  But I did find the key.

  That’s what I mean to say. I must quit talking around myself. I spend too much time talking around myself, and what I really mean—and to think, I only just complained about people who do that. Physician, heal thyself.

  God, I’ve been so distracted lately. Not the kind of distracted that ought to worry Lizbeth (but does, or so it appears), but distracted enough to lose my train of thought. Especially when I stand in the kitchen. Especially when I stand near the door.

  And I have a key to that door.

  Whatever’s down there can’t be doing this to me. Whatever’s down there is likely only some peculiar embarrassment that would mortify no one but her, and certainly wouldn’t bother me. For that matter, even if she did hack up her parents, I’m not strictly certain it would put me off. I know her and love her well enough these days to believe that she does only what needs to be done, out of love for her beloved problem of a sister. Or me, if I flatter myself—and I might as well.

  But I don’t think she did it. Sometimes she gently hints that it’s always possible she’s guilty after all, and that I should be more cautious about where I place my trust. But it’s nonsense. She’s only testing me.

  • • •

  Lizbeth doesn’t know I found the key. She doesn’t know I have it, but she’ll notice it’s gone before long. How long? I don’t know. I don’t know how long it will take for her to notice I’ve replaced the proper key with another of similar size and shape. It depends entirely on how often she goes down to the cellar, or basement, or whatever awaits down there. The first time she tries, she’ll fail, and she’ll know. And we’ll have some terrible fight, unless I can satisfy my curiosity and return the correct key to its original position. That might prove trickier than my initial theft, or then again, maybe it won’t.

  I might get lucky.

  • • •

  I thought I’d have to seduce her out of the key, and I was right, after a fashion.

  Emma wished to stay downstairs, for it’s become warm very suddenly—and probably not permanently, given the way seasons shift and startle around here. Next week, I’m sure it’ll be dastardly cold for another bad snap, and then come May, things will level out. That’s my prediction.

  So Emma was downstairs, where it was cooler, still. Heat rises, and thank heaven for that simple fact of nature, because the bedrooms are all upstairs and that meant we’d have the whole floor to ourselves at last.

  It took forever and yet another day to get Emma settled on the grand settee, enthroned like a queen in a fort of pillows, which must’ve been almost as warm as the stuffy room she wished to escape—but what’s it to me? Let her smother herself with feathers, or sheets, or whatever else makes her happy. It makes me happy to have her out of the way.

  After a protracted ritual of adjustments, she finally was comfortable enough for us to turn down the lights and draw tight the curtains, and all the while Lizbeth was a grouch about it—fussing about every little thing, checking all the locks on all the doors and windows, as if someone would try to come inside the moment her back was turned.

  Nonsense, Lizbeth. Nobody cares but you.

  • • •

  But with Emma settled, and now equipped with bells to ring in case of difficulty, we retreated to Lizbeth’s room. I had a guest suite, but I was sick of using it. I wasn’t here to camp at the end of a hall. I was here to see Lizbeth, and I would see every inch of her before my visit was up. She knew it, I knew it, and Emma likely knew it, too; but Lizbeth was so funny about Emma hearing any slight peep.

  Honestly, that woman would sleep through a thunderstorm without so much as a flinch, if she ever sampled even a fraction of what she kept beside the bed. And the bottles there (and the labels upon them) were newer than those with the bourbon downstairs, so I knew they saw more circulation. Besides, the walls in this place are as thick as a tomb.

  But propriety still means something to Lizbeth for some reason, and really, at this point I can’t imagine why. Let us throw open the windows and let the whole block hear how happy we are to touch one another. Who cares?

  What are they going to do, talk about us? You’d think she’d be used to it by now.

  Sometimes I fear I don’t understand her, not at all. But I will fix that. I will let myself downstairs, and see what she has to hide from me.

  • • •

  We undressed one another, and I thought we might take our time, since Emma was well out of shouting distance and we had all night; but Lizbeth was impatient, hungry. She almost tore my chemise, and with her head buried in my neck she told me not to worry, she’d buy me another. A dozen others. Anything, just hurry up and finish with these stupid clothes.

  She pulled a pin out of her hair, and it came cascading down, all the way to her waist, and that was all she was wearing, standing in the moonlight that came filtered in through the curtains. Anyone who looked hard enough at the
right angle from outside could’ve seen her. All the curves and lines of her, none of them concave except the hollow at her waist. The rest of her rounded and nicely muscled, almost like a dancer. Her arms were taut and all but swelled with strength, and her thighs were sharply cut.

  She took my breath away.

  Not just for being naked; that was distraction enough, and I welcomed it. But she’d forgotten to remove her jewelry. And around her neck she wore a heavy key.

  The key.

  She remembered it at the last second before pouncing upon me, and with what was surely meant to appear a careless, casual gesture, she pulled the chain until it unfastened by force, and tossed it onto the bureau.

  I made careful note of where it went, though not so careful that I think she noticed.

  • • •

  When we were finished with our merriment—and it was merry indeed, because God, I was starving for her . . . I offered to make some tea, but she said no. She’d make it. I think she just didn’t want me in the kitchen, so fine, all right then. We were both being wary about one another. But she didn’t retrieve the key, though—so she was not as cautious as I was opportunistic.

  She must want a partner, and not just a lover. Whatever she’s hiding, I can bear it. We can hide it together.

  • • •

  She was still shaking a little when she arose and pulled on a robe, and wearing nothing else she headed downstairs. But who would see her except for Emma? And Emma was already asleep, almost certainly.

  So while she was gone, I crept free of the sheets, unwound myself, and walked naked as quietly as possible. My dress was on the floor nearby. In its front right pocket, I had a small assortment of keys, collected from around the house. I hoped none of them were important, but I doubted it; I’m sure they were merely the keys of a household, some left behind by the previous owner, some to locks that no longer existed, on doors that had long since been removed.

  I felt around for a key that more or less matched the one on the chain, and when I found as near a twin as possible, I switched them out—stashing the cellar door key in my empty dress pocket, and vowing that sooner or later, I’d replace them all where I’d found them. Not that I could remember them all, but I had a general enough idea that my small act of subterfuge would not become known anytime soon.

  More likely, it’d serve the purpose of confusing the gardener, next time he needed entrance into the shed out back. Small price to pay, in my estimation.

  • • •

  Lizbeth came back to bed with tea, and when she wasn’t looking, I added a few drops of the soothing syrup. If she noticed anything was different, she didn’t mention it. She downed the tea quickly (surely scalding herself), but I didn’t mind, because then we were free again to untangle from our robes and sheets, and retangle to our hearts’ content.

  Later, when I came tripping lightly downstairs wearing Lizbeth’s robe, I saw a candle or two lit downstairs by Emma’s sleeping place. She was up, damn her—reading or writing, and within full view of my only passageway into the kitchen, to the cellar door.

  So I gave up temporarily, thinking that I could try again some night when the cool weather returned, and the elder Borden had returned to her spot upstairs.

  Back in Lizbeth’s room, she too was stirring. “Where were you, dear? Where did you go?” she asked.

  “I only wanted some water,” I purred at her, as I slipped back between the light covers, and pulled my skin up against hers. “Go back to sleep.” I drew her into my arms. She felt very warm and soft, all drowsy kitten and velvet skin.

  “I am very sleepy,” she said, and of course she was. I’d have been astounded to hear otherwise. If I hadn’t successfully worn her out, Mrs. Winslow should’ve done it.

  “Close your eyes, then. I’ll sing you to sleep.”

  “No, don’t do that.”

  For a brief second, I took offense. “You don’t want to hear me sing?”

  She shook her head, rocking it against my bosom. “Of course I do. But I’d prefer to stay awake . . .” She yawned. “Rather than insult you by drifting off during the performance.”

  I squeezed her, and adjusted myself on the pillows, so that I was lying on my back with her head atop my chest, and my arms around her more comfortably. “You’re a silly thing,” I told her, but I loved her, and maybe all love is silly in its own way.

  “You, too,” she said in return, and then she was out again. Her breath was damp and sweet against my skin, and it was lovely, this evening alone in bed, with the butter-soft moonlight to keep us company and no one ringing a bell for attention.

  I petted her hair and tried to enjoy the moment, but in the back of my head, I was wondering how much more I ought to give her in a dose—in order to keep her sleeping soundly while I explore.

  • • •

  This was all the night before last.

  It’s still warm enough now that Emma remains downstairs again, but the old familiar chill is creeping back into the air, and I think we’ll reinstate her to her proper bed this afternoon. This will all be so much easier when I only have to sneak past one of them.

  But I can’t put it off too much longer.

  Eventually Lizbeth is bound to notice that the key she wears isn’t the one she thinks. Somewhere a clock is counting down, waiting to reveal my deception. But I don’t know where it is, and the only way past it is downstairs, through a strange door, and into whatever mystery awaits me beyond it.

  Emma L. Borden

  APRIL 22, 1894

  I finished the article I was working on, the one about the mollusks, that I’d promised to send off to the editor of Marine Life last month. I was a little late, but as far out as their schedules run, I won’t worry much about it. If it’s that great a problem, they can refuse to run it, and I’ll sell it to Aquatic Quarterly. The lead biologist they consult is still that fellow at the university, my long-distance friend Dr. Zollicoffer. (To the best of my knowledge, that is.) He’ll see to it that the piece finds publication, one way or another.

  Speaking of that great man . . . I haven’t heard from him in months now. I hope he’s well. Perhaps I should send him a letter, or scare up a sample that might entertain him. The samples I’ve sent thus far have been gruesome, but well received.

  The last missive I received from him requested more specimens like that one sample . . . the strange and smelly piece I sent him last year. Lizzie was confident that it was a half-rotted version of something ordinary on the beach, but my scientist’s eye told me otherwise. Alas, I haven’t seen any others since. He’ll have to content himself with the one I sent.

  I’m glad I passed it along. He seemed to enjoy it, and Lizzie wouldn’t let me keep it in the house. It’d be a pity for the thing to go to waste, unexamined.

  It is late. I ought to be asleep, but I’m finding it difficult this evening. I’d blame the balmy weather, for it certainly hasn’t helped; but no, the real problem is Nance—to no one’s surprise.

  Not to mine, anyway. Sometimes Lizzie is hard to read.

  I know she loves the girl, but for heaven’s sake. If she loves her that much, she needs to invent an excuse and send her packing. Now is really not the time for visitors, least of all rowdy visitors who snoop, badger, fight, and ultimately yowl like a cat in heat, as if I can’t hear through the floors. I’m feeble. I’m not deaf.

  I’m sure that she and Lizzie both felt like the opportunity to banish me downstairs was a good thing, and I don’t even care about that. It was my idea, to give them some time alone. I appreciate their impetus to carry on behind my back rather than in front of my face—honestly, I do—but all the tiptoeing around was becoming tedious.

  Just go, already.

  Traipse upstairs like the scandalous fools you are, get it out of your blood, and then get that girl out of our house. We have real problems here, and a real solution in sight—or at the very least, we have a real chance at an ally, and a shared wealth of added information. We can’t
jeopardize it over a silly fluttering of the heart.

  • • •

  I pretended I didn’t notice, but just now Nance came downstairs. I don’t know what she wanted, and I didn’t ask. She made a show of getting a glass from the kitchen, collecting some water, and retreating again.

  But she’s up to something.

  She’s drawn to that damn cellar door, and drawn to what’s behind it. That part she can’t help; I know that, and I can’t even hold it against her. But we have to keep her out, and I am absolutely terrified that Lizzie is on the verge of some terrible decision, or terrible slip of her concentration, and we might all be lost.

  What if Nance finds her way to the key, or to some other method of opening the door? It’s reinforced, yes. The lock is sturdy and expensive, yes.

  But whatever is in those stones, those shiny bits of tumbled ocean glass (or so they innocuously appear) . . . it has an intelligence. Whatever voice cries through them, it cries not with words—yet it cries instructions, suggestions, and changes to a person’s ordinary behavior.

  It commands.

  That’s the word I’m looking for.

  It commands, and it commands so forcefully that I must assume anyone snared in its call will find a way around whatever restrictions are tossed in front of her.

  • • •

  I caught Nance rifling through drawers, and she said she was hunting a pair of scissors. I directed her to the sewing room. I spied her examining the contents of Father’s old cabinet, and she said she was hoping for something hard to add to her tea. I said she should help herself. I found her fishing about under the settee, and she insisted she’d dropped an earring. I wished her the best of luck in its retrieval.

  Really, she must think I’m a fool.