Maplecroft

by Cherie Priest

  I hauled myself to my feet, and I felt the flimsy banister crack beneath my weight. I pushed myself off from it, and caught myself on the corner of the nearest table. This was not the table I needed. I needed the next one back. That’s where Seabury’s gift awaited. That’s where he and Lizzie had been mixing up the treatments that did nothing to treat Nance.

  (Or perhaps they did. Perhaps that’s why she woke up at all. Maybe it gave her just enough strength to open her eyes and not kill everyone in the house. I doubt I’ll ever know, and to be indelicate, I do not care.)

  One more table back.

  God, the whole room was full of them, a gauntlet of tables covered in delicate equipment. And there, in the middle of the floor, I spied the cooker. I’d never actually set eyes on it before, though obviously I knew its job and I knew about its installation. Lizzie had the whole thing brought in through the cellar entrance, so no one would see it. Even me.

  (I know she did not mean to exclude me, but it’s difficult to keep from feeling excluded.)

  The cooker was bigger than I’d guessed; it looked menacing and awful—open wide and faintly bubbling, its corrosive agents always working, always cooking . . . even when there was nothing fresh to feed it.

  I tiptoed around it, and when I was past it, I paused to heave the cabinet door closed.

  It winded me something awful, but I couldn’t chance leaving the thing opened like a trap—ready to swallow me up if I were frightened or careless.

  More frightened than I was already, I mean.

  I reached the satchel, and pulled it toward me by the strap—dragging it across the table and almost spilling the vials within it. (This was not careless. This was hasty by necessity, and those two things are not the same.) I sorted them quickly, for my knees were weak and I was horribly aware that they could fail me at any moment.

  I did not know how long I had.

  Globulin here, in these glass tubes—labeled on white paper with blue ink. Toxins here, in these tiny jars with the wax-sealed stoppers and warnings written in red ink. Simple enough.

  There was less globulin to go around than toxins, for we’d been sampling those ourselves (and giving them to Nance), but it was too late for those anymore. If I was not immune by now, I never would be—and if those globulins had not been enough, more would be meaningless.

  I had a theory. Or rather, Seabury had a theory.

  It might be the last sane, intelligent thing he ever constructed, because if we are all to be honest with ourselves, and therefore with everyone else: The man is going mad. I don’t know how much more time we’ll have with him, before he is too far gone.

  Upstairs, I heard footsteps. One, two, three, four. Pressed heavily into the floorboards, each with a musical creak. Each announcing something much larger than a man, or much heavier than a man ought to be, though I had seen its shape and it did not appear uncannily huge. And between the steps, the slow, inexorable motion of the thing drawing forward through our parlor, I heard the dull punctuation of his cane, tapping alongside his feet.

  My brain raced. I would have given anything for more time.

  There were so many things I could have done, should have done, if only I’d had the strength and foresight. There might be time yet if I hadn’t been left behind, ignored and abandoned like a baby bird having fallen from the nest, left for the cats.

  It paused, and tapped its cane. Thoughtfully? Impatiently? I could not say.

  And then it crossed the threshold into the kitchen. The timbre of its footsteps became more muffled when it reached the linoleum.

  Had Lizzie taken her axe? She sometimes left it upstairs, and sometimes down here in the laboratory. I didn’t see it. Not that I could’ve necessarily lifted it, but like the gun I did not have, it might’ve made me feel (or at least look) somewhat less defenseless. I’m not sure how long it’d fool anyone, but again, I did not know how much time I had.

  My knees were quivering, and I knew they wouldn’t remain locked for long. I grabbed the toxin vials and pocketed them all, a half dozen or more. Into my pockets they went, except for one—which I clutched as, yes, my legs gave way and I folded to the ground.

  I withdrew as far as I could, scrambling slowly backward, with great difficulty. My whole body ached, and felt like it was not precisely mine. My bones felt like rubber, or something softer. Darkness scattered across my vision, and I struggled to see through it, to focus on the little vial full of awfulness in my hand—and its careful wax seal around the stopper.

  I picked at it with my nails, and I looked up at the landing.

  The gaslights were on, but they were not working correctly . . . unless that was some aggravating trick of the blood loss. The laboratory was not alight, but it glowed strangely, partly from the fixtures and partly from something I couldn’t put my finger on. Around me the walls had a greenish tint, or maybe bluish from another angle. It was like being underwater. It was like holding your breath.

  I looked up at the landing.

  I didn’t hear the footsteps anymore, because Zollicoffer had stopped walking. He was paused at the edge, not quite venturing onto the stairs. His feet and the tip of his cane. I could see nothing more. The light upstairs was brighter, and it illuminated him from behind; from my vantage point he was nothing but a pair of shoes and a walking stick, planted against the seam between my house and my cellar.

  I did not move, not even to wipe my nose. I was bleeding again, and I could taste it all the more strongly—leaking down into my mouth as I gasped for air.

  I’d overexerted myself, stretched myself so far beyond my ordinary limits that I thought I might be dying. I might not even live to see Zollicoffer come down the stairs. If he ever came down the stairs.

  His disinclination to do so was driving me insane.

  I wanted to scream at him—to tell him to come on down and do his worst, for heaven’s sake! Or go away, if he’d rather. Go away, and wreak his preternatural destruction on some other town, some other house, some other woman. But I did not have the breath, and my lungs would not have let me speak above a whisper. (It would have been a wet whisper, and the words would’ve come out covered in blood.)

  Zollicoffer, whether he was man or monster, ran the tip of his cane along the slim bit of wood into which the closed cellar door should sit. And he began to speak.

  “What a funny superstition.” The words poured down the stairs like boiled tar. “All these nails, beaten into place. An old ward. Something about the fey, or goblins, or whatever else you’d prefer to prohibit from your home.”

  I’d forgotten entirely. Lizzie and her nails, in the middle of the night. Every doorway, every windowsill.

  “It is an old rule. I do not know how much truth it holds, or why. But I will confess, I can . . . feel them. The sharp spikes of iron, driven through the wood . . . I can feel them through my shoes. It is unpleasant, but by no means insurmountable. For me,” the man-shaped thing added quickly. “Though the smaller things that walk with me . . . they’ve elected to remain outside.”

  One by one, the ideas lined up neatly in my head. The nails, the rust. The tetanus.

  There was a pattern after all. Seabury was right, in some fashion or another. And so was Lizzie.

  I wondered where he was. I wondered if he’d caught up to my sister, or if he’d been captured by the smaller things Zollicoffer spoke of . . . torn apart by the needle-mouthed monsters that stalked Maplecroft in the wee hours, when we’d rather sleep than wage war.

  Then I wondered about my sister.

  The tip of the cane passed over the nails, each one pounded into the floor in a haphazard line. Then the left foot, and the right. `

  “You see? It’s only a peculiar sensation, that’s all.”

  It descended the stairs with great deliberation, moving from the brightness upstairs to the cold, muted light here below. It did so with grace, and with the countenance of a curious man who is delighted by all the wonder he surveys.

  It was of average
height and a slender build, with a face that seemed very lean and sharp. That face cast strange shadows when it moved, those cheekbones, that high forehead, the cut of those rather full lips and devilishly arched brow. If I’d seen him on the street and mistaken him for a man, I would not have said he was handsome . . . not at first. But I would have looked at him twice, and on a second look, I might have revised my estimation.

  I should say instead that it was compelling.

  It wore a suit that had been finely tailored, perhaps for someone else. An expensive suit, and worn with rigid confidence . . . but I believe it was likely stolen. All of it, black and gray. From the shiny black shoes with the pointed toes, to the gray felt hat with the sweeping curves and lofty height.

  It looked so very human, until it smiled at me.

  I was cornered, pressed up against the wall, holding the vial of toxin between my fingers, behind my folded-up knees so he couldn’t see what I was doing as I worried at the wax, picking at it without looking at it. I met his eyes instead. They were cold, not like a serpent’s but like a shark’s. Dead and hungry.

  Slowly, deliberately, with profound and devilish malice, the thing walked toward me. It stopped less than ten feet away, and planted its cane down hard. Right atop the cooker, whose cabinet door I’d closed.

  • • •

  (I wondered if I should’ve left it open after all. If I could have found some way to push the creature inside, in case that might’ve killed it. Surely nothing could survive a bath in the cooker, could it? Not even this bony shark of a thing? Regardless, it was too late. I’d made my decision, and I would have to live with it. Or die by it, as the case may be.)

  • • •

  In that low, odd, smoother-than-oil voice, he said, “Doctor Jackson?”

  I was startled by how unstartled it appeared. “Doctor Zollicoffer?” I replied in a whisper, not because I was afraid of him (although I was), but because my strength was almost gone—and a whisper was the most I could manage. A whisper, and a frantic wheedling with my thumbnail, struggling to remove the stopper on my vial of toxin.

  “I was.” It confessed more than I’d asked it. “Now we are different, and we have you to thank.”

  “We . . . ?”

  It came closer and crouched down, knees cracking as it bent nearer to my eye level. It left one hand atop the cane and regarded me with curiosity. “We,” it confirmed. “We are not what you expected. But then, you are not what we expected, either.”

  “I am a woman,” I breathed.

  “You are weak,” it countered, as if I’d missed the point entirely. “But we can help.”

  “I don’t want your help.”

  “Are you sure?” it asked, cocking its head and giving me an odious smile.

  “I want you to leave.”

  “Yet you scarcely have the breath to say so. I was weak once, too.”

  “We aren’t the same, you and I,” I assured it.

  It agreed. “No, not the same. But there is some sameness about us. We both see things more clearly than the rest. That’s why you sent me the jar, isn’t it?”

  “I sent it because . . .” White sparks fizzled before my eyes, and I struggled to compose myself. I realized that I’d stopped picking at the wax cork, and I began again—adjusting myself to sit up straighter, hoping to mask the tiny motions of my subterfuge. “I thought you would find it . . . interesting.”

  It nodded vigorously. Earnestly. And for a moment I glimpsed, or I thought I glimpsed, some spark of the humanity he once had possessed—the eagerness for knowledge, for novelty. A fondness for discovery.

  “Life-changing, really. And not just mine. Your small act of kindness will change the world.” It turned that long, sharp nose to the right and its eyes closed halfway. It smiled again, lips pressed together. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear . . . what?”

  “She’s calling. She knows we are close. You and I,” it clarified. “She’s leading us home.”

  I wondered who she was, or what she was. But yes, I heard her. If “she” was the thing with the bellowing, wailing, moaning cry that overtook the storm outside. I shuddered to consider the possibility of it. “I hear her, but she does not . . . I do not feel . . . called,” I tried to explain.

  “You will,” it insisted, and the two small words sent shivers down to my soul. “I will help you. I will bring you to her, and you will believe—and you will be strong.”

  Strong.

  The word tugged at me, like I tugged on the cork—still wedged into place, but loosening with each passing second. I was running out of seconds, but in case it bought me more, I murmured, “I would like to be strong again.”

  I had pleased it. It smiled that eerie smile, the one that did not reach its eyes (and showed no teeth). Smoothly, it stretched out a hand in welcome.

  The cork came loose.

  Owen Seabury, M.D.

  MAY 7, 1894

  I refused to believe that Lizzie had drowned, though she looked drowned enough when I hauled her onto the pier. She’s a little thing, but even little things are heavy as stones when wet, even when they don’t fight you.

  I have always been a good swimmer—and I’ve always enjoyed it—but I am older now, and not as strong as I once was.

  I do not know what she saw, when she leaped off the tall rocks and went headlong into the water. Nance, I must assume. I didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there.

  I wished for more light and more time, but all I had was the thundering sky and the flashing, inconstant illumination of the lightning that never quite struck; and all I had was the time it took Lizzie to be sucked out away from the rocks, to the edge of the pier. I pulled off my coat as I ran, kicked off my shoes before I jumped, dove into the ocean, and drew myself toward the last place I’d seen her.

  She hadn’t gone far. I felt her before I saw her.

  I caught her by the head—my fingers brushing what felt like seaweed. I wrenched her upright by a great tangle of her hair, out of the water, and I towed her back to the ladder, then hauled her up it.

  She was so full of water.

  The ocean poured out from her nose and mouth, and when I thought she couldn’t possibly give up another drop, I sat her upright and squeezed her from behind. My arms were better leverage that way; and then, yes, more fluid spilled out from her mouth, so it must have been the right thing to do. Finally, I laid her back down again and checked her eyes. They had rolled back, showing too much white . . . but her lashes flickered, bucking against my probing fingers, and I was encouraged.

  “Lizbeth!” I shouted her preferred name, and I slapped at her cheeks and gave up on the preferred nonsense and went for the more familiar. “Lizzie, answer me! You must answer me!”

  She did answer—with a terrific intake of breath that transformed into ferocious coughing. She pulled away from me, and on her hands and knees she coughed up more, and then vomited, and then finally breathed. It was uneven, damaged breathing; the air raked back and forth out of her chest, but she was breathing.

  “Where’s . . .” She gargled the word.

  “Nance is gone,” I told her bluntly. Now was not the time for false reassurances or platitudes. “And Zollicoffer is coming. He’s coming to Maplecroft, coming for your sister,” I added, uncertain if that would spur her to action or give her pause. Their relationship had so clearly become . . . complicated. The Problem complicated it. Nance complicated it. For that matter, maybe I did, too.

  • • •

  (As I’d fled the house, I wondered if I was making the wrong choice—picking the wrong sister to save, if I had to choose just one. What a terrible choice, not even spur of the moment. Not even a second to split, and I was forced to decide, regardless.

  What was I to do?

  Well, Lizzie ran, so I chased her. As useless and direct as a dog running after a cart, that’s what I did.)

  • • •

  The sky was positively screaming, announcing the ma
d doctor’s imminent visit . . . and the ocean howled it, too. I heard the water moaning, chanting a soulful tune. There was music to it, I swear. Music so slow and loud that it takes a long stretch of listening before you’d even recognize it as such. At first you’d think it was something like wind, roaring through a jagged cave. At first you’d think it might be a shout, offered over the ocean, its message garbled and lost. But if you listened, you’d know. Even if you didn’t listen, it’d occur to you eventually . . . you couldn’t escape it. You couldn’t not hear it.

  I held Lizzie by the shoulders as she hacked up the last of everything she’d swallowed. “Do you hear me?” I asked.

  She nodded without looking at me, her hair spilling down to the ground, tangled and wet. “Emma,” she said.

  I was surprised. I’d expected her lover’s name first, but maybe she believed me when I said the girl was gone; or maybe she knew something I didn’t. Maybe she caught whatever she’d been chasing, and now she knew the loss for certain.

  “Help me up,” she said.

  I did.

  She used both hands to smooth her hair away from her face. “My axe,” she said.

  “I don’t know where it is. I’m sorry. I didn’t see where you dropped it.”

  But she pointed, back at the ground near the edge of the rocks. Yes, there it was—the oft-polished blade glittered in the light of the frantic sky. “I need it,” she said, and she began to stagger toward it. Her strength was waning; small wonder, considering the mile-long run to the rocky shore, and her subsequent swim.

  But she picked up speed as she stomped down the pier, her footsteps echoing loudly even against the thunder, and the cry of the ocean (if indeed it was the ocean, and not something worse). I followed her, not because I couldn’t outpace her—she was still weak from her ordeal, or weaker than usual, if I must degrade her strength—but because I was ready to catch her if she stumbled or fell. I’d saved her; now I had to protect her. Now I was responsible for her. Isn’t that the way of philosophy?