Maplecroft

by Cherie Priest

  From below, far downstairs—in the cellar laboratory where I knew that Lizzie and Emma were not alone—I heard an inhuman, unearthly howl.

  I cradled the gun. I leaned against the wall and fought for courage—any courage I might have left. I gathered it like bullets, and I feared that, like the bullets, it would not be enough.

  Lizzie Andrew Borden

  MAY 7, 1894

  I left Seabury to hold the front door as long as he could, not because I thought he could defend us all against the peril outside, but because it might thin the ranks out there. We couldn’t have those things running amok in the neighborhood, making Fall River an even greater hell than it’d already become. Killing them while they were gathered in one spot would be easier, in the long run, then hunting them all down later.

  And it might buy me time.

  I already knew that the nails were working, though why they worked, I still had no idea—and I still did not care. Tetanus poisoning, magic, some other mechanism . . . it did not matter. The barrier held true. The creatures had not come inside, and that was reassuring. It meant there was a pattern after all, and maybe the pattern was broad enough to include the toxins and the globulins, because why not?

  The front door had been opened, burst inward—its lock destroyed. Something had come inside. Not the minions, but their master. He was strong enough to ignore my precautions. He might well be strong enough to withstand the toxins, or bullets, or my axe, or any other weapon at my disposal.

  Then what would it take to kill him?

  Once inside, I dithered but a moment—trying to figure out what had happened to Emma. We’d left her sitting in the parlor; she couldn’t have gone very far. Did the mad professor abscond with her? Did she manage to move herself to safety?

  No. There was no such thing.

  Seabury was still shooting on the front porch. The repeated percussions battered my ears, they were so very close, as I skittered from room to room, looking for my sister. I slipped on some bullets that had rolled across the foyer; Seabury must’ve spilled them. I saw the opened drawer, dangling from its hole in the cabinet. So we were all uncoordinated and frightened, and not so alone after all. I had my axe. He had my father’s old gun, and that was good. Let it serve some purpose after all, and after all these years. One last hurrah from the thing, and one more hurrah for the old soldier who fired it into the night.

  I hoped it was not his last. Or mine.

  A wicked flash of illumination revealed a scene of bloody carnage, bloody handprints. My sister’s, I believed—but she might not be injured. She might be coughing; this might be terrible, but not supernatural. Another stroke of lightning. More blood, in smears and spatters. Well, if all that blood came from her lungs and not some grievous wound, it was still bad enough. I’d never known her to lose so much at once, in so many directions. It was everywhere. The floors, the banisters, the doorjambs.

  I gave up on Emma. I had to.

  Either she’d found a hiding spot, or she was gone—and either way, something had come inside. Something was here, even if she was not. If she was dead, there was nothing I could (or should) do for her. If she was alive, somewhere else, then I would do my best to keep her that way.

  Wherever she was. Whatever had come inside.

  I cut through the parlor, skidded into the kitchen, and saw the cellar door open. A damp, yellowish light spilled up into the first-floor space, gleaming on the linoleum—but everything was otherwise dark. I spent a moment confused . . . but how did it take me so long to notice the gas was off, or none of the lights were on? I don’t know, but everything was dark except for the flickering sky, and maybe that was it. It flickered with such great constancy that it almost felt like midmorning, between the hard cuts of night.

  And down below in the cellar, something else gave off its own peculiar light.

  Whatever the light was, it hummed. It buzzed. It shifted from a sickly lemon color to a putrid soft green, and back again.

  I heard the low tones of Emma’s voice, too far away to pick out any of the words.

  She was down there? In the laboratory? Having traversed all those steps? But how? The monster must have carried her there, or dragged her.

  • • •

  (An ungenerous thought streaked through my head: Perhaps he only invited her, and helped her along. She’s always wanted to see the laboratory. I don’t think it would require much persuasion on his part, or anyone else’s.)

  • • •

  Another voice answered her.

  Yes, there it was. A man’s voice. Deep and very smooth—an educated voice, persuasive and almost warm. It carried a New England accent, highborn enough to sound like Old England, almost. It hummed, like the light downstairs. He must have brought the light with him. It must have been part of him, part of the unnatural madness he courted and spread like a disease.

  The stairs were sharp and steep, and the light glowing from below made them disappear.

  I stepped forward down into a black pit. My foot found the second step by memory, and the rest by force. I shuffled down them, my skirts snagging on the splinters, my free hand running along the rail for guidance.

  My feet tripped over themselves; I only remained upright by virtue of momentum and the counterbalance of the axe.

  I gripped it for my life.

  I reached the bottom with a sharp gasp. It was hard beneath my feet, which wore only the tatters of my house slippers; I don’t know how they’d even stayed on this long. Through the water and the running, it was nothing short of a miracle; but they were as wet and thin as old socks. They left damp footprints trailing behind me as I stepped forward into the grim yellow light . . . into my laboratory, where I was not alone.

  Emma was there, and she was a terrible sight: covered in gore of her own making, spilled down her chin and matting her hair, staining her clothes. Her eyes were wild, and her body shook. She saw me. She tried to speak, but only coughed.

  The man turned around, to see what she was looking at.

  Oh, but he wasn’t a man at all. I could see that in an instant. A dark, awful instant that I’d prefer to forget.

  The not-a-man was slender and dressed well enough, in clothes that didn’t quite fit him—he must have taken them from his victims, but he’d arranged them nicely. His shoulders were narrow, his hands long and delicate, like a pianist’s. I met his eyes because I could not refuse them . . . they were the color of a storm clashing with a setting sun. Gray and blue marbles, with amber threads—but that makes them sound alive, doesn’t it? And they weren’t. They were utterly lifeless, though his face lit up at the sight of me . . . like he was pleased to see an old friend, long lost and thought forgotten. It turned my stomach.

  “Elizabeth,” he said.

  “That’s not my name.”

  “And your sister’s name is not Edward, nor Edwin. Not Edgar, Ethan, Ellis, or Emerson. Emma,” he said without looking at her. “You’re Emma and Elizabeth.”

  “That has never been my name. Contrary to popular belief.”

  He ignored me, as if I had no idea what I was talking about. He would hear only what he wished to hear. It might be to my advantage—or that’s what I told myself, even as the delirious slip and sweetness of his voice was confusing my brain. It was a spell of some kind, or if not a spell then something more scientific. But who cares about that? He was enchanting me, and I wanted to kill him for it.

  “What do you want?” I asked him, knowing how little the answer meant. He would take what he wanted. He’d fight for it, or he’d charm it free. He stood and spoke and moved like a man (or something else) that knew he’d have his way eventually.

  “I came here to visit my friend and colleague, the inestimable Doctor Jackson. Much to my sincere pleasure, I have found her . . . though I admit, I’m a bit stung. She could have told me the truth, and I would not have cared. Things might have gone differently, but by no means badly.” He returned his attention to her. He wasn’t really speaking to me wh
en he continued.

  “Once, I was a lonely man, and I looked forward to your letters. I might have appreciated them all the more, had I known they came from someone as beautiful . . .” He reached out and touched her tousled, bloodied hair, streaked with the wisps of silver. He caressed it almost lovingly. “And only a few years my senior . . . not more than a handful, I shouldn’t think. Not scandalous in the slightest.

  “But now you see, things are different. Not perfectly different, but different all the same. I believed that you and I shared the same goals. I thought we understood one another. Mother implied as much.” He added that last part beneath his breath. He had doubts, and I was glad. Not everything was set in stone or water.

  Not yet.

  I pressed at his doubts, feeling for their edges. “I don’t know who your mother is, and neither does Emma.”

  “You’re not as wrong as you think. Not so incorrect as you fear.”

  • • •

  (He was right, I think. I knew more than I understood. I knew when he spoke of his Mother that he meant the howling, hungry thing out in the ocean with a voice like chains grinding together, hauling something heavy out of the tide. Hers was the voice of salvage, of dredging. Of something larger and more terrible than a mountain, drawn out of the water foot by foot, by this thing in front of me. I knew Who She was. I knew that’s Who called him. That’s Who was calling us, calling for Her children. But I was not Her child. Emma was not Her child, either. Nor the doctor, nor anyone else in Fall River, so help me God.)

  • • •

  Louder, I complained, “That doesn’t make any sense.” I wanted his attention returned to me. I needed to take his eyes off my sister, to draw his attention elsewhere. He was creeping so very close . . . hovering in the very air she breathed. Close enough to kiss her.

  “Sense is relative.”

  “Many things are relative,” I agreed, stepping closer—against every instinct in my body. I wanted to flee, I wanted to scream for Seabury, but he was upstairs. I heard him moving furniture, barricading the door like a fool. Would he trap us all inside? With the monster himself? He must have gone madder than I’d considered, and I had a sickening moment of worry that this was deliberate on his part, that he was working in tandem with the monster now—completely overtaken.

  I could not entertain the possibility. I forced it from my mind. If it was true, there was nothing I could do about it anyway.

  “Why are you here? Who is your mother? Why can’t you leave us alone?”

  He fixated on Emma’s face. A snake, charmed by the flute. Or was it the reverse? “Our Mother,” he asserted.

  “Our mother is dead,” I countered.

  “Not that one.”

  I looked down and saw the cooker’s cupboard. The door was shut. I reached with my foot and opened it . . . quietly. Whether he heard or not, I couldn’t tell. Maybe he did hear me, and didn’t care. He didn’t believe I was any threat to him, or his mysterious mother.

  I tiptoed around the cooker and tried not to gaze down to the rumbling, fizzing liquid within it. He was still a dozen feet away, with a heavy wood table between us. Could I move him a dozen feet? Could Emma?

  He faced me again, that chilly, sharp face that was so white it was almost blue.

  “You can hear Her, can’t you? She calls us, Emma and me. Just as She spoke to your Nancy.”

  I swallowed hard. I breathed, “That isn’t her name.”

  “You’re very particular about such things, aren’t you?” He viewed me quizzically.

  I nodded hard, and I locked my eyes to his. If I hadn’t, I might have watched Emma ratcheting herself to her feet. She used the wall to brace herself, used her knees to propel herself up, all the way. To the table’s edge, which she grasped with one hand while the other hand felt quietly for a series of vials that were scattered across the top. She was already holding one; she was showing me what it was.

  A tiny glass container tinkled when she knocked it over.

  Trying to cover the sound, I said quickly: “Names mean things. You changed your own name, didn’t you?”

  He appeared confused, but only for a flash. He mouthed a word without speaking it. Zollicoffris, I think. “My name has always been . . .”

  “Phillip Zollicoffer,” I prompted. Emma was shaky on her feet. She shot me a look that I wished to God I knew how to read—but I couldn’t watch her too closely. I didn’t want him to see that she was upright behind him.

  His lips twisted, miming what I’d said. I believe it honestly confused him; he toyed with the shape of it, uncertain of whether it was familiar or foreign in his mouth. He came to a decision. “Close enough,” he said. And then he sounded more sure of himself as he looked over his shoulder and said to Emma: “You must come with me, you know. She wants to have us both. You were the one who found the specimen; you were the one who saved it from the sun.” He looked back to me and said, “You see? Look, she is standing. Already she is stronger. She is ready and willing, little sister. You must not stand in her way.”

  Ready and willing?

  When I looked at Emma’s face, her posture, her fierce grip on the vial in her hand . . . it was not readiness or willingness I saw there. It was anger, red-hot and raw. She looked swiftly back and forth between the madman and myself, and for one blazing, awful instant I could not tell who she hated the most.

  But I couldn’t watch her, or interrogate her. I had to watch him, and while I had his attention, I said, “I won’t let you leave with her. I won’t let you take her away. She’s all I have left. She’s my whole world.”

  “It’s not my fault that the feeling isn’t mutual,” he said, and I don’t think he meant to be unkind. If anything, I heard some small note of apology in the observation.

  Even so, his words bit me with their truth. He was charming me again . . . not to win my affection, but to keep me from interfering. That charming, charming voice, with those charming, charming eyes . . . except they weren’t charming at all. They were dead inside, just like him.

  I shook my head, and water sloshed roughly in my ears. I realized I was still holding my axe, but I’d let it sink. Its head was set upon the floor, and my fingers held it so loosely that I was in danger of dropping it altogether.

  No.

  I tightened my knuckles to clutch its reassuring handle, and lifted it up.

  Emma lifted something up, too. The vial in her hand. She nodded at me, but I frowned at her—I still didn’t understand! What did she want me to do? Was that the toxin? Were those the vials she fiddled and fumbled with? Yes, I thought so. What else could they be?

  “I won’t . . . go . . . with you,” she told him.

  Zollicoffer was not confused or angry, only insistent when he looked back to her and said, “You will. You must. I would not compel you of my own regard, but Mother compels me. This is the order, now. And you will see, it is for the best.”

  “To hell with you and your Mother.”

  She threw the vial. It hit him without hurting him that I could see, but the stopper had been removed and the contents splashed against his neck—splattering him from chest to cheekbones.

  He winced, blinked, and regarded her with bemused astonishment. “What sad little trick have you played, Doctor Jackson?” He reached for his shirt buttons and tugged them, opening the fabric to expose his chest as if to examine it.

  “The only one I had,” she spit, and crumpled back to the floor.

  He looked to me, as if I might explain.

  So I did. In two steps I was past the table, and very near to him. I swung the axe.

  He lifted an arm fast enough to deflect the blow, but the axe was heavy and my arm was strong; I caught him across the shoulder, missing most of the dampness she’d spilled upon him. He caught the iron head with his hand. It cut down, not too deep . . .

  . . . but he withdrew, clutching at his fingers. The metal had burned him, or shocked him. He let go of the axe and pushed it away, trying to push me with it.<
br />
  I ducked back, leaned to the side, and took another swing—not a great one, for I was off balance and we were in closer quarters now: between my sister and the table behind me, between the walls and the cooker with its opened cupboard and foul-smelling contents.

  My next blow took him closer to the collarbone. It left a hard red dent in his flesh, but it did not cut him. What was he made of, now that he was no longer a man? His skin was tougher than leather!

  He laughed at me, and pushed me back when I struck again. He grabbed at the handle this time; he was learning, you see. And he nearly jerked the weapon free, but I held on tightly and I would not let him shake me loose.

  I kicked him and the leverage pushed me back, onto the floor on my rear, sliding and picking up splinters, picking up bruises.

  “You can’t hurt me, little sister.”

  “Yes, she can . . . now,” Emma panted.

  He ignored her, and tended to me instead. He loomed over me, not quite close enough to hit. It was the most open target I was likely to have . . . his shirt was still open, wet with the contents of Emma’s vial. He was close enough that I could see the skin begin to bubble there, a tiny sizzling frisson that told me he could be hurt after all. That’s what it said, that raw little patch of burning skin: We have hurt him. The toxins—Seabury had inoculated us against their deadly effects, but this creature before me, he was vulnerable. Why, I did not precisely know. Patterns, I supposed.

  But I could kill him. I only needed the strength (and luck, and timing, and divine assistance, surely) to make it happen.

  I crawled up to a crouch, braced myself, and I hurled the axe as hard as I could, straight at his head.

  My aim wasn’t perfect.

  I caught him in the neck, and there—where the toxin was eating away at him, ever so slowly—his skin split beneath the blade.

  No one was more astonished than I was, except possibly Emma.