Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(104)

“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 mad 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.